Archive of Our Own

Javi is an enigma the moment Tyler lays eyes on him.

He’s dressed proper, for one thing — business proper, not storm-chasing proper. Every good storm chasing crew knows to wear some type of jeans or shorts. A t-shirt or a set of rags you’re willing to sacrifice, short socks that won’t chafe your calves if you’re running for your life, and a pair of sneakers that you can dirty up. Some chasers even wear ponchos for an extra layer of protection.

Not Javi. He’s got sneakers, at least, but he’s wearing white pants and a white-blue polo, a fancy-shmancy watch, and when he stretches over the bed of his pristine white truck, his pants ride up a little so Tyler can catch a glimpse of calf-high socks.

Plus, his sneakers are white .

“Get a load of this guy,” Boone says without realizing Tyler’s had his eyes on him since his truck pulled in.

Tyler didn’t know Javi’s name, back then. He never got the chance to speak to Javi that day. The storms rolled in fast, leaving just enough time for the crew to hit the bathrooms and book it to the trucks. By the end of the day, after surviving a gorgeous EF2 that nearly flipped the truck, the storm chaser in white was far from his mind.

Until two days later, when all the storm chasers in the area grouped back up at the meeting spot —  Javi included.

He wasn’t alone this time. He was still dressed in all white — unbelievable — and from around the other side of the truck came another man, also dressed in white. They seemed to be arguing about something, and the new guy thrust out a fancy screen and pointed, like that little piece of tech had all the answers.

That was the day Tyler learned his name, after sauntering over to them and tipping his Stetson down in greeting. “Tyler Owens,” he introduced, thrusting out his hand and flashing his prettiest smile.

“I'm Javier,” had been the answer, fitting his palm into Tyler’s. It was warm and smooth, not a callus in sight. It was obvious he wasn’t from around here. “But everybody calls me Javi.”

“Javi,” Tyler echoes, pleased. “Pleasure to meet you.”

When Javi pulls his hand away, he uses it to gesture to the man beside him. “This is my partner, Scott. We work together for StormPAR.”

Tyler’s eyebrows raise. He hasn’t heard much about StormPAR, other than whispers about it being the new big business to work alongside the military to data collect. Not sure what their goal is, or what they’re aiming for — no one knows anything about them, really. They’re about as new as Tyler and his crew are.

“Need any assistance?” Tyler offers, ignoring Scott entirely. He’s got a scowl on his face like he hates everything he sees. It makes Tyler uneasy. Why the hell would you be out here storm chasing if you hate storms? Or chasing? “My crew and I would be happy to lend a hand.”

Their white-out clothes and trucks make Tyler think they’re brand-spanking-new at this whole thing; and while Tyler doesn’t have a ton of experience compared to other chasers, he wouldn’t call himself a newbie. Amateur, maybe. 

Scott looks thoroughly unimpressed. “So you can put your dirty fingers all over our multi-million dollar equipment? Yeah, right.”

Javi hisses out a scolding, “Scott,” as Tyler’s eyes narrow. “Someone doesn’t have a lot of southern hospitality,” he tuts. “That’ll get you in trouble ‘round here.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “I think we’ll be fine,” he says, then hands the tablet he’s holding to Javi. “I’m taking a leak before we hit the road. Don’t leave without me.”

Javi huffs and mutters, “Wouldn’t dream of it,” and it had just enough edge of sarcasm to it that Tyler grins at him. Javi looks a bit sheepish that his comment was heard, but he doesn’t take it back. 

Tyler can hear Boone and Dani calling for him back at the truck, so Tyler tips his hat again at Javi and takes a step back. “Good luck out there, Storm Par,” he remarks. He gives the white outfit a once-over. “You guys are gonna need it.”

Javi frowns at him, a little insulted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

But Tyler’s already gone, striding back to his truck, ready to ride the nearest gust of wind right to a monster of a tornado.

He runs into Javi a lot, after that. 

Whatever storm they encountered that day must have done a number on Javi’s white pants, because from then on, Javi is only in khakis or black tactical pants. Never jeans, much to Tyler’s chagrin, but hey, it’s better than white.

Sadly, whatever good vibes they had vanish after that first day. They cross paths in dirt roads and out in pastures all the time, and sure, Tyler drives a little recklessly to make sure they’re on the tail of the tornado for their fans, but he cuts the StormPAR trucks off a lot. 

It’s not like he can ever apologize for those instances though, because every time Tyler tries to speak to Javi, their conversations blow up into yelling fits.

It’s not even about Tyler’s driving half the time, either. Sometimes it’s almost running over the tech that StormPAR sets up — in the middle of the fucking road. Sometimes it’s mouthing off to Javi’s crew when they drive by — who all mouth off to Tyler’s crew anyway. Sometimes it’s for trying to race with the StormPAR drivers and getting them distracted.

There’s always something for Javi to be mad about. But once Tyler finds out StormPAR has aligned themselves with Marshall Riggs, suddenly there’s something for Tyler to be mad about, too.

Digging under Javi’s skin in the field had been fun and games. Maybe not for Javi, but for Tyler — and really, that just makes it even more fun. But that all stops the first time Tyler spots Marshall Riggs at the center of the disaster zone after a violent EF4 that ripped through a small town in Arkansas. There was Scott, taking photos with a professional camera with the StormPAR logo in it, and Riggs shaking hands with a family beside their chimney — the only part of their home that wasn’t reduced to rubble.

And there was Javi, helping some people down from the piles of rubble so they could get to the main road, with a giant StormPAR logo on the back of his crisp blue polo.

After that, Tyler starts biting back with harsh retorts every time Javi’s crew says something to them. He feels less guilty about cutting them off on the roads. He never interferes with them setting down their equipment, because that, at least, will help more than Riggs ever will, he feels vindicated every time they can’t get something planted.

Small victories, he supposes.

Kate is like a breath of fresh air.

She’s also not wearing proper storm-chasing attire when he first sets his eyes on her, but it’s better than Javi’s outfit on his first day in the field, so he already has more respect for her.

She’s entirely unimpressed with Tyler and his crew. He’s not sure if it’s their loudness or brashness or, hey, maybe it’s the t-shirts with his face on them; but from the moment Kate tells him that she’s chasing the storm cell east of them, he knows she’s lying, and he’s hooked.

It’s like a direct challenge, and there’s nothing Tyler loves more. 

She’s with StormPAR, though, which is disappointing, but when Kate tells him that she’s in from New York, it makes him wonder how much about StormPAR she actually knows. She’s close with Javi, that much is obvious. But how truthful has he been to her about what Riggs is after?

The thrill of the tornado chase mutes those thoughts for a while. StormPAR can’t get their equipment down, which is funny, and when they drive into a tornado and make it out on the other side, his celebration with Boone feels like showing off, knowing that Kate is behind them, watching.

Kate and Javi.

He gets trapped in the motel pool with Kate, and his first thought isn’t to get beside her and hold on; it’s to get behind her. He bears all his weight forward to keep Kate as close to the wall as she can get, and he brackets her body and holds on for dear life to keep her covered.

Her whimpers make him want to cry. He can hear how scared she is, the way she pants and shakes in a way that can’t be from the wind. He wants to wrap her up and hold her, but he can’t, because then they’ll both die. So he keeps holding on. He keeps Kate alive.

Kate kept them alive, with her quick thinking, getting them into the pool. She’s brilliant. 

When the winds die down and the tornado fizzles out, her fingers ghost over his arm. She whispers, “Tyler?”, like she can’t believe he’s still there. He can’t either, if he’s being honest. Her voice is so timid. He curls over her just a little bit more, keeping her contained, keeping her safe, before he lets go of the pipes and frees her from confinement.

Javi crashes into her when they reunite, and Tyler looks away. It’s obvious Javi is in love with her, the way he grips the back of her shirt for extra leverage in case another gust of wind comes and tries to blow her away. Tyler can see the way Javi’s arms tremble for the short time he’s holding Kate, and Kate is holding on just as tight.

He looks away for less than a minute, to talk to Lily and Ben, and when he looks up again, Kate is gone, and Javi has his face in his hands.

Javi and Kate save his life, and then Kate saves theirs. 

He watches her drive his truck into the path of the tornado and knows she’s a goner. He screams for her anyway, hoping to God he’ll transport her back to him, safe and sound, but Javi and Boone pull him in and shut the doors, and Tyler feels numb and hollow, thinking that’s the last time he’ll ever see her again.

He hunkers down by Javi and Boone in the movie theater. He grabs Lily when she almost flies away. He hugs her when the tornado dissipates — and Kate did it; she did it. And then he runs after Kate.

She’s dead, he thinks to himself as he runs. His leg is on fire, but the adrenaline spurs him on. Javi is behind him, hot on his heels. Please don’t be dead.

He loves her. He can count on two hands the number of days he’s known her, and he fucking loves her anyway.

They find her crawling out from under his overturned truck, alive. He and Javi pull her out the rest of the way and sit her up against the truck. He pushes the hair out of her face and caresses the side of her cheek, blood be damned. He wants to kiss her, but he doesn’t, and he settles for grinning down at her with tears in his eyes.

And Javi is there, right beside him, grinning at her, too.

So yeah, Javi is an enigma.

