⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 ASKING FOR IT ╱ HOW IT STARTS.𖥔˚
chapter THREE

          After Javi dropped Carmen off at the gas station to pick up her own truck, the brunette followed Lion all the way to the hotel they were staying in for the night. The sun had already dipped below the horizon, leaving not only a dark haze over everything but a dark feeling pooled in her gut.

It was impossible to ignore, and as she cruised behind Javi down the main road she tried to ignore the bile in her throat as she thought of similar drives like this. With them, all piled in a car or two, cruising down a backroad, and getting ready to take on the world━━━or, that's how it felt.

Now, it just feels like driving toward the beginning to an end.

At the hotel, she parks her truck haphazardly next to the rest of the Storm PAR vehicles, continuing to stick out like a sore thumb. Not only does the dark blue of her truck pop against stark white, but so do the scratches in the paint and the chips in the doors.

Before she can continue to stare and think about all the ways her life has slipped from one that was so intertwined with Kate and Javi's you didn't know where one started and the other ended to this, said blonde is tugging on her arm and pulling her away. There's a concerned look on her face, but Carmen only shakes her head and locks their elbows together.

As they walk toward their rooms, people mill around. A few sit together singing a song that hits too close to home with its message of Let me ride on the wall of death, one more time, and others bustle around with infectious laughs and energy highs that come with surviving what they think is a near-death experience. If only they knew what it felt to actually get close enough to brush Grim's knowing fingers.

The silence around them breaks when Javi asks, "Haven't we stayed here before?"

The two chuckle and Carmen sways into Kate's left side easily as she says, "Probably." The old motel looks familiar, but not in a way that she knows for certain they've been there before. More so every motel in Oklahoma starts to look the same when you stay in whatever you can afford and tend to close your eyes the second your head hits the pillow and fail to take in anything else.

"Yeah, Javi," the blonde mumbles, looking at the building with a kind of nostalgic gaze that makes Carmen wonder if she's thinking the same. "We've stayed in every motel in Oklahoma."

The three dissolve into chuckles again, and Carmen nods. "God, yeah. Wherever we could get it," she mumbles, locking her stance a little as Kate leans that much more on her. The weight is familiar and comforting.

The group never cared where they went, or what crappy motel they rested in for the night. It was about the company, and the loose lips spilling with laughter at night resulting from tired-out bones and long days filled.

"Remember we used to have Addy check in? Then later, we'd all sneak into the room so we could all save ten bucks?" Kate asks, her smile nostalgic and eyes a little glazed over as she falls into the memory. With her hold on Carmen's arm, it's impossible not to fall with her.

It's also way too easy to not want to get back up.

"We'd have Addy do it 'cause she was..." Javi laughs as he trails off, and they all look at each other before joining him. "'Cause she looked so sweet."

The trip down memory lane makes her heart pound, and she sighs and looks toward the sky as their laughs tamper off. It's a familiar constant, the dark and the stars. Praveen used to adore sleeping in the van and the car outside because it meant he got to share the night with the sky and could imagine his parents looking up at it too. As her eyes trace the distance white shapes, she blinks back the sting in her eyes.

"Hey, um," Javi stops, turning toward them and pulling them up short. "You guys want to hang out later? I'll go, you know, just go into the room real quick, and, obviously...shower, and we can come back out here." His eyes are swimming as he asks, full of a battle with memory and hope. It's upsetting to have to deny him. But, Carmen can already feel the drag in her bones leading to years past, and there's no doubt hanging out with Javi won't help━━━no matter how much she loves him.

Neither says anything, and Carmen forces herself to bite the bullet first. "I don't know if I can tonight, Javi. This day was a lot after a long time." She gives a weak smile, reaching out to squeeze his arm. "But I'm not going anywhere."

Beside her, Kate sighs. "Um, yeah. I'm... I'm real tired, but, um...maybe another time?" Her words carry a layer of guilt Carmen's didn't, but that layer also had five years to fester.

Javi must hear it too, because he says nothing more than, "Yeah. All right." He rocks on his heels once, as if debating if that's really all he wants to say. Finally, he lands on, "Well, good night."

"Good night," they both echo. Smiling at him, Carmen slips her arm out of Kate's and slips away first, giving them just a moment to themselves.

As she crosses the parking lot, she tips her hat to the little girl sat up on the end of an open truck bed who's staring at her. Immediately, soft giggles fill the air, working some kind of magic that clears the grey in her brain just a bit around the edges.

"Wait up, Carm," Kate calls somewhere behind her just as she's arrived at the edge of the stairs that lead up to their room floor, and she pauses without turning around. Only after fingers press into the small of her back to announce both Kate's presence and to urge her on does she take the first step.

