Cloud Nine

*March 19, 2020*

Ernest nearly dropped his phone after Kurt hung up, immediately pushing aside the journal he’d been writing in and darting for his closet. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his Weatherman costume, and it still smelled faintly of ozone from all the lightning he’d wrapped around himself during the mission.

He spent longer than usual rifling through his clothes, debating whether he should pick out something nicer than his typical outfits. It wasn’t like Kurt hadn’t already seen him in the worn-out hoodies and T-shirts he usually wore to school.

Then again, it wasn’t like he’d hung out with Kurt as more than friends before.

Eventually, he settled on a teal short-sleeved button-down shirt and jeans. He scribbled one last note in his journal before leaving his room.

Helen Welles looked up from her computer in alarm as Ernest passed through the kitchen on his way out. “Where are you rushing off to? You just got back from a mission, surely they don’t need you for another one already.”

“Not a mission, I’m, uh, just hanging out. With a friend.” Ernest said as he pulled on his shoes and coat, avoiding making eye contact with his mom.

“Alright, well, don’t stay out too late.” She turned her attention back to her screen as Ernest exited the apartment.

Ernest stood outside the door to Kurt’s house, taking a deep breath to steady himself. He knocked lightly, two marigold squares hovering in his vision as the sound echoed in the cold air.

On the other side of the door, there was some brief laughing and a hushed voice arguing slightly. A tall, broad man with a blonde undercut opened the door. He was dressed fairly causally in a green cable knit sweater and a pair of dark grey jeans. “Ernest, right? Come on in,” the man answered, grinning wide and extending his hand. “I’m Vano, one of Kurt’s dads.”

“Yeah, Ernest Welles. Nice to meet you, Mr. Vano.” He shook the man’s hand, his nerves sparking lightning at his fingertips, causing a slight static shock on contact. “Sorry.”

From behind the tall man, Kurt stood looking very flustered in a small carpeted entrance hallway. Kurt was no longer in his costume either instead wearing a yellow and tan flannel and tight grey pants. He gave a nervous wave to Ernest and then looked back to the ground where Mr. Otter, Kurt’s new otter familiar, had placed himself on Kurt’s feet, happily wiggling and preventing the boy from moving. Occasionally the familiar bumped against a small side table in the hallway, rattling a picture frame.

Ernest stepped through the doorway and down the hall, stopping before he risked tripping over Mr. Otter. “Hi, Kurt. Thanks for, uh, inviting me over.” He tried to hide his blush by kneeling down to greet Mr. Otter as well. “I still can’t believe they let you keep him,” he said, lightly tickling the familiar’s stomach. “He seems to really like you, though.”

“Have fun, you two!” Vano said in a teasing tone. He gave a nod to them before walking down the hallway to the back of the house.

Kurt crouched down and gave Mr. Otter scritches beside Ernest. “It’s no problem. Sorry about my dad. He’s just really excited about me doing a normal teenager thing.” He looked up at Ernest, noticing that he was blushing too. Mr. Otter let out a small chattering noise, making Kurt jump slightly and stop staring at Ernest. “Yeah, Vano was too caught up in me having a boy over to say no. My other dad, Ley, is an occult researcher and has had some familiars of his own so it wasn’t too big of an ask.”

“Your dads sound really nice. My dad’s kind of an asshole.” Ernest grimaced. “Sorry, force of habit. We used to fight a lot, but now he’s staying in New York with my brother and I’ve been trying to patch things up.” He hadn’t realized that he’d stopped petting Mr. Otter until the familiar batted gently at his still hand. He gave Mr. Otter a pat on the head, and then turned his attention back to Kurt. “Sorry. Did you, um, want to do something?”

“Sorry about your dad. If you ever do want to talk about it more we can. You don’t have to, just letting you know that it’s okay.” Kurt said, his face sympathetic. He gave Mr Otter one last belly rub before picking him up into his one arm. His other arm draped by his side as he stood. “Yeah I figured that we could maybe just watch a movie and hang out? Also like would you want to hold hands?”