If Kate is there, so is he. The couple of days where it was just him and Kate were the outliers. Since Tyler met her, Javi has always been right behind Kate. Always there to watch her back, always there to catch her.

So when she leaves for New York to pitch to a giant board of members in hopes of getting some research money, it leaves Tyler and Javi alone, without her.

Kate is always a text away, and they never stop texting, really. They wake up to good morning texts from each other. Tyler sends her photos of the sunset, of storm cells off in the distance, of his truck as it goes through repairs. Kate sends him photos of skyscrapers he’s never seen before, bustling streets at night all lit up by shops and signs, and of giant meeting rooms that look too clinical and cynical for Tyler’s liking.

He stares at the photos of New York and wants her home. She doesn’t fit in places like that. She fits here, in Oklahoma, with him.

The thing is— even without Kate, Javi is still here.

The three of them are partners in their new business, along with the other Wranglers. Tyler goes out almost every day with his crew to chase, because he still has a YouTube channel to maintain. But he comes back to Mrs. Carter’s barn every day to tell Javi all about what they experienced.

Javi likes listening to him.

They bounce ideas off each other about plans to make more polymers and strategies for intercepting tornadoes more safely. 

“After what happened in El Reno…” Javi says one day, trailing off. He looks a little sick at the memory.

Tyler nods. He never wants Kate to be in that kind of danger again, either. “Trust me, I know,” he replies. “I want her safe, too.”

Javi nods, then looks surprised, like he didn’t expect Tyler to say that. Tyler’s a little confused by it — surely he knows he and Kate are dating? He saw Tyler kiss her goodbye the day she left for New York, after all.

“I didn’t mean—”

He never finishes, because Mrs. Carter comes in and tells them dinner’s on the table. And, well, neither of them would even think of telling Mrs. Carter to wait. Besides, Tyler knows Javi still loves Kate, but he’s not worried about it. It just means there’s someone else looking out for her safety, which makes him sleep better at night.

Tornado season is at an end, so Tyler spends less time in the field and more time in the barn. 

Javi spends most of the time Kate is gone setting up new equipment — PC monitors, state-of-the-art radars, and all sorts of other weather tech bought with a credit card and a prayer that Kate gets through to the National Weather Service. 

There’s only so much Tyler can do to help. He’s good with computers and running models, but there’s a whole sector of weather research that deals with data, including running a business and dealing with finances, and Javi does it all. Tyler’s no help even when he tries, so he lets Javi do his thing and get their business off the ground.

Tyler focuses on working on his truck. It’s pretty beat-up from when Kate dove it into the El Reno EF5, and even though the mechanics managed to fix the most important parts — the transmission, engine, and pedals — there’s still a lot that needs to be done.

Lily and Dexter come by to help with the bigger projects sometimes, like taking out the entire inner console to rewire the rocket launchers and A/C unit. But for the most part, Tyler works on it alone.

He doesn’t really mind. His father was a mechanic, and he grew up looking inside car hoods and taking them apart. But his truck is his baby, and it’s been tricked out to high heaven to keep them safe in the storms. It’s still cheaper to buy the parts and fix it by hand than to buy a whole new truck and trick that one out from scratch.

One particular day, Tyler’s bent over the inside of the hood, trying to replace the water pump by hand. He’s got about a hundred tools laid out for him to grab quickly and chuck out of the way. He’s elbow deep behind one of the fans when he hears Javi call out, “Need any help?”

Tyler looks up from where he was glaring at a stubborn bolt that was screwed in just a hair too tight. He blinks the sweat out of his eyes that drips from the ends of his hair. Javi is standing a few feet away so as to not step all over Tyler’s tools, smiling.

Tyler, God help him, smiles back.

“Know how to replace a water pump?” he asks. Javi grimaces, as expected. Tyler shakes his head with a snort, then points to the barn with his wrench. “Don’t worry about it, man. You just get Headquarters all spiffy and tech-savvy for us.”

Javi shrugs. “I’ve done as much as I can do right now,” he admits. “Plus, I’ve been looking at screens all day. I needed some air.”

The air is thick and hot in August and won’t cool down again until probably October or November. Javi won’t get much relief out here, especially considering there’s an A/C unit in the barn, but he’s probably most concerned about getting away from the screens.

“How’s it coming?” Javi asks.

Tyler looks back down at the inside of the hood and glares at the bolt that refuses to come loose. “It’s coming,” he says, grinning over at Javi. “Mind hanging me that rag, there?”

Javi bends down and grabs the rag that fell from where he set it on the wheel. He gives it to Tyler, who wipes his hands with it. They’re sweaty from wrestling with that bolt. It also wipes off some of the grease and grime that rubbed onto his fingers. Tyler grabs his wrench again, sets it against the bolt, and tugs.

It takes another minute or so of rearranging and cursing under his breath before he finally gets it free. “Damn,” he grunts, pulling the fan and pulley free and tossing the bolt into the little bucket at his feet, “tight fuckin’ fit.”

He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, probably smearing grime on it despite his attempt not to. When he looks around the hood for a screwdriver so he can remove the water hose, he sees Javi is still here. He’s standing exactly where he was, staring at Tyler with a gaping jaw.

Tyler raises his eyebrows, confused. “You gonna keep standing there, or are you gonna gimme that screwdriver?”

Javi shakes himself out of whatever stupor he was in, then hurriedly searches around for the screwdriver in question. When he locates it, he hands it off to Tyler, who thanks him, then bends back over to free the hose.

By the time he’s got the hose out, Javi is gone. Tyler shakes his head and gets back to work.

Tyler likes to think he’s gotten better about making spontaneous decisions, but then he goes and puts a downpayment on a house after thinking about it for two days.

It’s about as reckless as driving into a tornado, but that’s just his style. He knows Kate is coming back. She told him she’s in the process of selling her apartment and settling affairs before she comes back. And she’ll be staying back. He doesn’t even think about Arkansas when he arranges for a tour of a nice two story house ten minutes from Mrs. Carter’s house.

He’s sliding on his boots as he’s getting ready to head to the tour, when he hears the barn door shut. He grabs his keys, heads out of the Carter house, and makes a spontaneous decision.

“I’m buying a house,” Tyler tells Javi as he throws the barn door open. Javi is momentarily startled, then his eyes bug out of his head when he processes the words Tyler just said. 

“Well, at least, I hope I’m about to buy a house,” Tyler amends. “Wanna come with me?”

Javi blinks at him, then blinks again. Some of the loose papers in his notebook slip free and fall to the table in front of him. “You… what?”

“I gotta be there in, like, fifteen minutes. It’s a ten minute drive,” Tyler continues, amused by Javi’s reaction. “You in? ‘Cause we gotta leave now.”

Javi sets his notebook down on top of the papers that fell. “I’m sorry, I’m still processing the fact that you’re about to buy a house.” He shakes his head. “What about Arkansas?”

Tyler shrugs. “Not much there for me,” he replies simply. “There’s more for me here.” 

The statement feels loaded. For a moment — brief, flickering, there and gone — he forgets he’s talking about Kate. Talking about just Kate.

Javi huffs out a breath. “Shouldn’t Kate be here for this?”

Tyler winces. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. He can’t believe he didn’t think of that. 

Very carefully, he says, “Well, I’ll just wait until she comes back before I pay the down payment.” Simple fix. Then he grins, trying to play it off. “Besides, ‘s not like we’ve been dating for very long.” Less than a month, actually. “I just need a place to rest my head if I’m gonna be staying here, since this is where home base is gonna be.”

Yes, that’s a good point. Make it about work. That’s much less conspicuous than admitting he thinks it’d rip a hole in his heart if he went back to Arkansas alone.

Javi shakes his head again, but this time he’s laughing in disbelief. “Alright man, sure, whatever.” He grabs his phone and keys, because Tyler’s truck is still in the shop. “Buyin’ a house, what the hell, man.”

Tyler grins and follows him out of the barn.

The realtor assumes they’re together. Javi, embarrassed, stumbles over explanations about how Tyler is actually dating his best friend, not him. Tyler says nothing and lets Javi do all the talking.

He wasn’t planning on correcting the realtor, anyways.

Kate calls them on the way back from dinner with the Wranglers one night. Tyler pulls the truck over to the side of the road and Javi puts the phone on speaker.

“We got the grant!” she cheers, and Tyler and Javi break into excited hollers.

“That’s my girl!” Tyler grins to the phone. 

“How much?” Javi asks.

They’re both so close to each other, hunched over the console. They’re breathing in each other’s air, foreheads almost pressed together.

“Enough to make more equipment,” Kate answers, excitement thick in her voice. “More polymers, more variants, enhanced models and data collectors — guys, they said if we can get them hard evidence of what the polymers can do, they’ll give us our own research sector for the Weather Channel.”

The news bowls them over and causes a ruckus between them as they hoot in elation. 

“We’re gonna get right on it, Kate,” Javi assures her. “I’ll clean up the issues we were having with the models and send in an order for more ingredients for the polymers.”

“And the Wranglers and I will find ya some tornadoes!” Tyler promises.

“Come home soon, Kate, alright?” Javi asks. There’s a time in his voice that almost sounds like begging. 

Tyler should feel annoyed with him. Instead, he’s glad someone else has his back. “You heard him, Katie. Hurry back.”

