Parhelion

*February 18, 2020*

Kurt slammed his locker shut. People were packed in tight as he moved away from the locker. It had been a kinda cruddy day. He had left every camera that he owned at home. Kurt pushed their way out making their way towards an exit. They figured that he’d just use his phone instead but it was still slightly disappointing. Then Kurt saw Ernest in the depths of the crowd trying to get at his own locker. Kurt fairly easily slid their way through the crowd getting close to the boy. "Hey Ernest, you look pretty good for someone who was just wrestling last night."

Ernest grit his teeth against the dizzying wave of patterns that crashed across his vision. None of the passing periods played well with his synesthesia, but the rush of the entire school heading out at the end of the day was by far the worst. Kurt’s lime green voice cut through the chatter as they seemed to suddenly appear next to him. Ernest stopped trying to push his way through the crowd for a moment.

"Oh. Hey, Kurt. And thanks, I guess?" Kurt looked angry enough that Ernest wasn’t entirely sure if their words were a compliment or a veiled insult. "You do know we’re not actually beating each other up, right? Mostly. Sometimes Boon needs to be reminded that her fists hit harder when they’re made of stone," he said, rolling his left shoulder stiffly.

"Yeah, no problem." Kurt nodded and gave a slight smile. They edged in slightly to Ernest as the crowd moved around them. Kurt’s presence became slightly foggy when Boon was brought up. Notably their response was a moment later than Ernest might have expected. "I do know it is fake. Just, I like embracing spectacle? Y’know, being a nerd means escapism is kinda my thing. Sorry about Boon though."

Ernest shifted his weight from one leg to the other and back. "Ah, right, I’m probably supposed to keep up the image and everything. And it’s fine, you don’t have to apologize for–" he winced as a rowdy group of freshmen surrounded the two of them, clouding his vision with green and gold tie dye. "Look, I need to grab my stuff, but after that can we talk somewhere quieter?"

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Kurt's breath made a small puff of mist. They buried their hand into their jean jacket, looking over at Ernest. Kurt didn’t always know what to say but he wanted to say something supportive. They were behind the school near the football field where people tended not to be this time of year so there was only some distant noise. "I can’t deal with certain kinds of sensory stuff sometimes…" His voice trailed off. "I don’t really know what you're dealing with but like it’s nice to just have quiet sometimes."

Compared to the echoing school hallways, the empty football field was blissfully still. Without a million other colors flashing for his attention, Ernest could focus in on the green lines of Kurt’s voice. If he squinted, he could imagine them blurring into Libra’s static-y smear, muffled through their mask. He couldn’t think of how to explain his synesthesia right now, not with what else was weighing on his mind, so he simply nodded to acknowledge Kurt’s statement.

It took him another few moments of silence to sort out the words, but eventually Ernest started, "You know how we were talking about you being a part of Gambite the other night? I realized that I hadn’t actually apologized for hurting you those times when we fought. So. Sorry about that. I wish it could have turned out different." By the time he finished speaking, his eyes had wandered to the ground, where he scuffed his shoe into the dirt.

Kurt looked down to where Ernest had kicked the ground then looked back to Ernest. He let out a small sigh. "Yeah, me too. Thank you for apologizing." Kurt then looked into the dirt again. "I don’t really believe that it could have gone different though. That’s kinda how it had to go. As much as we might want to change things."

They flushed realizing that they might have overshared. "I don’t mean to drag things down with that." Kurt searched for more to add on to close it out there but was drawing blanks. "I think that what happened was really shitty but I can’t change that and neither can anyone else. We can just apologize, move forward, and hope it works out. So thanks again." His posture was stiff and his eyes notably heavier with emotion as he looked up from the ground out to the field.

"You make it sound so simple," Ernest huffed, sending a cloud of condensation billowing into the air. "I still can’t wrap my head around why people seem to think it’s okay to have all these former supervillains walking around after they tried to blow up the city." A sharp gust of wind swept past, ruffling his hair, and Ernest realized his phrasing could have been better. "Sorry. That wasn’t supposed to mean you, I know it wasn’t your fault. But it’s got to be someone’s, right? I don’t know how we’re supposed to move past that."

"I mean, I guess it depends." Kurt shrugged, their hair tossling slightly in the wind. "Do you think a bad person can eventually be not bad or at least pretend really well? Like not like make up for what they did. Just like accepting the consequences and working to be better."

Kurt’s voice grew shaky and their jacket seemed to go taut as they buried their hands deeper into the pockets. "I did bad stuff. I really didn’t want to, but I did. It doesn’t mean I can’t do the right thing now. I know you said you weren’t talking about me, but you kinda can’t. There’s really only so much blame you can put on a person before you have to look at the bigger picture. Some of us are forced to do bad things. Society Bad™, if that makes sense?"

