I AM SO SORRY I MEANT TO HAVE THIS UP LIKE THREE WEEKS AGO. I was kinda hoping that I'd have a somewhat regular update schedule with this fic, but then I had to go to Mexico and then we got new band directors, the summer band schedule changed (and we're playing Star Trek: Into Darkness this year, I'm so excited! I've already got 3/4 movements memorized hell yeah!) But yeah, summer band camp tends to take longer than an average class day so, not to mention it's exhausting and with actual school coming up this month (along with a possible part time job), updates are gonna get hectic, so please be patient with me. There's only so much a sad lil teenage girl like me can through at once.
Now without further ado, chapter five.
"Barry, relax, it's not that bad."
"Owen, this is the second time you've ended up in the medical wing this month."
"It's just a little cold, everyone's overreacting. And anyways, that other time it was just a sprained ankle and wrist."
"And a concussion."
"I'm pretty sure those two boys, Tony and Steve (?), were left with far more trauma than I."
"Owen."
Owen sighs. He knows that tone, has heard it various times and not always from human mouths. It's particularly familiar coming from Barry, concern, sternness, and bemusement rolled into one. He' got a brow raised high on his forehead and his hands on his hips and Owen has to choke back a laugh at how much Barry reminds him of his grandmother. He's thwarted by the fierce coughing fit that rattles his frame and has him breathing in sharp gasps. When it recedes, it leaves the feeling of sandpaper in his throat and a thick ache in his head.
His girls call out in worry through the bond, pulling sharply at the strings that hold them together.
I'm fine, he projects through the link. It does little to abate the cloying thickness on the other end of the bond, a plethora of negative emotions that drives him just a little breathless. Though he's loath to admit it, Owen knows he doesn't have the strength to project confidence into the link with the distance between him and his girls (he barely has the strength to keep himself sitting up).
The pack wants him with them, within their ranks to keep him safe. It's part instinct (protect the Alpha) and part the bond (keep Owen safe and happy). They're convinced he'll heal faster if he's with them.
Further thoughts are halted by the glass of water Barry offers him. He accepts it with a grateful grunt, eyes slipping close as cool liquid soothes the fire in his throat.
The bond feels so strange, weak and distant. Owen chalks it up to his illness, distance has never been a factor in the strength of the bond. Though it's a rarity, Owen's gone as far as the mainland and even then he felt as if his girls were right there with him. At the moment they feel so very far, and they don't seem like individuals, more like a blob of light with a spark of something slightly brighter (Blue, probably). The rest of the park animals that usually linger in the back of his head, a low monotonous hum behind the beacons that are his pack, become a solid throb that echos throughout his skull and leaves a relentless ache in its wake.
"Go to sleep, Owen," says Barry, voice soft and sympathetic.
Owen decides that just this once, he'll listen. He relaxes into the bed, his strength leaking away and unconsciousness dragging him into a deep embrace.
...
Owen isn't sure if he's awake or if he's dreaming.
There's people around him, white shapes that blend with the walls, blurring into each other until nothing is defined. Everything moves as if through grainy film. Even with the low murmur of voices around him, the world seems strangely quiet and he feels like something's missing. There's no familiar buzz in the back of his mind and he feels as if he might be missing a limb.
But no, there's all ten fingers, two hands, two arms. Ten toes, two feet, two legs. Why is it so quiet? What is he missing? There's a sound struggling to hiss past his lips, but he's not sure what it could be.
A name?
A color?
A name that is a color?
There's pain being inflected on his arm, distracting him from his questions. Owen wants to scramble away, to curl up and figure out what's wrong on his own, to figure why he feels as if he's lost. It's like he's trapped in a swirling sea of nothing, even as he curls on himself to escape the pricking of what could be needles. The tide of voices in his head is nowhere to be found and he feels so inexplicably alone despite the blurs of people in his room.
They're talking, hold him down, we need those blood samples, give him some more sedatives, tones in shades of cold, impatient, and indifferent. They ring in his ears, nearly indecipherable.