Tyler can hear the smile in her voice. “I’m on the next flight out,” she promises. 

When Javi hangs up, he and Tyler grab for each other and hug tightly in celebration. Javi laughs, relieved. “She did it.”

Tyler grins into Javi’s shoulder. “As if there were any doubt.”

Kate comes back on a windy Tuesday evening.

Tyler, Javi, and Mrs. Carter meet her at the airport. Kate hugs her mother first, then Tyler, then Javi. She kisses Tyler hello as he and Javi grab her bags, and Tyler pulls her close to kiss her even deeper.

He’s missed her so damn much. She smells like flowers and rain, and her hair is flat from the stale air of the airplane cabin. He loves her so much it hurts.

“Missed you, Sapulpa,” he murmurs against her lips. 

He feels her smile. “Missed you too, cowboy.”

Javi makes dramatic gagging noises behind them. Kate pulls away with a giggle, and when Tyler spins around, ready to defend themselves, he finds Javi looking pleased rather than jealous. It makes Tyler’s shoulders relax.

He was worried Kate’s return would change the stable peace he and Javi created in her absence, but Tyler is pleased to see that, after a week has passed with her being back, the peace is still going strong. Kate still stays at her mom’s house rather than moving in with Tyler, as expected. Tyler and Javi still meet in Mrs. Carter’s barn with Kate, and the Wranglers meet them, too.

They work day and night, combining the polymer mixture into barrels, tracking storms on the radars, and running models. It’s mostly the latter, as tornado season has come and gone, which means Tyler’s role mostly sits simmering on the back burner for now.

Not that he minds. The Wranglers come and visit him in his house all the time, and Tyler spends many days sitting in Mrs. Carter’s barn with Kate and Javi as they do a bunch of funky physics equations and refine the parameters on their models.

They make a plan for the next season: the polymer mixture used in El Reno will continue to be used on EF3-level tornadoes and up, to track consistency for the National Weather Service data. The newest polymer mixtures are only to be used on EF1s and EF2s until it can be confirmed they work. 

“How are we tracking the EF1s?” Dexter asks as they crowd around Kate’s computer. There’s an Excel spreadsheet up in anticipation of data collection this season, but at the very top is a key that very clearly indicates:

EF1–2: NO RADAR USE

EF3–5: RADAR-TRACKING

“Tyler and Kate will decide in the field if the tornado is safe enough to drive into,” Javi explains. “We’ll wait for their signal of either a Go or No-Go.”

The others nod, including Boone, even though he says, “Are we sure about this?”

Kate nods sharply. “I won’t lose another team to a falsely-projected EF1,” she says sternly. “A radar only knows so much.”

It makes Tyler feel warm inside, how protective she and Javi are of this team. This team that used to be Tyler’s but is now theirs. Standing around the table, together like this, feels like home more than Arkansas or his own house ever will.

“You can’t even read a radar, Boone,” Tyler teases, flinging his arm around his shoulders and giving him a noogie. Boone screeches and starts fighting back, but Tyler still manages to overpower him. 

“Can too!” Boone shouts, flinging his fists that never land. “C’mere, you, c’mere!”

The Wranglers laugh, and Tyler takes great satisfaction in showing off while Kate and Javi watch from the desk.

Kate comes over to Tyler’s house whenever he’s not at Mrs. Carter’s.

It feels good when she’s here, like a puzzle piece slotting into place. Like the feeling of a temperature change as the cap breaks and a funnel cloud starts to form. She spends the night a lot, and they drive to Mrs. Carter’s barn — which he is now conveniently calling Headquarters — together the mornings that follow.

They make plans, and they prepare, and the money from the research grant is well spent.

Javi starts coming over, too. It starts as an extended invitation by Kate, since it’s practically her house, too, and Tyler doesn’t shoot it down. They watch shitty ‘80s thrillers and argue about the right way to cook pasta.

After that, Javi comes over more often, mostly with Kate, but sometimes without.

(It’s almost inevitable, at that point.)

Winter in Oklahoma brings no snow, but Kate doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, she looks more than pleased at not having to shovel mounds of snow every day just to get off her porch. Tyler suggests they take a trip to New York so he can make a snowman, and Kate shouts at him to forget the whole idea. Tyler just laughs and draws her in for a hug.

The Wranglers separate for Christmas. Javi goes back to Miami, and the others catch different flights to different parts of Arkansas. Tyler manages to get a ticket the day Javi leaves, so Kate sees them both off to the airport.

It’s reminiscent of the day Kate left for New York, where he and Javi saw her off. Tyler’s flight leaves first, and Kate kisses him goodbye in front of everyone.

“Safe flight,” she murmurs against his lips.

Tyler grins down at her. “I ain’t have any control over that, darling, but for you, I’ll find a way.”

He kisses her again, then moves over to Javi. He only has a split second of hesitation, because Kate’s right there, but he ignores it and draws Javi into a tight hug anyway. Javi pats him on the back, then smooths his hands out across Tyler’s shoulders. Tyler takes a moment, just one moment, and closes his eyes, taking in the feeling of having Javi right there against him.

He pulls away when he realizes it’s been too long. “You have a Merry Christmas, Miami,” he says, beaming at Javi to hide how wrongfooted he feels without Javi in his arms. He shoves the thought aside. What the hell?

“You too, Owens,” Javi replies with a smile.

Tyler feels the need to kiss Kate again, so he does. His chest alights with warmth at the way she melts against him, her small hands holding onto his neck, her flowery shampoo and sweet perfume thick in his nose.

He still loves her. Nothing has changed.

He enters the security line, waving goodbye as he does. Kate and Javi wave back, before heading to the other side of the check-in station to get Javi checked in.

He mails the Wranglers their Christmas gifts, including Kate’s and Javi’s, because he’s a coward, and whatever happened at the airport means Tyler needs space. So he plans to stay a couple days more and mails out their gifts as soon as he gets them.

Christmas evening, after a spread of food fit for royalty, Tyler checks his phone and finds he has multiple messages from his friends. They’re various thank you texts for the gifts they received — a super-charged battery pack for Lily and a new vest for Boone; small things for the whole crew that still mean a lot. But he waits until he’s safe in his room to open the ones from Kate and Javi.

Kate sends him a picture of the necklace he bought her, glittering with a diamond-encrusted tornado pendant on a sturdy gold chain. It lays perfectly against her sternum, right at the dip of her breasts, and Tyler’s breath is taken away by how gorgeous she looks.

He wants to call her immediately, but curiosity gets the better of him, and he opens Javi’s text before he can stop himself.

There’s not a lot Tyler knows about professional outfits, but every time he saw Javi wearing his StormPAR clothes way back at the start of the season last year, he was always wearing some kind of watch. 

So maybe Tyler splurged a little and got Javi a fancy watch with a Tornado Wrangler logo in it. Maybe there’s a primal part of him that feels like branding Javi with his — their — logo is some sort of… claim , but to anyone else, it just looks like a gift between colleagues and CEOs.

It fits around his wrist like a glove, not too loose and not too tight. The gold looks incredible against his skin, and Tyler is overcome with a sudden urge to wrap his fingers around Javi’s wrist and caress it.

He calls Kate instead to wish her a Merry Christmas, and tries to put the thought of Javi’s wrist wearing his brand out of his head.

They all return to Oklahoma at the end of December and throw a New Year’s Eve party in the barn. Tyler kisses Kate at midnight, and the Wranglers all make gagging sounds or boo them. This, of course, only makes them make out even more aggressively.

When they break away, Tyler’s eyes land on Javi’s first, on accident. He’s smiling, but there’s a look in his eye that makes Tyler’s heartbeat accelerate. He looks away, feeling flushed, and dumps the rest of his alcohol into the trash can outside.

January and February are freezing cold, enough that Tyler starts cursing the wind.

“It’s Oklahoma,” Tyler emphasizes, bundling himself in layers of padded, cushiony winter clothes he stole from Kate. They’re sitting around in his living room, watching beach movies and longing for the heat. “There’s no reason for this!”

Javi nods — or at least, Tyler thinks he does, considering all he can really see of Javi is the top of his head, where it’s peeking out from a mound of blankets. “This is ridiculous!” he says, though it’s muffled through the blankets.

Tyler nods, pleased in his allyship with Javi. Kate rolls her eyes at them, wearing nothing but a pair of leggings and a long-sleeve shirt, because she’s insane. “What a bunch of drama queens,” she laughs. 

“Javi! She’s making fun of us! Can you believe this?” Tyler squawks with indignation.

Javi pops his head out from the blanket mound. “That’s blasphemy, Kate, how could you?”

Kate shakes her head and rolls onto her stomach, effectively draping herself across their laps. Or, whatever part of Javi is hidden inside of the middle section of the mound. “My poor babies,” she croons. “How ever will you two stay warm in this cold, cold weather?”

“And now she mocks us,” Tyler says, narrowing his eyes playfully. “Javi, we can’t stand for this.”

It’s all the permission Javi needs to lunge out of the blanket mound and grab her. Kate shrieks as Javi jabs his fingers into her sides. They collapse onto the floor as Javi tickles her and Kate’s arms and legs jerk around as she tries to fight back.

Tyler sits there for a few passing seconds, watching. His face hurts from grinning so hard, watching Kate flip Javi over and almost break free, only to be dragged back down and attacked again.

