Chapter Text
Of course, after their somewhat disastrous drive, the night didn’t fare much better for either of them.
By the time they pulled into the hotel parking lot in Indianapolis, Tyler and Kate were both pretty dead on their feet. Tyler was slumping heavily into his crutches, more so than Kate had ever seen. For the first time since he told her about his leg, Kate could actually see that he was in pain. Kate hadn’t realized how good he was at covering it up until he wasn’t anymore. There were lines of tension around his eyes, his shoulders were practically up to his ears, and he was white knuckling the rubber grips.
The hotel was definitely nicer than the motels they stayed in across Oklahoma but that was to be expected. Multistory structures were expensive, especially ones that had such a high potential to be blown away by a tornado. In Indianapolis, they didn’t quite have the same problem. There were eight levels of windows above the ground floor on the neutral colored building. Most of the curtains were drawn in the dimly illuminated windows. Yellow light reflected off the cars in the mostly full parking lot. After Tyler pulled his backpack onto his shoulders and Kate grabbed her own, they slowly made their way through the crowded parking lot inside.
Despite the late hour, the lobby was still busy. There were two lines for the two tired receptionists at the long desk. With a sigh, Kate and Tyler settled in to wait.
It took about twenty-five minutes for Tyler and Kate to get up to the front of their line. Tyler was shifting restlessly, trying not to put weight on his leg but clearly uncomfortable with the crutches shoved under his arms. Kate mostly stared off into space, still zoned out from the earlier adrenaline and the now late hour. She kept snapping herself out of it with thoughts of her own bed and her mom’s lunch tomorrow.
“Hey, I’ve got two rooms under Owens. First name’s Tyler.”
The receptionist, an older woman probably the same age as Kate’s mom with blonde hair tied back in an updo, clicked away on her keyboard, eyes flicking back and forth across the screen. There was a moment of silence when suddenly Tyler shifted beside Kate, a sigh escaping. He untucked the crutch from his left side and shifted to his right hand, weight leaning into the counter. His left hand settled against his thigh, thumb rubbing back and forth across the athletic material of his shorts. Kate looked at him, watching a strained smile and tight shoulders.
“What’s the problem, ma’am?”
Kate’s head snapped back to look at the receptionist, trying to figure out why Tyler thought there was a problem. From what Kate could see, she was still looking at the screen, tapping away on the keyboard with a polite expression on her face. But sure enough…
“Well, Mr. Owens, it looks like we only have one room left.”
Tyler’s nose wrinkled, his eyes darting away as he rolled his shoulders as much as he could, and kept a small smile on his face, “But I booked two ahead of time.”
“Yes, I see that. I’m not sure how that got overlooked. I’m afraid we only have one room left in the category you booked. If you would be interested, I could upgrade you to a suite. It would be a king bed on the top floor at no additional cost.”
Kate looked at Tyler, his weight inconspicuously leaning into the counter and his shoulders tense and rounded. His thumb was still rubbing at his thigh, back and forth. Kate herself felt dead on her feet. With as much of a smile as she could muster, she cut in.
“Actually, we’ll take the upgrade.”
Tyler’s eyes flicked to hers.
The receptionist glanced at Kate but then looked back at Tyler. Tyler was still looking at Kate until the receptionist cleared her throat.
“Mr. Owens, would you like the upgrade?”
Tyler’s eyes flicked back to look at the receptionist, “Uh, yeah. Yeah. Yes, ma’am. Whatever the lady wants shall be what the lady gets.”
With that, he flashed Kate a cheesy grin, making her roll her eyes at him.
From there, check in was a breeze. They made their way to the elevator which took them up to the ninth floor. Luckily, they found their room quickly and had no problems getting in. Kate dropped her stuff on the side of the bed closest to the window and dropped onto the bed. When she looked up, Tyler was still standing in the small hallway.
“Tyler, come on. We’ve shared a bed before. I’m not gonna bite.” Kate paused and let a playful grin shine through before she followed with a shrug and an overly innocent tone, “Probably.”
That had the desired effect of making Tyler chuckle. His head dropped and his shoulders shook. Finally, they were lowering from their position by his ears. With more hopping than stepping, Tyler made his way to the other side of the bed. The bag he was carrying landed on the floor with a thump. Clearly he had no regard for the room below them. He gently lowered himself to sit on the bed, leaning back and using his hands to get his left leg fully on the bed. With a puff of air, he flopped back onto the bed, right leg still hanging off.
