Dean couldn't tell what was food and what was supposed to be decoration.
He wasn't the only one; he could see Jo and Sam share a glance beside him as the white-coated servers set their food down in front of them, each looking at their plate with what seemed to be an equal mix of curiosity and apprehension. Of course, Jo also looked a little disgusted, but that was probably from the raptor feeding they'd just walked away from, and he couldn't blame her. It was hard to put that out of his mind when it had happened less than an hour ago.
If he was being honest, he might admit it would be hard to put out of his mind for the rest of his life.
Castiel and Crowley seemed right at home with their place settings, though Castiel wasn't doing much more than nudging the food around on his plate, probably feeling about the same as Jo. Meanwhile, Gabriel moved from each of the three screens to the next, punching the buttons on the remote in his hand to switch the slides on each screen.
"We're still working on the Pteranodons. They're a tough one, you know," he was saying, pulling up a picture of what looked like a massive bird cage covering part of the island. "But as soon as the scientists say the word, we have a company waiting in the wings- no pun intended- to come in and create a custom exhibit for those lizard birds to fly to their heart's content. There'll be protected paths for families to walk through the aviary."
Another picture, this time concept art showing one of those paths, curved metal bars arching over the people's heads as a Pteranodon flew above.
Dean should have felt excitement, but instead he just felt a little ill.
Stupid raptors.
Gabriel pressed the button again, this time showing art of a raft going down the river that split the island, dinosaurs lazily drinking at the banks as the boat passed. "And of course, eventually the boat tour will open up-"
He was cut off by the sound of Castiel choking violently on whatever it was he'd been trying to eat at that moment. Gabriel, instead of looking worried, actually seemed more annoyed that he'd been interrupted.
"Oh, relax, Cassie. I promised I wouldn't shove you in a boat, and I'm not going to. The river ride won't be ready for another two years," he said, already changing the screen to show a Jeep driving a family through the same field where they had first seen the Brachiosaur.
Castiel gave him a rather pointed glare, and Dean looked between the two, wondering what he'd missed- there was obviously a story there, but neither of them seemed to be interested in elaborating, and Crowley was already ignoring them to move on to the next subject.
"And the best part is, we could charge separately for each attraction," Crowley said with a smirk, probably already counting up the dollars in his head. "Two hundred for the bird dinosaurs, two hundred for seeing the baby dinosaurs, two hundred for the safari, and people will pay every last dime to drag their little brats to see the dinosaurs. And then we have the merchandise."
Castiel's fork clattered to the plate, loud enough to make everyone at the table jump- and then, the writer chuckled darkly, one hand pressed to his forehead.
"The lack of humility before nature being displayed here…astounds me," he finally said, and Crowley rolled his eyes.
"Oh for Christ's sake, we'll already have to put up with those bloody wankers at PETA, and you're throwing a fit-" he started, but Gabriel held up a hand, dropping into the seat at the head of the table.
"No, no. Come on, Crowley, we brought them here for their opinions. Let Cas have his say," he said, looking amused as he swiveled back and forth on the spinning chair like a preschooler. Dean wanted to roll his eyes but he refrained, watching Castiel instead as the dark haired man seemed to gather his thoughts.
"Do you honestly not see the risk in what you've done here?" he finally asked, but evidently he already knew the answer, because he continued on without a break. "You have an amazing genetic power at your fingertips, and you're wielding it like a child who found his dad's gun."
Gabriel snorted. "Give me a little bit more credit, bro. What, you honestly think that, knowing what we could do, we should have let the opportunity pass by because of some pointy teeth?"
"You were so damn preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop to think if you should!" Castiel snapped, shaking his head. "You have animals out there that have no equal on this planet right now. Animals that have no fear of humans, and no natural predators."
"And they're on an island, if you hadn't noticed."
"They don't need to leave the island if you're bringing the buffet here, Gabriel."
"Wait, wait," Sam said, holding his hands up, his brow furrowed in that way it always was when he was thinking way too hard about something. "Look, this is…what you've got here is amazing. It's groundbreaking."
Gabriel sighed. "I sense a 'but' coming."