Ernest was surprised to recognize what Kurt must have been feeling. Instead of responding directly to any of the questions hanging in the air, he started, "Before I came to Halcyon, I hurt someone really badly with my powers. It was an accident, but it was still me, you know? And for a while it seemed like my powers could only cause bad things. It wasn’t until after I joined Big Team that I really felt like I could use them to do something good."

He placed his hands in his jacket pockets, unconsciously mirroring Kurt’s posture. "When I first heard you were joining the team, I was mad because I felt like I couldn’t trust you to make the right decisions when it came down to it. But I completely trusted Libra with those same decisions, even though I didn’t know anything about them. So goes to show how much I know about anything," he said with a dry laugh. "I meant what I said, though, when I told you that I hoped becoming a hero would work out for you. I think if you keep managing to do the right thing when it matters, you’ll stop worrying about being a bad person."

Kurt listened intently, looking up at Ernest. Kurt ended up nodding along to what Ernest had to say. "I appreciate you telling me that. I know how hard things like that are to share. I think we can both keep growing." Kurt took a long breath in. He didn’t know how to do more than affirm at the minute. "I also needed to hear that I should keep doing what I am doing. I get so in my head about everything all the time. I don’t know, it’s nice to just talk about this. I can’t wait to just effortlessly be a hero. I hope one day that it is like that but I know it isn’t soon."

"It might be hard to share sometimes, but yeah, it’s nice to be able to talk about it with someone who will understand," Ernest said, finally looking back towards Kurt. "So… I had a chance to think about what you said before, about wanting to be friends? I still don’t totally understand why you’d want to after everything that’s happened. And I haven’t had a ton of friends before, so I’m not sure I’m any good at it. But I figure it’s probably worth a try?"

"I think it's worth a try too." Kurt's face flushed slightly. "I, believe it or not, haven't had many friends either and you've only tried to beat me up while I was possessed so like… I don't know." He didn't normally open up and it was proving to be embarrassing but he pressed through it. "I just think you're cool and you give off good vibes if that makes sense?" Kurt had started to fiddle with his jacket zipper and was looking down at it as he finished off the sentence.

"Oh. Thanks." The temperature around the two of them rose as Ernest blushed at what was definitely a compliment this time. "I don’t get that many people calling me cool. Usually it’s ‘weird’ or ‘dangerous.’ But I guess people are more used to weird stuff here in Halcyon." There was a brief pause as he wrestled with his powers to bring the temperature back under control. "So, uh, what kinds of things do you do? Outside of like, school and Big Team."

"Uhh y'know nerdy stuff." The temperature increase went semi-unnoticed by Kurt, who kept playing with their zipper but looked over at Ernest again. "I do all that Big Team Fan Club stuff obviously. I joined a band recently, we aren't the best but I am pretty committed to it and sound editing is pretty fun. I also used to do some cosplay stuff, but that kinda fell to the side for the whole Big Team thing which is just more pretentious cosplay." Kurt paused and a small smile crept onto their face. "I also do photography and especially portraits, if you'd like I'd love to do yours sometime?"

Ernest hoped his face wasn’t quite as bright red as it felt. "Hey, I put a lot of effort into designing my hero costume!" he sputtered. "... Never mind, I guess that just proves your point about it being more pretentious cosplay. I, uh, don’t really know much about photography? But it sounds neat, so sure? And it’d be cool to hear your band play sometime if you don’t mind an audience."

"I’d like that." Kurt’s face had visibly reddened noticing how Ernest’s had. They then gave a small laugh and continued. "It might make us practice more rather than just goofing off. We have a practice this weekend if you like and maybe we could do portraits after that or something if you had the energy?" Kurt paused and took the time to deliberately figure out their words. "Also if you want I think it’d be cool if you used he/him for me."

"Listening to a practice sounds great. Just tell me when and where. And I’m guessing I should dress up for the whole portrait thing?" Ernest tugged at the frayed hem of his hoodie self consciously. When Kurt brought up the subject of pronouns, Ernest smiled, pleasantly surprised by the gesture. "Sure thing, thanks for letting me know. I just use he/him all the time but, uh, you can call me Ern if you’d like. Some of my friends do."

"Yeah, I like both sets of pronouns, just those ones I only like using with some people. Also, uh, Ern is very cute." Kurt was deep red as he continued. He had finally stopped flicking with his zipper holding it still. "We can figure out outfits and stuff later for the portrait. It doesn't need to be fancy, I actually was thinking just candid shots while hanging out sometime. To let you know where practice is I should probably have your number though right?"

“Oh, right!” Ernest fumbles his phone out of his pocket, unlocks it, and passes it to Kurt so he can enter his number. He holds out his hand, expecting Kurt’s phone in return.

Kurt handed their phone over as well and typed in his number into Ernest’s phone. They then handed it back to Ernest. “So like I should probably get heading out. So like speak to you later?”

Ernest enters his number under the contact name ‘ern 🌩’ and passes the phone back to Kurt. "Yeah, see you around!"

As Kurt walks away, Ernest shifts the clouds aside to let the sun shine down on his path.