Halfway up, an increasingly familiar southern twang rings out. "A city girl and a cowgirl work in to a bar...I think I've heard this joke before."

Ice-like eyes are already rolling by the time Carmen turns to face Tyler Owens sitting atop his truck. Kate's attempting to stifle a chuckle behind her fist, but it's a poor attempt on her part. Smiling at the blonde, she continues to look at her as she leans her forearms on the rail and leans over. "Oh yeah?" She asks into the air, turning to tilt her head at Tyler. "How'd that one end? Oh no-" She stops, putting a hand to her chest and pulling her eyes open comically. "Let me guess. They went home with a Tornado Wrangler."

She bats her eyelashes and pouts at Tyler as the rest of the group around him begin to holler, and when the cowboy does nothing but shake his head and chuckle with a stupidly charming smirk, she is struck with the urge to join them. All she lets slip is a smirk of her own.

The man from the gas station earlier, sans goggles but not less recognizable, whoops louder than the rest. "That was a good one!" The end of his word gets tangled in a laugh, and Carmen shakes her head at him. "Not that good of one."

It only makes him laugh harder, and her cheeks burn just a touch. 

"You know," Tyler calls, commands all attention without even trying, "your crew almost had us earlier. 'The cells to the west will choke each other out,' she said. 'The one to the east will put on a show.'"

Beside her, the guilty claps her hands. "Well, didn't throw you off the scent." She smiles as if to What can you do?

"Hey," Tyler's right-hand man calls, "that's what makes Tyler famous." He points and looks up at his friend sitting on top of the truck with him━━━looking all kinds of proud to call that man his friend.

"You mean on YouTube?" Nothing about the blonde's tone sounds impressed, but the other man doesn't rear back and snarl in defense at the jab. No, his defense comes out calmer and more practiced, like he's spent more than just tonight defending Tyler and the career he's made for himself. "Uh, y-yeah. Yeah, we're... we're on the YouTube. We got what? About a million subscribers now, huh?"

The crew on the ground all cheer, and one points to the one who asked in acknowledgment and calls, "Yes, sir."

Their laughter fills the space, all of the timbers sounding like they've spent years blending together to create a melody perfect for them all. It coats one's ears warmly, and it also makes Carmen think of a time when she was in a group like that.

Out of the laughter, Ben steps up and approaches them from below the stairs. "Uh, Kate and Carmen what?" Immediately, despite the truth of it being that laughs are still trickling off in the background, both girls on the stairs are somber in a blink. Especially so, when Ben continues slowly under the intensity of their gazes. "Your surnames, just in case I include you in my piece."

"Oh, um, just Kate's fine," the blonde mumbles, pushing off the ledge and squeezing Carmen's arm quickly. "And that's my cue."

Before the other girl could try to convince her to stay━━━not that she knows why she would━━━or to at least wait for Carmen to come with her, she's turning up the stairs and bounding away like the ghosts on her tail are tangible and within arms reach.

"She's a tricky one."

Those words pull the chaser's eyes back toward the man messing with the gadget on top of his truck, and she sighs before leaning back over the railing and closing them all together. No part of her wanted to go to her room now, especially when she didn't have Kate to distract her. While Kate's idea of getting away might be to run and go somewhere she can be alone, Carmen needed someone else to help her drown out the noise. Whether it be a singer on the radio, a character in a show, or the sounds of the people in the lot under her, she needed them to breathe.

"You okay over there, cowgirl?"

Carmen blinks her eyes open, and they immediately clash with Evergreen a few feet away. His eyebrow is raised, and there's a flash of concern in them that she doesn't feel worth of after the day their crews have given each other. Still, it pangs against her heart in a way that is so far from uncomfortable that she gives him a tired smile and nods. "Mm-hmm. Just a long day."

"Yeah," he agrees, looking back down at the town in his hand and leaving the silence to hang between distant words and conversations. It stretches for a moment or two until he speaks up again. "This something you're used to? Chasing storms?" He seems to give up tinkering with the tool between his fingers, dropping it to look up again with pure curiosity. It should make her more uncomfortable than it does.

For a beat, all she does is smile. A debate rages in her head between giving the short answer or going deeper━━━telling them more than they'd ever have to know for people she'll probably never see again. But something deep in her knows this is the answer she was looking for, the way to relieve the silence. So, she bends down slowly and swings her legs through the bottom of the rail, settling herself in for a longer night than planned.