Sam laughed, barely. "You have plants in this building that have been extinct for 65 million years. We have no way of knowing what kind of defense mechanisms any of these plants had back then," he said, gesturing to the flowering fern in the corner of the room. "You picked them because they look good, but there are plants that excrete poison on the surface of their leaves. Plants that release different mixtures of gasses in the air in the process of growing. And we can't know that until something goes wrong."
Gabriel groaned and rolled his eyes. "Come on, I picked you guys because you, of all people, can appreciate what we've done here! Are you telling me the only person on my side is the fuckin' lawyer?" he complained, earning an exasperated look from Crowley. Jo shrugged.
"I think it's…amazing. I can't say I wouldn't have done the same myself," she pointed out, her food still barely touched. "But making it into a theme park, it's…it's just not safe. Humans are unpredictable on their own, and when you add in animals that we know nearly nothing about…"
Gabriel didn't seem affected by the criticism anymore. He smirked and stabbed his fork into the fish on his plate, stuffing a chunk of it in his mouth and not bothering to finish chewing before he started talking again. "Just wait until you take the tour," he insisted, swallowing and grabbing his glass of wine, doing a mock toast. "Guaranteed, when you finish that tour tomorrow, you'll be groveling your apologies at my feet for ever doubting me."
Dean could tell Castiel was fighting the urge to laugh, but not because he found it funny. He was frowning deeply, shaking his head, his worries not having made a dent in his brother's bravado.
Dean didn't think anything would discourage Gabriel at this point.
It had long since fallen dark, and Dean was never going to get any sleep.
He had explored everything in the room, read every brochure, enjoyed the Jacuzzi tub for far too long, and he was still shifting restlessly under the thin blankets. He wasn't sure which was more effective in destroying his ability to sleep; the debate at dinner, the memory of the raptors' screeches as they fed, or the knowledge that in a few hours he'd be seeing more living dinosaurs.
Either way, sleep wasn't happening right now. He groaned in frustration and shoved the blankets down, grabbing at the t-shirt he'd left slung over the top of his duffle bag. He shoved his feet into his boots without bothering to lace them up, grabbed his key, and headed outside.
The day had been nearly unbearable, between the heavy blanket of humidity and the temperature that was about ten degrees too high for sentient life. But the night was actually comfortable and warm, if a little humid, and perfect for the walk he needed to try and get his mind to slow down. It took him a few moments to place what was bothering him, though; there was nearly no noise from birds or bugs, like they put up with on some dig sites.
Maybe the native wildlife saw what was going on and fled en masse. He couldn't really blame them; if he were the size of a bird, he'd run like hell from a raptor, too.
…Come to think of it, compared to the T-Rex, he would pretty much be snack sized.
He found himself looking up at the visitors center, and out of curiosity, he climbed the stairs and pressed down on the massive door handle. It actually swung open; evidently, with no tourists on the island yet, they weren't really worried about things getting stolen. He stepped inside the rotunda, his breath catching when he saw the T-Rex skeleton, backlit by dim construction lights that stood around the platform. Behind that a tarp flapped weakly in the slight wind, the back of the rotunda not yet In place, giving way to the thick foliage behind the building instead of a solid wall.
He could have spent hours studying that skeleton, figuring out how much of it was actually complete, and how much had been fabricated to fill in the gaps. He stopped himself, though; he was on vacation, and tomorrow he would be seeing the real thing.
A real fucking T-Rex. He wasn't sure if he was excited, terrified, or both.
He turned away from the skeleton and instead made his way into the gift shop, which seemed to be mostly finished. The merchandise lined the shelves neatly, dinosaur models and toys and lunchboxes and books, things he would have killed to have as a kid. The cables for the checkout computer hung loosely over the edge of the counter, the only sign that the place wasn't quite ready to have customers wandering around, picking out their expensive trinkets.
Then again, this stuff would probably be pocket change to the kind of clientele that could afford to come out here.
For a moment, Dean entertained the idea of getting a grant from the museum to take some kids out here once a year. Take the kids who showed a real love for science, have a contest or something, and take the kids who would appreciate it the most but couldn't afford it. He couldn't imagine how that would have felt when he was twelve years old, still keeping shelves of dinosaur figurines carefully arranged in alphabetical order by their scientific names, if someone told him he could go see the real thing.