“Tyler!” she cries. “Help!”

Tyler jumps into the pile, coming to her aid despite starting the scuffle in the first place. With his help, he and Kate manage to pin Javi down onto his back, one of Tyler’s hands holding down one of Javi’s wrists, and Kate’s hand holding down the other.

They giggle to each other. In the background, a Beach Boys song is playing over the movie — Tyler can’t even remember what they were watching. Kate rests her head on Tyler’s shoulder, trying to catch her breath. None of them move.

The air is hot for an entirely different reason, now.

When they let go and huddle back to the couch, the air feels just as supercharged as it did on the floor.

The first two tornadoes to spring up in Oklahoma in March aren’t too bad. EF2s and EF3s, and while they still cause considerable damage and numerous injuries, there are no reported deaths in either storms.

They chase both of them, too slow to catch the first but able to intercept the other. They try the polymer solution again, to check for consistencies between last season and this one. Javi and Kate spend hours agonizing over the data from the storm. It’s all positive, but that only makes them more intrigued as to how they can make it even more effective.

They manage to catch the third tornado in three weeks, another EF3, springing up ten miles from Sapulpa. This time, they've got a new set of fancy monitors that Javi managed to convince the military to give him (mostly because of the pressure from the NWS, but still), and they're planning on setting them up this go around. They’re in three separate cars — Tyler and Kate in his truck, Boone and Lily in the V Wagen, and Dex and Dani in the caravan. 

Everyone has dropped their monitors except Tyler and Kate, but theirs is the hardest to anchor because they have to get in front of it. 

“Here!” Kate says, gesturing left, and Tyler yanks the wheel hard in the direction she’s pointing at. The truck skids with the velocity of their sudden turn, but Tyler keeps it steady, then puts his foot to the floor.

The tornado is growing in size, slowly turning from a rope to a wedge every mile it crosses. Tyler’s heart thunders in his chest in both excitement and fear. If you feel it, chase it.

“Okay stop! Stop!” Kate yells, already unbuckling her seatbelt. Tyler hits the breaks, and the truck rolls through the thick mud as it slows to a stop. Kate’s out of the door and around the back of the truck before he can even blink, so he scrambles to throw his seatbelt aside and follow her.

The wind is picking up with more force the closer the tornado gets. They’ve only got a few seconds before they need to go. They drag the monitor out with practiced ease, kicking the legs out and anchoring them into the ground as deep as they’ll go. 

“Kate, we gotta go!” Tyler shouts over the roar of the tornado.

They book it to the truck, but this time, Kate takes the wheel. Tyler doesn’t have time to argue, so he hops into the truck and locks on the harness as Kate floors it. She kicks up mud but manages to get them moving. Tyler’s back hits the seat as they shoot forward and through the pasture, back to the road. 

They still have to get out of the tornado’s path because the truck can’t outrun an EF3. Kate looks determined, a hard set in her eyes and jaw ticking as she clenches her teeth, effectively maneuvering them out of the way of flying debris.

Kate says nothing the whole time, but Tyler wouldn’t register anything she says, anyway. His eyes are locked on her hands, the way they expertly twist the wheel and slide around the circumference. At one point, she overcorrects too much, and her arm swings down to jerk the gear shift into reverse, swings them around, and pulls the shifter back into drive. Her biceps flex when she does, and her fingers wrap back around the wheel with smooth efficiency. 

Tyler thinks he’s drooling.

She gets them out of there, but Tyler never doubted that. He doesn’t even notice they’re back at the rendezvous point with the other Wranglers until Kate sighs in relief and shuts off the truck. She looks over at him with a grin, and Tyler scrambles to wipe his mouth and try to play it cool.

“That was close,” she says, not noticing how red his face is, or maybe thinking it’s from the stress of the escape. “You okay?”

Tyler flashes her a sultry smile, trying to mask his unbelievably flustered he is. “More than, darlin’, thanks to you.”

Kate leans over and pecks a quick kiss to his lips, then opens the door. “C’mon, let’s see what data Javi got.”

Tyler waits a few more seconds after she’s gone to take some deep breaths, trying to compose himself. He feels silly for being so attracted to Javi after watching Kate just now, then ashamed. He shakes himself out of it, trying to forget about it, then follows Kate out of the truck.

Kate and Javi don't leave the barn all evening, drooling over all the numbers they obtained.

“It’s still taking at least three minutes from polymer ejection to tornado dissipation,” Kate says, gnawing on her thumb nail as she eyes the scans for the thousandth time that evening. “There has to be something we can do to speed up the process.”

Tyler reminds her, very gently, “The fact that you can even force a tornado to dissipate in the first place is nothin’ short of a miracle, darlin’.”

Kate is undeterred. “Those three minutes cost how many people’s lives that day in El Reno?” she fires back. She’s not mean about it, just blunt and straight-to-the-point, like she always is. “Those three minutes almost killed Lily.”

“Those three minutes almost killed you,” Javi reminds her. “I’m more focused on how we can put those polymers into the tornado without having you drive straight into a violent EF5.”

Tyler clicks his tongue and points at Javi in agreement. “Bingo.”

Kate shushes them sharply. “I told you not to mention that when my mom’s around,” she whispers harshly. Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Carter did not take well to hearing that her daughter had driven into the tornado and nearly died in it, and she gives Kate grief for it every time she’s reminded, just to make sure she never thinks about doing something like that again.

Javi and Tyler snicker to each other. Kate just rolls her eyes. “You two,” she sighs, shaking her head and pulling her laptop closer to her. Javi moves in closer to take a look at her screen. 

Tyler tries to ignore the way his heart kickstarts at her words — you two, like they’re a unit, like they have the same connected togetherness that Tyler has with her — and heads back out of the barn to where his Wranglers are outside, waiting for a chase. 

One day in April, Tyler comes back to Headquarters from a morning chase and an afternoon trip to the mechanic, and finds Kate and Javi’s cars are still there. The lights in Mrs. Carter’s house are all off, which means she’s likely gone to bed, but there’s light spilling out from underneath the barn door. He shakes his head and makes his way over.

“Now why the hell are you two—” he starts to say, but cuts himself off.

Kate and Javi are exactly where Tyler left them five hours prior. Javi is fast asleep, head pillowed on his arms crossed on the table in front of him. Kate is still awake, frantically typing away as she makes edits to their model. There are torn-up and crumbled papers all over the floor. She startles hard when Tyler walks in, eyes wide, hair a little askew. Tyler crosses his arms at her and frowns.

Kate, for her part, looks sheepish at getting caught being up so late like this, but she doesn’t try to explain herself. Instead, she just says, “I’m almost done, I swear.”

Tyler shakes his head, then turns around and heads out of the barn. He slips into the kitchen in the main house, where he knows a plate of food is waiting for him. The Wranglers have already helped themselves to their portions and headed back to their own apartments, but have left Tyler his share.

He unwraps the plastic wrap from around it, then pops it in the microwave. When it’s nice and hot, he takes it out and carefully shuts the microwave as quietly as he can, so as to not wake up Mrs. Carter. He grabs a fork and two throw blankets from the back of the couch, then heads back out to the barn.

Kate doesn’t look up from her typing when he comes back in, but she does tell him, “We worked on this model the whole time you were gone. I think we’ve got the specs where we need them. We’ve been running a bunch of hypotheticals and I think we narrowed down the top ten best possible—”

She cuts herself off when Tyler puts the plate of food beside her laptop. He sticks the fork into the mashed potatoes, then drapes one of the blankets around her shoulders. 

“Atta girl,” he says proudly, leaning down to kiss her softly.

She beams at him, then digs into the food while she lets the model run another suggestion. He watches it for a moment, intrigued, then puts his attention on Javi. He’s gonna have a crick in his neck in the morning for sleeping like this, that’s for sure. Tyler unfolds the second blanket and lays it around Javi’s back, tucking it up around his shoulders so that it doesn’t fall.

He’s got a little piece of paper stuck in one of his curls. Tyler takes a long, deep breath, then carefully works his fingers between the strands to pluck the paper out without waking him. He flicks the paper away, and it drifts down to the floor with the rest of the ripped-up pieces. A thought flashes through his mind, and before he can stop himself, he’s reaching out again to brush some of Javi’s curls out of his face and behind his ear.

Javi takes a breath, and Tyler freezes. Javi shifts around, like he’s scratching his nose with his arm, then settles again. Tyler lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, relieved, then looks up.

Kate, shit. She’s staring right at him.

“Uh, he— uh,” Tyler sputters. His heartbeat rackets upwards, beating hard like he’d doing sprints. “He had some paper. In his hair.” He clamps his jaw together and shuts the hell up.

Nothing happened. He didn’t do anything wrong. There’s not a problem.

Kate reflects the mantras he’s repeating. She smiles, then goes back to her work. He exhales harshly again. What the hell was he thinking? What even was— 

Tyler tries to push it from his brain, make it blank and turn it off so that he doesn’t think about it. He sits down in the chair beside Kate — not Javi, even though that one is free, because Kate is his girlfriend, and he loves her.

He loves her so much; what the hell was he thinking?