They're not pack.
A low keen rumbles in his throat, followed by a series of aggravated clicks and barks. He almost doesn't register the sudden hush in the room, the shock and slight fear that coats the air. Owen doesn't care, he's too preoccupied with finding his pack. His anxiety skyrockets because the link is just not there, there's a barricade in his mind that seems impossible to break through. There seems to be little he can do against the pit of smoke and void that blocks him from his girls.
The best he can do is rumble in distress.
...
Dr. Henry Wu watches in disconnected fascination as the man in the bed goes from having a slight fever and rough cough to a feverish, pitiful mess. Within the minute of being moved to the Disconnection Room the patient's condition had deteriorated and his fever had spiked.
All connections had been (temporarily) severed and Grady had a strong reaction to it. How does Masrani put it? Ah, the stronger the ability, the stronger the reaction, he had said while standing impassively in the room, more than grateful for the peace.
He never had that strong a gift after all, never had formed a bond. For Masrani, this room is peace. For anyone with stronger abilities, this room is hell.
"Owen Grady is for the good of the park," Masrani had said.
Grady isn't supposed to be an experiment. Masrani is adamant on that. There's also Hoskins, who wants the dinosaurs to be militarized, which is frankly ridiculous. Even Henry with his own grandiose ideas knows that the dinosaurs are still animals no matter how intelligent and would have no interest in fighting a war, a human war at that. While Grady's raptors ( and the Indomini) are special, they're loyal only to their Alpha. The best option would be to convince Grady to convince his pack to battle. Henry knows that would be impossible.
There is a word for the type of person Hoskins is.
Fool.
Even if they could convince someone else like Grady to fight, it'd be a nightmare to actually find someone strong enough to bond with an animal intelligent enough for war, as anyone with any abilities at all are notoriously rare. Masrani has assured him that someone with Grady's level of skill is practically non-existent.
Henry is sure that Grady and his abilities could contribute so much to science. The raptors are protective of him. The Indomini had deferred to him immediately and treat him with the utmost respect (and even if he had been counting on that, watching them zero in on Grady had been astonishing). The reactions he garners from the other animals is simply extraordinary. If only Masrani would hand over the reins to the raptor project...
But no, Grady's presence is for the sake of the animals and not to further the understanding of the human mind. Oh what Henry would do for a brain scan. Ah, well. There's not much Henry can do about it, the project only goes to him if something happens to Masrani.
Well. There's not much Henry can do about that.
But Hoskins has friends in unholy spaces.
...
Owen wakes to the feeling of being tightly packed in the middle of six possessive minds. Blue's there, the most solid of them all, and all of her emotions (along with the rest of his girls') slam into him like a sack of bricks. There's worry, anger, sadness, pain, fear and a swarm of other emotions Owen requires actual energy to pick apart. Owen projects to them, relieved that the bond feels much stronger than before, and tries to assure them he's fine. They don't relent, but rather curl around him tighter, beg him to come home. Owen let's them, tells them that he'll be home soon. To be honest, he really just wants to curl up with his girls in the temporary paddock to forget about the slight pain in his head.
He lets his eyes wander around his new room and is surprised to see Barry along with Zara and Claire. When the surprise wears out, he smiles. Sure, that one date was absolutely dreadful (the incident with the Mosasaurus wasn't even the worst thing), but he and Claire had come out of it friends with a better understanding of each others methods. Owen knows Barry's friends with Zara and while she and Owen don't hang around each other often, he likes her well enough. She shares Barry's sense of humor (though she has a greater appreciation for his puns).
"Hey guys," he says, voice rough from disuse.
"You gave a scare there Owen "just a cold" Grady. They had to take you to a different room and your fever spiked. The girls were freaking out." Barry doesn't look amused. Neither do Zara or Claire. Owen winces.
"I honestly feel fine now, seriously." Barry looks doubtful.
"Please just get me to my girls?"
