#everyone talking about rap made me remember this ranch dressing take i heard in anime club back in the day

[muddlemore]

"the only rap i like is the pokerap"

[romvnova]

Becoming The Raptor Wrangler: Chapter One

Warning: There may be potential triggers littered throughout this chapter. Please read this at your own discretion. Keep in mind, in my headcanon Owen suffers heavily from PTSD and anxiety and it’ll be a key focus of his character for me until he finds a way to cope with it (apropos to “his girls” { aka. the raptor squad } Blue, Charlie, Delta and Echo).

There’s an unrelenting pounding of someone’s fist on the metal of his Airstream’s door. Owen, who was in an uneasy sleep — it’s always uneasy — sets up with a rough gasp, his heart pounding loudly in his ears as the blood rushes from his head.

“Alright. ALRIGHT!” He snarls as he throws his legs over the edge of the bed and stands, planting his hand to the wall for a second before he pushes off of it and goes to the door, unlocking it and pushing it open. The knocking, blissfully, ceases but there’s a fire in his father’s eyes as Owen opens the door and steps aside as Logan Grady invites himself in that makes Owen immediately regret opening the door.

“Come in.” Owen invites as his father turns sharply on his heel and turns to face Owen who lets out a breath and closes the door. His father’s gaze burns through him and Owen can’t help but feel that it was intimidating enough to cause the devil himself to think twice.

“Owen, this has to stop.” His father’s arm shoots out to stop him as Owen makes to brush past him, reaching for the small, orange prescription bottles laying on the RV’s counter.

“What the hell?” Owen demands gruffly, growing more grumpy by the moment as his mood swings. He needs the anti-depressants and anxiety medication to function something close to a normal human being and his father knows it. It isn’t a magical cure all — the flashbacks and the anxiety attacks still happen — but it helps.

“I can’t sit by and just watch this any longer.”

“Watch what?” Owen snaps. He’s taller than his father and his father wasn’t truly the road-block that he thought he was. If Owen really wanted to …he could get past him. But Owen didn’t really want to. There was too much of a risk that he’d seriously hurt his dad in the process and despite his raising annoyance he didn’t want to hurt his old man.

“Watch you waste away in this trailer. Look Owen, it’s been six months since you …retired from the SEALS and in that time you’ve done nothing to help yourself. You just keep taking the medication they prescribe for you. You haven’t put much, if any effort, towards finding a new purpose. You need somethin’, boy. Somethin’ other than these damn medicines and this trailer. You need to find your path. You’ve lost your way.” Owen’s lips mash into a hard, terse line and he rolls his eyes, shifting his position so he leans his hips against the counter.

His father wasn’t wrong.

Still, that goddamn Grady stubbornness rises like a white hot heat in Owen as he feels the urge to defend himself.

“Nobody’s hiring vets, Dad. I’m a liability to them. If I have a PTSD episode while at work …that’s on them. They can’t take that risk.” Owen’s tone is colorfully snide to accent the sharp air quotes he did. He’d only heard that line over a thousand times.

Can you get through a day without the jackhammer triggering a flashback?

No.

Sorry son, I just…I can’t take that risk.

Yeah, I’d gladly hire you as security. Your martial arts repertoire is impressive, man…but there’s a lot of flashing lights and heavy bass. I see that you suffer from PTSD. Can you confidently tell me that it won’t trigger an episode?

Not as confidently as you’d like me to.

I’m real sorry, man. I can’t take the risk. Better luck next time.

Owen understands …to some degree. He gets it but he can only take being kicked to the curb like a prized fighting dog that’s lost it’s value for so long before it takes it’s toll on him. He’s struggling …and it’s only because of sheer stubbornness that he hasn’t taken to alcohol as a suppressant.

“I mean, honestly, Pops. What skills do I have to offer the world? It’s not like there’s exactly a high demand for a black-ops trained killer. And, ok, I could make a few bucks training animals …but people’re too afraid that I’ll train their animals to be weapons.”

Owen watches his father contemplate his words and a long silence stretches between them followed closely by a rise and fall of Logan Grady’s shoulders.

“Listen, Owen. I need an extra pair of hands at the Ranch. I can’t haul an axe like I used to and Rick brought me a particularly rebellious stallion that needs a good trainer. I’ll pay you the same wage I pay everyone else —”

“Pops …,” Owen shakes his head in refusal. “I’m not —”

“Now, don’t argue with me boy …”

“— I’m not takin’ your money.” Owen insists firmly with a bit more passive aggression than he meant to. Realizing he’s stepped boot to boot with his father, staring down at him in the same manner he’d stared down at the men in his platoon when they’d disobeyed him Owen swallows thickly and reels back, reigning himself in. “I’ll work on the Ranch,” Owen agrees, hand gripping the the wood top of the dinette’s bench. He tries to make it look casual but his grip is hard and he feels the wood slowly giving way beneath his fingers that have gone numb from the death grip he exerts. “but I won’t accept your money.”

