Chapter Text
April second, twenty-twenty-something
Twenty percent chance of storms, my ass.
The air had changed in the late afternoon hours. The breeze picked up, shifting from a calm, soothing spring breeze to a gusty, ominous one. If you weren’t sure they were coming before, your suspicions were confirmed when the air suddenly stilled at sunset.
Storms.
After living here your entire life, you knew what that meant. You knew, despite the meteorologists' swearing that the chance of storms was low, that there was still a chance, especially given the time of year. And then Mother Nature slowly turned the lowly twenty-percent chance of storms into a one-hundred-percent chance as the day went on.
You could feel it even before you turned on the evening news. It was the way the earth stilled, and how the smell of the air changed after the wind stopped, not to mention the aching in your bad knee. Storms would be rolling in within a few hours. The local meteorologist confirmed your suspicions when you turned on the five o’clock news when you walked in the door after work. The front they were monitoring shifted further down than they had initially predicted, and the chance of random pop-up storms could occur at any time during the evening and into the overnight hours.
Suddenly, you’d gone from a meager twenty percent chance of storms to hearing the meteorologist backtrack and announce, “With these kinds of quickly forming storms, we expect high winds, hail, and the chance for tornadoes.”
So, you loaded up the truck with the necessary supplies to complete your chores. As if you needed any further evidence that the incoming storms were going to be bad, you found it when the cloudy sky began to take on a green tinge that made you step on the gas to make it quicker to the barn.
You started at the barn, ensuring that your three draft horses had their identification tags braided into their manes before turning them out to the large pasture. The pasture may be safer in a tornado than the barn, but you hated watching them run out into the field every time. There had been some close calls over the years, but the fear was always there. It was the hopeless feeling of not knowing what would happen by the end of the day. It happened every year, and while you were a seasoned professional, there was still the simmering realization thrumming through your veins, reminding you there was always a chance that today could be the day that Mother Nature took everything from you.
But there wasn’t time to think like that. The wind picked up as if warning you to get your ass into gear, and the darkening clouds only affirmed the wind’s warning.
So, pushing the undercurrent of terror down, you shoved off the fence from watching your horses munch on the grass in the pasture and got back to work. With the barn empty, you started moving all the expensive farm equipment into the barn, and counted your blessings that you made it home early from work for once and actually had time to do these chores instead of the minutes-to-seconds warning you normally got.
You’d been through enough storms to know that you shouldn’t take any of them for granted. You had grown up on this very farm and, with the exception of a year of college, had lived here your whole life. You knew every inch of land like the back of your hand. A part of you, especially when you were younger, had always imagined growing up and taking over the family farm that had been in your family for generations.
In that picture, you always pictured yourself as old and gray, watching the sunrise on the farmhouse's large, covered wrap-around porch.
You’d never imagined being handed over the reins in your teens. Well, technically, you were nineteen, but there was still that pesky teen morpheme that still counted you as a teenager.
Your family’s farm had survived for generations. It had survived the Great Depression and every other recession since then. It had survived drought, floods, blizzards, and just about any other natural disaster you could name.
It had even survived your little over a decade-long tenure as owner. At least it had until this very moment.
And the way it was looking, if your truck couldn’t get into gear, your tenure might also end tonight, along with your farm.
The truck, your dad’s “old reliable”, was older than you were. The beater was an old 1979 Ford F-150 that used to be red with a white panel down the middle, which had actually been passed down to your dad by your grandfather. It was an old stick-shift with no power steering, no air conditioning, and at this point, you were convinced the only thing holding it together was the rust it was encased in, but it’s what you had. Someday, you’d need to get a new one, but there was no money in the budget for a car payment, so you only hoped it would hang on a little longer.
However, as you looked back in the rearview mirror at the swirling grey mass of wind and death, you hoped that, at the very least, old reliable could actually be fucking reliable and get into gear before it got sucked into the tornado with you inside.
“Come on, come on, come on,” you muttered as you shifted the truck into fourth gear and cringed at the sound of the tires slipping on the gravel road, reminding you that old reliable was not meant for such speeds.
The radio was one of the few comfort features that still worked on the rust-bucket (as long as you accepted the fact you had to listen to AM radio), and still blared the heart-stopping, piercing, monotone emergency sounds before the National Weather Service emergency alert voiceover declared, “You are in a life-threatening situation. Flying debris may be deadly to those caught without shelter.”
“Yeah, no shit!” you yelled back at the radio as your family’s home with its blessed tornado shelter came into view.
Risking one glance back at the tornado seemingly following, no, not following, taunting you at a distance, you prayed it would decide to change directions at the last minute.