With Tyler’s right arm slung over his face, it gave Kate the chance to really study the brace. The brace was strapped around his leg in four places: around his upper thigh, just above his knee, just below his knee, and his lower calf. Each strap was thick, leaving only small gaps of skin between each strap, however the knee was mostly open. Thick ropes of scars were evident, interspersed along smaller white scars and the remaining mottled bruising. There was a circular mechanism on each side of his knee that connected to the sturdy parts of the brace connecting from the top strap to the bottom. It seemed the circle part locked his leg in a slightly bent position, just enough that the toes of his sneaker hovered above the ground on crutches.
Even when she had hurt her leg, it had never really been restricted like that. Sure, they wanted her to avoid stretching the skin and there had been some muscle damage, but it had all healed straightforwardly after the initial surgery to stitch the muscle back together. The physical therapy had been awful but there was no damage to anything beyond skin and muscle. There had been a brace but she hadn’t worn it long.
“You gonna sleep in your shoes, cowboy?”
Tyler surprised Kate by letting out a sardonic chuckle.
Kate’s brows furrowed, “What?”
“Nothing. Just…” Tyler trailed off and shifted, “Just that I can’t really reach my shoes right now. Well I mean the right one I could, but the left…I probably need to take the brace off too but that’s not gonna happen right now.”
“Oh.” Kate shifted on the bed, shuffling closer to Tyler but careful not to dip the bed in a way that would shift his leg and asked, “Can I help?”
Tyler’s head popped up, wide eyes flicking between her hand and her face, top of his face still under his arm, “What?”
“Can I help?” Kate repeated, keeping her tone neutral.
“Uh, I mean, yeah. Yeah, sorry. You can if you want,” Tyler shook his head and shifted to sit up. He winced when he put his weight into his right shoulder, but Kate carefully pretended not to notice yet. His leg was the more immediate problem.
The white duvet creased and crinkled as Kate shifted down to the foot of the bed, the sound of fabric rustling the most prominent in the room. Just then the A/C kicked on, creating white noise that broke the silence. Kate absentmindedly bit her lip in concentration as she set to work unlacing Tyler’s Nikes. They weren’t tied very tight anyway so it didn’t take her long to unlace it and pull it off, along with his sock. Next, her hands ghosted up over the bottom strap of his brace.
“Does it matter which strap I start with?”
“N-no,” Tyler cleared his throat and shifted again, “No. It doesn’t matter.”
Kate started to carefully unstrap the velcro before she spoke, “You know, after uh..” she had to pause before continuing, “After the,” a gesture with her hands, “They had to stitch the muscle in my thigh back together.”
Kate waved her hand over her thigh while Tyler winced in apparent sympathy.
“Ouch.”
Kate let a little laugh slip at his apt wording, “Yeah. Yeah, “ouch” is right. Anyway, they had me in a brace for a few weeks so I wouldn’t strain the muscle or rip the internal stitches. Or the external ones, I guess. Anyway, mine was pretty chill compared to this but definitely still not fun. Although,” this time Kate cleared her throat, “although I guess I didn’t really want to get up or go anywhere anyway.”
Tyler sat completely still and silent for a minute while she carefully finished unstrapping the one just below his knee. Her hands were just ghosting over the strap at the top of his knee when he finally spoke, “The last time I broke it was with Boone. We were pretty strapped for cash while trying to get some storm chasing equipment to start us up and I decided to enter a few rodeos to earn some quick money. It was the last one I was gonna do before we went full time storm chasing. Bull slammed me into the railing at seven and a half seconds and my hand got stuck. The railing broke my leg again but it was a clean break. Healed pretty quickly and actually didn’t cause a problem. But when my hand got stuck and he pulled the other way, it pulled my shoulder outta socket. I’ve broken a lot of bones but that was definitely worse. The way it pulled out also broke my collarbone and fractured my shoulder blade.” Tyler scoffed and shook his head, a small smile creeping onto his face, “Boone hovered like I had never seen. Waited on me practically hand and foot while trying to go to all my classes to take notes for me and get the work I still needed to do. Came to all the doctor’s appointments and literally took notes.”
Tyler laughed at the memory while Kate laughed at the image her mind conjured up of goofy Boone sitting there all studious while taking meticulous notes from the doctors that Tyler probably ended up ignoring or forgetting. She could believe it based on the mother henning she had seen this time.
“Sophmore year of college, Jeb actually broke one of his fingers on his right hand. He was more than capable of taking the notes himself on a laptop but he said that notes on a laptop just weren’t the same as handwritten notes. Something about studying was easier on paper or something stupid like that. Anyway, I followed him around to all his classes like the good friend I was and took all of his notes by hand. And when the splint came off a few weeks later, I realized he took all his notes on a laptop. I was so mad but then I realized he was gonna hafta go back and retype all of those notes I took for him and decided it was a good enough punishment for him playing me like that. We, uh, we started dating about a year later. When I brought it up, he said he just liked having me around and that was a good reason.” Kate laughed suddenly, “His face when I told him he could’ve just asked to hang out was so funny. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. It looked like that had never even occurred to him and honestly? I don’t think it had.”