He smirked and shook his head, picking up a plush stegosaurus and tugging fondly at the plates alternating vertically down its spine. Stegosaurus had always been one of his favorites.
"You too, huh?"
Dean jumped in surprise and nearly dropped the toy at the sound of a voice in the otherwise silent room, but he would recognize that voice anywhere, even if he'd only met the guy that day. He turned and gave Castiel a half-hearted glare that turned into a laugh.
"What, can you teleport or something? Scared the shit out of me," he said, dropping the plush toy back into the bin. Castiel just hummed in reply, sliding his fingertips across the cover of a coloring book on display.
"My apologies. To be fair, I didn't expect that anyone else would still be up," he said, stopping by a rack full of plastic dinosaur toys. Dean caught sight of a basket full of plastic dinosaur eggs and stepped over to them, picking one up and tossing it Cas's way.
"Here. Catch," he said, picking up another of the eggs and cracking it open at the seam in the middle. As he'd suspected, there was a tiny stuffed baby dinosaur inside; his was a Parasaurolophus. He lifted his head to watch as Castiel opened his, and a small T-Rex fell out, the plush baby already equipped with a mouth full of felt teeth.
"I would have loved this place as a kid," Dean said, and Castiel smiled, just a little.
"You still love this place. You're just a little more logical about it now."
Dean huffed and shook his head. "Wish I didn't have to be. I wish we could just sit back and watch the dinosaurs and enjoy this place," he said, snapping the egg closed again. He'd had that moment of magic, when they first saw the Brachiosaur, when nothing else seemed to matter but the magnificent animal in front of him.
The reality of the danger here hadn't hit him till he'd been holding that baby raptor in his hands.
"I suppose I'm biased," Castiel said, closing the plush T-Rex back in the egg and tossing it gently back to Dean. "I've been subjected to Gabriel's grand schemes before. It didn't go well."
They walked out of the gift shop into the rotunda, the distant bellow of a Brachiosaur carrying across the wind as they sat down on the edge of the T-Rex platform. Dean studied Castiel in the dim light; the man looked tired, stressed. More than simple worry about being here.
"What happened?"
Castiel hesitated, running his fingers through his dark hair, making it more unruly than it already was. "Let's just say that…it's better on a safari to avoid antagonizing the wildlife."
"That…doesn't sound like it ended well. Why did you agree to come here?"
Another Brachiosaur answered the first call, further away and lower in pitch. Castiel smiled weakly and gave a half shrug. "I suppose I'm a bit of a pushover when it comes to family. Believe me, when my sister hears I came here, I'll never hear the end of it."
Dean quirked an eyebrow. "How many siblings do you have? And how come he only invited you? Hell, if I pulled off something like this, I'd be inviting everyone I knew."
"I have five siblings. Other than Gabriel, I have a sister named Anna, and three brothers named Michael, Lucifer, and Samandriel."
"…Lucifer? Seriously?"
Castiel laughed, eyes crinkling up at the corners, and god, Dean would never get tired of seeing him smile. "He goes by Luc," the writer said, leaning back on his hands. "And anyway, he only invited me because evidently his investors wanted someone with some…influence on the public. Or something. That, and I don't think any of our other siblings would agree to come. They aren't as tolerant of his…fanciful endeavors."
Dean smiled and shook his head. "You know, when I read your books, I honestly thought you sat there with a thesaurus open while you wrote them. I was obviously wrong," he joked, and he could see Castiel's cheeks redden a bit, even in the low light. "Not that it's a bad thing. Just not what I expected from someone who writes sci-fi and crime thrillers, you know?" he added quickly, hoping he hadn't just shoved his foot in his mouth, as per usual.
"No, I…I get that a lot. My editor scolds me about my prose being overly formal at times," Castiel said, and Dean relaxed a little, until those blue eyes focused on him again. "Enough about me. All I know about you is that you dig up dinosaur skeletons with your plant-obsessed brother and a pretty blonde. Which, by the way, would make for a very unique set of protagonists."
"Nah, it would be boring. We sit in the dirt all day trying to carve rock out of rock," Dean joked. "I mean, there's not much to tell. We grew up in Kansas and always wanted to dig up dinosaurs, so that's what we ended up doing."
