#why no I don’t work at isla nublar why do you ask

[lizisshortforlizard]

Living Dangerously - Chapter 30

Jurassic Park’s animal handlers: none of them ever mentioned by name in Michael Crichton’s original novel. Who were they? What were their lives like on Isla Nublar? Did any of them survive the disaster?

A year in the life of those responsible for the care of the dinosaurs. Many people would kill to have their jobs.

But would they die for it?

Jurassic Park novel/Jurassic Park film (1993)

Viewpoint: 3rd person female oc

Warnings: some swears, harassment and misogyny in the workplace

Tagging: @heresthefanfiction @ocappreciation @wordspin-shares @howlingmadlady @arrthurpendragon @themaradwrites @starryeyes2000 @kmc1989 (please lmk if you would like informed of my sporadic updates)

Read on Ao3

Chapter 29 | Chapter 31

I Hate Myself for Loving You - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

It turned out be a different sort of sleepless night to what Lizzy had been hoping for.

The wrong kind. 

She had lain awake for what few hours remained until morning, tossing, turning, occasionally weeping. Any sleep she managed to grasp was fitful, feeling like it only lasted a few seconds at a time.

She kept replaying what had happened in the clearing, each time a little more painful. Wondering how she could have behaved differently. How it could have turned out better than this unbearable limbo in which she didn't know where she stood anymore. Whether she'd just forever destroyed one of the best professional relationships she'd ever had. 

It was all her fault, of course it was.

Why did she keep doing this? It felt eerily similar to the last time she’d engaged without thinking of the consequences. It had nearly ruined someone else’s life back then, as well as her own. History was repeating itself, and she only had herself to blame. 

And now, once again, she had to live with the uncomfortable reality. She’d argue that it clearly wasn’t taking advantage from either side, in fact Lizzy would be bold enough to say they were both very much in agreement. But InGen’s legal department probably wouldn’t see it the same way. 

Admit it, girl. You fucked up. 

Dawn came, and she finally forced herself to get out of bed and pretend to be human. She should be looking forward to going out into the park again and seeing her animals, now that she wasn’t alone and it was relatively safe to do so, but she was dreading it. Unsure what she’d do when she inevitably bumped into Muldoon again.

Pretend it never happened or meet him head on? 

I don’t think I have it in me this time. 

She was in the canteen, laying low, listlessly poking at her scrambled eggs with a fork. Lizzy had cooked them herself, but they were far from her usual standard and didn't taste of anything other than disappointment. 

She heard the familiar Jeep engine outside, and the shower of gravel as it ground to a halt. Lizzy shrunk down in her chair, staring at her plate in dread. 

I’m better at breakfast.

Be the one to wake me up in the morning.

God, why did I do it?

At least the coffee was worth leaving her room for. 

It was the first thing Muldoon noticed as soon as he walked in. She hadn’t brought one over for him, like she usually did. Message received, loud and clear.

The one small act she did for him almost every day, and he hadn’t even appreciated it properly until it had stopped. That was enough to get him to talk first. Armstrong did something when she made coffee. Invoked a higher power. Witchcraft. Somehow she always got it exactly right.

This wouldn’t do at all.

“Good morning.”

“It is?” She replied dully, glancing up with red-rimmed eyes. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

“You’re late for work.” He pointed out. “How are you doing?”

“Well, that’s a kick in the teeth.” She muttered. “But, if you’re genuinely asking? Annoyed. No, that’s not right. Vexed? Hm. Frustrated. Mostly at myself.” 

“Armstrong-“ Muldoon awkwardly stood in front of her. “I probably owe you an explanation.”

“No need. I thought you made it pretty clear, actually.” She felt the sting of rejection anew. It was more painful than she’d reckoned to talk about it. “You don’t owe me squat.”

“I could have handled things better.” He pulled out a chair to sit opposite her. “It all happened rather quickly.” 

“You were handling things just fine.” Lizzy gave up on her eggs, pushing her plate away before sitting back and folding her arms. “What changed?”  What exactly had changed? It was hard to explain, but what it came down to was-

“Too fast." 

She blinked, confused. ”Say again?”

Muldoon wished more than anything that Baker was around to keep him on the right track, guide him with what to say. 

”…moving too fast.”

”Well, thanks for the clarification.” Lizzy replied dryly. “And that’s…bad?”

It was, it didn’t feel right, to be suddenly rushing matters in the dark. Outside…fair enough, but in the back of a bloody Jeep?! 

Or maybe on the bonnet of his Jeep-

No, stop that. 

He wasn’t sure quite what had happened, but he’d forgotten his responsibilities. Keep her safe. And risking her career for the sake of one night together did not fall into that bracket. No matter how strongly he felt.  How he felt didn’t matter. Hadn’t mattered for a long time. 

“Don’t want one and done.” He tried to explain, despite the relentless stare from the other side of the table. “Can’t do it.”

Not with her. Everything or nothing at all. Anything else would never be enough. He was trying to voice that sentiment out loud, but he didn’t have the words. He barely had the syllables.

“It’s not right, either. We already knew that.“ Muldoon gave up. She’d have to trust him, he was doing his best. If she could still trust him. ”Does that help, at all?”

“Yes…” Then her face crumpled.

He looked at her closely. ”Are you lying to me?”

”Yes!” It all came pouring out in a high-pitched hurry. “You’ve been mad at me before and I’ve understood why. But, after, and when we were driving back-…I couldn’t read you, at all!”

Lizzy put her head in her hands and mumbled something beyond his range of hearing.

She thought he was angry with her? That’s what she was most upset about?

Muldoon reached out and gently but firmly pulled her hand away from her mouth.

”Again, please.” 

”…really thought I’d lost you.” She whispered. 

“Well, you certainly have a flair for the dramatic, Lizzy.” He kept hold of her hand, she let him.

”Are you implying I’m overreacting?” She choked out. “Because women love that.”

”To be clear, I’m not mad at you. I’ve never once been mad at you.”

”Are you sure?”

“Positive. Annoyed, maybe. Vexed? Once or twice.” Lizzy groaned when she realised what he was doing. “Frustrated…you get the idea.”

”Oh, that’s not fair.” She muttered. 

“But I’d find it very hard to live with, if you were dismissed because of something I did. Or might possibly do, if we were to, er-…” He looked uncomfortable. “-you know.”

"Suppose that’s a good point. Damn you for being so rational. I love my job.” She glanced up. “The people, eh...."

"Indeed, people are awful. Most people, at any rate." He quietly agreed. "This island would be bloody idyllic if we weren't going to be overrun by guests in a few short months.”

“So, where do we go from here?” Lizzy was already dreading the answer.

“I don’t think…we are going anywhere. You and I-" Muldoon looked resigned. "-have to carry on as before.”

“Like nothing ever happened?”

”I’m afraid so. Strictly professional.”

“But that’s not what I want.” May as well say it. 

“Nor me.” Lizzy wondered if him tracing circles on the back of her hand was conscious or otherwise. “But it’s what we have to do.”

Sobriety would be a distant memory if he was responsible for ruining her career.

“Still the funniest story I’ve ever heard.” She muttered after a few moments, breaking the tension.

“Good.” Her laugh. That ridiculous laugh that he couldn’t stop thinking about. “That’ll keep me going for a while.”

Lizzy nodded and managed a wonky smile. She felt like crying again, it seemed horribly like saying a goodbye. "We'll be okay, right?"

"I don't even want to imagine the alternative."

This is the right choice. This is the right choice. This is the right choice.

Doesn't feel right. Feels bloody awful. 

Lizzy tilted her head, pushing her body towards him, her candour returning. “Did you like it, though?” 

”Excuse me?” He had to have misheard, but the mischief in her expression was telling him otherwise.

”You heard. Did you-“

A noise from the doorway startled them both. Muldoon dropped her hand quick as a flash, Lizzy tried not to let her face fall in dismay. 

Kathy Baker was clattering into the canteen, struggling yet again with her bag, which looked even heavier than when she’d left before Christmas. 

“Found you, finally!” Kathy called and waved. "Oh, hey, you came back early! What gives?"

“Nothing.” In a role reversal, Muldoon quickly answered for them both, while Lizzy was the one who baulked.

“O-kay…jeez, answer faster.” Kathy gave up on her bag and abandoned it at the door, clumping over to their table, still in her winter boots. “Girl, before you ask, yes, I got the goods. Here, you’re welcome.”

She passed Lizzy a box of liquorice which was met with a pleased but slightly frantic ‘ooh!’. 

“Have you been crying?” Kathy asked her matter-of-factly. 

“Just allergies.” Lizzy sniffed and wiped her eyes, looking at the floor. 

“Uh-huh...” Kathy darted a quick glance at Muldoon, before drumming her recently manicured nails on the back of a chair, building up. "This is kinda perfect actually. I wanted to tell you two first out of everyone, obviously, but not over the phone. I, uh...I have some news."

The way she was avoiding eye contact with both of them, Lizzy could guess what it was. She quickly forced a smile. "You got the job?"

"Yeah, I got the job..." Kathy tried her best to look dismayed, before the grin burst through and she bounced on her tiptoes. "Guys, I got the job!"

Lizzy scrambled up to congratulate, quelling the geyser of rage, dread and panic that was bubbling up inside, feigning happiness for her friend. “What’d I tell you? You’re incredible!”

”I know, I’m kind of a big deal!” Kathy giggled, squeezing her tight. “First woman to ever hold the post in the history of the Smithsonian! I’m gonna have an office! I don’t have to work weekends anymore! I’m gonna have a life!”

“Alright for some.” Muldoon wasn’t so enthused. 

Kathy broke away from Lizzy, hands on her hips. “Go on then, let me have it.” 

"Well done. Knew you’d get it."

Lizzy shook her head. Damn man was proud as Hell, just doing his stubborn best not to show it. 

“It’s not the end of the world, I’ll be here for a while, until you can find my replacement.” Kathy pointed down at the top of Lizzy’s head and stage whispered pick her. 

“How long have I got?”

”Until August. “I can hang in there until August, right? What could go wrong before then?” Kathy laughed nervously then abruptly stopped at the alarmed look they both gave her. 

“Plenty.” Muldoon huffed.

Lizzy agreed with him. ”Best not to answer that.”

***

Kathy wasn’t the only one who brought Lizzy dessert as a souvenir on their return. 

Rico, the youngest but not least talented member the Carnivore Team was making his way towards her brandishing a Paupério tin that was far too dented and discoloured to be new. This looked promising unless, God forbid, it turned out to contain a sewing kit. Lizzy had been burned before. 

“For you!” He was calling to her as he jogged along.

Her face lit up at the sight. “That looks homemade, boy. Tell me it’s homemade.”

Rico caught up, handing her the tin. “From my mama, for you.”

“You really didn’t have to…” Lizzy tried to remain polite though she was dying to rip the lid off and tuck in. Dinner time was still achingly far away.

“Yes I did. She made me swear I wouldn’t touch any.” 

Have you been making friends, niño?

I have, at least one.

The strange Scottish lady was always nice to him, even if she was scarily forthright at times, and it had taken Rico a couple of weeks to figure out that she used certain rude words not as insults, but as terms of endearment.

“I’ve got good cigarros too if you want one, but don’t tell mama about those.” He tapped the side of his nose.

“Have you done something bad?” Lizzy asked warily. “I’m not being funny, but this is too much-“

“It’s just a thank you. You look out for me.” Rico said simply. “It was rough, at the start, but you wouldn’t let me stay in my room alone. I hated it at first, when you dragged me out all the time, but I know why you did it.”

His shoulders drooped. “When I can’t remember the word for something, you don’t make fun of me. The other guys still do, sometimes.”

Lizzy hadn’t really thought about it before. But he was around the same age as her brothers. And it was true, his English hadn’t been the best at the beginning. She knew all to well what it was like to be the outsider, not being confident to chip in when everyone else spoke a different language to you. She hadn’t wanted the youngest member of the team to feel left out or worthless.  The boy was good. Not long left school and already working for InGen? He was going places.

Rico was somewhat of a phenomenon. He was quiet and thoughtful, introverted, but he had a way with the dinosaurs that Lizzy was envious of. Even the most timid of creatures could be coaxed forward by Rico. He was just good at it. Something about how he spoke to them, how he moved, he had a calming influence. 

People had their favourite animals, and the reverse was equally true. The dinosaurs just liked him, most were comfortable being around him.

It had made other people jealous, some who weren’t as happy to just shut up and deal with it as Lizzy was. She had even considered asking Muldoon if Rico could become a handler for the infant raptor. He would be good for her, she was certain.

“It’s just banter.” She reassured. That was true enough, but one or two of the guys had a bad habit of pushing it into cruel territory. Words needed to be had. “Although Tom really is an arse. Don’t ever listen to him.”

She resisted the urge to ruffle Rico’s hair, like an unbearable aunt. He’s a grown man. He’s taller than you.

But he had such a baby face she couldn’t help but want to look after him. Maybe it was guilt. She missed her brothers by far the most out of all her siblings. It had been so long since she’d seen them.

“What would I do without you, kid?” She glanced down at the tin gratefully. “And your mother’s baking. Seriously, she could sell these.”

“You won’t ever find out.” He sidled closer, looking like he was getting ready to tell her a secret. “Listen, I want to see Africa. The Africa you and the boss talk about. See a wild elephant.”

“All these dinosaurs right here and you want to see an elephant?” She couldn’t help but smile. 

He laughed. “A wild elephant. Just promise you’ll take me along, next time you go, yes?”

”Sure. I might know somebody who could give you the tour.” Unable to resist any longer, Lizzy started breaking open the tin and she nearly teared up at how delicious the contents smelled. “Oh my God. Can you bring your mum too?”

He seemed to seriously consider it before nodding. “I’ll ask her?”

***

“Hey!" Later that day Kathy sneaked up behind her and tapped Lizzy on the shoulder. “Got a bone to pick with you.”

The old reliable Baker intuition was yelling loudly in her head, yet again. Niggling in her thoughts for several days. She couldn’t ignore it any longer. Kathy pointed a finger in accusation at her friend and cried triumphantly:

”You got laid!”

“What?!” Lizzy's eyes darted back and forth. "Shhhh!"

"You did!" Kathy gasped. "Oh my God, you did!"

”I did not!” Lizzy made a grab for her friend, trying to clamp a hand over her mouth, something, anything to stop her. “What the Hell, Kathy?”

“You’re, I dunno-“ The Team Leader wriggled free and shrugged, unconvinced. “-different?”

“Yeah, well. You’re wrong. Nothing happened at New Year.” Lizzy insisted. “Ro-uh…Muldoon and I went out for a drive, that was all.”

The at least partly true white lie that both of them had discussed and agreed on together.

“Who said anything about New Year?” Kathy raised an eyebrow.  “You…did?” Lizzy stalled helplessly. 

“I didn’t mention Muldoon, either. That’s where your mind went though, huh?”

”Er-“ Lizzy started to panic. 

”He came back early, to check you were okay, you were all alone here for a whole night and- oh, don’t give me that look! And ‘nothing happened’?” Kathy was still sceptical. “Yeah, right!”

She recalled the moment she had first suspected things may have changed between them. She peeked through the window just before she’d entered the canteen, nearly screamed in exhilaration and then saw how quickly Muldoon dropped Lizzy’s hand when he heard the door opening. Like a hot potato. Her heart had dropped just as quickly, and she caught the noise ready to burst forth from her throat in the nick of time.

Whatever had been going on, she clearly wasn’t meant to see. “Cross my heart.”

”Really? Nothing?” Kathy was still crestfallen. “You finally had the island to yourselves, and nothing at all?”

Lizzy considered how he had made her laugh harder than she had laughed in a long time, maybe even in her whole life. A moment that regardless of whatever happened between them now, she’d likely remember until the end of her days. 

Kathy was looking at her expectantly, while Lizzy’s memory was a mile or so away, in her favourite place in the park, with the stars above and the Rex rumbling away like a purring cat as the fire crackled.

”Well, not exactly nothing at all.” Lizzy’s mouth finally curved into a smile. “But if I told you, you’d probably never believe me.”

***

”Regis, why is my Jeep boxed in?”

”Uh…sorry Muldoon, I’m losing you-crrrhhhsshshhh.” The group of animal handlers all saw Ed discretely switch his radio off with a loud click. 

A couple of weeks into January, New Year a distant memory, but Lizzy’s stomach still flipped whenever she heard the park warden’s voice. Carrying on as normal was working, for the most part. But she couldn’t simply forget and move on. Feelings don’t just go away, you only adapt to get better at dealing with them over time. If you’re lucky.

Fortunately, a welcome distraction was in progress. Preparations were underway for an official event on the island. The front of the visitor centre was positively bustling. 

"Thought they weren't opening the park until the autumn?" Lizzy critically eyed the deliveries that were turning up left, right and centre. The  supply boat that morning had been sitting much lower in the water than usual.

"These are investors, idiot. They aren't guests. They need to see we’ve made good use of their money, so that they give us more!" Tom flicked her ear for emphasis, causing Lizzy to take a swipe at him, which he dodged easily. "Or we’re screwed. So Eddie’s gotta get his nose right in there."

"I don’t think they’ve ordered enough stuff.” When she turned back to look again, Lizzy could have sworn the number of boxes had somehow tripled.

”You’re doing a great job, buddy. Keep it up!” Tom yelled over to Regis, whose neck quickly turned red under his freckles.  “Don’t call me buddy!”

“Would you stop?” Lizzy elbowed him. “One of these days, he will throw something at you.”

”Hope it’s not gonna be valuable, cos it won’t have my good self to cushion the blow. He’ll miss.” His self-assurance was still grating.

”Wanna bet?” Lizzy remembered Trenton Thunder. “Baseball nut over there.”

”So Daddy played catch with him, big whoop.” Tom replied, grinding out his cigarette with his boot heel. 

“Can you guys make yourselves useful and keep an eye out for the ice sculpture arriving?” Regis trotted over to them. “I gotta go do a thing…”

”Yeah, sure. We basically get paid to stand around, anyway.” Kathy replied cheerfully.

“This event-“ Lizzy queried. “-are we invited?"

”Absolutely not.” Regis denied. “In fact, you in particular are barred, Armstrong, for obvious reasons.”

”Aw, Ed!” She feigned upset. “You know that just makes me want to go even more!”

“Ain’t gonna happen, Liz.” Regis carefully pulled a transparent plastic garment bag out of a box full of packing peanuts. It contained a very short, very red cocktail dress. “So quit asking.”

“That’s gonna clash with your hair.” Tom pointed out.

”It’s for María!” Regis snarled back at him.

“That’s not fair! Why does she get to go? You have catering staff flying over.” Lizzy was still on his case. 

Ed gave her a lopsided grin. ”Eye candy.”

”Huh?” Lizzy and Kathy said in unison, shooting each other confused glances.

“Okay, I see what happens.” Tom stepped forward. “Let me paint a picture for you, girls. You’ve got a lot of rich, lonely, powerful men in a room together, far away from their wives and mistresses, trying to prove who’s got the biggest dick. You need a little entertainment. Something pretty to look at. Grease the wheels.”

Regis clicked his fingers. “Bingo.”

“Oh, that’s disgusting. That’s disgusting.” Kathy was horrified. 

“Nobody touch anything.” Off Ed Regis went, garment bag slung over his shoulder. Presumably to find the unwilling future occupant of the dress. 

"Team Meeting, now.” Lizzy announced. 

The eight animal handlers huddled.

”I move that we do something. I want to find out where all their money's going. Because it sure as Hell isn't on the animals. Or us. Y’know, the people who actually do the work.” Lizzy's expression became stormy. "They're going to take advantage of her. And Ed's going to sit back, drink his lite beer, and watch it happen."

"In another win for human evolution, public relations manager achieves upright stance sans spinal column." Kathy muttered dryly.  “That’s cold, Kit.” Tom sounded impressed. “Attagirl, you’ll be as cynical as Liz and I by the time you leave this place.”

“Well, she has a point!” The Team Leader gestured. “We can’t leave María there alone. They’ll eat her alive.”

"So you agree?" Lizzy jumped on her chance. “I’m commandeering the situation?”

"Girl..." Kathy shook her head. "Girl, he's gonna kill you...getting involved…”

"I can handle Ed." Lizzy said confidently. 

"Ed's not the one I was talking about, sweetie.”

“We’re gonna see Liz in a dress? Looking like an actual woman?” Tom smirked at her expression full of disgust. "Hey, you gotta. It’s a formal. You’ll need something that doesn't scream 'I shovel crap for a living'." 

”Oh sure, let me just go pick one of my many ballgowns out of the wardrobe.” Lizzy gestured from her flyaway head to her mud-caked boots. "Are you blind?"

”You and María are about the same height. You wouldn’t look terrible in red, if it’s low lighting-“

”Jeez, Tom! Stop encouraging her!” Kathy moaned. “This is a terrible idea.” “As much as I hate to admit she’s right, better Liz than María.” The Texan stuck to his guns. “And you know it, Kit.” 

“That’s settled then. All in favour?” Lizzy called the vote. 

Six ayes were heard from the men before they looked to the Carnivore Leader for her choice. But she still hesitated. 

Come on, girl.

The seconds ticked by. Tom smirked confidentially at Lizzy before asking loudly:  “Kit, you wanna go grab Ed that cappuccino, or what?”

“Oh, I’m so gonna regret this.” Kathy wearily nodded. “You win.”

***

God, I'm starving. 

Lizzy had poured herself into the tiny cocktail dress meant for Maria, far more petite and less muscular than she was. The Haitian was more than happy to be relieved of her duties for the evening, kissing Lizzy on both cheeks before practically flinging the dress in the ethologist’s direction and gliding away down the corridor to do God-knew-what. Watering the plastic plants, probably.

The cheap fabric was working particularly hard underneath her arms and around the tops of her thighs. As well as doing hair and make-up, Kathy had reluctantly helped pile her into the nightmare dress and zip her up. She felt like an overstuffed sausage, and already had blisters forming from the high heels, rubbing her feet raw as she shuffled around with tiny steps.

But the place Lizzy felt most under-dressed was on her left hand.

She wished she’d had the foresight to put her engagement ring back on, which she still hadn’t found the willpower to shove in an envelope and send back to Simon. At least it would offer some protection for a few hours. Lizzy looked around the room. String quartet, ice sculpture, flowers everywhere…the opulence of it made her feel uneasy. 