Bright blue-green lightning ripped overhead like nothing you’d ever witnessed before, and the answering booming thunder was so intense, it rattled the truck's glass windows. The lighting was blinding, forcing you to pop the truck into neutral and slow down until you could see again.
Damn, that struck close, you thought. It was so bright and so close that you were half-convinced that the truck had been struck by lightning. Thankfully, you were still alive, but hopefully, whatever the lightning struck wasn’t valuable, and the rain pelting down would keep the fire at bay.
As the blinding light receded, you sagged in relief to find the storm shelter built into the ground on the other side of the garage was now almost within running distance.
Naturally, just because the blinding light receded didn’t mean that everything instantly died down. The wind seemed to pick up, causing the truck to sway precariously as you began pumping the brakes, but you had to put that aside to focus on the destination. With your hand on the gearshift, you were ready to throw the truck into first so you could park it once you got close enough to make a run for it.
Of course, when you were only moments away from the safety of the storm shelter, the flying debris the radio had warned you about only seconds ago chose that moment to come crashing down from above, right onto your windshield.
“Shit!” you screeched, slamming on the brakes, sending whatever crashed into your truck rolling off the hood.
You stared in shock at the splintered, dented windshield, which was now only holding on by a wing and a prayer as rain and hail pelted against the truck.
“I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.” The mantra came as a whispered plea as you tried to gather yourself.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature wasn’t going to give you the chance to recover. As the winds howled outside, the low moan and groan of the tornado winding aimlessly behind you spurred you back to action.
“Shit, shit, shit,” you continued to mutter under your breath as your luck continued when old reliable died with an ominous shudder.
With no other option but to make a run for it, you shoved the truck door open and jumped outside. The winds roared, and hail pelted against you as you started to run from the pickup, making way for the shelter when a flash of silver caught your eye.
What you saw made your blood run cold.
A person.
That flying chunk of debris that had crashed into your windshield was a person.
You hit a person with your truck.
Well, a tornado dropped a person on your truck, but the howling winds reminded you that there wasn’t time to debate semantics.
With your hands bracing the side of your head in disbelief, you stood in the middle of the raging storm in shock. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
And as if the whole ordeal couldn’t get any stranger, it appeared as if the guy was wearing some kind of weird… Wait… was that armor?
At the sound of the man’s pained groan, your hands fell from your head, and your shoulders sagged in relief that you hadn’t actually killed him. However, another strike of lightning backlit the looming tornado in the field, and you remembered that you had a much bigger problem on your hands.
Snapping into action, you ran toward the stranger and tried to pull him up by his arms, but between the man’s sheer muscle mass, not to mention the fucking armor he was wearing, your strange piece of storm debris weighed a literal fuck ton. Still, despite the very serious situation you’d found yourself in, you couldn’t help but take a fraction of a second to appreciate that the man’s biceps were almost the size of your head.
“Come on!” you shouted, shaking the man by his shoulders, trying to get him to cooperate with you in the slightest because there was no way you were going to be able to drag him by yourself to the shelter, much less down the steep ladder in time to avoid getting eaten by the approaching tornado.
The stranger groaned again and seemingly acted on instinct, slowly rising from the ground, following your lead to make it to his feet.
“There you go,” you encouraged, shifting so you could throw his arm over your shoulder to help support him the rest of the way. “Come on, we gotta take shelter!” you yelled into his ear to fight over the wind.
“What…” he slurred, disoriented and squinting as the rain pelted his face. His head turned, allowing you to get your first look at him. His dark hair was now soaked from the rain and was stuck flat against his furrowed brow as he looked at you with equally dark, concussed eyes, obviously confused about how he ended up leaning against some stranger. The wind roared in warning, and you watched as utter fear passed over his features. The hand, which was not gripping your shoulder for support, stopped to check something at his hip, finding momentary relief until it came up to grab frantically at his head. “My helmet,” he muttered as he tried to pull away from you.
“Yeah, it probably saved your life when you fell on my truck, but we don’t have time!” you argued, clutching him tighter as you tried to lead him back in the direction of the shelter.
“No—" he started to argue as another bolt of lightning cracked overhead, illuminating the dark mass of wind currently headed your direction. The man froze, his mouth dropping in fear as he watched the tornado eat the power lines of the next field over, causing flickering power surges to light it up from the inside.
“Yeah, I’d really love it if we didn’t die tonight,” you snarked, tugging the man until his feet finally stumbled as he moved with you.
He was slow, even stumbled on his first shaky steps, but at least he was moving. You just hoped that you both wouldn’t get sucked up because this idiot tried to go for a casual stroll, thinking his armor would protect him against a tornado.
Idiot.
When you reached the shelter doors, you dropped to the ground, keeping an eye on the tall, armored stranger, swaying slightly beside you. The wind rushed, moving in all directions, making it difficult to open the door, not to mention the low groaning sound of the tornado made you fumble with the doors out of sheer terror.
