description: after a few seasons on the road chasing storms on opposing teams, one storm draws scott miller and allison whitley to get to know a new side of each other.
pairing: scott miller x oc!allison whitley
chapter warnings: none
word count: 3.6k
note: i've been working on this one for a while and i'm excited to start something new!! twister has been one of my favorite movies since i was a kid and summer storms have inspired me as of late— and scott is my favorite asshole with two minutes of screen time. so here we go. i hope you guys like it!
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The air hangs heavy after a storm, thick and impeding. Every trudge forward parts the air, shoving it out of place just briefly before it reconfigures around the disruption.
On nights like this, when the weather’s harnessed enough force to knock the power out, but dissipated fast enough to batter little more than a few unlucky trees, the refugees tend to gather in droves. The walls of any drive-up motel bottle the damp heat, clinging to everything—and everyone—inside.
Chasers, tourist, and suits flock to the parking lots, too wired to brave the sweltering conditions of their rooms, and circle up around a few key campers stocked with coolers and dramatic sound systems.
Looking like some kind of post-apocalyptic, wind-blown tailgate party, bodies buzz between rows of cars, their chattering thrumming lowly into the thick night air. Leaves stick to the wet asphalt and the younger people in the crowd joust tussled sticks at each other as they juke between the parked cars.
Tonight's motel of choice is a two-story, white oasis sat oddly off a desolate state route. Its wood siding took the day's storm in stride, showing little more than a few pits out of its ancient paint on the easternmost side of it.
Hours earlier, the skies twisted violently, harsh winds scraping the topsoil loose from a few acres outside of a small Oklahoma town, though it unraveled itself into more of a dust storm than a cyclone. In some sense it had been a disappointment; in others, it was a respite from the battering summer outbreaks wrought on rural areas like this.
Amongst the wreckage, two sweat-laced, freshly scraped-up bodies weave carefully through the shantytown, tossing flippant greetings at dozens of their closest friends. One in front of the other, the former tugging her exasperated friend behind her by her hand, on a mission.
"Ally!" Lily chirps as her boot catches on a parking block she doesn't have time to dodge in her friend's heat-driven haste.
Ally throws something like an apology over her shoulder, still striding intently.
Separated from the festivities by a sagging picket fence, the motel’s pool made it out mostly unscathed. Squared off from the noise and lights, it’s an oasis amongst the prevailing conditions.
Padding over squelching grass away from the crowd, she’s peeling off her flannel, hurling justifications at Lily as she shoves past the gate. Her back is still turned to the pool as she twirls back around to plead her case, discarding layers onto one of the crooked pool chairs.
“Come on,” Ally begs, “It’s like a hundred degrees out and Tyler’s on his third monologue.”
She’s pulling at Lily’s wrist, barefoot and childish. More than unconvinced, Lily’s glower has drifted away entirely, locked firmly somewhere beyond Ally’s shoulder.
Annoyed and still grasping at Lily’s hand, she turns to follow her eye line. In the farthest reaches of the fence’s perimeter, on a cracked plastic lounge chair pushed flush against the wood of it, is a partially-silhouetted baseball cap and collared shirt.
Half-illuminated by the singular overhead light, his focus is staunchly fixed on the phone in his lap, though the tension in his posture suggests he’s acutely aware of their presence. He’s perched on the chair, back stuck all the way up and legs outstretched in front of him, crossed unnaturally. He’s hunched in it like he’s making a physical effort to contain his limbs.
A laugh blooms in her chest, her ribs vibrating a bit as she stifles it.
“Hell no,” Lily’s annoyed tone pulls her back from her bewildered state of observation.
Turning back to face her, desperation and irritation weighing heavy on her chest, she grabs Lily’s other hand, holding it close to her heart.
“Oh, god, Lil. Come on, he ignores us when we’re speaking directly to his face. He won’t care.”
“Fuck if he cares. I care.”
“Lily!” She takes a breath then pulls her face straight, fixing her brows seriously, looking through them and up at her friend, “You can have my next three rounds for singles.”
Her arms relax in Ally’s grip briefly; getting three extra nights in her own room isn’t something to scoff at, especially during such a busy season. Ally cocks her head, noting her consideration.
The moment goes as quickly as it came.
“Yeah, no shot.”
Throwing her head back, she drops Lily’s hands, huffing with exasperation. Her back is growing stickier, her patience wearing thinner.
“Jesus,” she mumbles lowly, turning back again, “Hey, Good Will Hunting!” She calls across the pool.
His shoulders dip in a sigh and his jaw clenches a bit as he summons the patience to acknowledge her. He hazards an unimpressed glance, eyebrows raised and lips almost pursed, waiting.
She’s taken aback for a beat by how disturbingly human he looks unobstructed by his usual dark lenses.
