Hey there dear reader! First off: welcome to my oneshots-story, hope you'll enjoy it! :D

So, this is how it's going to work: Each chapter will be an individual oneshot (might be some twoshots, though). Each oneshot will have its own summary, focus (which relationship/ characters that has the biggest role) and warnings (if needed). Okay? Good. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Lab Rats or any of its characters.

A painful gift

Having ultra-sensitive bionic hearing can sometimes be a really painful gift. Like when someone triggers the fire alarm in school.

Focus: Chase & Leo

Having ultra-sensitive bionic hearing can sometimes be a quite fun and useful gift. Like when you need, or want, to eavesdrop without getting caught, or listen to your brother talking to himself. On second thought, that can be really disturbing. But other times it can be a painful gift you would rather be without. Especially on New Year's Eve, the Fourth of July and in school. School is like a beacon for loud noises: slamming lockers, loud students, screaming Perry, and of course the bell that rings every now and then. Though those sounds doesn't bother Chase anymore, not even the bell. The bell had been annoying in the beginning, but he had learnt how to distance himself from it, from all the school sounds actually. At least the usual ones. The fire alarm, however, was a completely different story. A story Chase would've rather skipped.

XxXxX

It was a Wednesday afternoon and Chase was walking through the hallways of school. Adam and Bree were already on their way home, but not Chase. He was meeting up with Leo to help him with his homework. To be honest, Chase wasn't really sure if Leo really needed his help. Maybe it was just a subject he disliked, so he needed help getting the motivation, or maybe he thought the homework was too boring and needed help to focus. Either way he had asked Chase for help, so Chase had of course agreed, but since it was due tomorrow he had insisted they would do it in school. There were fewer distractions there, and no Adam.

Chase looked at the clock as he walked into the library. He was two minutes late, but so was Leo. He sat down at one of the tables -which just happened to be the one closest to the fire alarm- to wait for Leo.

Seven minutes later, Leo still hadn't shown up. With a sigh Chase checked his phone. No messages. He looked at the clock again as he started to listen after his stepbrother. And it was just then the fire alarm started ringing!

Riiiii! Riiiii! Riiiii!

With cries of pain -thankfully no one could hear it- and his hands clasping over his ears Chase felt his head explode as the very loud sound pierced through his ears. If he had been standing he would most likely had collapsed to the floor, like the first time he heard the bell. The few students around him slowly made their way up and out of the room, nobody in any particular hurry. Some of them shot him a strange look, but Chase wasn't really paying attention to them anyway. He couldn't get up from his chair. The sound was too loud! His head felt like it was exploding, his ears felt like they were bleeding. But he had to get up, to get out, to find Leo. And get away from the noise!

XxXxX

Leo was late. He had been talking to Janelle and now he was late. So that's what he was doing, hurrying through hallways of school, when the fire alarm rang. A small yelp escaped his lips as the unexpected noise reached his ears, and with a sigh Leo turned on his heels and started heading the other way, towards the exit.

He kept his eyes open for Chase as he followed the small stream of students. Then suddenly he was hit with a realization: it was a fire alarm and Chase was still in school! Leo stopped dead in his tracks, and almost got run over by a senior. It wasn't just a fire alarm, it was Chase's first fire alarm. And considering how he had reacted to the bell the first time, this couldn't be good. Sure he didn't even flinch for the bell now, but this was a fire alarm. And it was loud! Seriously, Perry must've had the fire alarm exchanged to a much louder, deafening one. And if it hurt Leo's ears, what did it do to Chase's extra sensitive ones. Without any further thought Leo turned around again, heading back towards the library.

The closer he got to the library the faster the amount of students dropped, soon Leo found himself all alone in the hallway. There still wasn't any sign of Chase. Maybe he's already out. Leo slowed down his steps to a slow stroll. Maybe he was just exaggerating. Chase probably had left the building right away. Maybe Leo was just being paranoid. Maybe the alarm hadn't shocked Chase, after all he was completely used to the school bell now, and he wasn't spending his whole life in the basement anymore. Maybe I just missed him. Maybe-.

"Argh!" Leo screamed, only for his voice to be drowned out by the alarm. "Okay, seriously! This is not normal!" He couldn't even hear himself think!

He was just going to check the last hallway and then get out. He couldn't stand this sound anymore! With a frustrated shake of his head and his hands covering his ears he turned the last corner...

and froze.

"Chase?!"

The mentioned boy was collapsed on the floor, clutching his head and his eyes shut tight in pain. As soon as Leo was over the shock -he had just talked himself to believe that he was just overreacting, and then he sees that- he hurried over to him.

"Chase?" he said as he gently tapped his shoulder. But Chase didn't seem to even have noticed him.

"Chase?" Leo repeated louder and gripped his shoulder more firmly. Slowly he was met by hazel eyes as Chase pried his eyes open and raised his head slightly.

"L-Leo?"

"Are you-" Leo cut himself off. Are you okay? Of course he's not! Not finding anything else to say, Leo asked the stupid question anyway. "Uhm... are you okay?"

"Mhm..." came the muffled, and not really convincing, answer. But Chase straightened and seemed more... okay. Maybe he's finally getting used to the sound Leo mused, not likely. So perhaps it had more to do with Leo being there now.

"Come on," Leo said as he pulled Chase up on his feet. "Let's get you out of here."

