Weathering with You

December 16, 2019

Boon isn’t in school on Monday.

Ernest doesn’t find this particularly alarming at first. He’d seen the damage caused by yesterday’s fight at the Big Team Base, and he wouldn’t blame anyone for needing a break after that. Rather, his concern builds gradually throughout the day as Boon fails to respond to his intermittent texts. When his only partially joking question asking if she’s still alive is left unanswered at the end of the school day, he decides to just call her.

Boon doesn’t pick up.

He taps out a message to Gwen instead. She was there for the fight, and Boon’s been staying at her house, surely she would know what’s going on.

E: hey do you know if boon’s okay?
E: i haven’t heard from her since yesterday
            G: she’s… okay. Physically
            G: hard fight, y’know
            G: especially when you refuse help from teammates
E: what??
E: do you know where she is now??
            G: she’s locked herself in her room
            G: Carol tried to get her out for dinner
E: i’m coming over

Between transferring several unfamiliar bus lines and walking the last mile, it takes Ernest nearly an hour to make it to Shady Glen manor. The time does little to take the edge off his worry, instead sharpening it to a point. He knocks more loudly than he intends, the goldenrod raps reverberating in the still winter air.

“What happened yesterday?” he demands as soon as the door opens.

Carol blinks at the young man standing in front of the door. She opens her mouth to respond, a puzzled look on her face, when Gwen’s voice sounds out from right behind her. “That’s for me. Sorry, Carol.”

The middle-aged woman sighs as she turns away from the door and Gwen pops out from behind her. Gwen waves as Carol leaves, then she turns to Ernest. “Hi, sorry. Do you--do you want to come in?” She holds the door open. She has a grimace on her face. She’d heard Ernest clearly earlier--he had not spoken softly--and recalling the events of the day before was clearly discomforting for her. “Well, uh, we all fought Gambite, right? I fought Kieran Khan and Orbital, and Boon fought Yamato. Solo. Y’know, as one does.”

Gwen leans against the door and fidgets a little with the strings of her hoodie. “So, you comin’ in?”

“Right, thanks.” Ernest steps into the foyer, dumping his backpack next to the door. Seeing Gwen’s distress, he refrains from asking her to recount the battle in full detail. He can piece together the complete picture later, right now he only needs to hear about one thing.

“I don’t understand,” he says, shaking his head. “I know that Boon wanted to get revenge on Yamato, but she seemed okay with people helping her, at least when I offered. Have you talked with her about it?”

“I’ve tried,” Gwen shrugs as if to denote she doesn’t care, but her expression is hard. “She’s acting as if it’s no big deal. She tried to direct me and Hairpin to a fake location inside the base, to divert us from helping her. Maybe it’s good that she did, though,” her voice drips with sarcasm, “if it wasn’t for our distrust of her, I wouldn’t have found out that Orbital and Kieran Khan were going after my father, Godspeed and Dr. Watson and they might all be dead now.”

She closes the door, but it’s just hard enough to note she wasn’t intending to be gentle. “She thought I was going to kick her out after that, too. She didn’t even seem to care why I invited her into my house in the first place. No matter, I’ll be out of her hair soon.”

Ernest jumps at the burnt orange confetti that flutters across his vision at the sound of the door closing. “I’m glad you all made it out okay.” Okay is probably not the right word. Godspeed is still in the hospital, and the more he learns, the less okay Boon sounds. “Made it out alive at least,” he amends.

“I’m going to see if she’ll talk to me.” Maybe she would block him out the same as his texts, but he hopes that his physical presence can convince her to open up about what went wrong. He walks towards the main staircase, peering up at the second floor to see if he can spot Boon’s room. Eventually Gwen’s last words register properly, and he turns back to face her. “Wait, out of her hair – are you going somewhere?”

“Yeah,” Gwen says, walking past Ernest and ducking into the kitchen to grab a glass of pineapple juice. “I’m going on a road trip with my dad after Christmas. Might be a long-term thing. Halcyon City’s starting to feel a little cramped, plus I’ve now dealt with all the loose strings with regards to villains. Time to spread my wings and do out there what the League no longer can.”

She takes a sip and gestures at the stairs. “You know where Boon’s room is, right?”

“I’ll miss seeing you around in Halcyon, but that sounds really cool.” Ernest nods in response to her question, but hesitates at the foot of the stairs. “It’s probably not what you want to hear right now, but I’d try to sort stuff out with Boon before you go? I know things were… complicated between you two, but it gets a lot harder to work things out after one of you leaves town.”