He sits and waits for Kate to finish, talking to her about what she and Javi found. When she’s done, Tyler shuts the laptop for her. She takes the plate, and Tyler wraps his arms around her to herd her out of the chair so that she doesn’t try to pull the five more minutes card.

She shakes Javi awake as gently as she can. Tyler only has a split second to realize that Javi is going to notice the blanket around him before he opens his eyes. Javi blinks, eyes groggy from sleep, and smiles up at Kate like she’s hung the moon. 

Tyler should be mad. He had a girlfriend in high school whose best friend was in love with her, and he wanted to punch the guy in the face every time he openly flirted with her in front of Tyler.

But this doesn’t feel like that. He’s never seen Javi as a threat, or taken his actions as disrespect. He looks at Javi smiling up at Kate with a soft, sleepy expression on his face, and all he feels is content.

“C’mon, it’s time for bed,” Kate says to him. It’s only then, it appears, that Javi notices that they’re still in the barn. And then he notices the blanket around him, and the one around Kate. And then he sits up, and his eyes fall on Tyler, still dressed from wrangling tornadoes, and the only one without a blanket.

He has to know it was Tyler. Surely, he does, for as smart as he is. But Javi does get embarrassed like he usually does when Tyler’s maybe-probably crossed a line. Instead, he turns his sleepy-soft smile from Kate onto Tyler, open and vulnerable.

Tyler wants to kiss him.

Instantly, he straightens up and tightens his arms around Kate where they’ve slumped down. “C’mon you two, up to bed,” he orders, directed mostly to Kate. He guides her to the door of the barn, knowing Javi will grab the laptop and follow suit.

He’s not sure what that thought was. He’s never had it before, and it will never happen again. He just got Kate— just got her back, bought a house hoping she’ll move in one day and maybe, if he’s lucky, will start a family with her. Her. Kate.

Kate.

Kate reaches behind her, through the blanket still around her shoulders, and holds it out for Javi. Javi wastes no time and clasps their hands together.

Tyler is furious. 

Javi takes the guest bedroom, and Tyler stays with Kate in her room. He lays beside her, bundling her up against him, staring aimlessly in the dark. What’s the matter with him? He should have pulled Kate’s hand free from Javi’s, but he didn’t. Why? 

Maybe it was because Kate initiated it. Javi can’t be trying to encroach on his relationship when it’s Kate who made the move. 

Maybe it’s because, even after that, Tyler still doesn’t see Javi as a threat. He tries to rationalize it — any man is allowed to be upset when his girlfriend’s best friend is holding her hand, when he’s knowingly in love with her. But no matter how hard Tyler tries, his chest never gets that hollow, jealous feeling. Javi will never be a threat to him. Javi could— Javi could kiss Kate and he still wouldn’t be—

Tyler shoves his face into his hands, trying to wipe the thought away. Because now he’s thinking of Javi kissing Kate and it’s— it’s—

He hides his tears in his pillow. First he wants to kiss Javi, now he wants him to kiss Kate? He’s such a bad fucking boyfriend. How could he do this to her? 

How could he do this to her?

He gets very little sleep that night. Kate can tell, if the way she hovers by him all morning and dotes on him a little extra is any indication. She’s the one who gets him his morning coffee, makes it just the way he likes. She’s the one who makes a plate for him when Mrs. Carter makes breakfast. 

Usually, Tyler’s the one who does these things for Kate. He likes to take care of her. And now, he can’t even do that, because he’s exhausted from endless images of him kissing Javi and Javi kissing Kate.

Fucking shitty boyfriend.

Maybe even worse, though, is Javi. He also stays close to Tyler that morning, though Tyler isn’t sure why. Maybe he thinks Tyler’s acting weird because of a close call in the field yesterday. Or he can tell Tyler hardly slept and he’s worried, because Javi is a lover, and he’ll worry himself to death over his friends because he loves them so much.

Tyler loves him, too.

Whatever the reason, Javi’s eyes hardly leave Tyler all morning. When Kate takes his right side at the table, Javi takes his left. He stays close. Tyler wants to be annoyed. He should want alone time with his girlfriend, or want to not be treated like he’s a child on the verge of a meltdown. 

But it’s so fucking nice, having Kate on one side of him and Javi on the other. 

He can smell Kate’s flowery shampoo, watch her from his peripherals as she huffs as her hair gets in her food, then pulls it up into a claw clip. She’s soft and small beside him, and her leg presses against his under the table, a point of contact that brings him comfort.

And Javi— he uses some sort of lotion or body scrub every day, shea butter and almond. Tyler’s seen it on the sink in the bathroom they all have to share, because no one wants to intrude on Mrs. Carter’s bathroom. Tyler can smell it like he smells Kate’s shampoo, and his curls bounce when he laughs at a joke Mrs. Carter made. His shoulders are broader than Kate’s, so his right arm ends up brushing against Tyler’s left as they eat.

Two points of contact from the people beside him. Two unique smells, two unique voices that get fuzzy and distant when Tyler closes his eyes. The longer he stays there, stuck between them, the angrier he gets. 

He wants this all the time. What a selfish thing to want, sitting in the kitchen of his girlfriend’s childhood home while her mother cooks them breakfast and eats with them. And Tyler wants to kiss her daughter, but also her daughter’s best friend. 

“Tyler?” he hears.

He opens his eyes and looks over at Kate, who is staring at him with her big, beautiful eyes. Worried eyes. “You okay?”

Tyler is going to be sick.

“Fine,” he manages to get out. “I’m gonna meet the Wranglers by the barn. They should be here soon.” He stands, setting his napkin down on the table. “Food was delicious, Mrs. Carter.”

Javi furrows his eyebrows at him. “But you haven’t finished your—”

Tyler is out the door before Javi can say the rest. 

It’s Javi who chases him, to his surprise, and not Kate.

He waits in the barn for the Wranglers, who, according to the radio, are only about five minutes out. Approximately a minute after Tyler sits down at his desk, Javi walks through the barn doors with  Tyler’s breakfast plate. 

Tyler closes his eyes again. He can’t look at Javi. He wants to cry, wants to pin him against one of the support beams and kiss him silly, a thank you for looking after him. If he doesn’t look at Javi, maybe he won’t want to. 

“Thought I’d bring this while you wait,” Javi says to him. “You only ate a bite.”

It’s true. Tyler only managed a forkful of eggs before he felt too nauseous to eat any more. He can’t believe Javi noticed. 

Closing his eyes does nothing to help.

So he opens them. Javi is sitting across from him, eye level, a concerned look on his face. “What’s going on, man? Kate and I are worried.”

Kate. Kate can tell something is wrong, of course she can. She’s brilliant, and Tyler isn’t subtle. And so can Javi, because he’s a genius, and he can read Tyler in a way that he can’t even read himself. Fuckin’ data reader in every sense of the term.

“Just some heartburn,” he fibs, flashing his pearly whites at Javi to throw him off the trail. “Got back late yesterday, ate too close to bed. I’m still feelin’ it, that’s all.”

Javi’s face stays exactly the same. “You didn’t eat last night, Tyler.”

Tyler’s smile freezes on his face. No, he didn’t, because he brought his plate to Kate. Javi knows that, because he saw her carrying the plate off to bed, wrapped in a blanket that Tyler threw over her, the way he threw one over Javi. 

“Lily wasn’t hungry,” he lies smoothly. “She left her portion, so I gave it to Kate. I ate mine as soon as we got back to the house.”

Javi knows he’s lying. Not one of the Wranglers would ever pass up Mrs. Carter’s cooking, even if they’d eaten a three-course meal an hour before. But Javi has no evidence, so Tyler has deniability.

Javi looks at him. He looks, and he looks, and Tyler looks right back. His eyes are so green. Big and green and looking like a set of planets against a dark galaxy. He’s gorgeous, and Tyler wants to chase him. Javi’s tongue darts out from his mouth, running over his lips in a quick motion, and Tyler tracks the movement with sharp, precise eyes.

“Tyler—” Javi starts, but whatever he was about to say is interrupted by the barn door opening. Kate is there, and behind her are the Wranglers climbing out of the caravan and car. 

Tyler stands abruptly and stalks off before Javi can say anything else. He passes Kate, but she grabs his arm to stop him. He pauses, heart racing, then takes a deep breath and looks back at her. 

She says nothing. But she stares at him like she’s looking into his soul. Her face never changes, and her gaze never wavers, and it isn’t until Javi comes to stand a few paces behind her that Tyler realizes.

She knows.

Moving on autopilot, he bends down and pecks her lips — assure her you’re in love with her — then hurries off to greet the Wranglers. 

There are two storm cells just south of Sapulpa that look promising, and both Kate and Tyler agree that both cells are likely to give them something, so the crew splits up into groups of two.

Tyler grabs the keys for his truck as the team decides who’s going with who. Kate and Javi both look at Tyler, and in a flash of panic, Tyler says, “Boone, hurry up or I’m leaving your ass behind!”

Boone lights up at the idea of finally getting to ride shotgun again. He rushes to the truck, whooping and hollering, while the crew laughs at him. Besides, it’s not like Boone never rides with him anymore. Kate and Javi group up a lot, too. 

Tyler wants to leave then and there, wants to run from his problems and into a tornado instead. But he can’t leave without telling Kate goodbye, so he pulls her in and kisses her. 