Castiel fidgeted a little, looking away from Dean and back toward the gift shop. "So, if…hypothetically, for book research, I might want to come out and visit one of your digs…?"
Dean's stomach did a flip; he felt like he was fifteen years old all over again, sitting next to his crush in the cafeteria. "Hypothetically, I think you would be incredibly bored, but also incredibly welcome," he said, and he caught Castiel's shy smile before the writer stood up.
"Well, I suppose I'll at least try to get some sleep," he said, the tarp snapping behind them with a stronger gust of wind. "It was nice talking with you, Dean."
Dean smiled brightly. "Yeah, you too, Cas. Try not to stress too much tonight."
~~ Isla Sorna, August 16th, 2014 ~~
Breakfast was infinitely better than dinner had been.
Either the chef had noticed that his five star French cuisine hadn't gone over great, or he'd just gotten lazy, but breakfast was served in the giant, empty restaurant, and it consisted of bacon, eggs, and pancakes with maple syrup. Dean was in heaven, making up for the lack of eating last night by helping himself to seconds and thirds of the bacon and eggs.
"Dean. It's not going to disappear if you eat too slow," Sam said, looking slightly embarrassed for his brother, but Dean really could not care less when there was still bacon to be eaten.
"Dude, I haven't had a real breakfast in months. Deal with it," Dean said, earning a soft smile from Castiel and an eye roll from Jo.
It had been nice to sleep in, too. Gabriel insisted that vacation meant not having to get up before ten, so breakfast was ready right at 10:30, which Dean could definitely get used to. In his line of work, they had to make the most of every moment of daylight and good weather; they were usually up with the sun, and still up a couple hours after it set.
"Are you kids ready?" Gabriel's voice said, obnoxiously loud in the huge room. He stepped up to the table and leaned on the back of an empty chair, stealing a strip of bacon off Castiel's plate. Or at least, he tried to- and he earned a loud smack across the back of his hand for the effort. Dean shoveled the last of the eggs into his mouth before he stood up, and Gabriel was still pouting at Castiel as they made their way out front.
In front of the visitors center sat two SUVs, brightly colored with the Jurassic Park logo emblazoned on the sides. Dean immediately noticed something amiss- one, no drivers were hanging around, and two, each steering wheel had a strange set of clamps on the center and arching around the edges. He frowned and opened the door to one of the cars, studying the contraption.
"What's up with this?"
"Another stroke of genius from Charlie," Gabriel explained, leaning on the side of the truck. "No drivers needed. They run off a combination of GPS and sensors underneath the roads. You just sit back, and the tour audio will load as you approach each exhibit."
Castiel didn't look impressed. "You're just putting people in cars and sending them out on a tour full of dinosaurs without any guides?"
"Well, if they really want to jump out and tangle with deadly electric fences to try and pet a dinosaur, I doubt a guide is gonna stop them either," Gabriel pointed out with a shrug. "Besides, Cas, I thought you didn't like having a guide."
There was that moment again; the glare from Castiel and the impish look from Gabriel that spoke volumes about something they weren't sharing with the class. Nonetheless, his attention was diverted when Crowley sauntered up, still in a perfectly pressed suit and sunglasses. Dean had kind of been hoping the lawyer wouldn't be along for the tour, but it seemed his luck didn't go that far.
"Hey, Dean, why don't you take the other car?" Sam suddenly said, giving Dean a push away from the open door and back toward the second SUV. Before he could argue, Sam and Jo were sharing a conspiratorial look and climbing into the back of the first SUV, and Crowley in the front. Dean had turned and made it halfway back to the other car before he realized their plot- this meant he'd be in an SUV with Castiel for the tour.
He wanted to kick them and hug them at the same time for being nosy brats.
He took a deep breath before climbing into the car, Castiel already settled into the backseat next to him, giving Dean a nervous glance and smile. "Excited?" he asked, and Dean let out a sigh.
"Yeah. I guess that's a word for it," he said, rolling down the window a little when he saw Gabriel waving to them.