She had a flashback to her apartment in the States, something Simon had divulged while complaining about a flamboyantly rich but cantankerous client as they were unpacking groceries together.  Very rich people didn’t show off how much money they had. They didn’t have to. They tended to be quietly generous and classy about it. People who acted like they were still trying to prove something, they might be well-off, but they weren’t rich rich. 

Lizzy herself had fallen for it in the beginning, but as time went on, increasingly often she began to suspect that Hammond was the latter. Everything for show. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

She caught sight of the man himself in the corner of her eye, amber-topped cane in hand, and remembered the reason she was enduring such torture in the first place. To secure better care, more money specifically for the dinosaurs. Lizzy tottered over, tugging the hem of her dress down as she approached. 

“John?”

He turned and looked at her blankly. She knew what he was thinking. You weren’t on the guest list. 

”It’s me, Lizzy.” She could forgive him a few moments hesitation, she’d probably never worn this much make-up in her life.

“Lizzy?” 

She began to get annoyed. What happened to ‘my dear old granny was a Lizzy’? Anyway, she’d always considered herself fairly memorable.

This was not a good start. 

“Doctor Armstrong? From Namibia?” She gestured helplessly, at a loss for what else she could say to jog his memory. “The ethologist.”

“It’s Mr Hammond, tonight, dear. If you don’t mind.” 

“Alright-“

“I’m fairly busy, I’m afraid. Why don’t you go and mingle? We’ll catch up later.”

“Wait, no-“ Lizzy knew well enough that there most likely wouldn’t be a later.

“Please, Miss Armstrong. Another time.” And he gently took her arm and guided her away, leaving her all alone, facing the wall as he resumed his conversation. 

Not quite sure how she had lost her hold on the situation, Lizzy vowed to try a different tactic. As she was busy scanning the rest of the venue for anyone who might be worth talking to, she didn’t notice one of the businessmen swanning over to her, until it was too late to get away. 

“Where’s Hammond been hiding this one, then?” American. Mid-West. Sweating profusely. “Forget the ice sculpture, why didn’t they just put you up on the table?”

Lizzy recoiled. “I’m a scientist.”

“Ah, she’s funny too. Not dressed like that, you aren’t.”

Lizzy really wasn’t a fan of being referred to in the third person.

”Really, she’s a PhD.” She flushed in anger. “She studies animal behaviour.”

And you’re behaving like an animal.

”Wait-“ He pointed at her face, closely scrutinising. “-I know you from somewhere-“

Not again.

In yet another event from her past that occasionally came back to haunt her, Lizzy had undertaken a couple of modelling jobs as a first-year student at NYU.

Nothing big. One or two jobs for the campus magazine, then it had kind of snowballed. She didn’t even know what some of the photographs were ultimately used for. But her face, and the rest of her, was definitely in print for something other than behavioural research. It offered a few extra dollars here and there, until Simon had asked her to stop, telling her she didn't have to worry about money now she was with him. She'd obliged, but it had been kind of fun, at the time.

It happened more than once in New York, sometimes a stranger, usually an older man, most likely on the subway would give her a funny look. She’d know exactly why, and she’d huddle closer to Simon and try not to make eye contact before they reached their stop.

New York and a tiny Costa Rican island, it seemed. Just her luck.

”No, you don’t!” She insisted and turned to leave, but he grabbed her wrist and she had no choice but to turn to face him to keep herself from toppling over in her high heels. 

”How much-“

His grip hurt. Lizzy looked around in panic, searching for Ed Regis in the crowd. She didn’t want to make a scene, but if there was no other choice…Ed would help her, right?

Right?!

“Hey, back off, pal. The only one who gets to talk down to her is me.”

From somewhere close behind her came the low Southern drawl she both looked forward to and dreaded equally. The voice she hated being on the wrong side of, the one that meant trouble, had antagonised her time and time again. And she’d never been so glad to hear it defending her. 

Tom’s hulking frame cast a long shadow over both Lizzy and the strange man who was intent on getting to know her better.

“Look, here-“ The investor was bristling at the intrusion.

”Move along, now, buddy.” Tom gave him a firm pat on the shoulder, a little bit harder than was polite or necessary, but not enough to get him into trouble. “Trust me, you don’t wanna find out the price for this one. It’s measured in rounds, and I don’t mean at the bar.”

The stranger grunted unhappily and finally beat it, avoiding looking Lizzy in the eye. 

She relaxed slightly, her hands trembling. The smell of old cigarette smoke and cheap aftershave had never been so reassuring. 

“About damn time.” She tried to act breezy, but the words sounded forced. Lizzy was more shaken than she'd care to admit. She glanced down at her wrist, red finger marks already burned harshly into her skin. Shit.

”Ma’am.” Tom tipped the brim of his stetson towards her without the slightest trace of irony. He had gone all out for the occasion, wearing a bolo tie, white shirt, dress jeans with a big belt buckle and leather boots. A real-life cowboy.

Lizzy cleared her throat, trying to restore her bravado. “Didn’t know there was a fancy dress shop on the island. Where’s your tinfoil sheriff’s badge?”

“You get straight to Hell. This is my good stetson. I’ve not worn this baby since prom night.” He flicked the rim. “You realise how privileged you are, getting to see me in my good stetson, right?”

”You have more than one?” She stifled a giggle. “Didn’t know you moonlighted as a Village Person.” “You like a man in a hat.” He winked at her disarmingly, and her steel nerve buckled. 

”Piss off.” She muttered weakly. 

"There it is." Tom grinned in satisfaction. “On that note, what has your man got to say about you hitting the town, all dressed up?”

“Not my man, what are you on about…”

“Ah, I see. He still doesn’t know, huh?” He shook his head, tutting. “You are in so much shit.”

“I do what I like.” Lizzy scowled. “Although I don’t like this. Quite literally taking one for the team.”

“You scrub up pretty nice.” He gave her a sly look. “Trim your moustache, did ya?” “Ha!”

At the other end of the room, Lizzy spied Regis’ ginger head, still wearing his ever-present baseball cap (seriously, at a black tie?), jerk upright at the noise she’d just made. Lizzy quickly turned it into a cough.

“Insults aside, glad you’re here.” She meant it. "Dickhead.”

She meant that too. 

”Save it.” Tom grumbled. “I just didn’t wanna miss the look on Ed’s face when he sees you of all people gatecrashed his fancy event.”

“Keep telling yourself that, mate.” She didn't mind anymore whether he hated her or cared for her. It was a blurry line at the best of times. But she mattered to him, in some way, that much she knew and was grateful for. If he hadn’t intervened when he did…

One way or another, it would have gotten messy.

“How’s An Audience With Hammond going?” He interrupted her thoughts.

”It’s not.” She told him about how she had failed miserably at her mission. “I am very low priority on his list of people to schmooze tonight.”

Tom was eyeing up a tray of glasses making it’s way past them. “In that case, when in Rome-“

She scoffed. “Beginning to see the real reason you’re here…”

“They don’t got bourbon?” Tom grumbled at the sparse choice of red or white. “I hate wine.”

“The single malt is for much, much later this evening-“ The waiter somehow managed to look down his nose at the taller man. “-sir.”

”You’ll get what you’re given.” Lizzy took a glass of each colour and handed him the white. “It’s free.”

”How about a toast?” Tom sardonically eyed the blue InGen banner hung over the door, company slogan in italics beneath the ever-present logo. “To…Making Our Future.”

”Spare no expense!”

They clinked their glasses. 

“Hell with it. Let’s pound as much of this food as we can before they throw us out.”

”That-“ Lizzy waved over a tray of canapes. “-is the best idea you’ve had in weeks.”

***

“He was talking so fast, I couldn’t keep up, and he said Hammond personally asked him to make it happen!” Rico was hurriedly trying to explain as he stumbled into the control room after the park warden. “To show the investors.”

”That may be true.” Muldoon was barely keeping his anger in check. “But there’s a very good reason we stay away from that animal.”

”Not all of us.” Arnold added loudly as he blew smoke upwards, causing Muldoon to shoot him a venomous look. 

“I sincerely apologise, boss.” Rico continued, visibly trembling in fear. “H-how can I make this right?”

”Just stay out of the bloody way. Something like that, you really should have checked.” He dismissed him with a wave of his hand before shouting “Where’s Baker?!”

“Here, I’m here!” Kathy popped up from behind a console. “Ray called me, we’re watching her now. They weren’t kidding, she’s fast.”

Rico went mute, eyes downcast, he took the opportunity to slip out of the control room like a shadow while everyone else was bustling around. Nobody noticed. 

Muldoon moved around to look at the screen beside his colleagues. “Arnold, can you send out an alarm?”

”Manually.”

”That doesn't sound very efficient?"

“It ain't. As in, I’m going to have to go check the manual.” Arnold looked at him pointedly, cigarette dangling. “Or you can just grab a radio and alarm everyone all by yourself.”

”You’ve got to be joking.” Muldoon ground out. “There’s no system in place?”

“Looks that way.”

Meanwhile, Kathy was wringing her hands. All the procedures she’d gone over in her head. All her studying of emergency exits, muster points and evacuation routes. All her carefully constructed contingency plans and she still wasn’t ready for this.

“What are you going to do?” She hesitantly asked.

“What’s required.” Muldoon was looking for the key to the locker in his office. “Don’t interfere.”

Kathy solemnly nodded. “In that case, what do you need?”

“I need my best shot, for backup.” He grabbed his radio. ”Kennedy, come in.”

No response. 

”If anyone can see Kennedy, pass him a radio, now.”

No answer.

What a mess.  Muldoon conducted a quick head count. Only six animal handlers present. Baker-Esteves-Harris-O’Reilly-Palmer-Yamada-

Another was unaccounted for.  “Baker, where’s Armstrong?”

”Er…”

Oh, balls.

Muldoon impatiently took her by the shoulders. “Is she indoors, yes or no?”

”Yes, definitely.” No way would Lizzy be seen in that dress anywhere outside the function room. “Unless-“

His eyes narrowed. “Baker, it’s important for your lifespan that you tell me exactly where she is.”

Arnold had momentarily stopped typing, holding his breath. 

“She’s with Tom. If he smokes, she usually goes too.” Kathy confessed nervously. “I mean, they could be outside?”

***

”Nah, you’re doing it wrong. No chewing, you’ll be there forever. Down in one, like this-“ Tom was trying to show her how to handle an oyster.

Lizzy stared at the cold shell in her palm, the corners of her mouth downturned. ”Tom, it’s looking at me.”  

She’d eaten far more questionable things in her lifetime. But this was turning out to be her Everest. 

”Ah, forget it. These ones are just okay, need some tabasco.” He took the offending mollusc from her and swiftly dealt with it. “Better barbecued fresh, out on the water.”

“If you say so.” Lizzy wasn’t convinced. Sub-par oysters, she’d rather not take the chance. Yet more cracks were appearing in the InGen foundations. 

A very familiar silhouette caught her eye, making his way through the crowd to their secret corner of the room with purpose. He’d clearly spotted Tom’s stetson from the doorway. 

“Uh-oh, busted.” Lizzy whispered as Muldoon drew level with them both.

“Kennedy. With me, now.”

Lizzy tutted. He was clearly dismissing her as ‘just some girl’ Regis had flown in for the night that Tom had decided to try his luck with. It must have been the heels giving her an extra couple of inches that was throwing him off.

“Tom, I think you’ve pulled.” Lizzy nudged his arm. Muldoon did a double take at the familiar voice, only recognising who she was the second time around.

“Oh Christ, it’s you.” He frowned. “What’s happened to your face?”

“Rude.”

“Don’t like it.” He was looking her up and down in disbelief. ”And I can bloody well see what you had for dinner-“

“Stop staring at me.” Lizzy hissed through gritted teeth. “Surprise, I do in fact have a waist under the tattie cloths they pass off as uniforms.”

“Of course. Your waist is what’s drawing the eye.”

He wasn’t at all a fan of the look, but he still couldn’t drag his gaze away from her with everything…pushed up like that.

”Aw, Jesus.” Tom seemed genuinely upset. “Not cool, boss.”

”Why are you two in here, anyway, without your radios on?” Muldoon recalled the memo Regis had flashed around about keeping a certain animal handler away from the event at all costs. “No, never mind. I don’t actually care.” 

“I would love to know-“ Lizzy remarked sweetly. “-where exactly I would be keeping a radio on my person, in this thing.”

”Talking out your ass, no doubt-” Tom muttered. 

Another of the investors had broken off from the herd and started to sway his way over, bleary eyes fixated on Lizzy, and the parts of her body the dress wasn’t quite managing to cover. She could already see the words say, you look familiar forming in his head as she began to back away in fear. 

But she wasn’t alone this time. Both Kennedy and Muldoon abruptly stopped what they were doing and gave the interloper a hard stare so intimidating that he about-turned and wobbled straight back the way he’d came without uttering a single word to anyone.

Muldoon shook his head, looking like his motor was rapidly winding down. “Christ alive, I need to get out of here. I hate this sort of thing.”

Lizzy cocked her head. He doesn’t do crowds.

“So if you’re both done wasting time-“ He continued.

She quickly sobered, not averse to making a quick getaway herself. “What’s wrong?”

There was a faint rumble of thunder from outside and the overhead lights dipped and came back on with a flicker. The drone of conversation around them lulled, then resumed.

The next thing the park warden said made Lizzy’s ears ring and edges of her vision darken as the adrenaline kicked in. 

“Don’t react, either of you-“ Muldoon dropped his voice low enough that she had to crane her neck to hear him. “-but there’s an animal loose in the park.”

Son of a- Tom was already pushing past Lizzy, making his way to the exit doors, the sea of businessmen parting before him as he cleared a path.  

“Don’t react. I said don’t react.” Muldoon quickly turned to follow him. 

“Hang on-“ Lizzy caught up before he moved out of reach. “Which animal?”

Muldoon gave her a certain look while saying nothing, which told her everything.

Lizzy knew exactly which animal had broken out. 

“Oh-“ She reached for the wall to steady herself as the lights flickered off again and thunder boomed over the island. “Oh, no.”

***

Thanks for reading!

If you worked out what this chapter is leading up to I will personally send you a gift basket or something.

#jurassic park oc #living dangerously #welcome to jurassic park #oc: dr lizzy armstrong #jurassic park female oc #jurassic park #jurassic park fanfiction #my writing #jurassic park 1993 #jurassic park fanfic #jurassic park novel #robert muldoon #ray arnold #john hammond #ed regis

[weirdlyfitting]

finally watching s5 !!!

obvi spoiler alert

AND A MESSAGE TO THE FANDOM IN THE END ❤

this season is def SO MUCH BETTER than s4, the pacing is still a mess but thank goodness i care about these kiddos so i’m able to keep on watching *sigh

i don’t really care about daniel tho, i mean he’s bad as a villain BUT he’s still “kinda” better than lewis. And thanks to him being kenji’s dad i do feel the stakes are high in here, also looking at the previous jurassic world trilogy? greed is something the human antagonist would have so i don’t mind that much with daniel kon’s motive yk.

I do think that daniel IS s5′s biggest problem, if you want to have a villain that brings the highest stakes EVER in your story then you gotta show how menacing and true their actions are for their goal. All daniel did is what? he’s just standing with his stupid tablet and bossing people that worked for him. I think those scenes where he’s trying to gaslight kenji is pretty good, but honestly tho they could’ve been better. The scene in the finale when kenji called him out is imo THE BEST (when he stood up from his dad yk) scene the writers ever did to kenji and his dad. THIS should’ve happened in idk ep 4 or 5??? i wanted kenji to talk about why his dad didn’t even bother to get kenji to mantah corp island and my god why the hell it has to happen in he finale???

thing is i think kenji and his dad’s conflict was stretched wayyy too far (kinda gives me brookenji vibes tbh) and this brings me to talk about yassamy, darius-kenji duo, the core arc, and why kenji and his dad’s conflict should’ve treated just like these arcs

YASAMMY : These two aweee, this season got so many of their moments together even before they’re official which gotta admit made me scared if they’d ended up as “queerbait” but god ep 9 made me relieved lmao. Anyway anyway, it only took 3 episodes for yaz and sammy being canon. In ep 6 the way yaz look at sammy? i know it’s been like that even before this episode but i think it’s a nice build up to what happens next. In ep 7 yaz actually opened up on her feelings about sammy, then ep 9 yaz FINALLY said those feelings to sammy (AND BEN BEING BEST BOI OMG which i’ll talk about later haha). I don’t feel like it’s rushed or “came out of nowhere” cause their friendship-to-relationship has exist since s1, i feel like yaz and sammy totally earned it. The best thing is this happened before the finale, there’s time to develop their affection to each other and i love that

DARIUS-KENJI DUO : so darius was like repressing his emotions when kenji and his dad locked him and the others in that chamber. When brook asked his opinion abt kenji he literally stated he doesn’t care (which holy shit broke my heart-), this happened in ep 4 and then in ep 5 he got a heart-to-heart talk with brook and able to express his anger and sadness for kenji, then took a pretty long time skip to ep 11 he finally able to breakdown all those sadness towards kenji himself. This arc only took 3 eps the same as yasammy’s, at least there’s a room to breathe for this duo’s character development in the finale tho

THE CORE : idk i think i need to rewatch the whole stuff again cause man i don’t understand what this thing meant for the island, i mean is this what turned isla nublar’s volcano?? not only mantah corp’s island that has an earthquake but it affects isla nublar too tho. Anyway the first sign of danger was at ep 4 or 5 with the earthquake, i forgot what eps when the kids needed to shut down this thing but whatever that is it got resolved in 3 or 4 eps. I’d rather have this one as the main threat tho, cause again i prefer natural threat than human’s but eh

okay so comparing these arcs to kenji and his father’s the best way to have their conflict keep going on till the finale is to have different conflicts, ex build it with kenji talking about why his dad never came to pick him (and his friends) after jurassic world then his dad gaslighting him, then him trusting his father to doubt it, then finally snap at his bs. I think these could work? just don’t stand in only one conflict yknow cause again, it felt too far stretched

And here are some bunch of stuff that i dislike other than daniel kon as a villain from this season :

Mae being sidelined, i love her in season 4 but i really feel like her character is kinda wasted in here. How she’s just turning against camp fam in order to protect them is kindaaaa meh, this has something to do with daniel as the villain tho. Like he doesn’t feels or seems like he’d hurt the kiddos and it’s proven by the others only getting locked up in a chamber. Sure he tried to kill darius with spino but like.....this happened in ep 12, THE LITERAL FINALE. So what’s the point right? anywy seriously mae decided to cross her line with helping daniel controlling those dinos kinda showed that she didn’t trust what the kids are able to do.

Brand, dave, and roxie also being sidelined, WHEN I SAW THEM I GOT LITERAL TEARS. MY PARENTS THEY’RE BACK AAAAA!!!! and yet....i got so little of them in here. Them being separated from the main conflict didn’t help either, i wanted them to fight side by side with the kids. Dave and roxie are their camp counselors anyway, they need some heart to heart talk with the kids!

The investors? i literally don’t fucking care about them. I’m happy that they got eaten tho. 

Nothosaurus whatever that called, i wish there’s an explanation on why that thing’s there. And like so close with the core thingy? just why? what if something goes wrong w it and someone tried to fix it, like what camp fam did actually

Kenji got separated from the others for some eps, the others got an actual heart to heart talk and god i think kenji needed that in those episodes. I’m glad he got it with mae tho but still this is THE LAST season so what the hell???

When they’re having a heart to heart talk the moment ALWAYS got interrupted by life threatening events LIKE STOP IT OH MY GOD LET THEM TALK AAAAAAA

OKAY i think these are all?

NOW THE GOOD STUFF!!!

BEN IS BEST BOI. I gotta admit i was kinda bored up until the episode where yaz confessed her crush on sammy with ben came, maybe because it’s sammy and yaz having an actual focus? something other than daniel, the core, or dinos, or even the beef with kenji. Anyway ben being such a fangirl for them plssss I LOVE HIM SO MUCH IN THAT EXACT MOMENT. Plus he’s so supportive aweee, i just love him being a huge yasammy shipper i swear lmao. And then him reuniting with bumpy UGH- knowing that bumpy got chipped and was mind controlled I CAN’T AAAAAAAA.

Darius and brooklynn’s friendship is just sooooo soft aweee, i’m glad that darius could just....spill his burden with brooklynn yk? i’m actually sad that he still did stuff solo but at least with him letting those burdens out made me satisfied with this season

BROOKLYNN HAVING A GODDAMN BREAKDOWN, like oh shit i know this season will have angst but this is not what i expected-

KENJI YOU ABSOLUTE DINGUS!!! i love his inner conflict with his dad, i love how he got huge character depth in the final season!!! despite my problem with daniel’s character tho i’m still happy with kenji’s character development :)

SAMMY BEING A LITERAL SUNSHINE, also i’m so happy she got a spotlight even tho she did the action on solo

“team sammyyyyyyyy” that’s the time i really cracked it’s too funny plssss

Yaz confessing her crush on sammy towards ben, and ben being so supportive!!! i think this is def a thing yaz earned from last season, she supported and also shipped brooklynn and kenji and now she got the same treatment by ben lmao

Yaz and sammy is officially a couple heck yeahhh!!!

Not too much brookenji which s4 should’ve done but anyway luckily i love em better this season

“THE LAST STAND” as one of the episode title cause EXCUSE MEEE??? that’s the title of my favorite moon knight fanfic 🥺😭 i really paused the episode and think about it for some minutes lmao

Pierce my beloveddd when she (or he?? i forgot if pierce a he/she i’m sorryyy) showed up i just went 🥺❤❤❤❤

THEY’RE BUILDING A WATERING HOLE!!!