She recovers quickly, pulling the widest pseudo-grin she can muster, “You mind some company?” She waves vaguely to the pool.
He blinks twice, slowly, letting her bathe in the pause, then pulls that tight, close-lipped smile, matching her hand gesture.
Be my guest.
His face reverts just as quickly and he drops his gaze back to his phone. An eye roll personified.
Her own grin falls, jaw ticking a bit. Taking a breath, she turns back to Lily, hopeful.
Looking disgusted and entirely unmoved, she has to flutter her eyes a bit before she can bring her focus back to Ally.
She lets a heavy hand fall on her shoulder, leveling with her, “Ally, babe, I love you. But no way in hell.”
She deflates, knowing she’s lost. She nods, hands settling on her hips as she lets the weighty atmosphere drape over her for another few moments. Then, feeling too hot and miserable to bail, she picks up where she left off: pulling her phone out of her pocket and tossing it on her piling clothes and yanking at the stuffy denim of her shorts.
Lily looks her up and down, “Oh. Oh, wow. Ok, just goin’ for it.”
Ally glances up from her slightly bent position, nodding vigorously as she pulls the shorts over her ankles, “Mhm. Yep.”
“You want me to, like, stay?” Lily asks in a way that lets her know she really doesn’t want to, like, stay.
She straightens up, tossing the cloth onto the chair, “No, no. Be free, honeybee.”
Lily gives her another once-over, apparently surprised that her friend and usually serious colleague is desperate enough to be tank top and boyshort clad in front of The Enemy.
Sensing this, Ally gives her shoulder a squeeze, “Really, I’m good. Promise.”
Lily raises a hand in surrender, starting to back away, “Alright.”
“Kisses,” she calls out as Lily retreats.
She throws a peace sign back as she slogs back to the caravan, shouting back, “I’ll work on Boone!”
“You better!” Ally calls back.
Letting her hands go to work dismantling her wind-whipped mess of hair, she turns back toward the pool stairs. She stops short when she meets Collared Shirt’s gaze, eyes suddenly cast toward her. They widen ever so slightly before he blinks the minor panic away, snapping his head back down. Her complete inability to decipher the look in them keeps her frozen in place for a second or two. It’s one of the first times she’s seen him waver. It makes her nervous as hell. Sure, she’s caught snippets of his bickering with Javi or seen his resolve falter a bit battling the crowds of tourists. She even likes to think she’s really pissed him off a few times on the road, though he never betrays much. But catching his eye like that, seeing him look so caught, puts her off a bit.
She steps farther into the leaf-littered pool, trying to shake it off, but she stops again, guilty that she hijacked his obvious attempt at solitude.
He’s all the way over here for a reason. Damnit.
Bracing herself, she forces out, “Hey, I can leave if you want,” then, feeling a bit too gracious, “I didn’t realize you were having Scott Time.”
Shoulders sag. Jaw clenches. Fingers scroll on.
“Not engaging.”
“What?! I’m being friendly.”
“Not. Engaging.”
“Alright,” she continues her descent, decreasingly willing to leave as the cool water creeps up her legs, “if you insist.”
He sighs loudly.
She smiles to herself, sinking fully into the shallow end.
Even with a few inches sloshed out of the storm-churned water, it’s a reprieve from the dense Oklahoma night. The chlorine burns her nose, sneaking past her eyelashes when she dips to the bottom of the pool, letting it lift the heat off her.
For a few minutes, she floats around the corner opposite him, trying to maximize the distance between them and give him some space. She lets her eyes wander to the star-dusted sky, listening to obnoxious music float over the fence, disturbing their quiet. It’s a concerted effort not to acknowledge each other, keeping to themselves as they coexist. Even so, the awkwardness leeches in, a byproduct of being undeniably in each other’s presence. She hopes that she’s reading his scrunched posture correctly, not reading between non-existent lines. A chill creeps under her skin at just how much thought she's putting into this.
Any time now, Boone.
Feeling uncomfortable in the avoidance, she postures herself so she’s facing him again, settling completely into the corner, using her arms to push the water around in front of her. Finally, she lets her eyes settle on him, analyzing.
He’s still staring intently at his screen, scrolling every few seconds. One arm is crossed over his chest, resting on the one holding his phone. He hasn’t adjusted much, still looking like an action figure bent the wrong way. His usually tidy hair poofs out in a few unruly curls under his cap. She can see where his jaw is flexed, his lips set tight; a telltale sign he’s nowhere near as unaware as their shared silence would lead her to believe. What piques her interest most, though, are his eyes, cast low, flicking over the screen with each scroll.
They’re nice.
Ew.
The sudden sound of his voice rips the thought from her mind.
“You’re staring.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. Why.”
He manages to make a question sound like a statement in a way only he can.
She hums, “I don’t know if I’d really call it ‘staring’.”