When Kate’s chuckles died down, Tyler was smiling at her in a way she hadn’t seen before. It was something like fondness and sadness and happiness and something else she couldn’t quite place all rolled into one. It was probably the softest he had ever looked at her. In an attempt to ignore the feelings that ignited in her stomach and chest, she looked down at her hands only to realize she had finished unstrapping the brace and her hand was just resting on Tyler’s thigh, thumb rubbing gentle shapes. Heat rose into her cheeks as she pulled her hand away and cleared her throat.
“Alright, cowboy. Shoe and brace are off. What’s next?”
Tyler shook his head and his blue eyes flickered away from Kate’s face, sitting up more and bringing his other leg up to unite that shoe, “Now I go to bed. You want the bathroom first? I’m just gonna brush my teeth.”
Kate’s eyebrows furrowed just a little bit, “You’re getting back up? Shouldn’t you have left the brace on for that?”
Tyler just shrugged, “Well sure I am, Kit Kat, but I’m tired of those death contraptions and I can’t walk with the brace.”
It was only because she was already scrutinizing him that she noticed the subtle shoulder roll when he mentioned the crutches accompanied by the flexing of his right hand.
“Can I borrow the truck keys? I forgot somethin’.”
Tyler finally looked up at her, something akin to shock painted across his face before it relaxed into an easy smile, “‘Course, darlin’. You don’t have to ask.” With a little effort Tyler dug through the left pocket of his athletic shorts and tossed the keys to Kate.
After catching them, she shot him a small smile, “Thanks, cowboy.”
“Anytime, Sapulpa.”
Kate tilted her head and Tyler blinked at her slowly, both grinning stupidly at each other from across the bed.
The abrupt sputtering of the A/C cutting off broke the silence just as easily as it did when it came on. Kate startled at the sound, quickly climbing off the bed and sliding her shoes back on. She made it all the way to the door before she whipped around to face Tyler again, who was still sitting stunned on the bed.
“Oh! Do you need help or anything? Now that, you know, you don’t have the brace on? Er, well, I guess you have more hands without the crutches anyway?”
Tyler cut Kate off with a smile, “I’m good, Kate. Thanks.”
She flashed him a grin and disappeared out the hotel room door.
—
Tyler’s eyes snapped open, body rocketing up into a sitting position, fluffy white comforter falling down into his lap.
For a second, he sits there, already working on slowing his breathing and grounding himself, when he realizes that he isn't in the midst of a panic attack. There’s no stuttered breathing or phantom pain, no rain on his skin or images burned into the back of his eyelids every time he blinks.
A whimper to his left sets off the alarm bells that had originally awoken him. It takes a minute to disentangle himself from the cord of the heating pad Kate had gone out to the truck to get for his shoulder earlier.
Kate waltzed back into the hotel room, holding up her prize with a bright grin: a black bundle of fabric with a partially dangling cord swinging around her arm.
Tyler looks up from his phone, leg propped on pillows and back against the headboard. He raises an eyebrow at her obvious excitement and takes the bait, “Whatcha got there, Kitkat?”
Kate bounces further into the room and right over to the side of the bed Tyler is on. She immediately started shuffling stuff around and plugged in the end of the cord into the outlet.
“Kate?”
With another victorious grin shot his way, she unwraps the bundle and hits a button on the cord a few times before answering, “It’s a heating pad. It should help your shoulder. Here, lean up-“
Tyler doesn’t have the words to do anything as Kate leans into his space, arms out to bring the heating pad so it lays over his shoulder. Gentle pressure from her has him leaning back, pinning the heating pad in place against the headboard.
“Kate…”
“I noticed that-well I mean, it just looked like your shoulder hurt. That should help, right?”
“You didn’t have to-“
“I know. I wanted to,” Kate smiled, looking up at him from beneath her lashes.
A flinch from Kate snapped Tyler from his thoughts of her soft smile and chocolate eyes framed by brown lashes. Almost without his permission, his hand was reaching out towards her, wanting nothing more than to pull her into him and ease her pain. Just short of her, he came back to his senses and jerked his arm back to his side.
“Kate. Kate. Kitkat.” Tyler tried, limbs firmly on his side of the bed. “Kate, you’re sleeping. You’re not there. We’re at a hotel in Indiana. You’re safe. You’re safe, Sapulpa. Just wake up, Kitkat.”
With a gasp, Kate shot up onto one elbow, head rapidly swinging around.
“Hey, hey. Easy. That’s it, Sapulpa. Just breathe. We’re at a hotel on the way from New York to Oklahoma. You’re safe right now.”