KASH GOT EATEN BY THOSE RAPTORS (manifesting him getting eaten by different dinos in the interactive ep 🧎‍♀️)

DAVE, ROXIE, AND BRAND’S CLOTHES ARE REFS TO THE ORIGINAL TRIO’S CLOTHES OMG

THE HUGS!! any hugs tbfh, i think kenji and his dad is an exception tho

TIME SKIP TO THE ENDING OF FALLEN KINGDOM WOOOO!!! if darius is 12 in 2015, then he’s like...15 in 2018, okay for 15 y.o wow did he look old lmao. Anyway i feel like they’re older than me tbh which ehe made me happy for a bit? like bruh i don’t want to keep calling them kiddos when i’m literally i THEIR AGES in those times lmaooo

Kenji got adopted by darius’ fam aweee, i remember reading a fan theory abt this and now it’s canon so i’m really happy hahahahah

The video call is just so 🥺🥺🥰

And listen this is a love-hate thing so it’s not on the list of stuff i liked, but anyway the ending of camp cretaceous set in the ending of fallen kingdom which...UGHHHHH MAISIE I HATE YOU SO MUCHHH. I’ve made a post long ago ranting abt why camp cretaceous made me hated fk’s ending so much and now it’s canon so yeah.....SHIT. I’ll made a link to it in case i wanna go back and read it lol

so....that’s kinda all??

Even tho i had my problems with this season, i’m still so glad to be part of the ride. Never ever have i thought that i’d fall in love with this show so much. It’s accompanying me through many stuff, good or bad, mostly when i’m bored tho. Having characters that are kids and a part of the franchise i loved and also these characters are GENUINELY GOOD which is really surprising coming from the “world trilogy” is awesome. I was 16 when i watched the first season of camp cretaceous and now i’m 17 (18 this year tho) and i’m very happy to have this show being a part of my teen-life lmao.

Thank you for cc fandom for literally everyhing??? my days wouldn’t be better without exploring the tags and read/see those awesome posts and arts which are cool!!! also inspired me to draw more cc stuff, we’re just appreciating this silly dino show and i love you all so much 💖💖

#jurassic world camp cretaceous #camp cretaceous #camp cretaceous spoilers

[i-am-l-ananas]

some more itty bitty Completely Normal chickens

#completely normal chickens #chicken #chickens #chickenblr #dinosaur #dinosaurblr #paleontology #unreality #photo edit #why no I don’t work at isla nublar why do you ask #edits

[chaostheoryy]

Safe and Sound [Alan Grant X GN!Reader]

Summary: After returning home from the Jurassic Park catastrophe, Alan finds himself gravitating towards you. It’s subtle and sweet and the more time passes, the more you realize that there may be something unfamiliar brewing in his head. Could the infamous Dinosaur Man actually be falling for you?

Rating: General

Warnings: Nothing serious. Just canon-typical references to the events on Isla Nublar and kissing/making out (nothing too heated, just pure intimacy).

Word Count: 3.6K

A/N: This takes place somewhere between Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III. It’s just a fluffy exploration of post-Isla Nublar life and a chance for me to shower my comfort character with much needed love. (As always, no beta.)

The failure of Jurassic Park was a turning point. Not just in terms of scientific advancement and bioengineering ambition, but in your relationship with Alan Grant as well.

When he returned from Isla Nublar, it was obvious that he’d never be quite the same. Sure he went right back to his usual quiet, studious self and spent most of his days in the dirt or at his desk but something was still...off. He said very little, showed minuscule interest in anything other than work, and made it a point to avoid lectures as often as possible. That tiny social battery that made it difficult for him to maintain relationships prior to the overseas disaster had only grown smaller. He grew distant from friends and family. His weekly phone calls with Dr. Sattler turned to monthly chats before they stopped altogether. Day by day, the world started to see less and less of the infamous Dinosaur Man.

You, however, only saw him more.

As the main site admin and manager of his dig crew, you spent more time collaborating with Alan than anyone. If there was ever a change in schedule, a need for funding, or even just a print out of the latest field publications, you were the one he went to. It was a partnership that had been established long before the events on Isla Nublar; he trusted you wholeheartedly to keep him and his team afloat.

After he returned from Jurassic Park, you found yourself all but shadowed by him. Whether it was lingering in your trailer after a meeting or asking if you would join him for lunch, you became closer to him than ever. He started to brew you coffee in the mornings and made it a point to stop by your desk whenever he could, even if it was just to ask how things were going on the flyers for grad student outreach programs. Things he had no real need to be familiar with became topics of conversations that he initiated.

A few months of this subtle orbiting passed before you finally found the courage to broach the subject. Confronting Alan Grant was like trying to wrangle a startled deer: either he was going to spring from your grasp and disappear into the wilderness or he was going freeze up and retreat inward. You didn’t want to frighten him or make him feel like he’d done something wrong but you needed to understand what he was dealing with.

“Alan?”

“Hm?”

“What’s going on with you?” You asked one morning when he decided to bring his newest research project into your work trailer rather than his own tent.

Brow furrowed, he looked up from his hoard of books and notes. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“What’s going on with you emotionally, I mean. This past week, you’ve spent more time in here with me than out in the field with the crew. Don’t get me wrong, I love the company. I do. I just don’t understand why you’d rather listen to me vent about website organization than get your hands dirty.”

He blinked. The way he seemed puzzled by your words made it clear that he wasn’t even aware of this shift. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that his sudden desire to be around someone that often was so out of the ordinary.

“Oh. I don’t know. I guess it’s just become a bit of a habit.”

“Don’t the constant phone calls and clacking keyboard sounds annoy you?”

“Not really.”

“You actually enjoy being around me?”

“I do. Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

You chuckled and leaned back in your chair. “Not any specifics I can think of. I’m just surprised you’d even wanna hang around. It’s not exactly exciting work,” you said, “Plus, you don’t normally like spending time with people as it is.”

He pondered your observation. It’s true. Alan was far cry from being a socialite. Until he returned from Isla Nublar, every meal and break had been taken in the privacy of his own tent. If any of the team members threw a get together to celebrate a birthday or anniversary, he would only have one beer before retiring for the evening. Bars were a no-go. Dating wasn’t even an afterthought. No one in the world was more content flying solo than him.

“There’s something comforting about you. I can’t put my finger on it but I just…I feel safe here.”

“Safe from what?”

“From my thoughts. When I’m alone, it’s hard not to think about Jurassic Park. I’ll hear the crickets outside and remember the forests on the island. A warm breeze will blow at just the right angle and make my skin crawl because it feels exactly like the muggy breath of the Tyrannosaur. Tools will hit stone with a soft click and sound just like the raptors’ claws tapping the floor outside my door…”

He slammed his eyes closed, immediately trying to shake the image from his mind. Both his jaw and his fist clenched as he let out a shaky exhale. Even from across the room you could see a shudder roll through his body.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring all that up…”

“It’s alright,” he reassured you with a tight smile, “It can’t be helped. Some nightmares choose to follow you when you wake up. But having you around…It makes it easier to leave them on the pillow.”

Something tugged at your heartstrings. It was impossible to overlook the power of his words and the implications of what they meant. You had become Alan’s comfort person. He was clinging to every opportunity to be around you because your presence kept him grounded to reality. Nightmares and flashbacks didn’t plague his mind when he was by your side. Instead he was able to focus on the things in life that brought him peace and happiness.

While he didn’t say it with words, it was clear to you that he was revealing something else to you in that moment: he loved you. Your connection with him had grown from a respectful, professional relationship into something new and beautiful. He wanted to know your thoughts and opinions on certain things not because he needed a second opinion but because they actually mattered to him. He wanted to truly know you, to understand the things that made you, well, you.

You wanted to reply and tell him how glad you were to know that you could help him grow past the trauma but, before you could even gather your thoughts into a concise remark, the door to your trailer opened. One of the bright-eyed grad students poked his head in. He scanned your desk briefly until movement at the table in the corner drew his attention.

“Ah, Dr. Grant! We’ve been looking all over for you,” the student said excitedly, “We’ve found something you’ll wanna see.”

“What is it?”

“Utahraptor eggs. Billy’s still working on digging them out but we’re pretty sure we’ve got have almost half a dozen fossilized together.”

There was a gleam in Alan’s eye. It was that look of childish glee that you only saw when he made a particularly good find or got lost in a presentation about raptor social behaviors. Little moments like those made you smile, made you forget just how badly Jurassic Park had shaken him up. Fossils still held the innocence of discovery and theory. They gave him the reigns to imagine the world before his own.

“Tell Billy to put the brush down,” he said as he hurriedly started closing up the books in front of him, “I want to be there for the final reveal.”

“You got it.”

The grad student slipped outside once again. You watched as Alan fumbled with his paperwork and publications, a laugh vibrating in your chest when he started mumbling under his breath.

“Alan, just leave it there. I’ll take care of it.”

“I don’t want to leave you with a mess. I’ve already intruded on your space enough.”

You rose from your desk and walked over to him. Smiling, you grabbed the books already in his arms.

“Relax,” you said softly as you placed them back on the table, “I don’t mind holding onto your stuff for a while.”

Once your hands were free again, you reached up to fix the collar of his shirt. While your observational skills were far from those of a renowned detective or psychiatrist, you immediately noted a change in his demeanor when your fingers grabbed onto his shirt. His breath caught in his throat. His jaw tightened. His posture became straighter, more restrained. Every muscle in his body seemed to freeze while his eyes danced across your face.

It was the closest you’d every really gotten to him before. With the requirements of the job and the tight spaces in which you often had to work, it was impossible not to come into contact with one another from time to time. Shoulders bumped every now and then, hands brushed against each other during a handoff of notes or morning coffee. Every touch was fleeting and unintentional. This, however, was all your choice. You were placing yourself in his space with purpose and, if you were being honest with yourself, pure intimacy.

“There. Much better.”

He blinked, eyelashes fluttering over his cheek when the sound of your voice pulled him out of his daze. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Whatever air he had instinctively been holding at the back of his throat came out in a quiet exhale and the taut muscles in his shoulders loosened.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, “For that. And for watching over my work.”

“You’re welcome. Now go before Billy gets impatient and finishes the dig himself.”

A small chuckle rumbled in his throat. “He keeps us all on our toes, doesn’t he?”

The two of you exchanged glances, gentle smiles painted across both of your faces and heavy air of unspoken attraction between you. Then, with a small nod of farewell, he stepped out of the trailer into the afternoon sun.

***

The next morning, the new daily routine kicked right back in. You showered, dressed, and checked in with all of the team members before returning to the office trailer. Sure enough, Alan was there with a fresh pot of coffee in hand.

“Morning,” he greeted as he started pouring the scorching beverage into your favorite mug.

“Good morning to you too. Sleep well?”

“As well as any man can after spending several hours in the heat arguing with Billy Brennan. I don’t know where he developed that attitude. He’s even more stubborn now than the day we hired him.”

You sat down at the table where you had organized his work from yesterday into a neat pile.

“He’s passionate about field work and far more devoted to his studies than cultivating a social life. Sounds like someone I know,” you said playfully.

Grabbing the mugs of coffee from the counter, he walked over to join you. He placed your cup in front of you before taking his seat directly across the table. An amused smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Maybe he is learning something from me after all.”

The next half hour or so was spent discussing the previous day’s find. The Utahraptor eggs had been uncovered in stellar condition. A few had been cracked and tarnished by millions of years worth of sediment but, overall, it was an ideal discovery worthy of academically supported display. As much as Alan enjoyed taunting Billy for his sub-par professional personality, the boy had done an exceptional job leading the dig.

After enjoying a second cup of coffee each, the subject shifted from work to personal dealings. He inquired about your upcoming trip home to visit family and told you about his plans to spend a few weeks in Colorado to work on his next book. Bit by bit, he was continuing to build upon your relationship by letting you venture deeper into the jungles of his heart.

“What are you doing tonight?”

The question caught you completely by surprise. There wasn’t any real sexual implication behind it but it shocked you nonetheless simply because he was so explicitly looking to spend time with you.

“Nothing really,” you replied, “I’m ahead on upcoming schedules and fundraiser planning so my evenings are pretty free.”

“Good. I’m happy to hear it. I, uh—“ He cleared his throat, shifting nervously in his seat. “I was planning on driving up the mountain to watch the meteor showers tonight if you want to join me. The skies are supposed to be very clear and the weather’s been quite mild so I thought maybe we could take the truck and put some blankets in the bed to lay on. Nothing too extravagant just—“

“I’d love to.”

He perked up. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Perfect,” he sighed in relief, “That’s…Great. I’ll, um…Is five alright? To leave, I mean.”

“Five works for me.”

A boyish smile curled at his lips. “Five it is.”

***

The sun had just set beyond the horizon when the truck finally parked on a cliffside overlooking the drylands where your team was camped out for the next few weeks. Not a cloud obscured your view of the beautiful sky. Pastel pinks and oranges blended with baby blues and lush violets as the afternoon gave way to the night.

It only took a few minutes to set up your little star-gazing nest in the bed of the truck. Pillows and blankets were placed neatly on top of a thick quilt. A cooler of drinks and snacks sat at the head of your open-air hovel with an old lantern sitting on its lid to provide a soft light source other than the moon and stars. It was a humble but wholesome set up.

By the time you were finished, the last bit of daylight was starting to fade from the sky. You both climbed up the hitch to settle amongst to blankets. You laid down first; he followed shortly after, leaving a small gap between you out of courtesy. Even still you felt yourself warmed by the proximity of his body.

The showers began not long after darkness took control of the horizon. Little balls of light gleamed and danced across the sky like celestial teardrops. You watched them with childish glee, pointing skyward every time you saw a particularly beautiful ribbon of glittering luminescence. He would laugh softly and occasionally direct your attention to certain constellations or planets.

Like magnets slowly being pulled toward one another, your bodies inched closer and closer until your shoulders were pressed together and the back of your hand was brushing his forearm. The more time passed, the more you became aware of his wandering gaze. He was spending just as much time looking at you as he was looking at the stars. There was an aura of fascination surrounding him, as if watching you were as satisfying as any vision the constellations could conjure.

As odd as it was to have someone stare at you like that, you didn’t feel uncomfortable by any means. In fact, it made you feel wonderful. It made you feel wanted and made you realize that he was seeing you in ways that maybe he didn’t even expect or understand.

Turning your head to the side just enough to meet his gaze, you brushed the back of your fingers along the smooth skin just below his wrist. His eyebrows twitched upward slightly at the contact and his eyes scanned your face in search of answers to a question only he could hear. A soft breath ghosted past his lips.

Moving cautiously, he hooked his arm beneath yours and tangled both of your hands together. His fingers melded between yours while his thumb experimentally stroked your skin. A small fire sparked to life in your chest, warming every inch of your body. Holding hands was such a simple act of affection but coming from Alan Grant, it spoke louder and more poetically than any love song ever written.

“I thought we came all this way to watch the meteor shower not have you stare at me.”

He blushed at the comment, his throat clearing roughly before he replied, “Sorry. I’m not trying to be rude. I just…The way your eyes reflect the stars…They’re beautiful. You’re beautiful. It’s very hard to look away.”

Your heart leaped in your chest. It was the first time he’d ever really talked about you like that. Over the past few months, he’d occasionally make comments praising your outfit or pointing out your new haircut but he never made a direct remark about your looks. Never before had he called you beautiful.

“I hope I’m not being too forward,” he hurriedly added, “If I’m making you uncomfortable or involuntarily pressuring you into something you don’t want, please tell me. It’s been a long time and I’m not very good at this kind of stuff as it is so don’t be afraid to—“

You cut him off. “Alan, relax. You’re not being rude or making me uncomfortable, I promise.”

“Okay good. The last thing I want is to push you away before I’ve even gotten the chance to get close to you.”

“Can I ask you something? And I need you to be completely honest with me. Sugar-coating the answer is only going to make things complicated.”

“Of course.”

“Do you want to go out with me?”

“Are you asking if I’m interested in dating?”

“Yeah, I am. Because if you are, I want to continue whatever this is,” you said as you nodded toward your intertwined hands, “But if you’re just looking for something physical, I don’t think this is going to work...”

“God, no, I could never do something like that. Especially not with you. You’re too important.”

He sighed, taking a moment to study your face as he tried to shuffle through his thoughts.

“I want to be with you any way I can,” he continued, “If that translates to dating in whatever guide to modern romance people subscribe to these days, then yes, I want that.”

You smiled and squeezed his hand. “Then we’re on the same page.”

“Can I ask you something in return?”

“Absolutely.”

“It’s going to sound silly and I’m begging you not to taunt me when I pose the question, but I have to ask it before I do something stupid.”

“What is it?”

“Is it too soon to kiss you?” He asked shyly, “I don’t want to rush this or make you feel like that’s all I’m after but I just…I can’t stop thinking about what your lips would feel like against mine.”

The innocence of the question made it very difficult to get lost in the excitement that came with knowing what he wanted. It was a genuine inquiry, one that reminded you just how old fashioned he was. He gave you complete control, granting you the ability to set the pace and establish boundaries so that he could keep himself in check. Clearly it had been a very long time since he’d last pursued someone like this.

“No, it’s not to soon. I’d actually like to. Hell, I’d love to kiss you.”

His eyes flicked down to your lips. Then, with the hesitation of a high schooler going in for their very first kiss, he leaned over to ghost his mouth over yours. You kissed back. It was a slow dance of lips and tongue, one driven by child-like curiosity and immeasurable tenderness. Neither of you wanted to push too far or ask for something that the other wasn’t ready to give. Instead, you allowed yourself to completely soak yourself in his affection.

The stars overhead were practically forgotten. You didn’t care about the meteor showers or the constellations that hovered in the sky. All you wanted to see and feel and taste was Alan. With his hand wrapped around yours and his mouth capturing your lips in the gentlest of kisses, it was easy to say that it was one of, if not the most, romantic encounter of your life.

“That meet your expectations?” You murmured quietly when he finally pulled back.

“Exceeded them, actually.”

“Dammit, now I’m gonna feel like every kiss from now on is just gonna be a let down in comparison.”

“I don’t think it’s possible for any kiss to be a let down if it’s from you.”

“Y’know, for someone who really doesn’t like spending time with other people, you are shockingly romantic. I’m impressed.”

He let out a soft huff of laughter. “Spend years focusing on your career instead of pursuing lackluster relationships and you’ll turn yourself into a bargain bin romance novelist too.”

“Bargain bin? Sorry, but I’d happily pay full price for a kiss like that.”

“Just consider how lucky you are to have it for free,” he replied with a cheeky grin.

“I thought you didn’t believe in luck.”

“I don’t. But maybe there’s something else at play. I hate for the thought to even cross my mind but chaos theory does help connect dots otherwise left untouched…Jokes aside, please don’t ever tell Ian Malcolm I said that or it’ll go right to his head. It’s already big enough.”

“And make him think you actually like him enough to reminisce about his leather-bound ass?” You said playfully, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Another hour passed before exhaustion came to sink its teeth into both of you. Even when it became clear that sleep was just on the other side of the curtain, neither of you had any intention of separating. Instead, you grew closer. Your head came to rest upon his shoulder and your arm draped over his torso. A blanket was pulled over your bodies to shield you from the gentle evening breeze.

Under milky moonlight and dancing stars, Alan Grant slept peacefully. No nightmares plagued him, no terrifying memories clawed at his mind. With you in his arms, he was safe and sound. With you in his life, he was happy.

#I love this man so much #He really is my comfort character #I'd do anything to keep him safe #Alan Grant X Reader #Alan Grant X GN!Reader #Alan Grant Reader Insert #Alan Grant Imagines #Jurassic Park Imagines #Reader Insert #My fic #Jurassic Park Fanfiction

[brandyllyn]

Jurassic Frontier: Part 6

Tom fails to provide extra cover.

A Triple Frontier AU.

🦖🦕🦖🦕🦖🦕🦖🚁

Title: Jurassic Frontier

Summary: Pope convinces the Triple Frontier boys to take a quick job with a big pay off. No worries. Just an abandoned island with genetic shit to take.

Warnings: language, dinosaur related violence. Fucking Tom.

We be using a unique Taglist for this as its cowritten

Cowritten by @blueeyesatnight and @brandyllyn

Blue’s series master and mine.

Somewhere, Isla Nublar, 120 miles west of Costa Rica

“Look, I’m just saying, one of the ones my size? They don’t know how to throw a punch. I bet I could take it out.”

No one answers Benny.

“Hey Santi, you think you could fight a dinosaur?”

“Well,” Santi looks thoughtful. They’re resting next to a small stream, letting Santiago rub his knee and check the map. “I’ve got a rifle and Frankie says this thing is a bomb so I like my chances.”

Benny snorts, “That’s cheating.”

A pause.

“I could do it.”

“Twenty bucks says you can’t,” Frankie offers, barely looking up from the twig he’s pulling apart.

Will rolls his eyes. “Can you not encourage him?”

Behind his back Benny and Frankie exchange a nod.

Santiago and Tom are looking through the map and pointing at two different routes.

“This one is longer but paved. More open.” Santiago offers, “Light’s not going to come up for a few hours so it might save us some trouble with roots, holes, and nocturnal predators.”

“Gives us less time to assess the boat situation and then try to come back for the rest of the wreck.” Tom was shaking his head.

Santiago looks up at him, “We...we aren’t coming back.”

“Like hell we aren’t.” Tom counters, “Assuming the boat situation works out, in daylight it will be easier to maneuver, the conditions start to favor us again.”

Frankie mumbles, “Now he cares about maneuvering.”

Tom bristles, “Who has rank here gentlemen?”

They all got quiet.

Too quiet for Tom to hear Benny mutter, “No one, you jackass.”

Tom taps the map, “We go along the river and through the woods.”

“To grandmother’s house we go…” Benny whispers and Will elbows him.

Benny leans closer to his brother and whispers, “Wait...isn’t that the one where the grandmother gets eaten?”

Will tries to sound more confident than he feels, “No Ben...nobody gets eaten in that one.”

Benny nods, “Ok.”

“Alright numbnuts, let’s get going,” Tom is on his feet. Tom was supposed to provide extra cover. Instead Tom is carrying two cases.

No one argues with Tom about his decision.

They fan out, Will and Benny on the right, with Will holding up a rifle and Benny behind him with both brothers’ cases, on the left Santiago is holding the cases while Frankie scopes the rifle.

Tom was dead center of the group, having elected to put his gun on his back to carry both cases. Frankie and Will are prepared to provide cover for him too.

It’s quiet.

The river runs along at a decent pace though it isn’t terribly big or terribly deep. Sometimes Will or Santiago take a knee and try to look at the tracks in the mud.

Nothing too big.

But lots of nothing too big.

“Water source.” Will runs a hand over his hair, throws some of the cold and clear water on his face, “This will be where the smaller animals drink.”

“Where do the big ones drink?”