"Get comfy, we'll get the cars moving in a few minutes! Dean, no deflowering my baby brother in a company car!" he yelled, and Dean felt his cheeks heat up, and he make a point of flipping Gabriel off before rolling the window back up. Luckily, he wasn't alone- when he caught a glimpse of Castiel, the writer was just as red faced as him.
"I apologize for my brother's immaturity-"
Dean laughed. "Please. Don't worry about it," he said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "If I tried to apologize for everything my brother did, my apologies could make an entire manifesto."
Castiel chuckled and looked back up at Dean. "So…dinosaurs?"
Dean's stomach did another flip flop, and he licked his lips and swallowed hard.
"Yeah. Yeah, dinosaurs."
Gabriel was nearly vibrating with nervous energy as he skidded around the corner into the control room and threw an arm around Charlie's shoulders. "Hey, red, everything ready to go?" he asked, and she didn't miss a beat in her typing, even with the brunette hanging on her like that.
"We're ready to roll. The basic program worked like a dream for all the test runs, and I'll have the system compiling a full list of any bugs we run into along the way."
"That's my girl," Gabriel said with a grin, ruffling her hair a little before turning to Ruby, who was snacking on some potato chips and staring at the camera monitor above one of her screens. "Hey Ruby, can you troubleshoot those bugs as they come in?"
Ruby gave him a look of disgust. "Well, yeah, if you want the whole system to grind to a near halt because I'm changing code while the program is running," she said with a shrug. Gabriel snorted and shook his head.
"Well aren't you just a ray of sunshine."
She gave him a mocking smile. "Just for you, darling. Pay me more and I might even throw in some coding for facial recognition."
"Maybe I wouldn't have to pay you more if you didn't spend all your days off at casinos," Gabriel pointed out, and the forced smile turned into a sneer as she turned back to her monitors.
"I'll debug the fuckin' system when the cars get back. Unless you want me overloading the system," she snapped, and Gabriel rolled his eyes, turning around when he heard Charlie beckon him over. He moved to see the monitor she was standing in front of- the tropical storm that they'd been watching the past few days.
"It doesn't look like this one's going to turn south, boss man," she said, tapping her capped pin against the monitor, which was showing a loop of the tropical storm's direction over the past 24 hours. Sure enough it was sliding steadily to the northeast, not even losing any of its distinctive shape as it barreled closer to the islands.
"How long do we have? And how bad is it?"
Charlie hummed. "We'll get the first waves of it just after sunset, according to the radar forecast. And it's no hurricane yet, but it's not messin' around, either. We'll have at least high winds and some good downpours," she explained, and then she gave him a hopeful smile. "But it is moving fast. By morning it should have completely blown through."
Gabriel narrowed his eyes at the storm, as if he could intimidate it off its path. "Can we fit in the tour?"
"As long as we don't run into any snags, we can probably get most of it done. But really, we shouldn't be risking more people than we have to. Not with that lawyer hanging out."
"What are you suggesting?"
Charlie beamed. "I'm suggesting a test run. I set this place up to run on absolutely minimum staff for up to nine days. Send everyone else home on the boat leaving later this afternoon. You, me, Ruby, Meg, Bobby, and our tourist pals can say and ride out the storm here in the staff rooms at the visitors center," she said, and Gabriel thought about it for a few moments.
It would show Crowley and their guests just how much faith they had in their systems if they went down to skeleton staff for the weekend. Not only that, but he'd actually look like a decent person, not making the rest of his staff sit on an island in a near hurricane. It would be a win win and proof that his systems and security were foolproof.
"Alright, do it," he said with a nod. "Sent out the word that all nonessential staff is leaving on the five o'clock boat for the mainland."
Charlie immediately pulled up the email system, typing out the alert at near unbelievable speed, and marking it as high priority before sending it off. Gabriel pulled up the tour route on the main camera monitors, zooming in on where the two tour SUVs were sitting before throwing a glance to Charlie.
"Ready to start the program?"
She gave him a thumbs up. "All systems are go, captain!"
He smirked and turned back to the console, pressing the microphone button for the vehicles. "I hope you're all ready, because you're about to see some fuckin' dinosaurs," he said, and then he pointed at Charlie, giving her the cue.
Three keystrokes, a few beeps, and the SUVs began to roll toward the massive gates arched over by the words "Jurassic Park".