#and the chasers from the chase | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

roanofarcc · 4 months ago

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WORTH YOUR WHILE

pairing. Tyler Owens x fem!reader

summary. as the local weather woman, you shared an interesting rivalry with your hometown storm-chaser. while you always reported on the dangerous weather from a safe distance, tyler barreled into it head-first. but things change the night of the county fair when you find yourself in the middle of a storm rather than in the safely of a newsroom.

warnings. dramatic fluff, hurt/comfort, description of tornados, a curse word or two, description of injury, slightly inaccurate meteorological info.

word count. 2.9k || masterlist

a/n. hopping on the glen powell bandwagon bc he and daisy absolutely killed it in twisters!! feel free to send me requests for tyler, kate, and javi!

“If you keep looking at him like that your face will get stuck in a scowl, which is really bad for television,” your friend said, leaning into your side. With a roll of your eyes, you managed to pull your attention away from the self-titled ‘tornado wrangler’ who had stirred up a fuss in the line for funnel cakes. People buzzed all around him as he signed shirts and took photos, never dropping his smile that you often dreamed about smacking right off of his face.

You had grown up alongside Tyler Owens, never as friends but as friends of friends. After you both split off for school to study meteorology, you returned to your hometown for very different reasons. Tyler started in the business of storm chasing, live streaming his adventures to people all across the internet who sensationalized the dangerous weather, and you scored a job as your hometown’s Weather Woman. Your job was to warn people about the threat of tornados while his was to drive head-on into them.

That was where you two drew your lines in the sand when it came to each other. He thought you were scared of taking risks while you thought his thrill-seeking was stupid and would eventually get him or one of his team members hurt. Those opinions on each other's job led to you two butting heads every time you encountered one another. His mere presence was enough to annoy you, especially at your favorite event of the summer, the fair.

“Look who it is,” Tyler’s voice sounded near you and your friend nudged your arm in the direction of it. You looked away from her just as he approached you, tipping his hat and flashing his teeth in a smile. “Didn’t know they still let you out of the newsroom these days.”

You crossed your arms over your chest, as the air of arrogance surrounding him nearly choked you out. “Don’t you have a tornado to chase?” you asked, wanting to end the conversation before it fully started. Unfortunately, he never seemed put off by your jabs, but he was assumed by them.

“I took the night off,” he replied. “I wanted to see if there was anything worth my while here tonight.”

You raised your brows. “Oh really?” He nodded, smiling brightly at you. “Find anything yet?”

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “It’d be easier if she answered my phone calls.”

Tyler disliked you a whole lot less than you disliked him. After you graduated and he started storm chasing, he tried at every given opportunity to get you to join his team. Even years later he still tried to, no matter how many times you told him the risk he was putting himself and his team in every time they barreled into a storm cell. He was relentless but you were happy where you were at. You wanted to help people when it came to severe weather, not make the storm look enticing for internet audiences.

“I already told you, I’m not interested.” Storm chasing was a dangerous game that you had no intention of playing. Being from the Midwest, you had lived through your share of tornados. Chasing them was not in apart of your career path.

His smile faded slightly before he seemed to snap back to himself. “All I’m saying is, we could use a mind like yours out in the field.” The compliment was nice, you could admit that to yourself, but it wouldn’t win you over. He knew that too. “But suit yourself.” And with that he walked off, meeting up with the rest of his team that joined him at the fair that night.

Your friend whistled lowly. “I don’t know how you do it,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Say no to a man like that.” You rolled your eyes once more as the line you were in moved. As she stepped forward to order, you threw a quick glance over your shoulder in the direction Tyler had walked off in. You saw him happily chatting with his team before glancing back at you for just a moment before you returned your gaze forward.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur of colorful lights, sticky heat, and enough fried food to make your stomach ache in the best possible way. Your friend left after a couple hours of roaming the prize barns and laughing at the kids screaming their heads off on the carnival rides, but you stuck around for a little longer, relishing in the sweet nostalgia the fair brought you.

Before you had taken a couple of well-deserved days of work, you and your team had predicted a storm front moving. Later that night was supposed to bring rainfall and a thunderstorm or two popping up around the county and neighboring areas. You thought you’d have plenty of time to roam the fair for a little longer until it hit, but you noticed the shift in the weather almost immediately. The sudden uptick in wind pricked the back of your neck as the distant rumble of thunder echoed above the fair chaos.

It was difficult to predict everything, that you had learned early on in your career. It also was hard to predict how quickly weather could change from bad to deadly. One moment you’re gazing up through the lights into the night sky, trying to gauge the incoming storm, and the next, the sirens are blaring across the fairgrounds.