“Deeper water,” Tom offers.

“Where do they eat?” Benny, the eternal child, bored in the back of the car, almost annoying. But his question does prompt a big pause among the group during which Frankie checked the rifle again.

Frankie shoulders the gun, eyeing the treeline, “Wherever the little ones are.”

“Let’s keep moving.” Tom encourages.

They try to walk quietly.

It’s very quiet.

Too quiet.

“Why aren’t there any noises?” Santiago whispers.

What happened next was probably his fault. Just for asking that question.

Without fucking warning, a set of giant jaws and teeth lunge out of the trees - splitting the group in two - the gunmen covering the case-carriers - and exposing the obvious weak point.

Like a baby gazelle separated from the herd.

Tom takes the brunt of it.

“What the fuck is that?” Frankie yells, shielding Santiago and aiming for the… thing.

“Fucking T-Rex!” Santi shouts, putting the cases down and grabbing his rifle, already firing.

Will doesn’t think it looks like a T-Rex. It’s dark and hard to tell, but it looks like a…

“Spinosaurus,” he shouts. “Aim for the fan. It’ll be more vulnerable.”

“The what?”

“THE MOHAWK.”

Benny is enjoying the target practice: big ol’ creature, hard to miss, and he is nearly laughing and going, “Come and get it you wanna be Travis Barker bitch!”

“You misgendering the fucking lizards Ben?” Santiago manages to tease.

“Birds,” Will mutters.

The Spinosaurus was enjoying her meal, a big ol’ middle chunk of Tom, and was letting the bullets hit it, it didn’t seem to be upset enough by them. This lulled the boys into thinking maybe it was weakening.

Nope.

Suddenly she swallows, composes herself, and roars. She starts darting her head at them, jaws snapping. They manage to maneuver out of the way but the shooting doubles.

And isn’t making much of a dent.

Gunfire. People screaming. Frankie notes they all sound like little girls.

Maybe he was a pessimist but Frankie could see the guns weren’t going to cut it.

It was not worth a million dollars to have a PTSD episode every time his kid watched Barney from now on. He grabs a case from Pope who is too distracted to really see what Frankie is doing.

Frankie darts between the dinosaur’s legs. People yell at him but he ignores them. “Liquid nitrogen and acid in a pressurized setting,” he mutters.

A bomb.

When the spinosaurus tries to duck its head and snap at him he tosses the case in the air.

“Polly want a cracker?” The tragedy was that Will didn’t even hear it. But the Spinosaurus takes the bait.

Its jaws snap closed on the object.

The explosion knocks Frankie off his feet but he rolls and springs up, continuing the sprint back to the boys, not wanting to stop and see if he is being pursued. The spinosaurus roars and disappears into the jungle, at least part of it on fire.

“Jesus Christ.” Frankie whispers.

“Anyone seen Tom?’ Santi asks.

“Over here,” Benny calls back.

“Here too,” Will calls from twenty feet away.

RIP Tom you bastard.

🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖

Part 7 on Friday!

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Taglist Form

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@amneris21, @rosequartzwriting, @felteppsters, @wild-at-heart-kept-in-cage, @voteforpedro09, @tenderwhat, @thirstworldproblemss, @ikinmahlen, @quietpainter, @dihra-vesa, @lawfulgranola, @hello-mooi, @grippleback-galaxy, @riddikulus-obsessions, , @seasonschange-butpeopledont, @felteppsters, @ew-erin, @cannedsoupsucks, @clearlybeffuddled, @fictionalbitch, @mindidjarin, @eri16, @chattychell, @petersunderoos96, @beautyagegoodnesssize, @recklessfangirl-blog, @elisabethbathgate, @alm0501, @sarahmilesbendrix, @ezrasbirdie, @elephants-are-a-thing, @codenamewife, @danniburgh, @mylittlesenaar, @missminkylove, @hopeamarsu , @allmahfeels , @pugrad2020 , @elegantduckturtle , @Glitterygothapricotoperator , @chickadee-djarin , @pintsizemama , @phoenixhalliwell , @lorecraft , @leannawithacapitala , @clumsy_stormtrooper , @rayslittlekitten , @a-bang-for-your-bucky , @the-feckless-wonder , @hdghty , @skvatnavle , @radiowallet , @itishda , @andyl394 , @words-way-of-life , @absurdthirst , @beskarprincessjenny , @amillcitygirl , @you-got-me-starry-eyed , @mandocrasis , @faithkeeper81 , @captain-of-the-forest , @prositute-robot-from-the-future, @demeterl , @kesskirata , @artemiseamoon , @Azibear , @sammysandy, @pancakefancake , @thirdtimesthecharm , @jupitersmoon167 , @raisuniverse , @levillama , @adriiibell, @chronnies , @Boliv-Jenta , @justanotherblonde23 , @jettia , @clydesducktape , @jefferson-in-the-tardis , @meanperegrine , @littlebopper96 , @prettylilhalforc , @practicalghost , @miraclesabound , @ladylothlorien , @luxmundee , @just-here-for-the-moment , @castiel-barnes , @flameo-h0tman , @mishasminion360 , @clearlybefuddled​ , @Prostitute-robot-from-the-future , @shadowolf993

Crossed out names don’t give me the option to tag you.

#jurassic frontier #frankie morales #santiago garcia #will miller #benny miller #tom (derogatory)

[sicparvismorrigan]

Living Dangerously - Chapter 1

Jurassic Park’s animal handlers: none of them ever mentioned by name in Michael Crichton’s original novel. Who were they? What were their lives like on Isla Nublar? Did any of them survive the disaster?

A year in the life of those responsible for the care of the dinosaurs. Many people would kill to have their jobs.

But would they die for it?

Jurassic Park Novel/Jurassic Park Film (1993)

Viewpoint: 3rd person female OC

Warnings: none at present

Word count: ~400 (1 Chapter) [incomplete]

The whole work should be going up on my JP sideblog @lizisshortforlizard as this is my Uncharted trash blog.

Read on Ao3

Prologue

Dedicated to the memory of the InGen workers who lost their lives in the Isla Nublar disaster.

***

The first Lizzy Armstrong ever heard of the InGen Corporation, Isla Nublar or John Hammond was a very animated telephone call from the man himself late one Tuesday afternoon.

God knows how, but he had managed to track down the particulars of her field station in the middle of the African bush and was speaking to her from half a world away, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

It had been a particularly long, hot summer day observing the local elephant herd. On her return to camp Lizzy just wanted to write up her observations, grab some dinner from the mess and try to zonk out on her cot when the sun dipped below the horizon and the scorching air finally cooled.

She’d no sooner sat down to unlace her hiking boots when the call of ”Lizzy, phone!” had rang out across the compound.

Hardly anyone phoned, and almost never asking specifically for her. In general, at the field station, the phone was urgent business only, and it cost a bloody fortune to use it.

She was already grumpy when she stomped back out into the heat to take the call. She might have been a bit short with Hammond when she told him to get to the point, why was he calling her and was he sure he didn’t have the wrong number? He kept rambling on, saying things like ‘highly recommended’, ‘big herbivore expert’ and ‘got to have the best’.

Lizzy sighed and rubbed her temples, cradling the phone to her ear. The line was bad at the best of times, it was hard enough understanding someone’s garbled message the next reserve over, never mind from...where had Hammond said he was? Costa Rica? If she wasn’t mistaken she caught a faint Scottish accent, but my God was he mumbling at breakneck speed.

“Look, Mr. Hammond-“

“John, dear. Please, call me John.”

“John. Look, I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve had a really long day and the phone line is terrible, can you slow down please?”

She heard Hammond take a deep breath and give a small chuckle on the other end of the line.

“My dear, I am offering you a job.”

Chapter 2

***

Thank you for reading!

-I’m not sure what the upload schedule will be for this, I don’t want to promise anything! I do have 65k+ words down already but it’s just a first draft. Hopefully, updates at least once a week. I’ll be honest, I don’t want to rush this. I just really need to start putting this out there.

- This work is entirely fictional and not for profit, most characters belong to Michael Crichton and the original Jurassic Park franchise and I take no ownership of them. The characters in almost all cases are a mixture of their book and film versions, however for the plot I’ve tried to stay true to the book/s as much as possible. On that note, the novel is set in 1989 however for this fic I have gone with the timing of the film being in 1992/1993.

- The chapter titles make up Lizzy’s mixtape. I will put them all into a playlist when I’m finished. They are all ‘of the era’ so pre-92 ;)

- Full notes/thank-you’s will be uploaded at the end of the work. There are a few Ao3 authors I’d love to say thank you to for the inspiration and prompts.

- This is my baby. My pride and joy. I’ve been working on this for almost a year and finally feel brave enough to start publishing it. Any feedback is welcomed but please be kind! I’m so proud of this but also incredibly nervous to let other people read it.

#my writing #my fanfiction #not uncharted #jurassic park fanfiction #jurassic park #jurassic park oc #jurassic park novel #holy crap im finally posting this #im so scared #🦖 #living dangerously #jurassic park female oc

[raidbossmadi]

No Such Thing as Safe Chpt 1

Time frame: Fallen Kingdom 

“You have the wrong person,” Ian insisted as the gag was removed and he tried to get his bearings. It would be easier if he had his glasses, however they had been lost in the initial scuffle that had led to him being brought here in the first place. He still wasn’t quite sure how campus security had managed to fuck up quite this hard but he was sure that they’d be looking for him when his students came back from the 30 minute break and he didn’t.

“Actually, Dr. Malcolm you are exactly who we’ve been looking for,” a light flipped on and Ian realized that he was in one of the campus’ maintenance sheds. His hands tied behind his back around the back of a chair and his legs bound together. The rope around his legs dug into the scar tissue on his bad leg. He could ignore the discomfort for the moment but he knew the longer he stayed bound the more unbearable it would get.

“I apologise for being so rough, but by the time we’re done here I think you’ll understand that it was of the utmost importance that I get a meeting with you,” the owner of the voice stood just on the edge of Ian’s clarity of vision.  “But I understand you vet your visitors. I do hope you’ll understand the use of force.”

“Why do you sound so familiar,”  Ian asked. The voice didn’t set off any of Ian’s flight or fight responses so they weren’t Biosyn or an academic rival. He shifted his weight the best he could in his current position desperate to relieve some of the tension in his lower calf.

Before he could say anything else the figure approached and gingerly slipped Ian’s glasses back on his face. The man standing before him was only a couple years younger than Ian himself, he had slicked back black hair and was wearing a suit that likely cost more than Ian made in a year. That was when the pieces started to fall into place. An ad he had seen before the evening news came to the front of his mind.

“Allow me to introduce myself, Doctor. My name is Thomas Grey, head of the Extinction Now movement. As I’m sure you’re aware, the volcano on Isla Nublar is due to erupt in a matter of months. Unlike your colleagues you have reason to dislike the animals Ingen created, so let me put this bluntly. We need someone with your level of standing to support extinction now.”

Ian paled. “You do realize that I work for Ingen right?”

“As an independent external contractor. You have no binding ties to the company if my research is correct.”

“So instead you decided to take that literally in this case and give me some, uh, binding ties I see,” Ian squirmed again, the rope bit into his wrists and he hissed. “Anyway your research was wrong. I do have ties to Ingen, namely in the form of my wife.”

Thomas Grey frowned and crossed his arms. “Listen Dr. Malcolm, Extinction Now isn’t looking for your explicit endorsement. We’d just like permission to use some of your findings in our message.”

“Don’t have much of a choice do I,” Ian thought to himself. He was going to need a hot bath after this to soothe the aching in his lower leg that was starting to become unbearable. He thought of Sarah, Ellie, and Alan, how he was going to explain his present condition to them. He supposed he could lie and say one the new students had thought it would be funny to put a foot out in the aisle and pull his cane out from under him, it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened after all.  

“Soooo,” Thomas asked expectantly. “What’s your answer?”

“Yeah, ok, whatever. Use my work for whatever you want.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard now was it?”

Ian would disagree, emphatically. However he valued his life and safety more. Without another word exchanged between them Thomas walked back over to Ian and untied the rope that bound him to the chair.

“Your cane is next to the door,” he remarked pointing at it before making his exit through the very same door.

Ian groaned, this was going to be unpleasant. He stood up slowly, putting most of his weight on the chair as he sussed out how to proceed from here. He figured he could handle it like the mornings when he forgot his cane in the bathroom and woke up with a sore leg. He made his way across the room slowly, it felt more like torture than anything else he’d been subjected to for however long that extinction nutjob had him trapped here. As his hand curled around the handle of his cane it felt like an insurmountable obstacle had been overcome.

He pushed open the door and saw that he was in the same hallway as his classroom. The clock in the hallway said it was an hour past his class's end point, so he expected that his student must have assumed he’d left to take care of something.

He walked into the class through his office entrance to find Beverly on the phone.

“No, I don’t know where he was seen last, but he would have told if-” she stopped mid sentence as she looked up. “Uh, nevermind Scott, Dr. Malcolm just walked in.”

She hung up the phone. “Dr. Malcolm, where have you been?”

He held up his free hand, “Don’t worry about it, Beverly. I’m gonna need you to cancel my evening class though.”

Her eyes trailed down as she looked him over with concern. “You’re bleeding.”

He looked down and realized that she was right, a large rosette of blood stained through the dark grey of his pants. It seemed the ropes that had bound him were tight enough to tear open one of the more delicate scars on his calf, that explained why it hurt so badly.

“Please, Dr. Malcolm, have a seat I’ll call the Campus medical team.”

#whumptober2021 #No.1 #Bound #Jurassic Park #Fic #blood tw #My Writing #Edge of Chaos

[jurassicparkpodcast]

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Season 3 SPOILER Review!

The Third Season of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous has arrived – meaning we’re bringing you some more content around the show, including our spoiler thoughts on how the third season did when compared to the first two. If you haven’t seen Camp Cretaceous Season 3 yet then click off this article now, as we are going to be discussing some of the key set pieces in this series which make it by far the best one to be released to date. Let’s get into it!

We’ll start by summarising the third season – and, in particular, it’s story. The story of the Campers attempting to get off of the island whilst uncovering that a terrifying new hybrid has broken loose is interesting, with plenty done to explore more of Isla Nublar and, indeed, the terrifying work which Doctor Henry Wu was doing in the shadows of the former Jurassic World. Although the kids ultimately escape the island, this isn’t without a few interesting sequences sprinkled in throughout – including direct tie-ins to Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, and also hints at the future of Mantah Corp and their research into InGen’s work. The third story feels incredibly well balanced – with lots of fantastic set pieces balanced with meaningful storytelling and interesting characters alongside brand-new dinosaurs. The third season brings us a much more grounded story which aims to fill some of the canonical gaps left by Season Two – creating a story which feels satisfying and fulfilling.

The third season maintains the same cast of characters – with each of them getting plenty of interesting development. Darius, for example, spends some time earlier in the season filling the holes in his notebook – giving us a fun look at a Dilophosaurus drawing indicating he encountered this animal on the island at some point. Kenji struggles with the kids liking him and feels the need to use his wealth to impress them, whilst Sammy worries about what Mantah Corp may have done to her family back home. Each character feels three dimensional in the third season – with some great development showing how they have adapted to their environment. Of note here in particular is the character of Yasmina, who selflessly heads across the island in search on an anti-serum when Sammy is poisoned by the quills on the Scorpios Rex. This animal itself is handled incredibly well – with the kids feeling genuinely in danger at some points throughout the story.

The other dinosaurs in the story are good too – including surprising appearances from both the Ouranosaurus and the Monolophosaurus. These animals do go against the pre-established canon of the island a little bit, with neither of them ever mentioned as being present on Nublar, but it is possible that the prior existing list was only ever intended to reflect the public-facing dinosaurs. These animals get some interesting sequences throughout the story – although there are a lot of the Monolophosaurus at one point in the story. Beyond the small canonical issues here, the only other real issue I had with Season 3 was the fact that the Scorpios was developed before the Indominus Rex. This does retroactively go against a lot of the pre-established timeline in things like the viral marketing – but it is possible that the Scorpios was hidden from existence altogether given it was seen as a failure by Simon Masrani. It is interesting to note that the Scorpios was able to reproduce asexually – suggesting a second E750 which is present in the show was able to grow to maturity incredibly quickly. Perhaps this can be explained by the enhanced growth Bumpy also inherits, however. These small issues aside, Season 3 took big strides to fix my issues with Season 2 of the show – creating a much more well-rounded experience which fits better within the universe of the films.

There were a few moments throughout Season 3 which stood out to me as building on the critiques on Season 2 – the first of which was the Ouranosaurus Attack at the dock as the kids attempt to patch up the damage which Tiff’s boat has sustained. I loved how the ambience in this sequence felt reflective of sequences in both The Lost World novel and in Trespasser – with some fantastic, tense sequences utilising natural fog and darkness to really elevate the stakes and create something which felt darker and scarier in tone than anything beforehand. We don’t often see herbivores as direct threats for the human characters in Jurassic, so the attention to ambience and atmosphere throughout this sequence really helped to make the Ouranosaurus feel more intimidating when they eventually attacked. I also loved how this sequence is later explained as the animals behaviours changing due to the ecosystem being tilted off-balance by the Scorpios Rex – a fun note which perhaps suggests that the Spinosaurus may have had a similar impact on Isla Sorna. This was a really fun sequence and one which I thought was worth highlighting here as I really enjoyed it.

Next up I wanted to talk about a sequence which hits the nostalgia factor and tones it up to eleven – with the pair of Scorpios Rexes hunting the campers through the original Visitor’s Centre. A lot of the sequences in the centre feel very similar to those in 1993’s Jurassic Park – with sequences in the kitchen, in particular, recreating shot-for-shot some of the moments from the kitchen sequence in the first film. I really liked these call-backs as whilst they were quite overt, they felt as though they fitted with the show, and worked incredibly well. I also love how the series initially shows Blue nesting in the Visitor Centre before she heads to the Ford Explorer, as this underpins how much of this animal’s present-day existence is nested in Henry Wu’s past work at Jurassic Park. The Visitor’s Centre is also ultimately destroyed by the Scorpios Rexes during this sequence – with both animals buried by the rubble. Whilst some fans may be upset to see this location destroyed, I loved how it underpins a very core concept moving forwards – highlighting how Henry Wu’s arrogance and continued ignorance in the implications of his science has ultimately destroyed the legacy of the work that both he and John Hammond attempted to do.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that the third season features two bonus episodes – with the final two episodes tying directly into the Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom opening sequence. After Season One of the show, I tweeted one of the writers asking him if there was a chance we’d see reference to this in the future, so seeing this recreated shot-for-shot in the show with the kids watching on as the Indominus sample was extracted was awesome. It was also really cool seeing how Wu’s additional mission was to retrieve his laptop – noting that without it, the work he needed to do on the Indoraptor would take years and not months. This perhaps explains why the animal we see during the Lockwood Manor auction sequence is only a prototype – as Wu ultimately leaves the island without this information. It is interesting seeing some of Wu’s dialogue with Brooklynn throughout these episodes – with the character perhaps showing some small semblance of remorse. Ultimately, however, he leaves the kids on Nublar – reinforcing his status as a character with a questionable moral compass moving into Jurassic World Dominion. I have to admit – the way this tie-in played out was handled masterfully, and I was really happy to see things unfold in the way they did. I genuinely screamed out loud at my screen with happiness at one moment – emphasising how much work went in to nailing this crossover. It’s clear that the team working on Camp Cretaceous went to great lengths to smash the third season – and the result is some fantastic crossover which pays off and builds the lore of Wu’s work in meaningful ways without any of the massive contradictions I was worried these sequences may introduce.

The Series ends with the Campers finally escaping the island – heading off in a repaired boat, although we do see at the very closing moments that something else is on-board and hidden in the lower decks. This poses an interesting question in its own right, as it has been pre-established that Scorpios can self-reproduce – so is it possible a third hybrid existed on the island? If so then this could pose a grave risk to people on the mainland when the campers return there. We also know that Mantah Corp may potentially still be at play – with a quad-copter drone observing the Scorpios Rex on the island. Is it possible this shady corporation may now recover the carcasses of the dead hybrids for their own experiments? And what happened to the pilot of the Helicopter which the kids crashed in? She didn’t appear to have been eaten – but we never see her again after the crash sequence. These are just a handful of the questions we were left with at the end of Season 3 – implying there is more story to be told, even if the third season felt like it reached a nice natural ending for the series as a whole.

Overall, the third season of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous is fantastic. Do not sleep on this season. It adds a lot to the lore of Doctor Henry Wu and his research, and it builds out a lot of interesting lore for the experiments which were happening on Isla Nublar. It also sets up some interesting plot threads for the future without them feeling overly intrusive and detrimental to the wider story telling in the Jurassic universe. Season 2 of this show left me feeling a little deflated, but Season 3 left me feeling reinvigorated. This wraps up the story of E750 and the wider universe in meaningful ways, and is a fantastic and more mature Jurassic adventure which adult fans will enjoy. I can’t wait to see the reception to this season – and how it informs Jurassic content in the future.

Written by: Tom Jurassic

#article #camp cretaceous #camp cretaceous season three #camp cretaceous season 3 #tom jurassic #tom fishenden

[cami-chats]

A Professional Woman

Fandom: Jurassic World, Marvel

Pairing: Claire Dearing/Tony Stark

Warnings: Injuries in keeping with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Read on AO3 or below

Tony was signing through the pile of paperwork that was on his desk when Mrs. Arbogast buzzed him. He clicked at the intercom. "Yes?"

"Miss Claire Dearing is requesting to see you," she said.

He'd thought that she was going to be at work all day today-- and tomorrow too, for that matter. It's not as though they were living together, so he well and truly had not expected to see her for a couple more days. A phone call, maybe. An in-person visit? He hadn't dared hope. "Send her in."

"Yes, sir," she said.

Tony took his hand off the button and checked his appearance in the mirror. His jawline wasn't as smooth as he liked for it to be, but it was late in the afternoon so there was nothing to be done about that. A moment later, his door opened and he quickly tore his eyes away. Claire was, as expected, as beautiful as ever. She never had a hair out of place.

"Claire," Tony said, smiling. He got to his feet and walked around his desk. There was no point in sitting behind it like this was a meeting, after all. "This is a pleasant surprise." He took a quick glance at her outfit; it was professional, but not a suit like she used to wear when she was running the park every day. "I take it you're here on business?"