Quiet. Scroll. Deep breath.
“There’s a reason all of you get along the way you do.”
She half-scoffs, trying to smother her laugh. He tends to err on the side of an offhand, stealthy snide remark, rarely anything so to the point.
On the right day, after the right chain of events, such a comment would elicit a string of get-him-backs and heated exchanges, but there’s no heart to her bickering now. She feels smiley and light, finally relaxed after a long day and uninterested in putting her back into any kind of real fight.
Pestering suits her fine.
“Well, they’ve all abandoned me now.”
“I don’t know, seemed like you had the drone one pretty convinced.”
The drone one. Ass.
“Aw, so you were listening,” she teases.
He pauses at that and she can see the muscles in his neck tense slightly, “You guys aren’t exactly subtle. My fault for expecting any semblance of social grace from Arkansas' finest.”
That one pokes at her chest a bit, but she rolls over it.
“I thought you’d be in your room for the night.”
“Hot.”
She nods, understanding, “Man of many words.”
“You got the point, right?”
She quirks a brow, amused, “You know, you’re funny when you try, Miller.”
He finally looks up at the sound of his name.
“I wasn’t trying.”
“Well I guess that’s your charm.”
That earns her another bemused slow-blink. She smiles in a bless your heart kind of way and then pushes away from the wall toward his side of the pool.
He manages to sit up even straighter, anticipating her approach, and finally clicks his phone off, laying it on its face next to his leg.
“Easy, there. I don’t bite.” His eyes roll again and she takes it as her cue to keep going, “I really like this situation,” she traces her finger slowly through the air, circling him and the chair.
He looks down, poring over his own extremities like he’s registering them for the very first time. The way he doesn’t shoot something back immediately thrills her, like she’s earned a little badge that says ‘gotcha’ pinned to her lapel. She folds her arms over themselves on the pool’s edge, resting her chin atop them, watching him swing his legs over the chaise into a more normal sitting position.
“Ok,” he protests, tone louder than before, “there weren’t any normal chairs. And I didn’t know I was going to be publicly scrutinized.”
“No, no. I mean, I get it. You looked so...at ease.”
He shoves his tongue into his cheek, shaking his head. He almost breaks.
Almost.
The moment lulls and they fidget; him leaning onto his knees, her legs fluttering beneath her in the water. They’re both staring far off, not quite meeting each other’s eyes. As the air devolves back into silence, he thumbs at his phone case.
“What were you reading earlier?”
Talk about grasping at straws.
He looks up, seeming not entirely annoyed to be continuing the conversation. He clears his throat, looking down at the phone briefly then back at her, “Wasn’t. Just going over the numbers from earlier. It was an EF Nothing; the reports are a mess.”
He says it awkwardly—like he’s not quite convinced of it himself—and even though she could probably poke holes in it, she doesn’t.
“Hmm,” the sound vibrates through her lips, “very Will Hunting of you.”
He tilts his head, narrowing his eyes incredulously, “Why do you keep saying that to me?”
She dips her head like it’s obvious, “Math guy. MIT.”
That’s it.
“Harvard.”
“Definitely not,” she enunciates.
“That’s like the whole thing; they find him at Harvard.”
“No. That’s Minnie Driver’s gig.”
He squints again, still not sure she’s right, but moves on anyway.
“So you’ve been calling me a genius?” He asks, looking down at her.
She takes a pause.
“No,” she muses, “I think I’ve been calling you an asshole.”
She scoffs out a laugh, surprised at herself. He reacts at the same time, eyebrows shooting up and face slackening, a huff resembling amusement escaping him. She holds her fingers to her lips, muting her laugh and he shakes his head, conceding.
When the air settles again and quiet washes over them, she’s too aware of the sound of her own heart beating. It’s heavy, thumping against her rib cage. And when she looks up at him, she lingers just a little too long, suddenly interested in the contours of his face, and the way his hair lays, and his lips—And.
And her chest flutters, like sweeping butterfly wings are sending shockwaves through it. She has to suck in a deep breath just to snap herself out of it. But as she tries to shake the thoughts away, she swears his eyes look a little brighter, a little more focused on her.
And maybe she wouldn’t mind.
Except, she does. Mind. Because everyone minds.
He’s an ass and a little too morally ambiguous and rude and takes up too much space in a field he doesn’t really care about.
He interrupts her berating stream of consciousness with a sudden movement.
He shifts a bit, distributing his weight onto his other knee, leaning a bit farther. He hesitates for a moment, looking away, thinking. Then, clearing his throat, he meets her gaze, locking eyes.
Glad to be rid of her sudden spell of desperation, she meets him with a challenging stare, daring him to speak first. The moments tick by, punctuated by chirps from the occasional odd insect, the pool projecting a blue mirage across his stern features.