The three share a look. To Owen's relief, they agree.
...
Blue is the first to greet him when he gets home.
The rest of the pack is mingling around the Bungalow and Owen is slightly perturbed (but unsurprised) to find the temp paddock in shambles.
"They wanted to look for you. It was all I could do to explain you were safe without losing a body part or having one of them escape into the main park," Barry explains.
Owen nods absentmindedly, too lost in the wash of pack that tides over him. His other girls creep up on him, sniffling at his clothes and blowing air on his hair, easy to reach since he's kneeling. Then they curl around him, rubbing their scent on him, burying the scent of hospital and lingering sickness beneath the welcoming and familiar scent of pack (family).
They had not done well without each other. The girls had been snappish and aggressive and Owen's condition had not fared well.
But they're together now, and with the bond thick between them, the separation is quickly put behind them.
The moment Owen has always dreaded has finally come.
At shoulder-height, the girls are too big to keep at the bungalow and the raptor paddock is complete. While the Indominus paddock is yet to be finished, Roma and Venezia are still the same size as the rest of the pack so there's plenty of time yet for it to be ready.
Still.
He has to move the girls to the official raptor paddock.
Owen tries to bury the apprehension the chews at him, but the girls can sense it anyways. Blue's giving him the raptor approximation of a concerned look while the rest of the pack mills nervously within the confines of the temporary paddock. They're taller than the wire mesh fence around them and could easily jump over it and while Owen knows it's not much of a concern, Claire's urging for the sake of the sanity of the other island employees. Though they've gotten over their first date and learned things about each other, there's still only one person on the island that Owen's told about his abilities.
But then, Owen's sure that even if he did tell her, she'd still make him move them. For the sake of the other employees.
...
Owen can't believe he managed to move the girls without anyone dying.
The ride over is atrocious, the road cobbled together with stone and concrete. The girls are sedated, at the request of the team assisting with the move (and much to Owen's consternation). Owen stays in the transport truck with his pack, grounding them through fuzz in their minds and keeping them calm. He knows the transport team probably thinks he's insane, but that's pretty much his reputation on the island and he's fine with it.
That crazy sonovabitch Grady was pretty much his nickname throughout his service years.
Getting his girls into the paddock is an exercise in patience and control. Patience with the transport team and control to himself from snapping at the ACU volunteer holding onto Delta's tail. They're only trying to help after all (even if they touch his girls like they'll lash out and bite them). Owen knows they won't, he can feel their minds still deep in fuzzy-sedative-land, and even if they weren't, they know better than to attack humans. They understand the consequences better now than when they were younger. However, he understands that Delta, Roma, and Venezia draw the line at being touched by strangers and the rest will only tolerate it if he shows trust in the person.
Once his girls are settled in a shady region of the paddock, the transport team makes themselves scarce and Owen settles himself a little further from the pack, knowing that they'll need space to orient themselves before settling back into the bond.
Owen's rather impressed with the official raptor paddock. They'd taken his considerations into account (likely due to dual orders from Claire and Masrani, god bless them). It's spacious, plenty of room for six full grown raptors to run around (and he once again praises Claire and Masrani, this time for remembering his comments on Roma and Venizia about how they still had a while before they would grow into their own paddock).
He'd caught a glimpse of the Indominus paddock when he was moving his girls in. The wall closest to the raptor paddock is complete and Owen was relieved to see tunnels already built to connect both paddocks. His girls could still be pack, even with Roma and Venizia's show and Blue, Charlie, Delta, and Echo's private training. Owen's sure the pack will still try to escape out of sheer boredom in the time it takes him to get from the bungalow to their new location. Owen is very sure they will protest when he has to leave.
By the time his girls start coming to, Owen's fallen into light doze and the sun's fading light casts a sheen of red-gold onto the earth. Their tumultuous and confused thoughts filter into his head, overshadowing the distant hum of the other park animals and startle him into awareness.