"Just came back from business, actually. Didn't have the time to change, but I wanted to tell you in person."

"Uh-oh," Tony said jokingly.

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning."

"Leaving?" Tony repeated, smile sliding away. "I thought your work was stationary to New York, now."

"It was when I was just making phonecalls."

"What changed?"

Claire's jaw went a little tight. "The hearing was today."

The hearing that she'd been waiting for ever since Isla Nublar's volcano went active. It had pushed her schedule from busy to insane because she was on a crunch now, where before, she'd had time to get all her ducks in a row, as it were. She'd been talking about it for weeks, about how this hearing could be the final judgment for what happened to the dinosaurs. "I thought that was the twentieth," Tony said, stomach sinking. He knew how important it was for her, and he'd had it in mind to make the time to be there for her.

"Today's the twentieth."

"Fuck," he breathed, rubbing at his eyes. "Sorry. How'd it go?"

"They decided not to intervene."

"I'm so sorry."

Claire shook her head. "The US government won't intervene, but there's another offer on the table. I'm getting on a plane tomorrow morning to help them track down as many of the animals as they can. Once they have them onboard, they are going to transfer them to a secure location."

"You're- I think I misheard something because it sounds like you're talking about illegal animal trafficking here."

"If there are no laws to protect them, then there is likewise no law in place to make it illegal to take them off the island."

"I wouldn't take that bet if I were you," Tony said, worried. He knew that Claire could handle herself, but she had a bit of a blind spot when it came to the dinosaurs; she felt responsible for them and for everything that had happened to them since the Indominus Rex had broken out. "And that's not what I mean. Selling them is going to-"

"Oh no, we're not selling them," she said quickly. She laughed, relieved. The stress that had been building up in her shoulders was gone, leaving her as relaxed as she'd been when she walked into his office. "No, they'll be brought to a privately owned island so they can continue living without human interaction. No visitors, no interference."

"When I offered you that, you told me to keep my nose out of it," Tony reminded her.

"I wanted to do this right, not ask my boyfriend to fix everything for me." She walked closer and gave him a quick peck on the cheek to soften any insult he might have taken from that. He put an arm around her waist to keep her close, so she put an arm around his shoulders as she continued to talk. "This is a legitimate offer from people involved in the Jurassic Project. I only came by to tell you that I'm going to be leaving tomorrow, and I'll be out of contact until I get back to the States."

Tony wanted to argue. He wanted to push for more information about these people so that he could vet them and make sure they were up to snuff, but her business was her business and she'd made it clear how she felt about him interfering. "Do you know when you'll get back?"

"The island's about to blow. Can't be more than two days, but I imagine it's only going to be one. We leave early in the morning tomorrow, and we should be leaving before tomorrow night. Day after, I could stop by, if you won't be too busy."

"I can honestly say that I don't know my plans. We could plan on you coming to my place for dinner?"

"I look forward to it," Claire said.

When Tony leaned in for a kiss, she met him. "I'm guessing you're going to be busy tonight?"

"I should go to bed early, and I do still need to pack a bag, but I could spare an hour or two." She cocked her head slightly. "What did you have in mind?"

"Nothing exciting. Pasta, maybe a movie in so we can be as dressed down as we like," he said with a smirk. "Does that sound at all appealing?"

"Extremely." She kissed him again. "For now, I will leave you to your work. See you at... seven?" she guessed. 

"Six thirty. I should be back by then, and if not, Jarvis will let you in."

"Or one of your other roommates," Claire said, ready-- as always-- to remind him of the fact that he lived with the other Avengers.

"Jarvis gets upset when they don't let him answer the door."

"I won't pretend to understand that."

Tony shrugged. "He's an old-school butler; he doesn't like other people doing his job. I'll see you tonight."

Since they were standing so close already, Claire gave him a hug and bid him farewell before leaving.

*

It was long past the time that Claire said to expect her back. Normally, Tony wouldn't be too bothered by that, since it had been someone else's schedule and she'd been guessing. However, he checked the news and saw that the volcano had erupted. There was no (reasonable) chance that she had been on the island when it happened, so she had to be back on continent. He called her phone and got no answer.

He gave it until she was officially late for their date to take action, which he thought was admirable restraint on his part. Tony did a little checking and was able to find out who she had been working for when she got on that plane. He did some digging and did not like what he found.

He rushed to go put on the suit. He'd be able to fly to the Lockwood Estate faster in the Iron Man suit than if he took the quinjet or went by car, even though he knew that Jim hated when he did this. Most of the time, Tony was understanding. Today did not count as 'most of the time'.

"Tony?"

"I'm busy right now, Jan."

"I can see that," she said mildly. "Do you need backup?"

"Unknown, but it's not Avengers business."

"Would you like backup?" Jan asked.

He glanced at her and saw that she was already suited up. "I don't know if it's anything, but if it is something, Claire's likely in danger."

"Claire... that's your new girlfriend, right? The one you don't want to meet us?"

"That's the one." Although ‘new’ wasn’t necessarily accurate to describe their dating status. They’d been together for a while. Granted a lot of that time had been long distance, so maybe that’s why Jan thought of her as being new. 

"She's the dinosaur lady, isn't she?" Jan asked, interest piquing significantly.

"Yes, and that's why I don't want you to meet." 

"Aw, c'mon, what's the worst that could happen?"

"I'd rather not guess. She might be kidnapped right now." At least, he was hoping she was kidnapped, because the other option was dead and the evidence would be buried under a volcanic eruption. "And if my suspicions are correct, it's tied up in animal trafficking."

"I think you mean dinosaur trafficking."

Tony shot her a flat look, and she tried, unsuccessfully, to smother her laughter.

"Sorry. So what's the four-one-one?"

"I'll tell you on the way."

"You got it," she said, giving him a mocking salute. Normally, she only did that to Cap, but Tony guessed it was fitting right now.

*

"So I know you said not to do you any favors," Tony said, closing the hospital door, "but I think this time should count as an exception."

Claire gave him a faint smile. It was hard to say if she was just tired, or if it was an effect from the oxygen mask she currently had on. It was only a faint stream to help with the smoke inhalation, so she moved it off to say, "I think I'll forgive you this time, because of the extenuating circumstances. And thanks. For saving us." Her and her team, she meant. They were next door and down the hall; Tony was going to check on them next. "What did you do with the dinosaurs?"

"I'm surprised that you waited a whole five seconds to ask about them," Tony teased. "They're on one of my islands. When you’re feeling up to it, I wanted to talk to you or someone in your office about the climate. I took my best guess at which one was the best fit, but I'd feel better if I had an expert's opinion." He knew pretty much nothing about animals, but they'd been dating long enough that he knew to actually care about climate.

"I'll see who's available," she assured him.

"Thanks." He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm going to go check on the others, and then I'll come back. Do you need me to get you anything?"

She shook her head. "You've done more than enough."

"I'm glad you think so, but that's not what I asked."

Claire chuckled. "I would really love a soda, if you can find one."

"Diet Coke?" he checked, and she nodded. "You got it, sweetheart."

"Thanks," she said. Tony left, and she moved the oxygen mask back on. The nurse had told her that it would be off by tonight, and she was looking forward to it. Moving it off anytime she wanted to talk was annoying. 

*

"Does Claire remind anyone else of Pepper?" Hank asked.

"Yes, but we all had the good sense not to say it aloud," Jan said without looking up from her sketchbook.

Steve, sitting next to her also drawing in his sketchbook, nodded. "They're both very professional women. It seems to be Tony's preference in partner."

"And it always has been," Jan added. "Trust me, Tony likes people who are competent. That being said, I suggest you not make that comparison to his face. Things are still... delicate, between him and Happy. And while we’re at it, don’t mention him meddling in Claire’s business. We’re not supposed to do that." 

“Yes, dear,” Hank said. 

#jurassic world #marvel #fanfic #tony stark #claire dearing #my writing #old school tony babeeey

[takerfoxx]

Jurassic Park 4: Doki Idol Live Festival!

magic5ball submitted:

Remember how you asked me about my idea for a Jurassic Park sequel? Well, here you go:

The two velociraptors stood outside a pastel colored town house in Hokkaido prefecture, Japan. If any passerbys thought that was weird, they certainly didn’t show it. Probably because the raptors were wearing fedoras and fake mustaches, so they looked like humans. Also they had guns. Very cool, very intimidating mobster guns. A tommy gun and a sawed-off shotgun, respectively.

You needed guns, to survive Shinzo Abe’s little empire of vice and socialized medical care.

“So this is the place, huh?” muttered the velociraptor carrying the sawed-off shotgun. His thick Brooklyn accent hung in the air like concrete. “Kinda… frillier than I was expecting.”

“It better be.” Replied his companion, who sounded like your racist conservative uncle trying to impersonate that one cool guy from ‘The Godfather’ (You know, the one with the mustache who was played by Robert de Niro). “We hadda kill a whole lotta people to get this hellhole.”

Sawed-off shotgun licked his non-existent lizard lips

“But hey. That airplane stewardess tasted mighty fine goin-“

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake, would ya stop thinkin’ with your stomach and help me with this f*ckin’ knob!” cried tommy gun, trying to work the doorknob best he could with his raptor claws, which, in all honesty, wasn’t much, because raptor claws are terrible at operating things meant for human fingers. Little did he know, the door was a ‘pull’, not a ‘push.

At least he didn’t have to wait long before someone unlocked the door from the other side: another velociraptor, this one a bit on the short side. And p!ssed. Very, very p!ssed. You could tell he was the cool one because he wore an eyepatch over one eye. An eyepatch with a Captain Underpants logo on it.

“Didn’t your parent’s ever teach you idiots about using the doorbell?! I was just about to enjoy lunch with my beautiful wife and you-!“

He paused, recognizing the two figures facing him.

“Well, well, well” Said tommy gun, cocking his weapon “If it isn’t SWEET JOHN HAMMOND’S BALLSACK WHAT THE F*CK AM I LOOKING AT?!”

For the cool raptor was dressed in a gothic Lolita maid outfit, complete with a bonnet and penny loafers. Under his arm he carried a human sized pillow depicting what appeared to be a blonde floozy with massive tits.

 “Oh this? This is Mami Tomoe, my beautiful wife.”

“WHAT THE F*CK!?!?” Tommy gun pulled out a flask off orange Fanta from his butthole and drank the whole thing in one go. He did NOT have time for this homosexual weeaboo nonsense! Still, he and shotgun hadn’t left a mountain of corpses the exact height and width as Mt. Fuji behind them. Too many to go back to Isla Nublar empty handed. Er, clawed. Because they were dinosaurs. Who have claws.

Shotgun took a deep breath. “What the Boss means to say is, ‘May we take refuge in this fine establishment?’”

Cool raptor opened his mouth to reveal a pistol he’d hidden there. And by hidden I mean replaced his tongue with it.

“You know, for all crap you guys used to give me in the past, I oughta pump you full of lead right here and now. Buuutttt… the lady of the house is present, and I’m not in the mood to create more work on her end. So come on in! You’re just in time for lunch.”

Lest they attract unneeded attention, the three dinosaurs hopped inside.

.   .   .

Lunch was omurice boba tea with a bottle of teriyaki sauce on the side. It was just boba tea, but the boba had been replaced by omurice because F-Bomb hated the flavor of boba, which he likened to rabbit crap. The teriyaki sauce was teriyaki sauce.

It was the most racist thing shotgun had ever eaten.

“Well, now that you jerks have gotten a taste of my sloppy seconds, I suppose some introductions are in order. You’ve already met my lovely wife” Cool raptor gestured to the body pillow seated next to him “So that leaves you two. Mami, meet A-Hole and D-Bag. A-Hole’s got the tommy gun, D-Bag is ridin’ her sawed off shotgun, as always. They’re old… acquaintances of mine.”

“He.” Corrected D-Bag. “I’ve been using he/him pronouns six months now.”

“Well that’s an improvement. Now instead of bein’ the Boss’ side B!tch literally, you’re just his b!tch figuratively!”

“Well screw you too, F-Bomb!” laughed the boss. “An’ speakin’ of screwing, what’s with the fruity get up? You a prostitute now or something?”

 “Even better! This might surprise you, but I’ve got legitimate work now. This here’s my uniform, my uniform for MILF TIDDIES!”

A-Hole chugged his entire bottle of teriyaki sauce in one go, lest his mind implode from the sheer stupidity of that sentence.

“The Hell’s a milf tiddie!?”

“Only the best freakin’ maid café in Hoikaido, hookers!”

He gestured to a wall, covered in hundreds of photos of cute floozies dressed like they were attending a vampire’s funeral. Among them was a photo of F-Bomb in his drag, serving a deep fried hot dog to some elderly Japanese dude.

“As you can see, yours truly is serving Japan’s national desert to none other than 57th Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe!”

“Hold it up. Youse been hobnobbing it with politicians?!”

“I wish! You’re thinking of Shinzo Abe, 57th Prime Minister of Japan. This guy is his twin brother. Still pretty sweet though. We DID win a Grammy for that, after all.”

A-Holes eyes bulged out of his scaly raptor head.

“YOUSE WON A GRAMMY FOR THAT?!”

“Dang right! Milf Tiddies has won sixteen Grammys since I started working there!” He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. A very special piece of paper, if the six holes punched into it were any indication. “Did you know that if you win ten Grammys in a row, they give you a free orphan? That’s how the wife and I got our glorious daughter, Lil’ Nagisa!”

F-Bomb pulled a faded photo out of his wallet. A photo showing himself, his pillow wife, and a smaller body pillow of a ten-year-old moeblob wearing a Green Bay Packers cheesehead helmet.

“So youse couldn’t even conceive your own kid?” Inquired D-Bag sexily. He was munching his omurice slowly, so F-Bomb knew he was being serious.

“Are you implying I have sex with my own wife, you sick freak?! I’m a weeaboo, not some degenerate anime fanboy! Get it straight!” He instinctively cocked the pistol in his throat. It was awesome as hell.

In response, D-Bag pumped his shotgun. Loudly.

“Permission to put the sick freak out of his misery, Boss?”

“Firstly, don’t call me Boss when we’re not having anal sex. Second, no can do, my spicy lover. We need F-Bomb alive.”

F-Bomb heard all of this even though A-Hole whispered it, but he pretended not to make A-Hole feel clever.

D-Bag mumbled about how the Boss was lucky he was so mind blowing in the sack, otherwise he would have left the relationship long ago. The sack in this case being a really kinky sex dungeon. Like really kinky. So kinky even Donald Trump wouldn’t go within a mile of it. D-Bag had almost died of autoerotic asphyxiation more times than I’ve gone to the bathroom in my lifetime. That’s why he was the smartest dinosaur out of the three of them. Now where was I again?

Anyway, F-Bomb interrogated

“Alright guys, what’s the deal? I know folks who come to this socialized medical care infested hellhole, and they don’t come here just to eat omurice boba tea. You WANT me for something.”

He cocked his mouth-pistol again. Sparks flew all over the carpet, which was made of alpaca fur so it didn’t catch fire.

A-Hole scandalously kept his cool.

“It’s about Isla Nublar.”

The second those words left A-Hole’s lips, F-Bomb escorted his wife out of the kitchen, but leaned her against the kitchen door, because that’s what she would have wanted.

“Well what about it? I told ya guys, I’m done with that dump.”

“They’re puttin’ the screws on us, F-Bomb. Making us pay for eating those tourists back in the nineties.”

“And what makes you think I care? Like I said, I’m done with that place. I got a wife and kid now.”

“But F-Bomb, doesn’t the Park mean ANYTHING to ya!? What about the time we ate that park ranger that called you a girl? ‘Better than sex’ I recall you saying.”

“Nice try, but I’m not exactly in the mood to get misgendered again. Don’t you guys got any ideas that don’t involve me?”

“As a matter of fact, yours truly had this really spectacular one!”

D-Bag did a hand gesture wherein he constantly crossed his dinosaur claws across his throat rapidly in quick succession. A-Hole, being very smart, knew this meant he should continue, loudly enough so that everyone in the prefecture could hear.

“It was called ‘Trump Ballz’. We’d harvest Donald Trump’s testicles, see, and sell them to the highest bidder, so they could do whatever people do with lopped off testicles. I’m not one to judge. It was a terrific idea. I know because when I told my best friend Donald Trump about it, he said, ‘A-Hole, this is an incredible idea. Absolutely terrific! This is probably the best idea in America! You are very smart, very intelligent dinosaur! I oughta buy you a prostitute!’ Of course, we didn’t realize that Trump’s ballz don’t grow back when you lop them off. Did you know that by the way? Human testicles don’t grow back-“

F-Bomb cocked the pistol inside his throat gain, getting the Boss to shut up. This was probably the most heroic thing anyone had ever done in the history of the universe. He also asked a question:

“SO WHAT THE HECK DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ME?!”

A-Hole vomited a severed arm and a pamphlet onto the table.

“EVERYTHING, ya WEEB trash!”

The pamphlet was for something called the Doki Idol Live Fest- DILF, for short. F-Bomb was no stranger to the DILF, but they had parted ways years ago. Six, to be exact, when he had buried Nico Yazawa’s still screaming corpse by the side of the highway. And neither was he stranger to the prize.

It looked like a beer and soda drinking baseball cap, but only to complete idiots who didn’t know crap about the Idol Life.

And F-Bomb wasn’t one of those people, er dinosaurs.

“THE MCGUFFIN OF SIN?!”

“Dam* straight! And like it or not, youse the only one with enough idol know-how to help us win it! Thing’s worth, like, a zillion dollars.”

A zillion in this case was equivalent to half a million. Still, isn’t that impressive?

F-Bomb stuck his nose in his omurice and snorted, a common intimidation tactic among velociraptors. I know because I read  it in the Scientific American.

“Sorry, guys, but even with that on the line, no can do. I’m DONE with the Idol Life, any I’m not letting you filthy casuals drag me back in.” He cocked the pistol in his throat. “NOW SCRAM!”

A-Hole and D-Bag jumped out a window, so they could get the jump on a feral dog humping its’ owner. Nobody realized they were dinosaurs because of their fake mustaches, so it looked like a pair of mobsters were eating a puppy.

When they were gone, F-Bomb pranced to the bathroom, which was filled with plush alpacas he had collected over the years. So many, in fact, the bathroom did not meet OSHA compliance. Which was why F-Bomb had made it an independent nation state, only to realize that OSHA didn’t apply to him anyway, since he lived in Japan.

He had felt really stupid after that, but at least he got his own country out of it.

Anyway, he vomited sixteen liters of blood into the sink, for F-Bomb had a secret: he was dying. Back when he was a fetus in an egg in a lab on some island in the Caribean, he’d become addicted to the illegal street drug known as WEEB, and frequent use had poisoned his lungs. The doctors had given him Socialized Medical Care and four more years to live. The WEEB had taken eighty years off his life. Socialized Medical Care had borrowed his lawnmower and never given it back.

But F-Bomb also had a dream: he and his wife were going to build their own maid café, and it would be even better than MILF Tiddies. He’d already picked a title: DILF Tiddies, and it was going to be the greatest food-selling establishment in the history of Japan. Omurice boba tea was going to go global. But he’d never get the funds on time, not on his meager salary. Unless…

His beautiful wife greeted him as he exited the bathroom.

“Get a pen and some razor blades, sweetgums. I’ve got a letter to send.”

.   .   .

The message arrived in the neck of a mailman’s severed head. This is the traditional way velociraptors send letters to each other. I read it in a book.

D-Bag didn’t see the letter, but the look on A-Hole’s face told him everything.

“What’d I tell ya, D-Bag? Like I always say, when you’re dino you’re dino all the way, till youse dead in the ground or youse come out as gay!”

“Yeah, we really need to update those lyrics.”

End Chapter 1

...I cannot for the life of me decide if this is the greatest thing I've ever seen or the worst, but it at the very least had me staring speechless at my computer screen for a long time.

#submission #jurassic park #puella magi madoka magica #pmmm #well then

[deliriousgeek]

She’s the Alpha (Owen Grady x Reader) .5

Masterlist: 

Chapter 5

“It’s gorgeous.”

The flight to Limon was no longer than a three hour flight. Claire Dearing turned out to be a by far more gracious host than what (Y/n) expected. She steered the conversation to that of topics such as the history of the park and how far it has progressed.

"I'm sure you've heard of the unfortunate incidents that have happened in previous years of the park." Claire stated in an uncertain voice, mid-flight.

(Y/n) looked at Claire instead of out the window at the open ocean. "Oh yes," She began rather grimly. "I've been hearing them since I was a child."

Claire nodded in response. "Then pardon my curiosty, and tell me if I'm being too bold in asking, but why visit place that your father has spoke so ill of?"

(Y/n) glanced at the ground, a soft smile graced her face, as if she was thinking of a found memory. "My father hated being on that island. He hated every single bit of it. I don't blame him though. Can you imagine digging up inanimate fossils one day and then being chased and hunted by the living, breathing version of them the next?" (Y/n) laughed. "I can't imagine the trauma he went through, but they were moments he told me he would never forget it. He would never forget the moment he looked straight into the eyes of a Brachiosaurus. It changed his life. He said that his life long work had led him to that exact moment of being able to stare that creature in the eyes, and make a connection to all his theories and ideas to real factual evidence. I want that. I want to be able to make that connection. Now I know that all these animals do not contain the exact genetic material as their ancestors but they're the closest thing we've got! 'And who wouldn't want to see a living, breathing dinosaur? Who gets to say, "Hey! I touched a dinosaur!" nowadays?"

Claire nodded, impressed. "So you're not scared to visit?"

(Y/n) laughed. "Oh I'm plenty scared, but fear makes us miss out on all the great opportunities in life. What's the point of life without taking it's opportunities?"

"Fair enough."

The pilot then spoke to the two women in the back. "Ladies, we have arrived."

Claire looked at (Y/n) and gestured her hand to the window in front of her. "Miss Grant, if you look out the window on your left I present to you, The Jurassic World, Isla Nublar Ferry."

(Y/n) did as followed and all she could say was, "It's gorgeous."