As Ernest leaves, Gwen looks down at her glass. She mumbles to herself. "Yeah. But I wouldn't be the first to leave that way."

He climbs the stairs and hovers outside Boon’s room for a moment, suddenly less certain of his decision to show up uninvited. Maybe she just needs some space. But he supposes she could just turn him away like the others if she doesn’t want to talk.

He’s careful to knock softly this time, two amber taps. “Hey, Boon. It’s Ernest. I got worried not hearing anything from you since the fight yesterday. Do you want to talk about what’s going on?”

All is silent for a moment as Boon contemplates opening the door. *Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck I don’t want to deal with this right now. Uuuggghhh why do people care enough to check up on me.* She lets out a groan and shuffles her way to the door. As she opens it to greet Ernest it’s clear that she hasn’t done anything resembling sleeping since the morning of the attacks. Dark bags sit under her visibly bloodshot eyes. “Not really. No.” She closes the door and puts her back to it. She lets out a deep sigh and considers for a moment. She turns around and opens the door again. “Ugh fine, let’s make this quick.” She fully opens the door and motions Ernest to enter the room.

Ernest’s eyes widen as he catches sight of Boon. Aside from her exhausted appearance, the horns sprouting from her head immediately draw his attention. It isn’t the first time he’s seen such a feature on Boon, but it certainly doesn’t make him feel better about her situation.

He’s about to turn and leave when she opens the door again. Ernest steps carefully into the room, trying not to disturb anything as he passes through. He gives Brimstone a few scratches behind his ears before sitting in the chair in front of Boon’s desk.

“Gwen told me that you fought Yamato at the base,” he starts slowly. “I know you’d been wanting to fight her since she disappeared on us at the Embassy. How did it go?”

Boon rubs her temples after hearing Ernest’s question “Ernest I get that you’re trying to be nice but you don’t have to ask me about life threatening situations like they’re an audition for the school play” she walks over and lays down on top of her messy bed. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be a bitch…” she sighs and stares at the ceiling “...it didn’t go well. I… I fucked up. I beat Yamato but I nearly took it too far. I nearly killed her Ernest.”

“Sorry. I’m just– I’m not really used to talking about this kind of thing.” She isn’t wrong – auditions were one of the few things that could legitimately upset Timothy, so he had a lot of experience talking about those. And while he’d been in much more dangerous situations as part of Big Team, he avoided discussing the most terrifying parts if he could. He had meant to talk with Boon about her powers after learning that they came from a demon, but between Gambite’s plot and his dad, there always seemed to be something else for him to worry about. Now he wishes he’d taken the time to ask her about them earlier. “Was it your powers influencing you again? Like when you ended up accidentally hurting Molevin that time?”

"You don't have to make up excuses for me Ernest. I can't just blame Sapphomet for my own shitty decisions. I let Molevin get hurt, I dragged you to a nightmare prison, and I lied to my team because I'm a garbage excuse for a human being." Tears stream down her face. "If anything when I lost control those times in Molecyon Sapphomet was trying to stop me."

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Ernest stands up from the chair, but can’t figure out how to do anything more comforting than hover awkwardly at Boon’s bedside. “And I’m not trying to make excuses, I know those weren’t your decisions. Or at least not completely yours. You told me after what happened at the Molecyon prison that you were losing yourself, but that what I said helped you take back control. And I didn’t want to be rude, but those,” he points to Boon’s horns, “are definitely a demon thing, not a you thing.”

Boon rubs her horns. “Aww come on they’re cuuute! But yeah I’ve been trying to get rid of them since yesterday and they just don’t seem to budge. I can make them bigger,” she snaps her fingers and the horns protrude outwards, spiraling down and around her ears, ”but this is the smallest I can make them.” She snaps again and they retract back to the size they were before “It’s whatever, I’ve got more important things to worry about… Hey um… you said I told you that you snapped me out of it at the prison break though? I don’t remember saying that, and that doesn’t sound right. Like, I don’t think I was being taken over? I was just really angry.” She considers her next words carefully. “How do um, how do you remember that happening?”

“Alright, I admit you pull them off pretty well. It’s just the last time I saw them… was during that prison break, actually.” Ernest sits on the end of Boon’s bed. “Some parts I don’t remember super well? It got really intense, and I’d just been pushing my powers to try and keep the villains from escaping, so I think I passed out halfway through the whole getting dragged to a hell dimension bit. But I definitely remember that you grew horns, and a tail, and started wrapping everyone up in chains – all the villains, but me and Hazard and Jawbreaker too. I thought about how you’d told me you felt like you might lose yourself to your powers before, so I tried to tell you to remember who you really are. And the next thing after that I was waking up in your cabin.” He lets out a long, slow breath. “That’s when you told us about Sapphomet giving you your powers, and said that I’d helped you take back control. Maybe you were just trying to make me feel better, though.”