“See you out there, Sapulpa,” he says, smiling at her. He hopes it’s convincing enough.

She smiles back at him, though worry is still clear in her eyes. “Don’t do anything too stupid,” she warns. 

Tyler grins. “Who, me?”

She slugs him on the shoulder, laughing, and the tension around them eases. She really is too good for him.

She pulls back to make her way towards one of the cars, but Tyler can’t move. There’s an instinct that calls out towards Javi, so before he can help himself, he says, “Be careful out there.”

Javi sends him a reassuring smile as he walks backwards towards the cars. “Always am, Owens.”

He feels better now that he’s told them both goodbye. He climbs into the truck as Boone yaps excitedly beside him. Tyler peers into the rearview mirror to see which cars his people climb into.

Dexter and Dani are in the caravan, as expected. Lily rides shotgun with Kate in the Volkswagen. Her drone circles the air around them, ready to fly. Javi takes his shiny new truck, a black Toyota Tundra, alone.

Tyler frowns and pulls up next to Javi. “You’re not ridin’ with Kate or Dex?” he asks. He doesn’t like that. He won’t be alone, for all intents and purposes. They’ll all be together on the road, connected to the radios. But no one will be there with him inside the cabin. Javi will have to make all split-second decisions by himself, while driving.

Javi smiles at him. “I’ll be fine, Owens,” he assures. “Not my first rodeo, remember?”

Tyler frowns. He goes to make a rebuttal, to tell him to hop into the back of Tyler’s truck and ride with them, but Dex and Dani hightail it out of the driveway, cheering over the radio, and Kate takes off after them. 

“Let’s go tame a tornado!” Boone hollers, banging on the side of the car out the window. 

Javi grins at him one last time, then gasses it after Kate and the others. Tyler curses to himself, then throws the truck into drive and speeds off after him. 

Boone’s live, that much is obvious. He chatters happily to the viewers who are watching the livestream— and Tyler tries to keep up good appearances, tries to smile and hoot with Boone and talk to the viewers about what their plan is, but every time he thinks about it, he remembers that Javi is separating from them, by himself. 

It puts a sinking pool of dread into his gut. After a while, he shuts up and focuses on the cars in front of him, letting Boone do most of the entertainment. 

The radio crackles to life as they approach the intersection where they’re supposed to split up. “Kate says we’ve got a touchdown west of us!” Lily shouts. “The south cell hasn’t formed yet, but we’re heading for the west!”

Without thinking, Tyler grabs the radio and presses the comm. “Javi’s with me,” he orders. “Dex and Dani, you follow Kate and Lily to the west cell. Javi and I will take the south.”

After a moment, the radio crackles again. “Tyler, are you sure?” Javi asks, slightly bewildered.

Tyler presses the comm again and grits out, “Yes, now hit the gas.”

Dani hollers from over the radio. Beside Tyler, Boone yells to the camera, “We’ve got two sexy storm cells our team is chasing, and Tyler Owens just made another high-intensity choice: we’re goin’ south baby!”

Kate, Dexter, Dani, Lily, and the drone veer right, heading for the western storm. There’s already a tornado on the ground there, so Kate has a better chance of getting her newest polymers in the air. The southern storm hasn’t formed yet, which means there’s a chance Javi won’t have to drive beside a tornado by himself.

It’ll make for a shitty stream, but Tyler couldn’t care less.

Javi’s in front of him, so he follows Javi through the intersection, keeping straight down the highway towards the next town. He flexes his fingers around the wheel, eyes locked on Javi’s truck. They drive on, leaving the town behind as they speed down straight roads and flat planes of pasture. The further they go, the darker the storm clouds get.

The wind picks up, blowing gusts of dirt and stray piles of hay onto the road. Tyler can feel a shift in the air through the rolled-down windows, the way it only feels right before a tornado starts twisting in the clouds.

Tyler presses the gas harder.

Boone hollers beside him, slamming his hand on the roof. “Let’s goooo, baby!” he yells, playing it up for the camera, probably because Tyler’s doing an awful job of being entertaining.

The clouds look different now, but not the right kind of different. A sinking feeling pools low in his gut. He glances in the rearview mirror, and that’s when he sees it.

“Oh hell,” Tyler whispers as he sees the first part of the funnel swirl in the clouds. The tornado is behind them.

“Ty, you seeing this?” Javi shouts excitedly over the radio. “Look at that thing! No hesitation— look how fast it’s forming!”

It is forming fast. Too fast for Tyler’s liking. It takes a lot of power to form that quickly. And Tyler and Javi are about to drive right into it if they don’t get the hell out of its path.

“We’re in front of it,” Javi says, more serious this time, finally realizing the depth of the situation they’re in. If they’re in front of it, that means they’re not chasing the tornado; the tornado is chasing them.

There are cars all around them, speeding up or slowing down as they see the tornado touch down. Blues and reds and blacks flash in his peripherals. Tyler clenches the wheel as he dodges some of the cars flying between lanes, frantically speeding in hopes of outrunning the tornado. They pass Tyler’s truck and surround Javi’s, until the entire highway is packed lane-to-lane with people trying to escape.

Boone throws half his body out the window to get a shot of the tornado. Tyler’s glad — it means the camera won’t catch the sheer panic on his face as he tries to keep his eyes on Javi’s truck in the traffic. Fuckin’ hell. This is why Tyler prefers to take the back roads. 

“Oh shit, look how big it’s getting!” Boone screeches in delight. Tyler glances behind him and feels his heart drop. 

That’s not a rope tornado anymore. 

“Boone, get the hell in the truck!” Tyler shouts as he frantically grabs for the radio. “Javi! Javi, take this side road up ahead!”

Tyler receives no answer. He’s probably trying to maneuver around the psychos on the road, which requires both his hands on the wheel. Tyler tries not to freak out. He’s got his eyes on Javi. Everything is fine.

Two cars on either side of Javi decide to merge at the same time to pass someone in the right lane, but end up crashing into each other in the middle lane — Javi’s lane. Javi hits the gas and escapes the pile-up, and Tyler swerves dangerously into the left lane to avoid the crash. He hears another car slam into the wreck behind him, but he can’t stop to help. He’s got to get Javi and Boone out of here.

The side road is coming up at the intersection, so Tyler shouts into the radio, “Javi, take the right!”

Javi does not take the right. He keeps going, straight on through. Tyler yells out for him. For a split second, he thinks about following. But he hears Boone beside him say, “Tyler, holy shit,” and remembers that he’s got someone in the truck. He can’t let something happen to Boone because he was reckless.

He closes his eyes, sends a prayer up to God to watch over Javi, and takes the sharp right at the intersection.

It throws them off the tornado’s trail, so that’s something. But Javi is still in the direct path, and he’s not answering the radio. 

Tyler goes off-road. He’s far enough from the tornado that he’s not in its path, veering into the nearby pasture. To the side of them, the tornado ravages everything in its path. He can’t see anything behind it anymore — it’s too wide. But he can see huge chunks of road, buildings, and cars flinging around in its debris cloud. 

When Tyler tries the radio again and still receives no answer from Javi, he slams his hand into it in a fit of fury. “Boone, I need my phone!”

Boone scrambles for the glove compartment. It doesn’t look like he’s recording anymore. He slides open the screen and presses call on Javi’s contact, and Tyler could cry. Boone always knows exactly what he needs.

The call never goes through. It was a long shot anyway. Tyler can hear power lines snapping as the tornado rips over them, and every few feet, the tornado lights up with power flashes. He knew the lines were down. But he had to try.

Tyler drives far enough away that the winds won’t pick them up. He hits the breaks, because the tornado has picked up speed. He can’t outrun it anymore. And neither can Javi.

Tyler pounds his hands onto the steering wheel once, twice, yells “FUCK” with his whole chest, then hits the wheel again. He stares at the tornado as it decimates the neighborhood right by the road. They watch as whole houses lift into the air, peeling apart like the flaps on a box on Christmas morning. 

There’s no way Javi made it out of there.

There’s no sound except the violent roar of the tornado and the hair-raising sound of houses being ripped apart. Tyler and Boone watch, detached, as the tornado bulldozes through the neighborhood. He’s watching people die, right now. He’s watching Javi die.

The tornado is heading west, where Kate and the others are. It sends a new wave of panic through Tyler’s body— he’s about to lose them both—

But then. There’s a large, grassy hill to the left of the neighborhood. The tornado runs into it, climbs it, but has lost steam by the time it makes it to the top. It powers on, but it only makes it another few miles before it slowly, agonizingly, dissipates. 

For a moment, Tyler and Boone sit in silence. They’re both breathing hard. Tyler’s entire body is trembling, and his eyes burn they way they do when he’s about to cry.

“That had to be an EF4. At least,” Boone remarks, stunned. “There’s no way it was anything less.”

This must be how Kate felt, the day she lost Jeb, Addy, and Praveen. Thinking they were running into an EF1 when they were caught by an EF5. 

Tyler continues to stare at the neighborhood. With the wind gone, he can hear people screaming through his open windows. He feels numb. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t have a single thought in his head. His whole body feels like he was the one flung around inside the tornado.

“Ty,” Boone says softly. “We’ve gotta go help.”