#Owen Grady #owen x reader #owen grady x reader #owen grady x yn #owen x yn #yn #jurassic world #jurassic world reader insert #jurassic world x reader #jurassic park reader #jurassic park #claire dearing #Alan Grant #alan grant x daughter #alan grant x daughter reader #shes the alpha #she's the alpha #blue #delta #echo #charlie #zach mitchell #gray mitchell

[lizisshortforlizard]

Living Dangerously - Chapter 23

Jurassic Park’s animal handlers: none of them ever mentioned by name in Michael Crichton’s original novel. Who were they? What were their lives like on Isla Nublar? Did any of them survive the disaster?

A year in the life of those responsible for the care of the dinosaurs. Many people would kill to have their jobs.

But would they die for it?

Jurassic Park novel/Jurassic Park film (1993)

Viewpoint: 3rd person female oc

Wordcount: 70.7k (23 Chapters) [incomplete]

Warnings: dinosaur attack/car crash, brief mention of parental abuse, alcoholism, f-bombs and other bad language

Tagging: @heresthefanfiction @ocappreciation @arrthurpendragon @howlingmadlady @wordspin-shares @starryeyes2000 ( @themaradaniels are you interested? Totally fine if not!)

Read on Ao3

Chapter 22 | Chapter 24

Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes

"Are you feeling better?"

"Yes." A blatant lie. How could she be? Her heart was broken. Lizzy blinked wearily, her eyes were puffy and sore from crying most of the night. She was running on empty. "Are you? When was the last time you had a day off?"

"I honestly don't remember." Muldoon answered after thinking for a moment. "Every time I have a day off something bad happens. Usually involving you. Now, Sorna."

He explained the situation to her, in full. Site B was experiencing behavioural problems with a new species, someone had gotten an involuntary dactylectomy, could the resident ethologist arrange a visit to work it out?

”Did they take?” Lizzy asked.

”Take what?”

”Dr Ruso’s fingers, did they take? Is she alright?”

“The raptor ate them.”

”Oh, bugger.” Lizzy went faintly green, not helped by her excessive caffeine intake that morning. “Down in one or did she chew them first? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“The wording in the report is ‘consumed’, I believe.”

“Outstanding. This wee troublemaker does sound interesting." Lizzy admitted. "Even though I much prefer herbivores. Why can't the baby come here? You know I hate flying?”

"Like I told Baker, the paddock isn't ready."

"So she doesn't go in the paddock, right?"

“I draw the line at you keeping a dinosaur in your room, Armstrong.”

”Not my room!” She scoffed. “…Kathy’s room.”

”They won’t send the damn thing here without an action plan. And I want you prepared if and when you fly over. So, any ideas?”

"I'm a bit stumped." Lizzy admitted. She was so tired and scrambled she just couldn't think. "But I know someone who might be helpful. Someone who thinks outside the box. You won't like it.”

”Why not?”

”Because you already know her too.”

***

“You ring h-“

“No, you ring her.” Muldoon frowned at Lizzy. They were both sitting on couches in front of the phone in Hammond's bungalow. John-dear-call-me-John was back on the mainland, so they’d commandeered somewhere more private for the top-secret matter, where they wouldn’t be interrupted.

Lizzy wrinkled her nose. “She doesn’t like me.”

“And she likes me even less. The feeling’s mutual. Do it.”

“Gerry could-“

“This isn’t a family reunion. Go on, pretend she’s your best mate."

"Oh, no bother! While I'm at it I'll see if I can fake a Scottish accent too!” Lizzy pulled a face at him but sighed in resignation and dialled the number of Dr Sarah Harding’s last known whereabouts.

“Put her on speaker.” Muldoon insisted.

“Why?”

“I want to know if she's being uncooperative.”

Lizzy rolled her eyes. Bullshit, you just want to know if she calls you names.

It took so long for Sarah's team member in Kenya to track her down that they started to wonder if she was keeping Lizzy waiting on purpose as a power move.

“Well, well, well. Lizzy Armstrong.” Dr Harding the Younger did not sound at all pleased, when she eventually deigned to answer the phone. “What has it been, three years we’ve managed to avoid each other?”

Lizzy laughed, trying to sound brave and not at all like she was going through a break-up. “Hey, Sarah-“

“What’s Costa Rica like? Loud, I imagine.”

“Oh-“ The insult wasn’t lost on her. “It’s great. Just great.”

“How’s Dad?” Sarah asked in her West Coast drawl.

“A flirtatious nightmare.”

“Sounds about right.” She replied dryly. "Hey, don’t fall for it, okay? I’ve already had one stepmom. Though I should let you know, he prefers blondes."

Get to the point Muldoon mouthed at Lizzy.

"Listen, I need a favour."

“You need a favour?” Sarah mimicked her voice. “You want my advice? Why is that?”

“Got a Carnivore problem. I’m Herbivores. Always have been."

“Not everyone on that island is." She said accusingly. "Are you telling me that Robert Muldoon is clueless too?”

“I will go back to Kenya-“ Muldoon said quietly. “And I will throttle her.”

“I heard that.” Sarah crowed triumphantly. “He’s there, isn’t he? Hi, Robert!"

"Just answer her questions, Harding."

"Aw, you're getting mad at me already, this is like old times!”

“What happened between you two?” Lizzy whispered, how had she ended up in the middle of an international argument?

“Hurry up, this is costing money.” Muldoon dodged the question. “Get it out of her somehow, threats, blackmail, talk her to death-"

"Right. Sarah, someone had their fingers bitten off."

"Then just euthanise the damn thing and be done. You're working with zoo animals now, Lizzy, get used to it. At least if you’re chomped, you already have a lawyer.”

The sharp ache in her chest took her by surprise. Not anymore she didn’t.

"No, listen-” Lizzy felt she was about to snap any moment, which her fellow ethologist would simply revel in.

“Sarah…” Muldoon warned.

“First name? Shit! You are annoyed.” She chortled. “Okay, fine, I’ll cut the bull. Shoot.”

“The woman who lost her fingers, she maintains the animal tricked her. It's showing unprecedented intelligence. More than they anticipated. They-“ Lizzy hummed, then decided to trust Sarah with more information, even if it made InGen look bad. She had to give if she wanted to get. “They can’t manage it. And we can’t euthanise either. Not an option-“

“Right, I’m going to stop you there.” Sarah interrupted. “I don’t even want to know what kind of science experiment Dad’s fallen into over there, God knows John Hammond's a tricky devil, but you gotta nip that in the bud.”

“Why, what is it?”

“It’s dominance hierarchy.” Sarah Harding announced, as if it were obvious. “Dominance gone way too far.”

“But that doesn’t make sense, this is a female.” Lizzy countered. Females normally didn't have the hormone levels which led to aggression of this scale.

“Female raptors-“ Sarah started.

“Raptors?!” Lizzy squeaked. How did she know?!

“-as in a bird of prey; what did you think I meant, doofus?” She could hear the disapproval positively dripping from her tone, all the way from Kenya. "Female raptors are the most dominant sex. And usually bigger than the males. Ha, lucky for some.”

”But it can’t be, she hasn’t anyone to be dominant over!”

”Except her handlers. And there aren’t any males at all, so…” Muldoon shrugged. “I suppose Harding might be correct.”

“Do you think-“ Lizzy started, then stopped, shaking her head. It seemed pretty far-fetched.

It was known that reptile embryos could change sex while still in the egg, depending on the temperature of the outside environment on the other side of the shell. The difference between male and female was less than a few degrees Celsius. Furthermore, Lizzy had a fact niggling at the edge of her thoughts, just out of grasp. Something about adult females of certain species being able to change sex in the absence of males. Was it fish? Or maybe amphibians?

Could dinosaurs change their sex in response to either temperature or an uneven breeding ratio?

Increased testosterone would explain some of the baby raptor’s aggression.

Were the embryologists, was Dr Wu really positive beyond doubt that the infant was female? Had anyone actually checked? But these animals were custom-designed in a lab, with all their genes carefully selected, so realistically, what were the chances?

Sarah spoke again, distracting Lizzy, and the thought was simply gone from her foggy brain, messed up from lack of sleep and heartache.

“Uhhh, still here, losers. But your reaction when I said raptor made me guess this is a bird species you’re talking about. Maybe a super-rare one. I’ll get it out of Dad somehow, even if you won’t tell me.”

Close, but no cigar, Sarah.

”Let me guess, captive-bred? Single infant to survive past hatching? Spoiled only child syndrome?” Sarah kept questioning.

”Correct on all counts.” Lizzy confirmed.

“Hmm. Has it imprinted?”

"Huh?"

"Im-print-ed." Sarah spelled it out. "It’s a bird. Don’t make me spell it out here, Lizzy."

"Hang up." Muldoon told Lizzy. "No more details."

"No, no, no, c'mon-"

Lizzy panicked and slammed the phone down with a quick bye Sarah, thanks!

"Interesting input. Even for her.”

“Oh, she is very good. It’s infuriating.” Lizzy wondered if her fourth cup of coffee in two hours was overkill. So tired.

"Your first idea paid off, so what's the next one?"

“I need to talk to Isaac.” Lizzy decided. “About this raptor behaviour, and imprinting. He's our resident bird guy.”

”Too many people know about this already. We probably should have gotten Harding to agree to an NDA.”

”Take too long. I’ll tell Isaac as little as possible. Casually drop it into the conversation. Oh-“ Lizzy snapped her fingers. “Larry worked with herps. Back in Oz. I could speak to him, too.”

He was such a fountain of knowledge on reptiles, Lizzy hadn’t been able to resist calling him Crocodile O’Reilly.

“Harris first. One at a time. I’ll leave it with you.” Armstrong looked better now, he thought. She'd started in Hammond's bungalow paler than usual and subdued, but arguing with Harding about behaviour had brought a bit of colour back into her cheeks.

Good.

Their radios crackled, echoing through the empty rooms.

“Robert, are you around, over?” Richardson sounded anxious. "That depends." Was the answer.

“Got a slight issue in the Triceratops paddock that requires your…considerable expertise.”

“What now?”

“Trikes charged Harding’s Jeep. He and Julian are stranded in the paddock, no radios. Could you, eh- could you go in there and rescue them?”

"Oh, right enough, look." Lizzy stared and pointed at one of the video monitors in Hammond's living room, displaying an overturned Jeep in the middle distance.

“Do it yourself, bloody prat.” Muldoon muttered under his breath, before replying to Richardson with something much less insulting, then to Lizzy. "Why is it my job to fix everything?"

"Maybe stop being so good at it?" Lizzy shrugged as she grabbed her water bottle, assuming she'd be tagging along to lend a hand.

"Well, congratulations, Armstrong. For once, it’s not you causing mayhem.”

Lizzy groaned as she followed him out of the bungalow. “They better be okay. I really, really don’t want to phone Sarah twice in one day, 'specially not to tell her that Gerry’s been gored by a Triceratops!”

***

Tom cornered them as they were quickly loading the tranquiliser guns into the Jeep before heading out on the rescue mission.

“Where have you two been?” He looked them up and down suspiciously. "Kathy put me with Liz again today, but I haven't been able to find her for ages."

“Obviously weren't trying hard enough.” Muldoon looked less than thrilled. "You're coming too, then?"

“We’re the only others that can fire these dang things, since your Team Leader refuses to learn how to use one.”

“Not for lack of trying.” Lizzy muttered. She’d done her best to persuade Kathy to take a few practice shots as a bare minimum, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Guns were dangerous. And that was that, as far as the pacifist from Minnesota was concerned. "Oi, get in the back, you."

Tom narrowed his eyes but didn't argue. Time was wasting.

"Got any guesses why the Triceratops have taken such an intense dislike to our park transport?" Muldoon asked as they gunned it down the maintenance road to the paddock. “They’ve been fine until now.”

Tom yelled up front to them. ”Travis said they mixed in two juveniles a few days ago. There’s eight in the group now. Told me they got protective of the kids. Made a ring around them pointing outwards.”

”Like-" Lizzy started.

"Elephants." Muldoon finished for her. "Fan-bloody-tastic."

"How fast do these go?" Lizzy asked, tapping the Jeep door beside her.

"Probably not fast enough. Fast costs extra around here." Muldoon reminded her of Hammond's rather ironic go-to phrase.

"Oh." She replied with little humour. "Oh, wonderful."

***

"This way seems really stupid." Lizzy protested.

"Oh, I agree. But this is the way I've been told to go about it, since I'm not in charge of this species, he is. You two can still leave if you want to." Muldoon said dully as Richardson opened the paddock gates for them.

Lizzy and Tom looked at each other, but neither of them moved a muscle. They knew the risk but neither of them were willing to let Muldoon go it alone. It was madness but they had no other choice if they wanted Gerry and Julian out of the paddock any time soon. Help was a long way away.  

"Seatbelts off, then."

"Why?" Tom asked.

"Just have a feeling. If they attempt to flip us..."

Better if you're able to get out of the way sharpish. Lizzy knew the end of that sentence. There was a reason you never bothered with a seatbelt in safari vehicles.

Kathy's quiet voice addressed them over the radio as they proceeded through the gates.

"Muldoon, I don't suppose-"

"Yes, she's with me."

"Oh, balls. Of course she is!" Kathy very nearly swore. "Bring her back in one piece, or don't bother coming home, over."

"What about me?" Tom grumbled.

Some distance downhill, the trikes had gathered around their watering hole towards the rear of their enclosure. Destroying InGen property was apparently thirsty work. Lizzy grabbed the binoculars out of the glovebox and counted. Sure enough, six adults, one significantly larger than the others, and two little ones in the middle. All accounted for.

"We still haven't had any radio contact from Yamada and Harding, either their handsets are smashed, thrown on the ground, or still in the Jeep I suppose, but I'm fairly optimistic-"

"Ha!" Lizzy's laugh escaped before she could stop it.

Muldoon gave her a sharp look. "-fairly hopeful, they've made for those trees over to the right. Bit cramped for the adults to get in amongst them. Kennedy-"

"Way ahead of you, boss." Tom was loading up, checking the sights, ready to discourage any dinosaurs from approaching them.

"How's your aim?" Lizzy asked. She'd heard 'pretty darn good' but not seen for herself so far.

“Listen here. I can hit a playing card side-on from fifty feet."

"Fortunately, trikes are quite a lot bigger than playing cards." She couldn't help teasing him.

"Shut up."

"Quiet, you two." Muldoon drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "Let's get closer to the trees, it's our best bet. Harding and Yamada can run to join us, before the herd gets suspicious.”

”And then we make our way out slow and steady so as not to piss them off again?”

”That’s the idea.”

They trundled closer, but their destination was still a good half kilometer away. As she got a better look into the dip of the land where the water was situated, Lizzy spotted the wreck of the other Jeep.

"Oh, shit." She whispered. "They've really gone to town on that."

"See anything else?" Muldoon asked. Any bodies? was what he meant.

"Nope. No sign. I'll keep an eye on the herd until we reach the trees." Lizzy confirmed.

They were halfway there when through the lens she noticed the larger trike raise her head at the sound of the Jeep rumbling closer. The dinosaur’s frame visibly stiffened, and Lizzy swore she saw the nostrils flare as the frilled head sway slightly back and forth. They were upwind from the herd, the dinosaur could smell them and her body language meant only one outcome. Lizzy had spent enough time in Africa to know what was about to happen.

"She's going to charge." She warned.

Muldoon instantly hit the brakes and cut the engine in one movement. "Are you sure?"

The next few seconds were critical.

Lizzy didn't dare blink, holding her breath. Nothing else happened, and for a moment, she thought they might have gotten away with it.

Then the big trike tossed her head and snorted angrily, moving forwards in their direction. First at a slow amble, then quickly switching to the deliberate trot of a bull elephant who was going to teach you a lesson for daring to trespass on his land.

"Definitely charging!" Lizzy threw the binoculars on the floor and looked for something to hold on to. "Move!"

She was thrown back against her seat by how quickly Muldoon got the Jeep going again, bouncing over the uneven ground.

Have to get the trees between us and her. Circling back to the gate will take too long.

"I can take her down." Tom matter-of-factly said and got ready to stand up in the back of the moving Jeep.

"Too late for that." Lizzy yelled back at him. "She's mad. It'll make things worse."

If Triceratops were anything like their modern-day counterpart, the rhinoceros, attempting to tranquillise could just fuel them with more rage before they finally collapsed. And it was unlikely the dose Tom was using would be big enough to drop her. The trike was simply too angry. But she could do a lot of damage with a few extra seconds of berserker-mode. Shooting at her now could cost lives.

God, she moves quick. Lizzy felt her stomach rising into her throat when she realised they might not make it to the trees in time. It occurred to her that nobody on the island had seen the trikes at full speed before. It was just assumed they weren't fast enough to be that dangerous. Then again, hippos didn't look like they were built for speed either, they were soft wobbly herbivores. But they were one of the most deadly animals on the African continent.

"Uh, you might want to step on it, boss." Tom was rapidly losing his cool.

"Good, because I've been watching my speed until you said something!"

The trike disappeared from view as she pursued them up the hill, and in a way that was worse, not knowing where she had gone. Wondering if she had given up or would suddenly appear ahead of them, cutting them off.

Then the head frill, followed by the rest of the dinosaur appeared, now at an angle, side-on to the Jeep instead of behind them. The hill hadn’t slowed her down at all.

Muldoon knew it was far too late to change direction, he'd end up wrapping the Jeep around a tree trunk. But she was headed straight for intercepting the passenger side, where Lizzy was sitting.

"Guys, guys, guys, watch out-" Arnold's voice reached them over the radio, for once sounding alarmed, along with him was Kathy's desperate cry of do something, Ray!

The Jeep was trapped between the dinosaur and the trees, but the trunks were too close together, too sharp an angle for the vehicle to fit through to safety. And slowing down was not an option.

They could only hope to outrun her, but she was close now, alarmingly close.

Time ground to a standstill in the few moments before the crash. Lizzy saw the lumbering shoulder of the Triceratops in slow-motion headed straight for a collision course with the flimsy metal door beside her. She could see every detail of the dinosaur's skin, dusted with red river-mud, before-

“Liz, move!” Tom yelled at her.

“Oh, shi-“ She leaned away, scrabbling at her seat, but it was too late. The Triceratops tossed it’s head and-

BANG

A hellish screech of dinosaur horn on metal and the whole Jeep rocked, the horizon skewed sickeningly and vertigo rushed in as their ears popped from the impact.

…

Lizzy blinked and shook her head, registering there was broken glass everywhere, all over the Jeep floor and the dashboard, in her hair. The windscreen was completely gone. She wasn’t on the passenger seat anymore, and the space where her thigh had been, moments ago, was now occupied by the crumpled-in door. She hadn't hit her head and blacked out, but she appeared to have teleported two feet to the right.

Her legs were still hanging over the central console, miraculously unharmed. And the rest of her body was wedged between the steering wheel and Muldoon. They'd been spun around by the impact and were facing into the trees, low branches poking through the non-existent windshield.

“Come in guys, come in, aw jeez, aw shit-“ Arnold’s voice jolted them back to reality. Still alive. Still on Nublar.

"Are you two alright?"

Tom managed a shaky Jesus H. Christ from behind them. He’d scooted to the driver’s side in the nick of time, grabbing hold of a seatbelt and pulling himself.

Good thing we didn’t have our seatbelts on.

Lizzy quickly took stock, she could thankfully move all her limbs. Everything important was where it was meant to be. "Think so." She pointed at the branches in front of them. " Hey look, we made it.”

“Get back with Kennedy, can’t bloody move.”

Tom reached over, grabbing Lizzy around her waist and yanking her into the back seat. They huddled together, the rear passenger side had also taken a thrashing and was practically concave, half as long as it was before.

“Just a scrape, I think. As long as the wheel arch isn't knackered…” Muldoon was muttering.

“Just a scrape?” Lizzy was incredulous. “You call that a scrape?!”

"Sshh, quit yelling." Tom elbowed her. Her ears hadn't popped back yet. "Goddamn, where'd she go, anyway"

All three of them searched, looking around the paddock frantically for the dinosaur.

But the big trike seemed satisfied by their lack of movement, deeming the Jeep no longer posed a threat. She was trotting off jauntily back to her herd, grunting as she went.

"So how do we get out of here now, hm?" Lizzy asked. "Two Jeeps and five people down. Think Richardson will give it a try next?”

”Not bloody likely.”

“You folks okay down there?” Came a faint yell from somewhere above them. The West Coast drawl of Gerry Harding, thankfully alive.

"Armstrong?" Muldoon turned around.  "Do me a favour and put that ridiculously loud voice of yours to good use."

Lizzy yelled for Gerry and Julian to come and join them. Now.

After a moment there was rustling and thumping from a short distance away and both men dropped to the ground from where they’d been perching in the trees waiting for rescue.

“Hold on, make sure I can turn the damn thing first, or it might be a sprint back to the gate after all.”

Lizzy recalled the mistake she’d made of walking through a field of cows on a school trip. Most of them had calves, she and her friends had feared for their lives and ended up throwing themselves over the gate at the other side. But getting out of the trike paddock could be so much worse.

The Jeep reversed and then limped around in a large circle, making an ominous crunching noise every few seconds.

Lizzy leaned over. “Are you sure we shouldn’t walk? They clearly don’t like the Jeeps anymore.”

”Oh, undoubtedly. But it’s not you that gets a bollocking for losing two Jeeps in one day. Richardson will find a way to blame me for the other one, somehow."

"But - he's the one that told you..." Lizzy pointed out.

"Yes, I know. Everybody in."

“In where?” Harding complained. “You’re missing half your seats, Muldoon.” “Hang off the back.” Tom said, helping Julian up and keeping hold of his arm. “Hitch a ride, boys."

"For Christ's sake..." Harding muttered.

"C'mon Gerry, hurry up!" Lizzy tried to move things along.

"She's heard us." Tom stared into the distance. "Incoming."

"Guys, you gotta make a move-" Arnold warned at the same time.

Sure enough, there was the faint sound of thundering feet, and it was all systems go.

Muldoon started to move off while Gerry was still reaching for Lizzy’s hand, trying to climb her side of the Jeep.

She grabbed for him before he was left behind and attempted to haul him onto the vehicle, but he weighed significantly more than she did, and missed his footing on the way up. Lizzy was pulled clean out of her seat.

“Fuck!” Lizzy shrieked as her feet were suddenly waving in the air. She tried to hook her knee on something, anything for traction but she was slipping anyway while Gerry continued to overbalance, the material of the seats leaving scorch marks on her legs.