The crowd of people running in every direction made the walkways hazardous. You were knocked into and jostled around as you tried to run toward the restrooms that doubled as storm shelters. They were clear at the opposite end of the walkway, but they were your closest option. You dodged and weaved through the swarms of people, trying to stay on your feet.

You only made it halfway to the shelter when you were stopped by the awful cries of a little girl who sat under the counter of one of the carnival games. She hugged her knees to her chest and called out for her mom, but no one who rushed by stopped. You didn’t think twice before you sidestepped the fleeing crowd and crouched down in front of the little girl. The wind picked up significantly, blowing the cheap prizes right out of the booths and sending everything flying around and knocking into people.

“Hey, sweetheart,” you raised your voice above the howl of wind and frantic people.

“My mom!” she cried harder. “I lost her. I don’t know where she is!”

You glanced back up at the sky. The lightning strikes illuminated the massive, dark mass moving in quickly. “Come with me, and I’ll help you find her, okay?”

The noise all around grew louder, frightening the little girl, along with yourself, but as you outstretched your hand, she took it, and you quickly pulled her to her feet before you both took off running. The speakers urged everyone to seek shelter immediately, but you watched as people raced in the opposite direction of the shelters, probably bee-lining to cars in an awful call. They’d never out race it.

“Charlotte!” Someone screamed and the little girl whipped her head around before she tugged hard on your hand. From behind you, the little girl’s mother appeared, immediately scooping up her daughter in her arms. “Oh my, God. Thank you!” she said, looking at you with teary eyes.

“We have to take cover,” you told her, gently pushing her forward. “The shelter’s just up that way.” She thanked you again before she took off with her daughter in her arms. You wanted to follow, it was stupid not to when the wind gusts became more powerful, rattling everything dangerously and making it hard to think. But there were more people unsure of where to go and what to do. Groups of kids who had been dropped off for the evening stumbling frantically out of the rides and still dizzy. You stepped from the path and tried to direct people as best you could, shouting in tune with the speaker and the sirens for them to hurry into the shelter.

It wasn’t until larger objects were plucked from the ground and tossed into the air like paper did you abandoned your aiding. The tornado screeched to life, ripping apart pieces of the show barns and rides with ease. You tried to close the distance between yourself and the shelter once more, but it wasn’t people in need that stopped you, it was a sheet of metal pried from the side of one of the food trucks. You tried to dodge the hurling objects, but the sheet came at you hard and fast.

It sliced your shin, sending a wave of pain up through the rest of your leg. You stumbled, determined to stay upright, but the wind was too strong for your limping figure, and you toppled against the concrete, slamming your knees against the ground before you rolled over into the lousy shelter of a game’s tent somehow still standing.

Panic started to set in as the storm raged around you, loud and monstrous. You covered your wound with your hands, unsure of where the blaring of the tornado ended and the fast-paced beat of your heart started, drumming in your ears and beating against your skull. You knew you couldn’t stay there, but leaving was just as dangerous as every attraction of the fair swirled around in the air. The cut from your leg painted your hands red and throbbed; it would only slow you down if you tried to run, creating even more of a risk.

You didn’t know what to do. All of your life, the storms you had faced you’d always been lucky enough to find shelter in plenty of time, from the cellar in your backyard to your high school’s basement created just for such an occasion.

Through the freight train sounding winds and your thundering heart, you heard a couple of voices that had to be close. Tearing your eyes away from the cut on your leg, you watched as another group of people sprinted down the walkway as someone yelled behind them to run.

In all of your life, you’d never been so relieved to see Tyler Owens’s face standing just a few feet away; he hadn’t spotted you, and for a terrifying moment you thought he’d be unable to hear you yell out above the screaming storm. But somehow, he did. His head snapped in your direction, rain-coated and windblown, looking both out of sorts and in his element.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled as he ran over to you, dodging flying debris that grew larger by the minute. The second he crouched down in front of you, his eyes flickered onto your legs, and the blood seeping out between your fingers as you tried to keep pressure on the wound.

“I thought I’d just hang out here,” you said, your sarcasm watered down by the fear clear in your teary eyes.

His brows furrowed, deep in thought for a moment as he looked between you and the distance there was still to cross to the only close shelter. Without saying a word, he peeled off his wet flannel, leaving himself in a shirt that was already nearly soaked through as the sideways rain beat down against the both of you. “I’m gonna tie this around your leg and then we’re gonna run, okay?”

You shook your head frantically. The ache in your legs was intense and you had already lost a good amount of blood, not enough to make you woozy but you were well on your way. It felt like your heart had crawled up your throat, making it hard to breathe as panic soaked you to the bone along with the rain. Everything around you seemed to be ripped from the ground, even the anchored tent you were under was seconds away from being picked up.