Tyler nods, feeling out of sorts. He works on autopilot, putting the truck into gear and circling back to the road. His peripherals work overtime to help him spot debris in the road, because he’s not really seeing anything at all. He’s looking forward. Just forward. 

He drives into the neighborhood, taking in the wreckage. All that remains are piles of rubble — broken bricks, splintered wood, and mangled cars. People are climbing out of their piles of houses. People are crying or calling out for others. Tyler takes the road slow, careful as he drives over live wires and sharp debris. 

He rolls to a stop when he finds a broken jewelry box in the middle of the street. He parks the truck on the side of the road, then gets out. A pearl necklace spills out of the top, along with strings of plastic beads — jewelry made by a child.

“I’ve gotta find him,” Tyler says, partially to Boone, and partially to no one. 

Boone, who is helping an elderly woman sit on the curb, nods. “I’m following you, buddy.”

They hurry along the road, careful of wires on the ground. Boone stops to help people every so often, but Tyler keeps going. Seconds matter. If there’s a chance Javi is alive, he can’t waste any time. 

Tyler feels his chest heaving despite the lack of exertion. There are more people alive than he expected. They’re crawling out of storm cellars and upturned bathtubs and ripped-up mattresses. They’re heartbroken and injured but alive, so maybe Javi is, too.

He gets more hope, the further in he goes. Maybe Javi did manage to escape it. The neighborhood ends with a stop sign and another road, not a cul-de-sac. Javi could have gotten out of the tornado’s path. He hasn’t seen Javi, or the truck, and maybe that means the worst-case-scenario, but maybe it means the best, and it’s possible that—

Tyler’s eyes fall on a black truck, upturned on top of the rubble of another house, crushed and mangled beyond repair. It’s the only black truck he’s seen since entering the neighborhood.

“Please, God,” he begs as he makes his way towards it, walking fast and frantic. “Please, God. Please.”

He gets close enough to see the upside down Toyota logo on the back of the hatch. No.

“Javi!” Tyler screams and takes off for the truck. He leaps up onto the rubble, grabbing hold of the running board to keep from sliding down. Some of the wood cuts at his calf, but his boot protects him from most of it. 

He gets a vicious flashback of seeing Kate crawling out of his overturned truck, and for a moment he has hope, but when he bends down to look inside the cabin, he finds it empty. The windshield is gone, the driver’s seat belt is still buckled, and there’s no one in the cabin.

“Dammit!” he cries, shoving at the truck, irate. His vision blurs with tears. There’s no way Javi survived being pulled out of the truck and flung. The odds are too slim. He’s gone. He’s gone.

“They found Addy a few miles from the overpass,” Kate had said the day she told him about the EF5, “but they never found Jeb or Praveen.”

“No,” Tyler sobs, sliding down the rubble. Glass and wood poke and stab at his arms and legs as his knees give out on him. Boone catches him before he can shish-kabob himself on a piece of metal, dragging him back onto the road where it’s safe.

“Tyler,” Boone says, looking devastated. “I’m so sorry.”

Tyler hiccups, trying to gather his bearings while his entire body unravels with panic. Threads are flying out of him that he can’t grab onto. He clutches Boone’s shoulders to keep himself steady. He’s got to find Javi. He can’t bury an empty casket. He’s got to find him, but he could be anywhere—

“Tyler!” he hears from afar. “Boone!”

He and Boone swivel around to eye the road coming into the neighborhood. Dexter and Dani are parked and climbing out of the caravan. Lily is hanging out of the passenger window as Kate pulls in front of them. Despair hits Tyler like a tidal wave when he sees Kate. She’s alive, his girl is alive, and their boy is dead.

“Kate,” he calls out, his voice like gravel. He makes to step towards his crew, but then a black truck rounds the side of the caravan and screeches to a stop beside it. The driver’s door flings open, and Javi trips out, leaving the door open and wasting no time in racing towards Tyler and Boone.

“Javi!” Tyler screams, a viscous, guttural sound torn out of his chest, and sprints for him.

Behind Javi, Kate and Lily are out of the car and running towards Tyler and Boone. Javi gets to him first, and Tyler crashes into him with a violent cry of relief. Javi grips him tight, and Tyler hangs on.

Tyler sobs curses into Javi’s hair, holding him as close as he can. Holy shit, holy shit, he’s okay. They got the wrong truck.

It was the wrong truck.

“Where the hell were you?” Boone says to Javi, though Tyler’s not sure Javi knows he’s being spoken to, because Tyler still has his face smothered in his shoulder.

Dexter and Dani and Lily and Kate finally make it to them, and Tyler can hear them embracing beside him.

“The western tornado changed course and headed for the south,” Dani tells them. “We followed it before the winds from the south overpowered it and it fizzled out.”

“We could see the southern tornado on the horizon, so we kept going,” Dexter adds, “but we were still too far to get you on the radios.”

Tyler hears none of this. Javi’s breath is warm and alive in his ear as he whispers reassurances: “It’s okay” and “We’re fine” and “I’m here.” 

“Javi, dude, where the hell were you?” Boone asks. That Tyler does hear, because he’s been thinking the same thing. He pulls back to look at Javi through teary eyes. “We thought…”

He and Boone look over to the black, overturned truck, and the Wranglers follow their line of vision. Tyler turns back to Javi, not bearing to see what almost became of him.

“Oh, Tyler,” Kate says, pressing her hand to Tyler’s back comfortingly. Javi presses closer to his front. Two points of contact, just like this morning.

“I fell behind you,” Javi answers gently. “All those cars darting around like that— I was worried I was gonna get hit since my truck’s so big, and I couldn’t fight the traffic to get into the right lane. So I fell back and took the left at the intersection.”

A left. Tyler completely forgot it was a four-way intersection. Turning left would also lead to a backroad, and get Javi out of the tornado’s path. He didn’t even think about it.

“Why didn’t you answer?” Tyler asks in a hazy rush of anger. “I called you on the radio twice.”

Javi soothes him with two hands on his arms, squeezing gently. “Falling back meant I was closer to the tornado. The winds were too strong to take both hands off the wheel. By the time I managed to get a safe distance and radio back, you weren’t answering. I thought…”

Javi takes a shaky breath, and it’s only then that Tyler notices that Javi’s cheeks are wet. Kate presses in closer, wrapping one arm around Tyler’s back, and putting her other hand on Javi’s shoulder. 

“You stopped answering. We thought you’d gotten caught in the tornado,” Kate tells him. “Javi couldn’t find you anywhere.”

Tyler grips hard at Javi’s back, then drags him and Kate against him in a bone-crushing hug. Both of their arms come up to circle each other, and Tyler settles his face right at the juncture where Kate’s head presses into Javi’s. He breathes in their mingled smell of flowers and almonds and petrichor. 

The Wranglers join in and pile on top of one another in a giant group hug. Which is good, because it hides the fact that Tyler hasn’t stopped shaking since the tornado vanished.

They go back to Tyler’s house after checking in with Mrs. Carter. The Wranglers splay out downstairs around the television, putting on some sort of comedy movie and digging into the giant spread of KFC that Mrs. Carter ordered them.

Tyler doesn’t eat. When he’s done a headcount of all six of his Wranglers, he beelines it upstairs and locks the bathroom door. There’s still a shard of glass in his calf that he hasn’t managed to get out yet.

He turns on the shower to the hottest setting, then eases up just a little. He carefully strips out of his clothes, setting them in a pile in the corner by the shower. He still feels like he’s moving on autopilot, not gone but not entirely present, either. He steps under the spay and watches the dirt and blood run off his body and down the drain. The warm water will make his muscles and skin more relaxed, which will make it easier to get the glass out.

He’s not sure how long he stands there. His soap is in the caddy inside the shower, but he forgot a washcloth in the basket over the toilet. He doesn’t feel like getting it. His shampoo is also in the caddy, but he’s not sure he could lift his arms long enough to scrub the sweat and dirt out of his hair. So he just stands there, staring at the wall. 

Downstairs, his Wranglers are safe, and so is his girlfriend, and so is Javi.

He’s going to have to break up with Kate.

Someone knocks on the door. “Ty?” the voice calls — Kate, speak of the devil. “We wanted to check on you?”

We?

Tyler wants to say, I’m fine or I’ll be out in a minute. He tries, but he can’t even open his mouth. Is this how Kate felt, when she emerged from the EF5 and realized she was the only one left?

No, that must have been worse than this. None of the crew died. Not Kate, not Javi. Kate must have felt much worse. What’s the matter with him, making that kind of comparison?

“Tyler?” comes Javi’s voice from behind the door.

Oh. We.

“Fine,” he manages, then hates himself for it immediately. He can answer Javi, but not his girlfriend? After what she witnessed today? She probably hates him. She should hate him.

“I’m coming in,” Kate announces. She’s got her take-no-shit attitude in her voice. Tyler loves her.

Tyler doesn’t even realize she’s inside the bathroom until the glass door of the shower swings open. Kate gasps, and his eyes finally fall on her. I’m sorry, he tries to say, but all he can get out is, “I’m…” before he loses wind and gives up.

“Oh my God, Tyler. Why didn’t you say something?” Kate asks, which— what? “Javi, go get the first aid kit. Hurry.”

Javi, who is also in the bathroom, crouches down to dig under Tyler’s sink. Kate pushes the shower door open as far as it will go. She’s not looking at him — she’s looking at his leg. Oh, right. The glass.