“Thanks. I might want to talk about all that another time, but right now I’d rather just focus on us.” He reached out and grasped Kurt’s hand, intertwining his fingers with theirs. Attempting to keep his lightning from shocking Kurt, he hummed a low tone, concentrating on the teal line that flickered in the corner of his vision. “A movie sounds great.”

Kurt took a moment looking at their and Ernest’s hands. He was visibly holding back a big smile. “Yeah, movie. Right this way.” He responded leading Ernest down the hallway.

Kurt sat down beside Ernest on the couch having finally chosen a film. The curtains had been drawn and the only light was coming from the television. Mr. Otter was snoring gently atop a pile of pillows on the floor. The couch was one of those large L-shaped sectionals. There were various family photos on the walls along with a few photographs of Halcyon’s surrounding landscapes. Kurt was close to Ernest but not touching yet. “So movies am I right?” Kurt joked in a shaky voice.

“Normally I wouldn’t have picked one with so much singing, since Timothy makes me watch musicals all the time. But the harmonies in a cappella look so…” Ernest trailed off as he remembered that he hadn’t told Kurt about his synesthesia yet.

“There’s, um, something you should probably know about me. I meant to tell you sooner, but I always thought about it in like, the middle of band practice when your other friends were around and, I don’t know, there was never a great moment?” He knew that his rambling explanation was more to stall for time than anything. There probably had been moments that would have been perfectly fine, and he’d just been too afraid of scaring Kurt off. But they deserved to know what they were getting into.

“I… see sounds. Like, anytime I hear something, there are these colors and shapes that show up along with it.“ His eyes followed the curve of his own voice as he spoke. “I know it’s weird, but it’s why I don’t handle a lot of noise really well, and why I listen to music a lot of the time.” Ernest looked to Kurt, nervously watching for his response.

“I understand, I mean I don’t exactly, I guess I sympathize. I struggle with some sensory stuff as well.” Kurt looked back at Ernest. He took his time to give the rest of his response. When they started speaking again, they sat up a little straighter. They took Ernest’s hand into theirs and set the entwined hands on their thigh. “If there are ways I can help when we are in really noise-y situations let me know? Otherwise though I think that’s a really interesting way to perceive the world. I don’t know if that makes any sense. I care about you and I am sorry there hasn’t been a good time to tell me but I am glad you finally could.”

“I carry my noise-cancelling headphones with me almost all the time, and those are usually enough to make things bearable if I need them. They can be really distracting though, so sometimes it’s hard for me to look like I’m paying attention even when I am.” Ernest gave Kurt’s hand a gentle squeeze. “It’s cool that you think it’s interesting though. I used to talk about it more, but a lot of people at my old school acted like I was crazy or just making things up for attention. So eventually I just stopped bringing it up very much.”

They nodded as Ernest spoke. Kurt returned the gentle squeeze with one of his own. “I know what that’s like. I am autistic and also struggle with sensory stuff.” Kurt glanced away from Ernest then back. “It’s hard to tell people that what you are dealing with is real especially when they don’t see it themselves. Our needs are different, we’ll work together to meet them.”

“Yeah. Just let me know how I can help.” Ernest smiled at Kurt encouragingly. “I know that some people still give you crap about being in Gambite, so if they ever give you trouble, or Kieran Khan tries to blackmail you again–“ He could feel static building, starting to stand his hair on end, so he paused to take a slow breath. “Sorry. I just want to keep you from getting hurt by that stuff again.”

Kurt shifted and put his head on Ernest’s shoulder absorbing some of the static where they touched. “I know you don’t want to see me hurt again. I really like that.” They stopped speaking for a moment while trying to figure out how to make the words come out right. “And it’ll be nice to have someone to stick up for me with all the Gambite grief. It’s just that the grief isn’t as important. It’s more the doubt that Kurt and Libra aren’t both as capable. Kieran though can eat shit.”