He looks her over a few times and lets his eyes pay close attention one feature at a time. She feels hot under his consideration, the tops of her cheeks most likely betraying her. Nervous is the last thing she wants to feel in his presence, but she can’t help it this time. When they’re around everyone, protected by the agreement of some false turf war, it’s easy to write him off, to trade insults without much mind. But here—alone—it doesn’t come as easily.
She blinks just to break his gaze, but it persists. Finally, she sucks her teeth, readjusting purposefully. He leans back at that, starting to straighten up again but still focusing on her.
Say something.
He’s careful in his movements outside the dictatorial role he likes to assume on the road.
Of course, she would never pay enough attention to him to notice something like that. Obviously.
Obviously.
But she does notice. And even as she scolds herself for keeping field notes on the man single-handedly responsible for keeping aviators and headsets relevant, she’s intrigued.
It makes her stomach twist.
Needing to claw herself out of the pit her stomach is devolving into, she concedes.
“You’re staring.”
“Am I?”
Red settles deeper into her cheeks.
It royally pisses her off that he’s somehow melting her eternally fucking cool facade.
“Not engaging.”
He rolls his eyes in a way that makes her think he doesn’t quite mean it, moving to make a rebuttal.
Before he can, the sound of the gate latch shatters their middle ground, yanking their focus toward it. Followed by a series of hoots and thudding feet, the fence bursts open, Boone leading a trail of five or six strangers filing into the area.
“Ally Cat!”
He careens toward them as he lets out an accented screech.
Saved by the bell.
Scott shoots up, righting himself on the chair’s end, eyes trained on the encroaching chaos. There’s a pang somewhere in her chest at the interruption but she recovers quickly.
“Boonedocks!”
She pushes away from the wall, wading closer to where he’s standing.
There’s a sudden crash of cannonballs hitting the water behind her and through the commotion she can see Scott physically retreating into himself.
“Heard from Lily you were sequestered with the automaton,” he gives Scott a pointed glare.
She laughs at the way the words sound molded by his inflection.
Scott grinds the right side of his mouth as though mocking his own gum-chewing habit, “Just babysitting.”
That’s a wrap.
Trying not to feel too disappointed, or at least not show it, she tries a sarcastic, “I was just letting Shades here admire me.”
She scrunches her nose a bit at how it comes out, curated and cumbersome on her tongue. Boone doesn’t seem to notice or care, continuing right on.
“I wouldn’t give him the honor, Ally Cat.”
Scott scoffs at that, picking up his phone and standing to leave.
“That’s right,” Boone yaps, barking like a small-breed dog protected by a wire fence.
Ally can’t help but watch as Scott makes his exit, measuring it in swift strides away from her.
Just one look.
Of course, it would be fine if he didn’t. It’s not like she wants him to, it would just be nice to get the final victory of the night. Obviously.
But then he’s reaching for the gate and there’s a sudden jump in her throat.
“Leaving so soon, Storm Par?” It comes out loud so she’s sure he can hear it over the racket.
He steps out beyond the pool’s perimeter, latching the gate. Then, when she’s just about ready to regret her last attempt at a volley, he peers back over the fence at her.
“Don’t miss me too much.”
A thrum rushes down her spine, sending vibrations through her ribs down to her toes. She hopes the smile she can feel forming isn’t apparent enough for anyone else to read it.
She shakes her head, palming at her face trying to redistribute the flutters in her chest.
Luckily, Boone doesn’t let her bask in it too long, mumbling something like a Thank god as Scott disappears from view and then catapulting himself over her and into the water.
She screeches, turning to join the pandemonium.
Turning to distract herself from—
From.
And eventually she’s lost in the revelry, splashing water at Boone and avoiding ill-advised dives.
But as the air turns balmy rather than blazing and the crowd starts to settle, something draws her attention back toward the pitted white siding of the motel. The roof is sagging a bit. Its bright blue doors contrast against gold numbers behind wrought iron railings. And as she combs over them, and studies the flickering neon sign, noting the orange No Vacancy flickering just below it, something else intrudes on the darkness.
At the end of the long row of windows, perched on the second story, is a warm yellow oozing into the night sky, obstructed only by a looming figure. Blinking, adjusting to the starkness of it, she can just make him out, hat discarded and hands working the buttons of his shirt to reveal a black tee underneath.
Looking down at her.
Well, looking down. Generally. Where she happens to be. When she squints, though, she swears can see the way his eyes focus, narrowing in on the only spot of calm amongst the chaos. Maybe the quickening in her chest begs it to be true, too.
She stares back with bated breath. And as he reaches the last button, letting the shirt fall open, he nods ever so slightly. An acknowledgement.
I see you.
She returns it.
As quickly as she notices him there, the light is suddenly gone, snuffed out by quickly drawn blinds.