Chase swayed unsteadily, his hands still over his ears and his face scrunched up in pain. He whimpered slightly as Leo started guiding him through the hallways.

When they made their way through one of the quieter hallways, Leo tried again.

"You okay, Chase?"

"Yeah."

The answer was just slightly more convincing this time, but he seemed more relaxed now.

"Sorry..." Leo muttered, looking down at the floor as the exit appeared by the end of the hallway.

"It's okay. It wasn't your fault, Leo."

Leo looked up at Chase surprised. He hadn't meant for Chase to hear him. The bionic teen, however, didn't look at him. His gaze was directed at the doors, relief visible in his eyes.

First when they walked out into the sunlight and the deafening sound of the fire alarm was fading behind them, Chase looked at Leo. His still pained eyes firmly locked with Leo's brown ones, as if demanding an answer, but Leo broke the gaze. He actually felt guilty. After all he was the reason Chase was here in the first place.

"Let's go home. I doubt we'll get anything done here..." he mumbled steering his steps away from the school and the crowd outside it.

XxXxX

When they finally reached the front door, the ringing in Chase's ears had finally stopped.

"Adam, I get to choose the diner today! So you can just suck it up!"

Even though the whole incident with the fire alarm was pretty much over, his sister's loud voice sent Chase staggering a few steps backward, with his hands hovering over his ears. Okay, the ringing might have stopped, but his ears still hurt. A lot. And it felt like someone had dropped a house on his head. Leo sent him a sympathetic look as they made their way inside.

The rest of the family: Adam, Bree, Donald and Tasha, were sitting in the kitchen area. And Adam and Bree were in the middle of a quarrel, by the looks of it.

"But we ate that like... yesterday!"

This time Chase covered his ears completely, a small whimper leaving his lips. Having your siblings screaming, after such a fire alarm as the school's, wasn't exactly fun... And it being about dinner, of all things, just made it more annoying. Couldn't they discuss it like normal people, you know, by talking?

"Yesterday? That was six weeks ago!"

Leo sighed and shot another glance at Chase, who had taken another step back, trying to get away from the noise. "Don't worry, I've got this...But you might wanna cover those ears properly."

After making sure Chase obeyed, Leo took a few steps forward, nobody had even noticed that they were home yet, and screamed.

"HEY! Would you guys be so kind and SHUT UP!"

It had the desired effect. Adam and Bree stopped there screaming, Donald looked up from his coffee cup and Tasha was stopped in her attempt to break up the quarreling siblings. And they all looked up surprised, and a little startled, at Leo. Leo, however, turned his attention to Chase again and winced slightly at the visible pain his loudness had caused.

"Come on, come on. Here we go, here we go." he mumbled and steered Chase to the couch. He continued to mumble reassuringly as he looked around, ignoring the stunned family members that were watching them from the now completely quiet kitchen. Where are they?

Aha! Leo smiled victorious as he pulled out a pair of headphones, the kind that cover your ears, from a drawer. He hurried over to Chase who was kneading his temples, eyes tightly shut.

"Here you go. Keep these on for a bit." Leo continued as he placed the headphones on Chase, who looked up surprised at him and then squinted his eyes at the bright light. "... will feel better soon. Just sit tight and take it easy and-"

"Leo," Chase grumbled when Leo continued talking, barely stopping to breathe. "Shut up."

"Okay, can do. Will do. Definitely. I'm shutting up. I'm-"

Chase sent him an annoyed look.

"You know what? I'm gonna go over there. Yeah, I'm gonna go... over there, now."

Escaping his brother's look, Leo hurried over to medicine cabinet.

"Leo, what's going on?" his mother asked, her voice a quiet, concerned whisper, as she glanced between the boy searching the cabinet and the boy massaging his head.

"Yeah, what happened to Chase?" Bree added.

"Uhm..." Leo said, to stall a little, as he searched for the wanted object. "Well, we were just... going to meet up.. so I could... do my... homework." he continued to inform, his sentence splitting as he tried to pull out the right bottle without knocking everything out. Got it!

"Yeah...?" Donald pushed as Leo went to the sink.

"Yeah, and then suddenly the fire alarm went off." He winced slightly at the memory. "By the way, I'm most definitely sure Perry has tampered with that. Cause it was loud."

"Oh..." the others mumbled simultaneously, realizing the meaning of his words, and turned their eyes toward Chase as Leo made his way over to him again, a glass of water in one hand and a headache tablet in the other.

"Here, this will help." he said as he placed the pill in Chase's hand. The other boy gave it a disapproving look.

"It will help." Leo promised again. With sigh Chase put the pill in his mouth, accepted the offered water and swallowed it.

"There you go. Feeling any better?" Leo asked.

"Thanks Leo." Chase said instead. "For everything."

Leo smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"Hey, what are brothers for?"

Aaand done!

Okay I might have exaggerated the situation a little, the whole Perry-has-tampered-with-the-alarm-and-Chase-could-barely-stand-up thing. But I needed to please my needs, so Chase will just have to suck it up and suffer! (Mwahaha!) And, yeah, I have no idea how to write the sound of a fire alarm ;D

So what did you think? Reviews are always appreciated! :)

Next one will definitely be a hurt!Chase too, probably involving a worried!Adam. Sounds fun, right? ;)

Until next time! :) /Libra