"Yeah that's um… that's right that's exactly how I remember that going. You really helped me out back there dude…" Boon says unconvincingly "Hey um, talking about this is kinda giving me a migraine, we should change the subject… how uh- how are things going with your Dad? He still trying to boss you around?"

Ernest raises an eyebrow at the half-hearted agreement from Boon. He wants to hear her side of the story at some point, but it doesn’t seem like the right time to pressure her. At least she hasn’t kicked him out yet, which seems to be more progress than Gwen or Carol made. So he plays along, even if it means talking about his dad. “I, uh, actually decided to try and help him with his research project. But the first test went kind of badly? Okay, it went terribly. So I’m not really sure where that leaves us.”

"I don't know, I don't feel like my advice really stuck last time, but like, I'm not surprised. I wouldn't trust him Ernest. He doesn't seem like the kind of person that respects peoples' boundaries" Boon looks solemnly at the ceiling "But I get it, deciding who to trust is… difficult…" Boon is silent for a moment. When it sounds like Ernest is about to say something she breaks the silence "Do you… do you trust me, Ernest?" She turns to make eye contact with him.

Ernest is about to defend his decision to work with his dad when Boon jumps in with her question. “Yes,” he says, with hardly a second’s hesitation, holding her gaze. He might not fully understand what’s going on with Boon, but he knows there must be a good reason for her behavior during the Gambite attack, even if Gwen couldn’t see it. “Why do you ask?”

Boon is silent for a moment "I think there's something wrong with me… I… I messed up Ernest. And I don't know why, and nothing makes sense, and I just-" tears stream down her eyes "I trusted her… she told me to lie to the team, and I tried desperately to think of a reason why I shouldn't, and I came up empty. And I know that was a bad idea but I don't know why it was a bad idea… and that scares me."

Ernest reaches out for Boon’s hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Hey, we all make mistakes sometimes. But it’s better when you’ve got a team looking out for you. If Sapphomet’s trying to get you to trust her over the rest of us, I really don’t think she has your best interests at heart. I know that Gwen would have helped you if she knew what was going on.” He pauses briefly. “I wish I could have been there to help you.”

"That's the thing though Ernest. I definitely don't trust Sapphomet but like, when she wants me to do something she offers me something I want in exchange. It just doesn't seem in her nature to just lie to me like that. And like, not saying I don't trust y'all but in this very conversation you lied to me about the prison break to make me feel better, totally understandable though. And then Gwen… I don't know how to feel about Gwen" she sighs and gives an exasperated chuckle "still, I'd take humans over demons any day… if only it were that simple…"

Ernest withdraws his hand sharply, as if stung. “What do you mean? I only told you what I remembered. And you just said you remembered the same thing, so if that’s not the case you’re one to talk about lying to make people feel better. What part went so differently from what I said that makes you think I’d lie about it?”

"I hurt you Ernest, I hurt all of you, and I almost hurt Kurt and Molevin too. I can't just blame all of my mistakes on her! You may have been the one who got me to calm down but it wasn't Sapphomet that caused me to lose control, I would've remembered that… I-I think…"

Quiet stretches between them as Ernest’s indignation evaporates as quickly as it appeared. “I know what it’s like to accidentally hurt someone with your powers. It sucks, a lot. But even if Sapphomet had nothing to do with it, that doesn’t make you a bad person.” He doesn’t come off quite as confident as he’d like, sounding almost as if he’s trying to convince himself. “Hiding from everyone isn’t going to help you feel better about it. I’ve been there before, it doesn’t work as well as you’d think.”

Boon grabs her pillow and smushes it into her face, her eyes peeking up at Ernest “But I like hiding…” she says, her voice muffled by the pillow, the tension in her voice disappearing.

“Can we at least hide together for a little while?” Ernest asks. “We don’t even have to talk about this stuff anymore. I’d feel better knowing you aren’t holed up here all alone.”

Boon sniffs and wipes a tear from her eye “Yeah. I’d like that… Do you wanna stay in here and watch a movie or something? Forget about stuff for a little bit?”

“Yeah, that sounds good to me,” Ernest says with a small smile.

The two of them spend the rest of the evening huddled around Boon’s laptop, Brimstone sprawled across both of their laps. For a little while, they can ignore the darkening horizon. They may not be able to hold off the clouds forever, but for the moment, it’s enough to know they’ll be there for each other when the storm breaks.