And then there was another set of gloved hands with yellow fingertips on top of yours. With gritted teeth, you and the armored man shared a silent nod of understanding before you both took a door and pulled. With his help, the two of you were finally able to pry the shelter’s white doors open, despite the wind working against your mission. Once the doors were open, you waved for the stranger to go first. The man blinked dumbly from his spot, likely slow from being concussed, but finally turned, kneeling in the wet mud beside you, and began to make his way slowly down the ladder. Once his first foot hit the shelter floor, you followed behind, slamming the shelter door closed behind you and barring it shut before dropping the rest of the way to the dirty floor.
Inside the storm shelter was pitch-black, with only the sound of the strange armored idiot and your ragged breaths filling the small space. After a moment to catch your breath, you reached into the back pocket of your jeans for your phone, using the tiny flashlight to help you find the emergency supplies.
On the back shelf were the battery-powered lantern and radio, along with some bottled water and protein bars that were quite possibly as old as your best friend’s daughter, but that was a problem for later. You grabbed the lantern and flicked it on, letting out a long, drawn-out breath at the soft, yellow light that now illuminated the small underground shelter.
The strange man was closer than you realized, and you jumped when you realized he was watching you with dark, glazed-over eyes. With a nervous gulp, you lifted the lantern a little higher to get an idea of what kind of injuries the man was dealing with and instantly found blood caked and oozing along his forehead and right temple.
“What do we do now?” he asked, keeping his eyes fixed on you.
At his question, the wind howled and roared above you, making the shelter doors rattle as they strained against the high-intensity winds, indicating that the tornado was a lot closer to the farmhouse than you wanted it to be. Your attention was pulled to the shelter doors at the sound of them rattling and vibrating, but when they began to shake violently as the wind increased further, the armored idiot you saved stepped in front of you as if he was going to protect you. Against a tornado.
With a nervous gulp, you grabbed at the man’s elbow and pulled him with you to the very back of the shelter. Once both of your backs were flat against the wooden shelves that lined the walls, the idiot turned to look at you, but all you could do was give him an unsure shrug before answering his question with, “Wait.”
There were a thousand other questions and comments on the tip of your tongue for your new armored chunk of flying storm debris: What were you thinking? Do you know how lucky you are? Are you an idiot? But you never got the chance to ask any because as soon as you answered the stranger, his head slumped forward and he collapsed to the floor.
A heavy sigh released from your lungs as you looked between the stranger and the shelter door, still rattling against the raging winds.
“Perfect.”
You groaned at the unfortunate turn of events as you hung the lantern on a small hook in the center of the shelter roof. With both of your hands free, you covered your face as you struggled to figure out what you were going to do. Silly you for thinking you’d get a chance for a calm, peaceful evening. A glass of wine, reading a couple of chapters from your current book, and turning in early… Was that too much to ask for?
Apparently, the universe decided that you didn’t have enough on your plate, because it quite literally dumped a man on your truck, and now that strange, armored idiot was passed out on the shelter floor.
At least the night couldn’t get any stranger.
And then, a quiet noise pulled you from your internal thoughts. As your fingertips slid down your face, you caught movement from the burlap sack that was slung over the armored idiot's shoulder.
You stared at the burlap bag when the brief movement stopped. When it twitched again, you crouched closer to see if the man was possibly having a seizure or was having some other kind of medical emergency.
As your fingers reached the bag, you learned the night could, in fact, get stranger.
“What the?” you murmured to yourself when you felt something warm inside the bag move under your fingers, making your hands fly away from the sack. At this point, you didn’t know what to expect anymore, but when something with green, wrinkly skin, and ginormous pointed ears popped out of the wanna-be knight’s satchel, you immediately let out a shriek before falling back on your ass.
Whatever that was—You didn’t even know what to call it, but it was not normal.
The thing made a soft, muted, pained moan, and in a panic, you scrambled back on your hands and feet until your back struck the ladder, and you gawked at the… whatever it was, as it stared back at you with its large, black eyes. When the creature gave you a tiny, exhausted wave, you managed a shocked wave back. You were frozen in disbelief on the shelter floor with your hand raised as you continued to wiggle your fingers, but before you could say or do anything, you watched as the green thing also collapsed against the idiot piece of unconscious storm debris.
No one was going to believe this. The whole night was so absurd that you were certain that you had died when the man landed on your pickup, and this was some kind of weird introduction to the afterlife.
You stayed on the floor with your back against the ladder, unable to do anything but stare at the wannabe knight and the strange green creature that were both unconscious in the middle of your storm shelter.
“What the actual fuck?”