“I punched him in the face once, you know. I felt bad about it afterwards, since it was before I heard that he’d blackmailed you and everything. But now I’m glad that I did.” Ernest tipped his head to rest against the top of Kurt’s. “People might have an easier time believing in both if they knew they were the same person. But if you still want to keep it a secret, I guess I’ll have to pretend I don’t really know Libra?”

“Yeah, I am glad you did. Everyone knows he deserves it.” Kurt sighed, closing his eyes just letting himself enjoy the moment. “I don’t know if I want people to know. I don’t think so right now. They're not ready for that. Once folks know they’ll start expecting me to be their best friend or something since I didn’t punch them out as Libra as if all the past is gone.”

“Or maybe if you did punch them out as Libra, they’ll start expecting you to be their boyfriend,” Ernest said with a grin, thinking back to their first mission together. When the implications of the last word caught up with him, he flushed. “Oh, is it like, okay if I call you that? I don’t know if– I mean, I probably shouldn’t assume– What would you want me to call you?”

“I mean-” Kurt’s face flushed bright red as soon as Ernest started acknowledging the implications of the last word. They hid their face into Ernest’s shoulder. They mumbled out a response. “I haven’t had anyone before. I don’t know what you’re supposed to do. I guess what matters is it sounded right to me. Boyfriend is definitely what I’d like most… I mean if you’d like to call me that?”

“I don’t think there’s any ‘supposed to’ really. Just whatever feels right I guess?” Ernest untangled his fingers from Kurt’s so that he could wrap his arm over Kurt’s shoulder. “But yeah, as long as you’re okay with it, I think it would be cool.”

“Yeah! I mean, yeah, that’d be cool. ” Kurt’s adjusted their head resting kinda in between Ernest’s chest and arm. “So, boyfriends I guess. Libra stuff though that’s not gonna be like too much or anything?”

Ernest pulls a face. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem on Big Team, since you’re not the only one with a secret identity, but… my mom doesn’t like Libra? She didn’t like that you attacked that Rubicon armor during the bank robbery for some reason, even though it was clearly wrecking the place. And I didn’t really want to lie and pretend you weren’t Libra, so I haven’t really told her that we’ve been hanging out.”

“Does that mean you’d prefer she didn’t know about us? ‘Cause it’s not like I, Kurt, have a much better reputation if you’ve told her about me and Gambite stuff?” Kurt shifted their legs on to the couch curling up a bit. “It’s cool if you don’t want her to know. Or I guess what do you want to do might be a better way of putting it?”

“I want to tell her eventually. It’s just I’ve been avoiding talking about Big Team stuff with her as much since I was grounded, or that stuff about the support group. And like, nightmares, and whatever…” Ernest trailed off into a mumble. “I just need some time to figure it out I think.”

“That’s okay. You can take all the time you need. I, uh, would like to know about the nightmares though. When you are ready to talk about that kinda stuff.” Kurt wrapped their free arm around Ernest’s waist. “How about we just be dumb teenagers though and enjoy being on a date? Y’know not have to think about Big Team stuff for like once?”

“Sorry to keep bringing up difficult stuff. Cause yeah, we both deserve a break.” Ernest pulled his legs onto the couch as well and leaned into Kurt. “If the city starts blowing up again, someone else can figure it out. We already saved it once today.”

“Hey, no worries. It deserves to be talked about and it will be. But yeah let's take that break.” Kurt let out a sigh, visibly relaxing into Ernest. “Exactly, let's just be here and now. We’ve got plenty of time, babe.”

The conversation turned to lighter topics, their faces illuminated by the flickering light of the movie that was only half paid attention to. Eventually, their responses became slower, minutes stretching between each reply and punctuated by yawns. By the time the credits rolled, the two of them were asleep, heads resting against each other and still tangled in each other’s arms.

The door to the room creaked open and Vano entered softly. Noting the two were soundly asleep, he put another layer of blankets onto the two. He turned the TV off while pulling out a small flip phone. Making a small “oop” sound he gingerly stepped around a coffee table and held the phone up to his ear. As he exited the room, he spoke gently “Hi, Helen, seems like Ernest is staying over for the ni-” His voice was cut off by the soft click of the handle as the door shut.