Kate’s wide eyes finally connected with Tyler’s. Her pupils were blown, almost black in the near darkness of the room. The deep brown caught in a sliver of light coming in around the blackout shade from the streetlight outside for just a second and then it was gone as Kate moved.
There was a hollow thump as Kate connected heavily with his chest. He wheezed a little, especially as her arms came around him and squeezed. Carefully, Tyler scooted up the bed, one arm wrapped around Kate’s shoulders. Once he had something to lean back against, he brought his other arm down around Kate and held on to her just as tightly. It didn’t take long before he felt his shirt getting wet in time with the start of Kate’s back shuddering under his arms.
The sudden click of the air conditioner turning off startled Tyler. A thick blanket of silence settled over the room, now absent the white noise Tyler didn’t even realize it was previously filled with. Without the rattling of the A/C, Tyler could hear Kate hiccupping against him, quiet and stuttered between sobs.
“Kate, darling, I’m gonna need you to breathe for me. Can you do that? Just copy me, alright? It’s easy: just an in…” Tyler inhaled deeply, “and out…” and released it slowly.
It took a few breaths for Kate to acknowledge him and start trying, and then a few more for her to get it on her own. As soon as he was sure she wasn’t going to hyperventilate, he settled down and let her breathe on her own. He was so zoned out, drawing shapes on her back and twirling her hair that he hadn’t noticed he started humming.
“What is that song?”
Tyler jumped again at Kate’s voice. It was cracked and raw, but she was aware now and calm, breathing slowly and evenly against his chest. His shirt was sticking to him uncomfortably but he didn’t dare move. He hummed in question to answer her.
“That song. You hum a lot of different things all the time but that song is different. You do it when like…I’m having a—or like. I don’t know. When you’re stressed? Or trying to calm me down? I don’t really know. I just know anytime you’ve helped, you’ve hummed that one tune. And that one time when I hummed it to—I just can’t place it. What is it?”
“Oh.” Tyler tensed his muscles unconsciously to stop his tell tale shifting. “That. Um, well. It’s uh, it’s…”
“You don’t have to tell me, Ty. I didn’t mean to push.”
“No, no. It’s fine. It’s one my aunt really liked. She’d hum it when I—” Tyler cleared his throat and took a deep breath, “She used to hum it when I broke my leg and was living with them. I was always an antsy kid. Being confined to a bed…it wasn’t the greatest. And um…how I—how I broke it was not good. And I was…I was difficult. It was her way of grounding me, I guess. It’s Chasing Cars. She said she heard it on the radio when—when she was coming to see me one time. Guess she liked it.”
“She’s got good taste in music. I didn’t know you knew anything other than country.”
Tyler scoffed and tugged at her hair, "Oh just you fair for tomorrow, Sapulpa. You can see my wonderful taste in music that’s not country.”
Kate chuckled, “Is that a threat, cowboy?”
Tyler smiled, “Maybe. I’ll let you know when I decide.”
This got a full laugh out of Kate.
Tyler hesitated to speak at first, but finally broke the easy silence, “Do you wanna talk about it?”
At first, Kate just burrowed deeper into his chest and stayed silent. Tyler respected that and simply went back to playing with her hair and fiddling around drawing patterns across her back. Shapes and lines and words all painted in imaginary colors across fabric covered skin. He carefully kept his humming in his head though. His ears were red enough already.
“I will eventually. But just not—not tonight.”
“That’s fine. I’ll be here whenever you’re ready to share whatever you feel like sharing. I’ll take whatever you want to give me, Kate.”
Kate exhaled heavily against him. Both of them relaxed muscles they didn’t realize that had tightened.
“You ready to go back to sleep? Or you wanna stay up?”
Kate shifted to move, but Tyler tightened his hold instinctively. Panicking a little, he immediately loosened it back up, pulling his arms away completely, “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to—”
“Ty, it’s okay. You can put them back.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. I’m not quite ready to go back to sleep.”
“Okay.”
Carefully, Tyler reached over the side of the bed and fumbled with his backpack in the dark. Familiar with this routine, he didn’t take long to locate the small back rectangle and remove it.
The led screen lit up immediately upon him opening the laptop, eliciting a hiss from him and Kate as the light assaulted their dark adjusted eyes. He quickly dimmed the screen as low as it would go and wrinkled his nose at the misfortune of the screen being so bright.
Routine had him pulling up Disney+ before he could register what he was doing. Before he could close the opening screen, Kate’s head turned to face what he was doing.
“Disney plus?”
Tyler cleared his throat, “Yeah. Yeah. I like movies when I can’t sleep. Figured it might help you.”
Kate was quiet long enough that Tyler was debating putting the laptop away when she finally spoke again, “Can we watch Wall-e?”
“Yeah, Kitkat. We can watch Wall-e.”