“It’s not that bad,” Tyler says. Kate silences him with a sharp look. 

Javi comes over with the first aid kit, opening it for Kate to pick through. His eyes sweep over Tyler’s body, and his face flushes a pinkish-red color, before his eyes darken at the sight of Tyler’s leg. 

Kate takes the tweezers and a pack of gauze from the first aid kit, then takes the kit altogether and places it on the toilet. “Hold him up so he doesn’t slip.”

Tyler blinks out of his stupor. “I ain’t going to—“

Javi hears none of it and slips between Kate and the shower, one arm braced against the shower wall, the other curled under Tyler’s armpit at his elbow. Both feet are planted firmly on the bathroom tile. 

Kate places the glass shard between the tweezers. Even that makes Tyler hiss a little. The shard isn’t that deep, so Tyler’s not worried about blood loss or nicking a vein or cutting too much muscle. He can tell it’s small. He just… didn’t have the strength to get it out until now.

Kate pinches and plucks, and Tyler does double over a little, but Javi is there to lean on, and with one more tug, the shard comes free. Immediately, the shower starts running red, but the pain is already lessening.

“Fool,” Javi tuts as Kate pours a small amount of peroxide over the wound. Tyler hisses, leaning more into Javi — less because he needs help, and more because he wants Javi’s comfort. “You should have told us you were hurt.”

“How did this even happen?” Kate asks. “We never saw you pinned under anything.”

Tyler flushes red with embarrassment at the memory of how he got it. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Tyler.”

“Who cares?” Tyler snaps, wincing as the peroxide works inside the cut. “It happened and it’s over. Why dwell on it?”

Kate fixes him with a look that tells him she knows everything. He wilts in shame. He can never hide anything from her. Why dwell on it, he said. She knows he’s not just talking about the glass. “I climbed onto a pile of rubble, alright?”

Javi blinks at him in confusion. “Why the hell would you climb—“

“I thought it was your truck,” Tyler says helplessly, refusing to look at either one of them. “I had to check.”

I had to check if you were alive, is what he doesn’t say. And for a moment, I thought you weren’t.

Kate and Javi are silent. Tyler closes his eyes again and lets the water drain away the peroxide foam. Carefully, Kate stands and helps Javi bundle Tyler with a towel. Javi reaches over, already half-wet from being partially inside the shower, and shuts off the spray. They slowly lead him out of the shower, then sit him down on the closed toilet seat. He has a cover, thank goodness, so his bare asscheeks don’t end up on freezing cold porcelain. 

Javi wraps Tyler up tighter with the towel while Kate uses a clean washcloth to pat his calf dry. He grits his teeth through the pain, but stays quiet. He doesn’t actually deserve to complain right now. She rips open a pack of gauze and presses it lightly against his wound, then wraps it up securely with sports tape to keep it clean. Tyler just stares down at her, bewildered.

How can she still care for him like this after what she saw? Tyler, crying over Javi, running to him and embracing him when Kate was right there. It’s not fair to her. She shouldn’t forgive him. She shouldn’t be kind to him like this when he’s surely breaking her heart.

Javi and Kate both help him back to his feet so he can hobble into his bedroom. When he tries to go for his dresser, they forcibly maneuver him to the bed and sit him down. Javi’s the one who rifles through his chest of drawers and finds him a pair of underwear, some shorts, and a t-shirt.

He draws the line when Javi tries to put his shirt on for him.

“I’ve got it,” he says, trying his best not to snap, but feeling at the end of his thread. “You two don’t have to baby me.” He takes the shirt from Javi and roughly pulls it on. “I’m a grown man who can handle the consequences of his own decisions.”

“Tyler—” Javi starts. Tyler interrupts him.

“Don’t,” he hisses. “Just… just go back downstairs with the rest of the Wranglers. Both of you. I’m fine.”

Kate looks unimpressed. “I think we should—”

“Do what, Kate?” Tyler snaps. “Talk about how I’m in love with you both?”

The air gets sucked out of the room in an instant. Tyler feels himself go pale as the blood drains from his face. Fuck, fuck. He tries to stand, but Javi puts one firm hand on his shoulder and pushes him back down. Tyler glares at him, but it’s probably not very intimidating considering his eyes are welling up with tears.

“I was going to say, your shirt is on inside out,” Javi says gently.

Tyler looks down. He can see the inner seams on the sides of his shirt and the tag sewn into one of them. Oh.

The embarrassment makes him lose the wind in his sails, and he slumps forward with his elbows on his knees, reeling. He kind of thinks he’s going to pass out.

“I was going to say,” Kate pipes in, voice firm, “that this isn’t as big of a deal as you think it is. Until I was interrupted.”

Tyler blinks at her, tears running down his face. “Not a big deal?” he questions flatly. “I’m in love with my girlfriend. And I’m also in love with her best friend. Don’t tell me that’s not a big deal, alright? I don’t know what the hell they do up in the Big-fuckin’-Apple, but it sure as hell isn’t common around here.”

Kate, for her part, looks abashed. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.” She takes a breath, then crouches in front of him. “All I meant to say is, you shouldn’t be so upset with yourself, Ty, ‘cause I ain’t any better, on account of me being in love with you and Javi.”

Tyler can’t really focus on anything right now. He’s only hearing a few words, and none of them consecutive. Better and love and you and Javi. He’s a little confused.

“What?”

“Maybe we should continue this conversation clothed?” Javi suggests. Tyler looks down, and— oh, right. He doesn’t have any pants on. Or underwear. Javi blushes a little, but Kate is still staring unwaveringly into Tyler’s eyes.

Pants be damned. 

“Katie,” he rasps. She reaches out for him, and he grabs onto her arms so tightly that her skin turns yellowy-white. “I’m so sorry. I love you. I do, I’m sorry—”

Kate shushes him, thumbing away his tears and kissing his cheeks. “I love you too, Ty,” she assures. “You big ol’ teddy bear. How could I not?” She pushes his wet hair out of his eyes. “And I love Javi, too, same as you.”

Tyler hiccups. “I don’t want to lose you.” 

Kate smiles, a mischievous glint in her eye. “Wild tornadoes couldn’t keep me from you, cowboy.” She turns her head, then, over to Javi, who has been sitting beside Tyler patiently. He smiles at them when they look at him. 

“I should’ve said something sooner,” Javi tells them, mostly directly at Tyler. “Kate and I talked about it a few days ago. We were waiting for the right time to bring it up with you, ‘cause I wasn’t sure.”

Tyler’s stomach drops. “You weren’t?”

Javi’s eyes widen when he realizes his mistake. “Not that! I wasn’t sure if you loved me,” he amends, taking Tyler’s shaking hands. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. Kate was so sure that you felt the same about me that we felt for you, but you never really gave anything definitive away. I was worried it would ruin your relationship if you weren’t… in love with me.”

Tyler’s eyes flick back and forth between Javi and Kate. Kate is still smiling, unshaken and seemingly pleased despite Javi admitting he’s in love with her boyfriend. 

“I tried so hard,” Tyler tells them, hoarse. “I tried to stop. I didn’t want to be— I love you, Kate. How could I…? But then I spent so much time with you,” now it’s directed at Javi, “and everything felt wrong without you. And I tried to stop it, but then today—” 

He closes his eyes. He can see the mangled truck and empty cabin and feel the fear when he thought it was Javi’s. “I looked at that truck, thinking it was yours, and I felt the same way I did when we almost lost Kate,” he continues, voice trembling. “And then you were alive, and I realized I couldn’t— I couldn’t not—”

Javi pulls him in, shushing him, and places a comforting hand on the back of Tyler’s head. Kate wedges herself into the hug too, wrapping her arms around both of them protectively, like she can shield them from the world.

“You are not a bad boyfriend,” Kate tells Tyler. “If you are, then I’m a bad girlfriend. We both love Javi, and by some miracle, he loves us too.”

Tyler laughs wetly. He can feel Javi smiling against his cheek. “I do,” Javi agrees. “I love you. I love you both.”

Tyler holds onto them, squeezing a little too tight, before they all pull away. He wipes his eyes with the towel around his shoulders. God, how long has it been since he’s cried like this? Not since the day Kate survived in El Reno.

“So what now?” Tyler asks. He’s never done this before. How do they do this… this triad? Throuple? Threesome? Whatever.

“Now,” Kate says, “I say we go downstairs and eat some greasy chicken with our crew.” Javi whoops in agreement, and it makes Tyler smile. Any tension in his body is gone, the heavy atmosphere between them light and free. 

“And after?” questions Tyler.

Kate and Javi look between each other, then to Tyler. “Well,” Javi answers, “I guess that’s up to you.”

Tyler blows out a long breath. Javi and Kate are smiling at him — no judgement in their eyes, no anger in their shoulders or aggression in their stances. They’re kind, and welcoming, and they’re looking at Tyler like he’s their whole world.

“Then let’s go get some chicken,” Tyler says. Javi claps his hands eagerly, and Kate reaches down to help Tyler stand.

“Uh,” Tyler says suddenly when a gust of cool air from the A/C blows over him, “I should probably put some pants on first.”

Javi and Kate burst into laughter, and Tyler grins at them.

Thank God, he gets to love them both.