I came up with this idea when I had Chemistry. I took it as a sophomore and it was such a pain in the ass. Definitely my worst subject! I hated the class, but I loved the teacher, Mr. Smeglin!!! He was wicked helpful and always willing to stay after school to help me understand something. So, I dedicate this story to you Smeggy!!!

Chris Halliwell glanced up from his book to look at his brother, Wyatt. His seventeen-year-old brother was chewing on the end of his pen, staring intently at the instruction paper. He wasstaying after school in order to make up a chemistry lab that he missed when he was absent last week. Chris had been hoping that his brother would be quick and be done in less than an hour, but that obviously wasn't the case. Apparently, Wyatt was rather bad at chemistry.

And that was why he was stuck sitting in Room 307, the Chem. Lab, waiting for his brother, his ride home, to hurry up and finish his stupid lab! He turned back to his book, but was soon distracted when Wyatt started tapping his pen against the table.

Tap – tap – tap – tap – tap – tap – taptaptap

The tapping picked up in speed as Wyatt's frustration increased. He obviously didn't understand what the lab wanted him to do.

"Would you stop!" Chris finally shouted out as Wyatt's tapping reached an impossibly irritating tempo.

"Geeze, did you get your period this morning or something . . ." Wyatt mumbled and he went back to staring at the paper.

Chris growled and brought the book back up to his face, rather violently. He heard Wyatt's pen start scratching, writing something out, but then hurriedly begin crossed out. This happened several more times. Before Chris moved the book down to just below his eyes so he could give Wyatt a death glare. The blonde looked up, feeling the gaze.

"Seriously, dude, go get some Midol or something!" Wyatt told him.

"'Dude', go get some extra help or something!" Chris returned.

"I can't do that! Mr. Smeglin is correcting tests in his office and I don't want to bother him! And I can't stand the smart kids . . ."

Chris rolled his eye at his brother's pettiness and, once again, returned to his book. He didn't even have time to find his spot on the page when Wyatt's voice interrupted him again.

"Can you help me?"

"I've never taken chemistry before! I'm only a sophomore!"

"Yeah, but you're smart! And you're good at potions."

"Fine, it can't be that hard!" Chris exclaimed setting aside his book and pulling the lab paper toward him. He quickly read over the directions. Something to do with two different chemicals, mixing the right amounts together, and getting something at the end. Not that different from making a potion.

He and Wyatt gathered the things they needed: beakers, medicine droppers, and the two chemicals (HCl and NaOH). Chris reread the instructions and interpreted them so Wyatt could understand them.

"You just have to do something with those numbers to check the concentration of the HCl. Then do the same for the NaOH I don't know how to do that, though," Chris said.

"I can do that, I think."

"You think! What you do it wrong and it blows up when we mix them together!?"

"That's not gonna happen!" Wyatt bent over the paper and began scribbling furiously, obviously doing out the necessary mathematics to calculate the concentrations of the chemicals. Chris's gaze drifted to his book and he reached his arm out for it. Maybe I can read a little bit while Wyatt does that . . . he thought. He didn't get far when a strong hand clamped around his arm in an iron grip. He gulped and looked up into the demon's face. His eyes widened and, before he had a chance to make a move, he was yanked from his chair and thrown across the room, landing on some desks.

--

Wyatt's head shot up from his work as he heard his brother's shout as he was thrown and the crash as he hit the desks. His head snapped from his brother to the demon who had thrown him. The human-looking demon snarled and leaped forward at Wyatt in an attempt to grab him. Wyatt quickly moved back and found himself next to the table where the materials for the lab were set up. He flicked his hands out in front of him, in an attempt to blow the demon up, but the demon only stumbled back a few steps before continuing his advance.

"Wyatt!" Chris shouted from the floor on the other side of the room, trapped beneath one of the desks and too dazed from his unexpected flight to use his powers. "Throw the acid on him!"

Wyatt looked at the table. Which one is the acid!? he panicked. He looked at the two beakers beside each other on the table . . . the demon was stalking closer . . . he flicked his hands again . . . one looked just like water and the other was like pebbles of flour . . . and closer . . . his power barely fazed the demon . . . the differences didn't help because Wyatt couldn't remember anything about the properties of acids and bases . . . and closer . . . he wasn't effected at all this time . . . Wyatt quickly decided and grabbed the beaker with the liquid in it. It was more like a vanquishing potion and he hoped it would work. The demon, now only a foot or two away, shouted out and burst into flames after the acid was thrown on him. Wyatt sighed in relief and ran over to help his brother up.

"Please don't tell me you really didn't know which one was the acid!" Chris exclaimed.

"Ummm . . ."

"You're hopeless."

"I can't really do the lab now."