“Hey,” he said, grabbing a hold of your shoulders, shaking you slightly. “It’ll be alright. You gotta trust me, though.” The sincerity shined in his eyes, bright as the rest of the power around you flickered wickedly. With a nod of your head, you dropped your hands from your leg and let him tie the flannel around your cut. As he pulled it tight, you cried out in pain. “I’m sorry,” he kept repeating until it was knotted. Quickly, he jumped to his feet and helped you up, looping an arm around your waist as you slung an arm around his shoulders.

“Ready?” You didn’t get a chance to respond as the tent you were under was plucked from the ground, anchors and all, and flung backward into the tornado as it tore through the front entrance of the fairgrounds. Tyler took off, giving you no choice but to follow.

You two stayed low, trying desperately to avoid the flying objects. With each step your leg burned, but Tyler’s hold on you was strong, not giving any room for you to lag behind or slip away. It felt like hours of running, but it was no more than a minute or two before you reached the shelter. The only major injury between the two of you was your leg, otherwise, you both collected a series of little cuts and bruises from your journey.

Stumbling into the restroom, you were met with a hoard of scared fairgoers. You two managed to find a spot to slot yourself in with everyone else. He helped you lower yourself to the floor back in the corner just as the tornado was fully on top of you. You brought your knees up to your chest and covered your head. Tyler sat flushed against your side; you felt his hands rest over the top of yours as the building rattled violently. Squeezing your eyes shut, you refused to see the damage until the howl of wind subsided and people started to stir.

Once it was over, everyone stumbled out of the shelter, getting jumbled together as police and ambulances rushed to the scene. Amongst people pushing and shoving to find their loved ones and get the hell home, you and Tyler were separated and before you could look for him, an EMT caught sight of your bloodied leg and ushered you to one of the ambulances.

You sat on the back after the EMT stitched up your leg, looking over the torn-apart fairgrounds. Debris was littered everywhere, food trucks and carts overturned and some demolished, and rides were dislocated and strewn about in pieces.

You clutched the bloodied flannel to your chest, shivering in the loss of adrenaline and temperature drop, and watched the sea of people until a familiar face popped into view, looking a little frantic as he stumbled through the crowd looking like he was in search of something. His eyes finally settled on you before he quickly pushed his way through the crowd until he reached you.

“Hi,” you greeted, smiling tiredly.

“I was looking for you everywhere,” he said, sounding slightly out of breath. “I looked away for a second and you were gone and-” You continued to smile, and he stopped himself. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing,” you replied quietly before clearing your throat. “I, um, I just wanted to thank you. And I’m sorry for ruining your flannel.” You gestured to the ruined piece of clothing resting in your lap.

Tyler was quiet for a moment, looking at the large bandage around your shin. “Don’t mention it,” he said, brushing off your thanks like he hadn’t just pretty much saved your life. “What were you doing out there anyway?”

You sighed, feeling a creep of embarrassment up your spine. You should’ve known better but at the moment you just wanted to help people and had little regard for your own safety, until your leg was sliced open, that was. “There were people still out there, trying to figure out where to go. I was trying to help.”

“That was stupid,” he said. “But brave. Stupidly brave, maybe.”

“Funny. I think I’ve said the same thing about you a time for two.”

His signature smirk slowly fell onto his lips. “Not to my face.”

“Oh, no. Never.”

Tyler laughed, gently patting your knee, lingering for a moment before he dropped his hand back at his side. Someone called out your name, and you spotted your friend running back through the crowd. She had called you as soon as you had made it to the ambulance and told you she’d come back to take you home.

“You should get some rest,” he said. “I’ll see you around.” As he turned around to walk away, you called out to him.

“Tyler, wait.” He paused. “You should try calling me again. Maybe I’ll answer this time.” Breaking out in a grin, he tipped his hat in another goodbye, leaving you with a new feeling stirring inside your chest.

Bonus!

Hours later, after you had cleaned yourself up, you were tucked into bed, reading by the lamp light knowing sleep was probably far off after the events of the night. You didn’t expect your phone to ring that late into the night, and when you glanced at it, you couldn’t help but roll your eyes at the caller ID, but that time it was something besides annoyance that you felt.

You answered, discarding your book on your nightstand. “You don’t waste any time do you,” you teased.

“What I can say,” Tyler said on the other line. “I know when I find something worth my while.”

#twisters #twisters 2024 #tyler owens #glen powell #tyler owens x reader #tyler owens x you #twisters 2024 fanfic #glen powell x reader

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