AWAKEN ; benny weir [2]

eight

"I'm not a fan of this teaching method."

Benny and Ellie stood on the grass of Ms. Weir's backyard, joining the elder mage for their weekly magic training session. Learning how to control his magic was incredibly hard in the first place, but it only got harder with Benny's grandmother bossing him around.

"I'm not the teacher anymore," Ms. Weir explained. "Ellie needs to continue teaching you how to swallow the bullet instead of spit it back out."

"Evelyn, I don't even know the full extent of my powers yet," Ellie opted. "How can I teach Benny something that—?"

"—It's not about teaching new powers; it's about teaching control," the grandmother insisted. "You are the only one of us that knows anything about it, so you have to help him."

"I just need practice," Benny huffed, raising his hand like he was in class. "Mr. Elliot will kill me if I make his coffee mug explode during a pop quiz."

"Let's start with this," Ms. Weir began. "Ellie, what made you lose control when you didn't have your bracelet?"

"Uhmmm..." the witch thought. "Overwhelming sound really got to me, but thinking about things that made me mad was always the kicker."

"Okay, so Benny," Ms. Weir continued, looking towards her grandson. "What makes you mad?"

"I have a list," Benny said, holding up fingers to count. Ellie couldn't help but snicker.

"Homework, pop quizzes, jocks hitting on Ellie, Rory's action figures, Ethan's rational thoughts; it's a long list."

"We can start with those," Ms. Weir said. "I want you to close your eyes and think about all of those things."

"—Actually, I might have a better one," Ellie interrupted. 
She swallowed at the thought of bringing up this scene again, but Ellie felt that it was good enough to make Benny mad. She knew two things that could certainly piss him off: her losing control and Jesse.
Ellie took a step closer to her fellow mage, insisting her sincerity. 

"Remember when Ethan needed Jesse's help to fight Stern, but Jesse started to talk about my mom?" Ellie started, sighing at the memory.
"He kept talking about how she died and... I couldn't do anything about it. I just felt like exploding. You were there; you remember how I—!"

Ellie stopped when she spotted Benny's hand clench into fists, his knuckles glowing the same magenta shared with his eyes.
"Got it."

"Okay, honey, I want you to focus on your surroundings," Ms. Weir insisted. "Take your time to breathe and remember where you are. Ellie is right in front of you."

As soon as he heard Ellie's name, his fists were let go and the shining purple in his irises finally diminished. Benny's posture became more relaxed as he looked down at his hands, seeing as they weren't magenta anymore.

"God, I hate Jesse."

------------

"How was training yesterday?" Ethan asked his mage friends as they made their way through the halls. 

"It was awesome!" Ellie assured, smiling.
"Yeah, it wasn't bad at all," Benny grinned, not expecting his girlfriend to be so supportive in the moment. Maybe, it did go well.

They each walked into the shared class that they each dreaded: gym class.
Gym consisted of try-hard athletes that had no time for nerds or geeks who didn't want to try. The idea that they had to walk into the gymnasium was enough to scar them for life.

"Get in here! Let's go!" yelled the gym teacher. "Hit the locker rooms! Get changed!"

Ellie has always felt extremely uncomfortable when she walked into locker rooms. Seeing the dozens of semi-naked teenage girls around her was something that she would rather not see every day after lunch. Ellie also knew how uncomfortable it made Ethan and Benny to see a bunch of buff guys changing, too.