"Sucks for you." Chris reached for his book again, but a hand gripped his arm again. This time he was looking into his brother's face. "What?"

"Well, what am I supposed to do?!"

"That's not my problem!"

"You told me to throw the acid on the demon!"

"The demon was after you! So it's your fault, really."

Wyatt sighed in annoyance. What am I supposed to tell Mr. Smeglin? he wondered. 'Hey, Smeggy! Yeah, sorry, a demon attacked me while I was doing the lab and I had to dump all your hydrochloric acid on him in order to vanquish him so he wouldn't kill me! I hope you don't mind too much!' That would go over real well.

He straightened the desks that Chris had fallen onto, but really couldn't do anything else. He sighed again. Wyatt walked over to the table and finished his calculations. At least he could get some credit for the lab. Suddenly, he got an idea.

"Hey, Chris?"

"What?" his brother snapped back, obviously annoyed at being interrupted from his book for the umpteenth time that day.

"What if I just conjured the final chemical mix-thingy!? Smeggy would never know the difference!"

"Do the words 'personal gain' mean anything to you?"

"Don't pull that crap with me."

"It's not crap! Things always go wrong when you do stuff like that. Don't you remember all those stories mom and the aunt told us about when they used magic for personal gain? Aunt Phoebe got her powers taken away once! Do you want that to happen to you?! And what about the Cleaners! You could get erased!"

"Awwww, Chirs, c'mon! I really need to pass chemistry and I can't pass if I get a below an 80 on this lab!"

"I still don't get why this is my problem . . ."

"I'm your brother! That should be good enough!"

"And when has being your brother ever done me any good? Everyone expects me to be this superstar athlete and Mr. Popularity, but I'm the complete opposite of you!"

"What, are you jealous or something?"

"Me, jealous of you!? As if!"

"Well, you sound kinda bitter . . ."

"Bitter? I'm not bitter; I'm just sick of everyone assuming that I'm gonna be exactly like you. And I'm not talking just about here, at high school; it's at Magic School, too. Everyone expects me to have tons of powers and use them all effortlessly. All I have is telekinesis, and you have that, too, so I'm really nothing new to look at there."

Wyatt looked at his brother, a concerned glint in his eyes. He never realized his brother felt that way; whatever "that way" was. The blonde didn't know exactly what was wrong, but he knew he needed to make his brother feel better. "So, you have telekinesis, but you can do stuff with your telekinesis that I couldn't dream of doing with mine! Yours is at least twice as strong as mine."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"I'm not just saying that! I might have more powers, but I can't specifically focus on training one of them; I have to train a little bit with each one. You have all the time you want to focus on your telekinesis, which makes it one of the strongest powers I've ever seen. It also make you one of the most powerful witches I've ever seen and the one I'd want beside me in a fight."

Chris finally looked up from his book to lock eyes with his older brother. He smiled. "Thanks, Wy."

Wyatt smiled back at his younger brother.

"But I still don't agree with conjuring the final result."

Wyatt's face fell at Chris' answer. "Just because you don't want me to doesn't mean I can't."

He looked down at his work on the paper, studying the balanced equation carefully: HCl + NaOH -- H2O + NaCl.

So the final mix would be water and salt; that was easy enough! Wyatt closed his eyes and tried to picture water and salt in mind. After several seconds of concentration, a beaker-full of water and a small mound of salt appeared on the table in an orange glow. He smiled triumphantly.

"Now I just have to mix them together! See, Chris, there was nothing to worry about!"

Chris simply watched as the blonde cleaned up the unused supplies and mixed a bit of the salt into the water.

"Wyatt?"

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't you just conjure another beaker of the acid?"

Wyatt stared, wide-eyed, at his brother. " . . . I didn't think of that . . ."

"Of course you didn't; it's logic and thinking was never your strong point. You wouldn't have to try to explain to Mr. Smeglin why you came up with a perfect mixture of salt or why all the HCl is gone."

Wyatt's eyes widened as he realized his huge mistake, but the handle on the door of the Chem. Lab turned and the door began to open before he had a chance to do anything to correct his experiment. Mr. Smeglin walked into the lab with his briefcase in one hand and the stack of corrected papers in the other. He smiled at Wyatt and asked, "Are you finished with your lab, Wyatt?"

"Uh," Wyatt stuttered.

Chris marked his place in his book and smirked at his brother. "I'm just gonna go wait in the car," he said, leaving his brother to come up with some wild excuse to tell to a very confused chemistry teacher.

I hope everyone liked it!!! Mr. Smeglin was my Chemistry teacher and 307 was the number of the room the Chem. Lab is in in my school. This was fun to write; hope it was fun to read. If it was, please let me know by just dropping a line!!!