“I got you-“ Tom fumbled and grabbed at her belt with his free hand before she slid out of reach, roaring at the effort of having to keep three bodies from flying to the ground.

Lizzy’s bad shoulder was screaming as they raced along. She could hear the trike bellowing from dangerously close by, feeling rather than hearing her feet pounding the Earth beneath them through the Jeep tyres.

She couldn't bear it, the pain was so bad that she just closed her eyes and hoped. Prayed she and Gerry would make it out alive.

Can’t let go, can’t let go. Can't let him fall.

Gerry mistook her pain for fear and started telling her over and over: it's okay, it's fine honey, we're almost there- while wondering himself if he was about to feel a trike horn in his undercarriage.

And then, safety. The reassuring rattle of one set of paddock gates closing behind them, and then the second. Kathy and Ray cheering over the radio. Richardson yelling something about them all being stupid bloody idiots, and Muldoon replying with a few choice words that silenced him quickly.

They had made it. Somehow.

Lizzy just hung limply over the back of the seat even after Gerry had let go of her hands, willing some life back into her frozen arms.

"Oh, boy-" He dismounted the Jeep bed with an effort and doubled over once he was back on solid ground, hands on his knees. "Ol’ pacemaker’s getting a workout today. I haven’t climbed a tree in years.”

"Everything alright? Still four of you back there?" Muldoon asked, sounding thoroughly annoyed.

"Oh Christ!" Lizzy finally got out of the Jeep herself, thinking she might topple over, her knees were shaking so much. "Let's never do that again."

”Agreed.”

“Still in one piece, Liz?” Tom patted her shoulder, and she nearly threw up. Lizzy winced before she could hide it, hoping nobody had seen.

“Just about.” She fibbed through clenched teeth, trying not to think about how she would be in agony the next morning if she didn’t get hold of some ice soon. Her joint was complaining mightily after the effort of stopping fifty-something Gerry from stumbling to his doom.

She leaned on the un-wrecked side of the Jeep, trying to make the world stop spinning.

“What’s wrong with that shoulder?” Muldoon had noticed and confronted her.

Tears pricked in the corners of her vision and she hastily blinked them away. “It’s fine. Just playing up again.”

He wasn’t convinced. ”You aren’t living up to your family name.”

“Ha-ha! Have you tried to lift Gerry recently?”

“Hey!” Came a yell from nearby. “Have you tried María's ice cream?"

They squared up to each other, but Lizzy was the first to look down.

“Leave it.” She warned in a low voice, tired of keeping up the fight today, of all days. “Please. It doesn’t matter. Leave it.”

"I'm serious, Armstrong. You're not alright, are you?"

She yielded. "I need a bit of ice. Maybe a lot of ice."

"Let’s get you back then. Won’t find any out here.”

***

They’d abandoned everyone, still arguing over who was going in which Jeep back to base and whether to bother retrieving the smashed vehicle or leave it in the paddock as a sort of Triceratops stress toy, 'enrichment' they would call it.

Muldoon had given up on trying to find ice cubes in the kitchen, since they would melt too quickly anyway, and was trying to chip a small glacier out of the upright freezer with a knife while Lizzy waited perched on the countertop, cradling her arm.

“That’s the shoulder you injured when you were in school, and you wouldn’t tell me how.” “Uh-huh.”

“Do you want Harding to check it? I’d dare say he owes you.”

“No. I’m fine. What’s next, inside leg measurement?” She grumbled.

“I have the same problem. Mine is from years and years of shooting. Go on, why does yours ache when it rains?”

Lizzy was exhausted. She wanted to take her ice, and go find a nice bit of floor to lie down on for a while. It didn't even have to be clean. Talking to Sarah and the trike incident had distracted her temporarily, but now she had time to think, her heart was hurting again.

But maybe this was as good a time as any to tell someone other than S-...her now-ex, as much as she hated reliving it. How much more traumatised could she possibly become in one day?

“My mother did it. Dislocated it.”

“Your own mother?”

“Yep. Popped it right out of the joint. Made a horrible noise.” Lizzy was terse, clipping her syllables. “She was drunk at the time. I’d like to say it was an accident, but...-“

Well, that complicates things. Muldoon realised.

Lizzy kept talking. “-I didn’t look after it properly once it was popped back in, cue me shooting from the wrong side for the rest of my life.”

“Bloody Hell, Armstrong…”

”Happy? That you finally got it out of me?”

”Not sure.” That was true enough. Maybe he preferred the not-knowing.

”Don’t worry, now we can both pretend it didn’t happen.” She smiled tersely as she held out a clean tea towel for her own personal iceberg.

“Will that last you?”

”Maybe half an hour.” Lizzy nodded.

“Anything else I can do?” To him at least, the sentiment fell a bit flat. Muldoon wasn’t sure he’d be up for telling anyone about an experience like hers either.

“Forget I ever told you that. Thanks for the ice.” Lizzy hopped down from the counter and hurriedly made her escape, in search of a flat surface to collapse on.

***

Thanks for reading!

Remember that seatbelt safety is very important if you *aren’t* on a dinosaur island. Please buckle up 

#jurassic park oc #living dangerously #welcome to jurassic park #oc: dr lizzy armstrong #jurassic park female oc #jurassic park #jurassic park fanfiction #my writing #my fanfiction #gerry harding #ray arnold #robert muldoon x female oc #robert muldoon #sarah harding

[primroseprime2019]

The Little Girl and The Dinosaurs

On a dark cold December night, there was little four and a half American/Italian girl was coloring on a piece of paper in the carpet near the fire. She has dark brown hair and blue eyes, and slightly tan skin; she was wearing pink nightgown and a silver whistle attached to her neck. Her name was Valentina Rosalina Grady and she was waiting for her parents to come from work. Truth be told, this was no ordinary little girl. She was different from the rest of the kids in her neighborhood. She had unbelievable powers. Ever since she was born, strange things happened. Animals from shape and sizes would come near her and tried to make her smile or laugh. And when she was in the backyard, flowers and plants would grow. It was really strange but her parents accepted her gift but they had to keep it a secret. So her parents decided to keep her home schooled so the kids in her school won't be scared at her.

Speaking of her parents, they were really good people. Her dad was name Oscar Grady. He had light brown hair and adventurous blue eyes. He used to be a Navy soldier but he retired to become a collage history teacher. He loved to teach others to learn but during his free time, he would play with his baby girl and make her smile while teaching her how to do combat to control her powers and even though she was small, she was a fast learner. She was smart for a little girl but her curiosity got the better of her and she would get into a little trouble. Her mom was name Alma. She was a beautiful Italian woman. She has dark brown hair and warm brown eyes. She was a doctor and was very kind to her patients. Every man wanted to marry her but she chose Oscar because he was very funny and smart. Valentina loved her parents with all her heart and soul and would stay by their side no matter what. Well, except when she had to go to the bathroom.

Then a teenage girl with blond hair and chocolate brown eyes; She wore a red sweater, brown pants and cowboy boots. She was about the age of eighteen. She came out from the kitchen. "Val, it's almost past yer bed time." She said in a sweet western accent.

Val looked at her almost pleadingly, "Awww… but Abby, can I stay up fow five mowe minutes? Mommy and Daddy pwomise to wead me a bed time stowy."

Abby smiled at her, "Alright but remember yer ma and pa ain't gonna like it to see their little baby girl still awake and energetic."

Val smiled brightly, "Thanks Abby! You'we the best babysittew evew!"

Abby's real name was Abigail Starious. She lived down the block with her big brother, Joshua or Josh, close to Valentina's home. She and her brother moved from their family ranch to study in the big city to be doctors. Abby worked as a full time babysitter for Valentina also a waitress in a cafe and her brother Joshua worked as a mechanic, for cars. They knew about Valentina's power and would keep it a secret because they took a liking to her.

"Ah shucks, yer making me blush." Abby smiled then she noticed Valentina's drawing, "Watcha drawing there Val?"

Val showed Abby a red long neck animal with a crocked drawing of a tree. "It's a Ba-wo-sau-wus." She said trying to say the name correctly. It's correct name was Barosaurus.

"Is it a dinosaur?" Abby asked playfully, knowing the answer. Val loved dinosaurs so much that she had stuffed dinosaur toys in her bed room. She always dreamed of meeting one in Jurassic World but her parents were busy with their jobs so they didn't have time to go there. Not that she was complaining but Val understood her parents and would listen to them always.

"Uh-huh, they awe pwant eatews and they awe weally big!" Val said with a big and bright smile.

"Wow! I bet they can reach the tallest of all trees!" Abby said playfully.

Val nodded, "Yup! But they have to stand on theiw back wegs."

Abby smiled before going to kitchen to make some hot coco. Val went up to the sofa and looks at the window to wait for her parents. Val waited and waited and waited but her parents didn't come home yet. She fell asleep when the clock strikes nine. Abby became worried. Why didn't Mr. and Mrs. Grady come home yet? Abby pickd up Val and puts her to bed. She looked at her phone and sends an e-mail to Mr. Grady.

Mr. Grady, it's me Abby. I was wonderin' why ya aren't home yet with Mrs. Grady. If ya'll have an extra shift in yer work, I'll watch Val till tomorrow.

-Abby

Abby went to the couch and fell asleep as she waited for the text of Oscar. On the next day, Abby woke up and prepared breakfast. It was pancakes for breakfast. She heard little footsteps coming down the stairs. She turned and smiled to see Val holding her stuff honey colored raptor doll named Honey.

"Mornin' Val," Abby gave Val her breakfast. Val sat down and yawned before eating her breakfast. Abby opened the mini TV on top of the counter and let Val watch Disney Junior. Then the news appeared.

"I interrupt this program for this breaking new. Two married couples were killed on a car accident when a truck hit them last night. Police discovered the truck driver was drunk. The two married couples did not survive the crash."

Abby froze. 'Oh God! Please don't tell me!' She thought in fear.

"The married couples have IDs and their names are Oscar Grady and Alma Grady. The drunken driver was survived and his sentenced will be in soon after he recovers."

Abby's eyes widen in horror. She looks at Val and her heart broke at the sight. Val's eyes were wide as she broke down in tears. Abby comforted Val as she and Val would have to visit the police station to inform them about Mr. and Mrs. Grady having a four and a half year old daughter and retrieve their bodies to be buried. The funeral started early morning. It was cold and the snow fall down at them slowly. Val was wearing a black dress and shoes. She was in a graveyard with men and women that were friends with her parents. Abby was there by her side, wearing a black dress and her brother Josh, who had green eyes and blonde hair, was wearing a black clothes as well. Val placed a red rose on her mother and father's coffins as they were buried. Val put her picture in the middle, on her parents' grave, so they can see it in heaven above.

After she did she went to Abby and Josh and started crying, Abby and Josh comforted her. As the funeral was over everyone went home. Val was staying with Abby and Josh for a while until they can find any relatives that Val had. But the problem was that no one knew who was the closest family member.

Val was sitting on a couch, wearing her black dress. She has a red scarf that belongs to her mother; her whistle was buried in it, and her father's black beanie hat. She had dry tear stains on her face as she looked at a picture of her with her parents. Josh and Abby watched her with sympathetic looks.

"Is there any news 'bout her relatives?" Josh asked.

Abby shook her head, "Not yet, I'm still lookin'."

Josh sighed and he looked at Valentina sadly. Val wiped her tears away. "We can't just stand here and do nothin'." He looks at Abby, "We have to find her a family or at least part of her family. Do you remember if Mr. and Mrs. Grady havin' relatives?"

Abby tapped her chin with her index finger before snapping, "That's it! I remember seeing a picture of Mr. Grady with his brother. I think his name was Owen and he works at Jurassic World."

Josh smiled, "That's great! Do you know his number?"

Abby shook her head, "No but I bet Oscar has his number on his phone."

Josh nodded and the two went upstairs in Valentina's temporally room and went to her father's things and grabbed his cell phone before looking for Owen Grady.

"Let's see," Abby looked at the names inside the phone. "Here it is." Abby found the name Owen Grady and she calls him.

In the Isla of Nublar, a man with green eyes and light brown, hair wearing a blue shirt, with a black vest full of pockets, brown pants and shoes. He was in his bungalow fixing his motorbike. Then another man came. "Owen! Still enjoying your afternoon?" he asked with a strong African/French accent.

Owen wipes out a sweat from his forehead, "Yeah, taking a break from the girls, Barry." He throws his wrench in a toolbox.

Then Owen's cell phone rang. He picks it up to see a picture of a man with brown hair and blue eye. "Oscar? Huh, it's been long since I seen him."

"How long you haven't seen him?" Barry asked.

Owen counted his fingers, "I think about sixteen years."

Barry rolled his eyes at him as Owen answered his phone, "Hey Oscar! It's been long time since we spoke."

"Ah…howdy," Abby's voice answered, "Is this Owen Grady?"

"Yeah this is Owen and who are you and how the hell do you know my name and also how did you get my brother's phone?"

"I'm Abigail Starious." She answered, "I know yer brother because I and my brother, Joshua, lived down the blocks close to his house."

"Uh-huh, yeah and why are you calling in me using my brother's phone?" Owen asked.

"Didn't anyone tell you?" Abby asked.

"Tell me what?"

"Owen, your brother Oscar and his wife died in a car accident."

Owen froze, his phone was still in his ear and his mouth was hanging open and his eyes were wide as dinner plates, "When did this happen?"

"A week ago," Abby said, "Look, I know we just met but yer brother has a little four in a half little girl, who needs a family and yer the closest family she's got."

Owen didn't say anything. He and Oscar use to work at the Navy together until Oscar retired to be a history teacher in a university college and married an Italian woman name Alma. He and Oscar rarely talk due to the fact they were very busy in work but now his big brother was dead along with his wife and now his niece- one that he didn't know he had- was now an orphan.

"What's her name?" Owen asked, wanting know his niece's name.

"Her name is Valentina Rosalina." Abby said, "So are you going to take care of her? She's a very sweet girl and well behaves."

Owen thought about it. He is the only family left for his niece and he did took care of raptors, how hard can it be?, "Alright, I'll send her a ferry ticket next week to bring her here in the Isla Nublar."

Owen could hear Abby and Josh cheering happily, "Thank you! Josh and I are gonna get her a passport. She is goin' to be so happy!"

"Alright and thanks for the information." Owen said as he turned off his cell phone.

"What was that all about?" Barry asked.

Owen looked at him before saying, "Oscar and his wife Alma died in a car accident." Barry's eyes widen. "And I have a niece, that I didn't know I had, named Valentina Rosalina." Owen looked at Barry, "I'm the only family member she has left."

Barry's mouth was hanging open in shock, "Owen, you're going to raise a little girl that you barely know while working with Raptors?"

Owen shrugs, "Hey, I raised the girls and I'm still alive." He said, "How hard it is taking care of a little girl?"

Barry was about to answer but Owen quickly raised his right hand and said blankly, "don't say it."

Barry chuckled, "And how are you going to get a ferry ticket?"

"Easy, I'll asked Claire to give me and that doesn't work I could ask Simon Masrani." Owen looked at him, "But first can you help me buy the things that little girls like." Barry rolled his eyes but he decided to help because that little girl might not survive here. Barry and Owen went to the park to buy stuff for Val.

Meanwhile, Abby and Josh told Val everything. Val was shocked, happy, and worried. Shocked that she had an uncle that she didn't know she had, happy that she had an uncle and she wasn't alone and yet worried that her uncle might not like her. Abby helped Val pack her things like clothes, some toys, her Mandora Lute and her pink Ocarina. Val likes to play music. Her mom would teach her during her free time.

Josh bought Val a passport. They were lucky because Oscar used to work in the Navy. Owen was able to make Claire give him a ticket for Val after hearing the event and send it next week. After a few weeks, Josh was driving his car with Abby in the front seat. Valentina was wearing a red t-shirt with gray long sleeves, brown combat pant and orange shoes. She has mother's red scarf and her father's black beanie hat on. Her dark hair was tied into pigtails. As Josh parked the car, they went inside and saying their goodbyes to Val.

Abby was hugging little Val, "Bye sweet pea, I'm gonna miss you so much."

"I'll miss you too." Valentina said then she hugged Josh. "Bye, Josh."

Josh hugged her back before he let her go and he took out a small red box with a ribbon, "Yer Pa wanted to give ya this on yer birthday but since he can't I was wonderin' if ya wanted yer birthday gift a little early."

Val took the box and opened it to reveal a raptor claw fossil necklace. Val smiled and she put it own. She loved raptors as they were her favorite dinosaur. "Thanks Josh."

Josh smiled until the airport voice speaker's announce, "Ladies and Gentlemen the plane will leave in twenty minutes."

"Well, go on, ya don't wanna be late." Abby said with a smile.

"Yeah, yer gonna see many dinosaurs there." Josh then added, "And if somethin' cashes you...run." He whispered the last part, alarming Val.

"Josh!" Abby scolded.

Josh chuckled, "I'm just kiddin'. Jurassic World has tight security; ain't nothing gonna hurt ya."

Val nodded and went in line while she waved at Abby and Josh. Val sat near the window and put on her seat belt when the airplane took off. Val looked at the clouds in the sky. She took out the raptor necklace and held it tight. "Please, please, please, please like me." Val whispers before going to sleep.

#fanfiction #sad #family #jurassic world #my ocs #the little girl and the dinosaurs

[ren1327]

Pretty Boy Ch.4

Ben had just finished sending his last apology text to Sammy and Grey, when Kenji parked in a huge garage.

“Kenji?” He asked as Kenji got out and opened his door.

“No one’s here. Or I think no one’s here.” He said. “So we can just hang out together.”

“Kenji, what’s wrong?” Ben asked.

Kenji led him up the stairs and into the kitchen where Dave was sitting alone and eating a loaded pizza in jean shorts and a cut off shirt.

“Caught me.” He said loudly.

“Dave…why?” Kenji asked, trying not to laugh.

“Cause your sister has these fancy finger foods and sometimes a guy just wants a loaded greasy pizza in his most comfortable clothes.” He said. “Want some? I don’t think I can get rid of this evidence before Cookie gets back tomorrow.”

“Sure.” Kenji said. “This is Ben.”

“Hiya Ben.” Dave said. “Friend of Kenji’s?”

“Yeah. We’re kinda…ditching?”

“That swanky birthday party?” He asked. “Heard they had a fancy coffee bar.”

“Well this is their best baris—shit!” Kenji shouted.

“Don’t worry.” Ben said. “One of my friends took my place.”

Kenji sighed in relief and got two plates down from the cabinet.

They all sat down, eating in silence.

Kenji noticed how Ben sat with his back straight, careful of his bites and even finger placement as he ate. He wiped his fingers and mouth neatly after every bite, making sure to be clean at all times. He never spoke with his mouth full and always answered politely.

A real gentleman. Perfect for talking to customers.

Dave stood and stretched, taking the empty box in his hand and smiling.

“I’m gonna go toss this then take a walk.” He said. “Behave you two.”

Kenji smirked when Ben blushed and looked at his lap.

“So, what do you wanna do?” Kenji asked.

“Um, can I borrow some mouthwash?!” Ben almost yelled, face red.

Kenji stared at him.

“My breath is garlicy and it’s gonna bug me.” He said quietly, nervously.

Kenji smiled at him.

“Yeah. And after, I think I know what we can do.”

 *

 Ben laughed excitedly as he got another strike.

“Again?!” Kenji yelled in dismay.

They were in the mansion’s bowling alley, Ben excited to play.

“Physics, my dear Mr. Kon!” Ben said proudly. “And classic mechanics.”

“…Mr. Carr’s class makes you better at bowling?” Kenji asked with a chuckle.

“And pool.” Ben said with a wink, then twirled theatrically into a bow. “So, final score says…I win!”

“I invite you into my home and you beat me at my own game.” Kenji said dramatically throwing a hand over his forehead.

Ben laughed and sat next to him.

“Man. You really are something.” Kenji said.

“What do you mean?”

Kenji smiled down at him and swept from hair from his eyes. Ben looked up at him, blushing, but not moving away.

“You’re way more than a pretty face.” He said and cupped his cheek.

Kenji leaned closer as Ben shut his eyes.

“Hey guys?!” Dave called over the intercom.

They jumped apart as another voice sounded on the speaker.

“Benjamin Pincus, you worried your mother sick!” A thick French accent said.

“Hi, Barry.” Ben said softly.

“Who’s that?” Kenji asked.

“Barry. He works for my Mom.” Ben said. “She must have asked him to get me.”

Kenji watched his switch his shoes.

He looked at Kenji with sad eyes. “I gotta go.”

“I…um, there’s a club!” Kenji said suddenly. “Called Isla Nublar. I’m going there with some friends next Saturday night. We got a table.”

“I…I’ll be there.” He said with a smile. “In the meantime—”

“I know where to find you.” Kenji said.

 *

 Simon looked down at his son, who stared at him right back expectantly.

“Why did you leave without informing us?” He asked. “It was rude to Mr. Lockwood and the rest of the guests. What was more important than attending?”

“A friend of mine wasn’t feeling well, so I went with him to his house where we ate and bowled.” Ben said, looking at his shoes. He heard his mother come in and give a sigh of relief.

Simon relayed the information to her, and she gave him a look.

“You and Kenji bowled?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He said.

“And nothing else?” Sandra asked.

“No.” Ben said incredulously. “We only just met a few days ago.”

“You and Kenji met a few days ago?” Simon asked, looking confused.

“You know him?” Ben asked.

“I know his father very well.”

“He invited me out with his friends next week. I really want to go.” Ben said.

“Where?” Simon asked, his shoulders relaxing a bit.

“Isla Nublar?”

“…” Simon sighed. “Fine, but you better apologize to your mother and Mr. Lockwood. Also, Barry will accompany you.”

Ben opened his mouth.

“At a distance.” Simon added and Ben’s mouth shut. “I need to make sure your drink isn’t spiked or anything.”

“You’d let me drink?” Ben asked.

“I’d pretend you didn’t.” He said as Sandra laughed.

“We were you once too, Honey.” She said and hugged Simon’s arm.

“Okay. I’m gonna go to bed.” He said and hugged his father, then his mother.

As he left, he heard his mother murmur “I guess we were wrong. It looks like everything’s going fine.”

He paused and observed their shadows on the hallway wall.