"I've been chasing since I was old enough to sit in a car," she admits, looping her arm through the rail in front of her and biting at her nail as she debates whether to say more on that front or to jump ahead where memories aren't so innocent and worn. "Plus, I grew up with Kate. As she fell in love with the science behind twisters, I never fell out of love with chasing them. For a long time, it was just the two of us. Then, when Kate went to college she met Javi and-"

Carmen blinks, images flashing behind her eyes like a carousel of memories that dislodge her from her place here and back to the past. Shaking herself and biting harder on her nail, she forces herself to continue and wipe the look on Tyler's face away. "And we've all been friends since."

The man on the truck has eyes that cut into her as she finishes, and she forces herself to look away. "How about y'all? Where'd y'all meet?" Her eyes dance between all of the group, comfortable and known with each other in a way she envies.

"Well, me?" The dark-haired man with Tyler laughs. "You know, I just flow with the wind. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I... I never went to, like, school or nothing. Tyler, though, been friends with him for ages. Followed him around everywhere. Even after he... he studied meteorology."

Humming, Carmen pulls her thumb away from digging teeth when the sting begins to taste like iron. Unable to help herself, in a way she doesn't know what to do with, her eyes slide to Tyler's again. "That's how Kate wasn't able to trick you. I mean," she chuckles, "clearly you didn't need her today when you've been as successful as you have for as many years as you have."

Tyler blinks, eyes widening just a fraction, like that wasn't what he was expecting her to say. Yet, before she can revel in the idea of shocking the Tyler Owens, his lips stretch into an all-too-knowing smirk. "Thought you didn't know who I am, sweetheart?"

Carmen scoffs, rolling her eyes playfully. "Yeah, yeah. So I lied. Don't act so surprised." She raises an eyebrow at him as if daring him to tell her that he didn't put two and two together earlier in the day when she had used his last name against him. When he says nothing and only nods, she tips her chin to him. "Yes, I've seen your work. And as much as I hate to say it, it's damn impressive sometimes."

"Yeah," the right-hand man chuckles, "that's because he's a cowboy scientist, you know. He's got this natural instinct."

"Okay, Boone." Tyler shakes his head, looking back down at the tool in his hand once again, like the praise is driving him away instead of making him bask like a cat in the sun. It's not what Carmen would have ever expected from him. It's resounding, the new light it drowns him in. Especially when the man━━━apparently named Boone━━━doesn't stop.

"He taught me everything I know, so..."

"Boone," Tyler bites, glaring at his friend and finally getting him to shut up with a raise of his arms in surrender. With it, the cowboy drops the tool again and looks back toward Carmen. "Makes more sense now; why you roll with a crew like there's instead of one like ours."

Carmen leans forward, placing her chin on the bar in front of her that her arms hang through. The metal is cold to the touch and bites on her nerves, and she relishes in it. It reminds her so much of some other silent ways she's chased the feeling of a rush in the past five years━━━some that even once or twice led to undesired results. Under her thumb, raised skin hidden from view on her arm burns.

Tilting her head, she pushes her hat back slightly where it slips onto her forehead, and smirks at Tyler. "What? she asks, faux confidence dripping from her tone. "You telling me your team is missing someone like me?"

She expects the other man to laugh, to wave her off in a show of confidence in both himself and his crew━━━confidence one needs to follow someone else into the middle of a tornado━━━but he does none of that. Instead, he only shrugs and leans back casually. Even from her spot far away, it's easy to tell he's the picture of not a care in the world.

"Someone willing to run into a storm and who seems to know what they're doing when they do?" He pretends to check, not letting Carmen answer before he continues. "Yeah, we could always use a few more people like that."

The words light her up from the inside out. Not only with a feeling of pride but with someone close to longing. Longing to be in a truck where those are the expectations━━━running toward a storm and knowing what you're doing when you do━━━and knowing that she'll get to do it for however long she wants.

"I wouldn't even try, Tyler." A girl from the ground in a straw cowboy hat calls. "You know what those Storm PAR assholes are like. What're they're doing. She probably thinks we're the dark side."

The brunette frowns, looking down toward the group on the ground. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Ignore Dani," Tyler calls. His eyes on her are deep and imploring like he's searching for answers to questions he doesn't want to ask, and Carmen shivers under the gaze. She forces herself to blame the night air, and pulls her leg close to her chest in the best way of defense she knows right now. Like putting it there will block her heart somehow. "She doesn't know you."

"Neither do you," she counters, the words coming out quietly. They're buried in a layer of confusion and wonder, and it's a shock Tyler's able to hear them at all.

Yet, there's no denying he can. Not when he smiles at her, warmer than she's seen from him yet, and replies, "No. But I think I'm starting to."

▬▬ mads speaks     ╱     they're absolutely
crazy i know, i know.
little bit of a shorter one this time
around, but not by too much! hopefully soon,
we'll actually be getting into the thick of it!!