New smells, new land, new place- is Alpha safe!? rings in Owen's mind, like words said too loud in an echo-y hallway.
Owen gives his girls a moment longer to orient themselves before he's reaching and brushing against them, grounding them, allowing them to use his mind as an anchor through the haze of the sedatives. He whistles lowly, softly, letting them know he's physically there. Blue whistles back, appreciating his presence. One by one, his girls stumble to him, Blue first (Blue's always first), and curl around him.
Physically and mentally, as is their wont.
Owen doesn't have the heart to push them away to make his way home (there's a little voice in his head that's saying that here, in the center of his pack, is home). Venizia is warm and solid at his back, Blue's head is a heavy, but welcome, weight on his lap. Charlie and Delta pin his legs to the sandy ground and Echo and Roma pin his arms to his sides. Even in their groggy states, they're careful with him, well aware of fragile human skin and razor sharp claws.
They crowd him, taking in his scent and rubbing their own onto him.
The sun is naught but a faint sliver of gold-white in the horizon, only vaguely visible through the thick groves of trees and the bars of the paddock. The ground is swathed in a thick blanket of shadows and Owen feels that maybe he should make his way back to the bungalow.
Maybe he should, but his eyes tingle pleasantly with the weight of sleep and he's terribly comfortable, even if he's on the ground. Blue catches wind of his thoughts and growls, Roma pulls out a large forelimb and closes it lightly around his wrist, careful with the delicate skin of his inner wrist and the veins within.
They won't actually stop him if he really wants leave, but they won't be happy about it and they'll probably be tetchy in the morning.
The thing is, Owen doesn't want to leave. He's warm and comfortable and he feel safe (so so safe). The bond vibrates with content like a physical, living thing, brushes against all of them, a bubble of trust and acceptance.
Owen doubts anyone (even Barry) would be able to understand it. He barely understands it himself.
It makes him both sad and relieved; sad that no one else has felt what he's felt with these amazing animals (that feel more like family), and relieved because it's not something he has to share. It's something neither his childhood bullies, or his absentee father, or his drunk mother can take away from him.
It's something his grandmother could be proud of.
It's something he can be proud of.
Owen stays where he is, Roma's forelimb stays circled around his wrist, an anchor for the both of them. Blue's lips quirk up to reveal her blade-sharp teeth, her own version of a fond smile. Owen gets the feeling he won't be sleeping in his own bed for a while. He's oddly okay with that.
He doesn't even think about the minor heart attacks he's going to give the Ingen security guards that'll arrive for the first shift the next morning.
There's a familiar tune buzzing in his throat and Owen's sure the girls won't mind him singing them to sleep. They miss his lullabies, which aren't actually lullabies, but tunes he remembers singing with his grandmother on lazy summer days, the old, banged up radio blaring 70's not-quite-old-enough-to-be classics.
Oooh child, he breathes, things are gonna get easier. Oooh child, things'll get brighter!
His girls whuffle lightly, recognizing the song immediately from stormy nights spent in Owen's bed, hiding under the covers at the thunder claps and taking comfort in Owen's strong presence. Owen smiles.
As the night drags on, the stars flutter on their black canvas and the casts a sheen of pale silver light. A stiff breeze cuts through the trees, but Owen doesn't feel it. He's asleep, a smile pulling at his lips, warm within his protective circle of prehistoric predators (and two unique hybrids).
This is home.
Thank you for reading!
And in case any of you are interested, here's of list of the songs I get my titles from (and maybe some of my plot goes in the direction that these songs affect me)
Story Title-I Gave You All by Mumford and Sons
Chapter One- Alone Together by Fallout Boy
Chapter Two-Loveliest Lies of All from Over the Garden Wall
Chapter Three-Save Rock and Roll by Fallout Boy
Chapter Four-Death Valley by Fallout Boy
Chapter Five-The Ballad of Mona Lisa by Panic! at the Disco
If you're familiar with any of these bands, then you should know that this story isn't gonna stay happy for long. Good day!