“And so heaven answers.” Simon answered back happily, dipping his wife into a kiss.

He heard his mother laugh and chuckled as he walked to his room. Barry joined him.

“She keeps whining.” He said.

“She woke up?” Ben asked.

“Yes.” The guard answered. “Apparently we are going clubbing next weekend?”

“Yeah.” Ben said.

“You think he’ll bring that attendant of his?”

“Dave?” Ben asked. “Was it the cutoffs or the jokes?”

“A little of both.” Barry chuckled and stopped as Ben got to his bedroom. “Goodnight, Ben.”

“Night Barry.”

He heard whining and went inside to see Bumpy waddling in circles before she scampered over to him and barked happily, her lower half wiggling excitedly.

“Hey, girl.” He said and started changing.

Bumpy walked up a ramp Owen had installed for her. He had said he had done so for his pack of four Alaskan malamutes. He got into bed, the little corgi licking his cheek before she settled down and nuzzled his arm.

“Hey, Bumpy.” He whispered, seeing her one pointed ear twitch.

“When is it okay to go from like to love?” He asked.

She shifted and licked his hand before nuzzling him again. He pet between her ears.

“Oh boy…” He groaned and covered his red face with both hands.

 *

 For the next week, Kenji came by every time Ben was on shift.

He would order whatever smoothies and teas the barista recommended and give a somewhat biased review. Sammy watched him with a careful eye and on the third day suggested a lemon bar to go with his chilled chai.

Kenji always arrived looking tired and always left with a smile and a bag of treats for his mother, sister and nanny.

Kenji came in on Thursday, the fifth day in a row to see Ben, who held out a dark red thermos with jasmine flowers pained on it by hand.

“I remember yesterday, you said you were having trouble relaxing and I…made you a new combination. It’s lavender with valerian root and passionflower. The smell should relax you and help you sleep. I made enough for you and your Dad.” He said.

“My Dad?” Kenji asked.

“You said your Dad was having a hard time sleeping. So maybe you two can drink it together.” Ben said.

Kenji smiled. “Getting flowers from such a pretty boy. I’m sure lucky.”

Ben sputtered and blushed. “I just…oh! A customer, I’ll—”

Kenji grabbed his hand and pulled it to his mouth to kiss the top of it. “Thank you, Ben.”

Ben blushed deeply and nodded, shakily moving away.

“See you tomorrow?” Kenji asked.

“Definitely!” Ben said.

“Bring Sammy and Yaz too.” He said and Sammy threw him a peace sign as he left.

He placed the thermos carefully in his cup holder and looked through the windows to see Ben bring his lips to the top of his own hand, eyes closed.

Kenji beat a hand on his steering wheel at how cute the boy was and had to take a few deep breaths before he started his car, cheeks warm and his car smelling of lavender.

 *

 “Hey Dad?” Kenji called to his father.

“Yes, my son?” Kosei asked and noticed the large thermos in his hands.

“Uh, share a drink with me? It’s just tea.”

Kosei was dressed down tonight, promising his wife to turn in early. Kenji rarely saw his father in soft pajama pants and a t-shirt. But tonight, he looked tired and like a million things were going through his mind.

“Sure. How about the balcony?” He asked.

Kenji nodded as the cook set out two cups and moved to take the thermos. Kenji shook his head and thanked her as his father sat in one of the wicker chairs overlooking the California coast.

Kenji poured the tea and Kosei took his cup, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes.

“This smells incredible.” He said and sipped it, eyes snapping open.

Kenji took a sip himself and gasped as a sweet soft flavor invaded his senses. It held him and stroked down his body, making him relax and sleepy.

He wondered if this is what it felt like to be safe I a lover’s arms and briefly imagined Ben holding him and stroking his face before leaning in to kiss his forehead.

“This was made with love.” Kosei said.

“Yes. Um, a friend made it for me and asked if I could share it with you.” Kenji said, his vison of Ben lingering beside him.

“In this thermos?” Kosei asked, looking at the hand painted item.

“Yes. He likes tea and smoothies and I guess flowers.” Kenji said.

“Do you know the language of flowers, Kenji?”

“French?” He asked.

“Jasmines.” Kosei chuckled. “Have a symbolic meaning.”

“What do they mean?”

“Jasmine is…complex. It means many things; purity, grace and sensuality. But in this case, I suppose it meant positive feelings. But I smell lavender too. Which is related to serenity and devotion.”

Kenji blushed and looked at his cup.

“Did you know in many countries, jasmine flowers are also related to love and used in weddings?”

“Dad.” Kenji sighed.

Kosei looked at his son and smiled. “My son. You make me so proud by expressing yourself so freely. Loving life freely. I want you to understand you can keep loving as you see fit.”

Kenji put his cup down and hugged his dad.

“Besides,” Kosei said. “Anyone who makes tea this good is a perfect in-law for me.” Kenji laughed as he reclined and took another sip, his vison of Ben smiling peacefully at him.

“Yeah.” Kenji said softly.

He would.

#ben pincus #kenji kon #jw bumpy #jw brooklynn #darius bowman #yaz fadoula #sammy gutierrez #jurassic world camp cretaceous #camp cretaceous #jw benji #jw fanfic #jwcc #camp cretaceous pretty boy #camp cretaceous fanfic

[veriforman-aa]

also  available  on  ao3  !

here’s the thing about ellie’s childhood bedroom: once she moved out, it never felt like hers again. from that point on, it was a stranger’s room. she came home, and everything had changed.

she’d visited for holidays, of course, and always had a darling time there. the last christmas, she’d rung up an old friend, taken her mom to the local diner they frequented all those years ago. her parents were always over the moon to see her. she could hear the excitement in her dad’s voice when she said she’d be coming over for a bit.

her arms had burned as she packed, still sore and stiff as she threw everything she could think of into a suitcase. she drove there, faster than she took note of, and drove and drove. she pulled over once, stopping to vomit onto the grass beside the highway, and spent the night at a cheap motel. it wouldn’t have been much of a strain on her wallet to pull for somewhere a little nicer, but the motel looked as bad as she felt, and she figured the staff wouldn’t think twice about how unkempt she looked.

now she’s staring into the shell of her bedroom. it’s the same as she remembers, or it should be: floral-printed pillows all neatly stacked on her bed, vanity covered in ponytail holders and bandanas, polaroids of herself and loved ones on the bulletin board above her desk. she steps over to it and looks closer, looks at a photo of herself a decade prior. seventeen-year-old ellie has her arm slung around a friend’s shoulder — charlotte? carrie? caroline, she remembers. caroline and ellie are smiling, laughing, and it makes present-day ellie angry. she wonders when’s the last time caroline cried.

--

it’s night one, well past midnight, and ellie’s bedside lamp is on. she’s sprawled out in bed, the family dog, baxter, snoring somewhere by her feet. she watches her ceiling fan go ‘round and ‘round, listens to the ambiance of the suburbs outside her window, and considers the carton of cigarettes she impulsively bought on the drive over.

“fuck it,” she mumbles, and adds a “sorry” when baxter stirs awake and shoots her as dirty of a look as a terrier can. the bedframe creaks as she shuffles over to her backpack and pulls out a cigarette, then a second one for good measure, and a lighter. her fingers lift the window up, and the night breeze flicks up strands of her hair, inviting. she used to stargaze out this window; now she’s only watching the lighter’s flame lick its way up her cigarette. she inhales. the smoke is smooth, relaxing, but she still curses herself for not being smart enough to pick up something stronger, and thinks about how different her life was this time last week.

--

“it’s like nothing at all has happened,” she says into the phone the next morning, her fingers weaving their way around the cord. “nothing at all. i got to my parents’ place, and...”

“you haven’t told them, have you?” alan interrupts.

“no.” she sighs, and reels in the annoyance bubbling to the surface. “no, i just told them i needed to come home for a little while. mom thinks i’m — pregnant, or we had a big split or something. dad’s just happy to see me.”

the line goes quiet for a pause, and she takes the opportunity to continue before he can tell her what she’s done wrong. “i want to tell them everything. i’m going to. i just — they’ll never believe me. i mean, would you? all the evidence i have is — this stack of copies of paperwork hammond’s people made us, and they kept everything as vague as fucking possible, of course.”

she realizes now he’s letting her speak of her own accord, and for that, she’s grateful.

“it’s weird,” she continues. the cord of the phone is all knotted now, and she hasn’t noticed. “that’s the only way i can think to describe it. it’s weird, and it’s fucked up. and i don’t — want to be here. i don’t want to be here, alan.”

“you wanna come home?” he says, sounding a little hopeful, or hopeless.

“no,” she answers without much thought to it. “because i don’t want to be there, either. i don’t want to be in indiana or montana or fucking isla nublar. the entire earth is suffocating me.”

--

she tells her parents a week later. she’d spent the morning out on their patio, fussing at baxter to stop digging holes in the flowerbeds, and when her dad stepped outside to ask ellie if she was planning on eating lunch, she didn’t hear the back door open. she only heard her name, and felt a hand on her shoulder, and she yelped, a desperate, needy sound.

she cries when she gets the whole story out, but it’s not the full-body, desperate, heaving sobs she woke up with last night, so she counts it as a success. her dad believes her, her mom needed more convincing. she can’t blame her, of course; she hardly believes it herself, but it still hurts.

--

“it’s just hard right now,” she tells alan one night after dinner. her mom had opened a bottle of wine for the two of them to split, and her hands are shaking as they hold the phone.

“would it be easier if i were there?”

guilt sinks her gut. the answer sits heavy on her tongue, and it’s something neither of them want to hear. she lets the silence hang between them, then settles on as neutral of a response as she can manage. “i’m gonna see you soon, alan, i promise.”

“i can come to you, sweetheart,” he says. “you don’t have to be alone right now. don’t you go thinking you have to do this alone—”

she’s distracted, trying to remember the last time he called her “sweetheart” when she notices the way his voice is rising, and it snaps her alert. “i’m not alone. i’ve got mom, and dad, and baxter.”

“...baxter’s still alive?”

that makes her smile a little, despite it all. “yeah, baxter’s still alive.”

--

“malcolm called my trailer this morning,” alan says in lieu of “hello.”

the pen she’d been idly twirling between her fingers falls into her lap. “malcolm?”

“er — ian, yeah. from—”

“no, i remember,” ellie murmurs. “how’d he get that number?”

alan is quiet, and she can imagine him frowning as he thinks about it. “that was the least of my questions. he asked if you were around, and before i could answer, he said it’s fine if he just talks to me.”

“oh,” she says, sounding flatter than she’d wanted to.

“he asked how we were doing, and i said we were fine.”

“you said we were fine?” she laughs, even though the words come out bitter and cold.

“i...” he’s at a loss, she can tell. “i didn’t know what else to say. what would you have said, ellie?”

she presses her palm flat against her desk and looks down at her nails, chewed and ragged. “probably the same. what else did he say?”

“not much.”

“i find that hard to believe.”

“not much by his standards,” alan corrects.

a smile tugs at the corner of her lips; she indulges in it. “right.”

“i asked how he was doing,” he goes on. “he said he’s doing the same, but he wasn’t very convincing. and that was it. think he just wanted to make sure we were still alive.”

“oh,” she sighs. “maybe i should give him a call.”

“why?”

she wonders that herself. “i don’t know. maybe he’d talk to me more.”

“he sure seemed interested in talking to you when you met,” he says, and she struggles to interpret that one.

“i don’t know what you want me to say to that, alan,” ellie says after a moment. “i really don’t.”

“yeah, i know,” he says. “i’m sorry, that — wasn’t — i didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“it’s okay,” she assures him, voice softer now. “i’ve been... lashing out a lot lately.”

“okay,” he repeats.

“alan?”

“yeah?”

“i love you,” she tells him, the first time in too long. it feels good to say it, like she’s been holding it in for a while.

“love you, too, ellie,” he says gently. “don’t forget that.”

---

she’s crying the next time she calls alan. the tears are hot, stinging, and humiliating.

“you sound far away, ellie,” he tells her, and this time he can’t hide how sad he sounds. he must’ve given up trying, she decides, which is a thought she can’t settle with.

“i feel it,” she says back. “i didn’t sleep last night. the last time i did, i had a horrible nightmare. i went through six cigarettes this morning.”

“you don’t smoke,” he interrupts, like it’s the most pressing issue they have.

“i used to, in high school.’

“i didn’t know that.”

“i’ve mentioned it before,” she says with a certainty. “i told you that, on one of our first dates. we stopped at a gas station. you got me a dr. pepper, and you asked if you could get me anything else while we were there, like a refrigerator magnet or a pack of cigarettes, and i told you that i hadn’t smoked since high school.”

a pause. “okay,” alan responds. “must’ve forgot.”

“yeah, must’ve,” she grits out. she closes her eyes, tight, and regrets every word she’s ever said to him. “i’m sorry. i’m sorry, i am. i know i’m not being easy right now.”

“well, you’re not an easy woman, ellie,” he replies, but it’s with the kind of angry affection she knows well. “if i wanted easy, i wouldn’t be around.”

“what if i want to be? easy?” she asks him, eyes still closed. “what if i want to come home, and i want to go to work like i used to, and i want to be myself again, and i can’t?”

“...then i guess you evolve.”

--

the days tick one by one. some nights she sleeps, other nights she doesn’t. she picks up new habits, like waking up with baxter to watch the sun rise and burying her thoughts in a journal, then ripping out the page with every terrible word she’s feeling on it and throwing it away. her mom buys her a variety of seeds for their garden. a project, she calls it. ellie doesn’t have the heart to tell her that half of them won’t bloom this time of year, so she plants them all anyway.

--

she goes a week without calling alan. she needed the time, and she thinks, so did he. when she calls finally, she’s laying in her bed, window open and sunlight pouring in.

“hi,” she greets.

“hi, stranger,” he says pleasantly. “nice of you to call.”

“you could’ve called first, you know,” she reminds him, her brows raising.

“yes,” he sighs. “but that’s running the risk of your dad picking up, and then i’d never get the chance to talk to you.”

“stop,” she laughs, the noise coming out foreign and warm. “he only talks to you because he likes you so much.”

“talks?” he repeats. “is that what you’re calling it?”

“yeah,” she hums. “how are you?”

“i’m okay.”

“just okay?” slight concern tinges her voice, and her brows furrow beneath her bangs.

“well, better than okay,” he adds. “just not quite good yet. between okay and good.”

“that sounds like improvement to me.”

“mhm. how are you?”

“i’m good,” ellie says emphatically, something hidden between the words.

“just good?’ he teases. “you give me shit for being brief, and that’s all you’re gonna give me?”

“well... i do have something,” she confesses. “a progress update, i suppose.”

“oh, yeah?” he’s smiling behind the words, she can tell. “i could use some good news.”

“okay.” she smiles, too, and licks her lips. “i started writing a book.”

#save. #the drabble/fic in question! #did i proofread this? no. will i hate this 24 hours from now? absolutely #HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLIE #SORRY YOU'RE SO FUCKING TRAUMATIZED

[octopodeez]

Idiots In Love (Owen Grady x Reader)

You’re hired to write a biography about the man who trained raptors, but you never expected to fall in love...

Owen sat casually on the couch, looking very proud of himself. You were on the opposite side of the hotel room with your head in your hands and your fingers tangled in your hair, as you resisted the urge to throw something at him. It was week two of the interview process, and he was the most uncooperative man in the world. He danced around your questions with a sort of expertise that was admittedly impressive, and when he couldn’t, would give you the same stubborn answer: just read a newspaper, or turn on the TV, I don’t know. If it weren’t for the hefty paycheck and personal interest in the job, you would’ve walked out after the first hour.

It wasn’t all bad, though. He was charismatic, and much of the time, you found yourselves laughing over the stupidest things, or getting lost in conversations that had nothing to do with the book. You got to know each other. You learned that he liked being in chillier weather because having a cup of coffee was unbearable in the hot sun of Isla Nublar. You learned that he was planning on getting a dog—a German Shepherd, just like the one he had when he was a kid. You learned that he was borderline fluent in Spanish, with a loose understanding of some French. And you learned that if this process didn’t speed up, you’d more than likely fall in love with him, and you just didn’t have time for that.

You took a breath and rubbed your temples in an effort to focus. It was time to take a new approach.

“Let me ask you this…why are you here when you clearly don’t want to be? Why write a tell-all when you don’t want to tell me anything?”

The corner of Owen’s mouth turned up and he folded his arms. “Surprised you haven’t asked that yet.”

“Me too.”

A moment of thought, and then: “I’m out of money and my lawyer said it’d be a good idea, before he stopped returning my calls.”

“No job?”

“Seeing as the island was blown to hell—no.”

“Right,” you debated on making a point that it’d been almost four years since it happened, which meant plenty of time to find work, but decided against it. “Are you, uh…on leave from the Navy?”

“I was discharged a few days after the Indominus Incident. InGen made sure of that; though I think the official record says something about psychological damage. I guess that’s a little true.”

“Is it?”

Owen hesitated for a moment and shrugged. “The shrink they sent me to after my discharge said I have PTSD. I thought it was bullshit for a while, but after six months of night terrors and nearly shitting myself every time I heard a loud noise, I came to terms with it.”

“But you still went back to the island a second time?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m an idiot in love,” he said.

Your fingers were poised over your keyboard, eager to finally start typing, but you couldn’t seem to actually move them. There was such a sense of loss in his voice. Pain.  Putting it into words felt so wrong. The whole thing dripped with irony. This is what you’d been looking for. This is what you’d been trying to get from him for days. This is what he hired you to do, but even so, it felt shameful.  He was selling his secrets to put food on his table, not because he actually wanted the world to know them.

“I won’t put that in the book if you don’t want me to,” you said quietly.

“It’s supposed to be a tell-all. I’m not ashamed, if that’s what you think. If people are going to keep buggin’ me about telling my story, then I’m going to tell it. Every nasty detail. Maybe it’ll get it through everyone’s thick skulls that it’s time to stop playing god.” Owen got up and moved to squat in front of the mini bar. The small bottles clinked as he picked through them. “Who’s paying for this place? You or your publisher?”

“My publisher. “

“Good.” He twisted the cap off a Coke and took a swig. You cringed a little as he did. Over the years, your parents had hammered it into your brain that even touching something from a hotel mini-bar meant your wallet would spontaneously combust.

“So you’re in love?” You asked, trying to lighten his mood—despite it dampening your own.

Halfway through another gulp, Owen made a noise that was somewhere between a cough and a gurgle as he choked on his drink. Slamming the bottle down, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked at you with confusion.

“What?” He finally managed while fighting back another cough. His breath had barely come back to him.

“You just said you were in love? ‘An idiot in love’ were your exact words, I think.”

“Oh! Right, right, yeah. Yeah I did.”

“And? Who’s the lucky lady who got you to go to hell and back?”

Owen snorted and picked up his Coke once more. “I know everyone eats that sort of shit up, but I hate to say, it’s not like that.”

“So what is it like?” You leaned back in your seat and stretched.

“It’s like,” he paused, “it’s like I’d lay down my life for an animal that would happily tear out my intestines if I caught her on a bad day.”  

“The raptor?”

“Blue.”

“Right. Blue.”

“She saved my ass during the Indominus Incident. Least I can do is return the favor,” Owen said, eyes fixed on you. “It’s funny…this whole…whatever the hell this is…I’d do it all again.”

“You mean rescue her?”

“No, like, all of it. Even if that meant fixing my head just to fuck it up again. I’d do it. I’d raise those girls again. Deal with all the shit from InGen that came with it. Maybe do a better job protecting them the second time around. And that’s just so…irresponsible of me.”

“How so?”

Owen smiled bitterly at the ground and shook his head.

“Because I shouldn’t want to do it again. These animals shouldn’t be here to begin with. Hell, we even got a second chance to fix what John Hammond did 25 years ago, and not only did we throw that chance away, but I’m happy that I helped to do it. I’m happy that my girl is out there, safe and alive. Even if that means everything else is chaos.”

The expression on his face was very familiar to you. There was a sort of empty longing in his tired eyes. The result of sleepless nights, tossing and turning, torn between his head and his heart. You’d had your fair share of nights like that too, thanks to him.

Outside it was beginning to snow. You both watched it in silence, and then finally:

“I know the feeling. I mean, not the situation, obviously…but the feeling. I, uh. I get it. Caring about something that you’re not supposed to care about. Feeling guilty but also…not guilty,” you murmured.

Owen tilted his head and stared at you, understanding on so many levels. He set his bottle down on the windowsill and walked to you. Your heart beat and your hands grew clammy as he gently pushed your laptop closed. You felt naked and exposed with the flimsy barrier or your screen gone, but also so alive. So ready for whatever was about to happen.

“It’s a blizzard out there. I probably shouldn’t drive,” he said quietly.

“Probably not,” you breathed as he leaned down to kiss you.

His stubble tickled your cheeks—a strange juxtaposition to the smoothness of his lips. They were soft, and tasted like the coconut chap stick he was always trying to apply without you noticing.

You were surprised to feel how cautious he was. Hesitant. You’d imagined this moment to be more…hungry. He didn’t seem capable of anything else; not with the way he commanded ownership of every space he entered.  It just went to show that even after so much time locked in a room together, you didn’t know a damn thing about him. But god, did you want to keep learning. You wanted to know everything about him. Every last thought that went through his head. Every inch of his body. You wanted to fall into him as deeply as you could—you wanted to get lost in the scent of mahogany and coffee and coconut chap stick.

During all this, you realized you’d forgotten to breathe, and your body forced you to pull away from him so you could gasp for air. Owen was smirking at you.

“You know I thought that’d feel more spontaneous,” he remarked playfully. “But you seemed pretty ready.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You muttered, knowing exactly what it meant.

“It means,” he grazed his lips over yours, “that we’ve wasted so much time…and that you’re welcome to put all of this in the book.”

You hardly heard him as you melted against his lips once more.

Master list (x)

I am Marilyn, Queen of Fanfiction Cliches and Plot Holes, hear me mf roar.

#owen grady #jurassic world #jurassic world 2 #owen grady x reader #chris pratt #reader insert #owen grady reader insert #owen imagine #owen grady imagine #fallen kingdom #jurassic world fallen kingdom #jw #jw2 #jwfk #fk #jurassic park #imagine #fluff #owen grady fluff #blue #dinosaurs #raptor squad #raptors