“Molly Warbeck keeps asking if you’ll be coming back to church anytime soon.”

Molly Warbeck was Owen’s ex from high school. One of those down-home, homegrown, found on good ground girls. Owen joined the Navy the summer of his Junior year in school and their relationship ended a few days after their senior graduation. Owen broke it off with her because it hadn’t seemed fair to him for her to keep holding onto him when he had ambitions to join the SEALS. Holding onto a man who’d became a ghost, never knowing when and where he was going or if he’d make it back.

People in your life were messy.

And now …well, now, the Owen he’d been in high school didn’t exist anymore and it wasn’t fair to either of them to try to ‘pick up where they’d left off’. Maybe for her it was easy, maybe she hadn’t changed at all …but Owen couldn’t be that kid anymore.

“It doesn’t seem right to go to Church when I don’t believe in God.” Owen squints out the window, arms crossed over his chest. He approaches the subject gruffly and close-minded. His decision’s been made on both fronts: God and Molly Warbeck. Surprisingly, his father doesn’t push, for all of Logan Grady’s faults, he tries not to push religion on Owen, and tries to respect his point of view. Molly’s a bit of a different story but Owen’s well adapted to holding his ground.

“That wasn’t exactly what I was gettin’ at…” Logan scratches as his salt and pepper beard.

“— I know what you were getting at.” Owen interrupts, brushing past his father. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed and clean up and I’ll hitch a ride with you up to the ranch.” Logan grunts and heads towards the door, pushing it open and pushing it closed behind him. Owen’s fingers reach for the prescription bottle but he stops just short of tugging it into his grasp.

The anti-depressants and anxiety medications make Owen’s life more tolerable …and he doesn’t remember the last time he tried to make it through a day without them. The goal’d always been to wean himself off of them once he found solid ground beneath his feet again.

Why not start today?

Currently, the ground felt pretty damn solid …but that was a rocky slope. He’d just started up the mountain that seems so damn and impossibly high. One step at a time.

He retracts his hand and goes into the ‘bedroom’ to change into jeans and an old flannel shirt and contemplates shaving off his beard that he’d let grow. He runs his hands over it for a moment, considering his options before he remembers that his father’s outside waiting for him. He exits the RV and hops up into the bed of his father’s rumbling, old Chevy truck, rapping his knuckles against the roof of the cab, snickering at his father when Logan pokes his head out of the window he cranked down.

“Get in the cab of the truck, boy. Like a normal person.”

“Nah, I’m good.” He laughs as his father’s head disappears into the cab and he puts the truck in drive and they rumble down the rough path to the ranch. It was reminiscent of Owen’s time as a kid. He’d always preferred to ride in the bed of the truck as opposed to being wedged in the cab between his parents, or having to share that tiny middle seat with his younger brother ( which couldn’t have been even remotely safe now that he thinks about it ). Besides that, it feels claustrophobic to him.

He ducks and sinks down into the bed to avoid being beheaded by low hanging branches, and props one knee up, resting his hand on his knee, back pressed against the back of the cab as he watches his RV at the very back of their land disappear into the thick trees, his Triumph the last thing he sees glinting in the early morning sun.

The window at the back of the cab unlatches and his dad slides it open. He’s got the news playing on the radio and Owen swallows the lump that forms in his throat as the woman radio personality talks about an armed robbery, a workplace shooting and a kidnapping. The last was the story of how a young girl was raped by her step-dad repeatedly and Owen’s stomach roils with nausea and for a moment his muscles tense as he prepares to hoist himself over the side of the truck to throw up.

“Turn it off.” Owen rasps into the window. “For the love of fuck…turn it off.” He doesn’t want to hear the shit the world’d turned into. This wasn’t what he’d fought for. This wasn’t the America he’d sacrificed damn near everything for.

A few seconds past.

“Are you alright, Owen?” The truck lurches and Owen grabs the side of the truck bed and empties his mostly empty stomach over it.

“Fine.” Owen gasps as he finishes, scrunching up his face at the sour taste that lingers in his mouth. “There’s a reason I don’t own a TV.” He tells his father gruffly.

There’s a long pause and Owen wipes the light sheen of sweat off of his forehead with the grease stained cloth tucked into the back pocket of his jeans. The cool fall air feels good against his heated skin. The news only pisses him off, makes him sick. Makes him feel like everything he and every other service member did was for nothing.

He thought he’d been some damn unsung hero. He thought he’d known who the enemies of mankind were …but the truth was that they lingered everywhere. Monsters hiding in human skin everywhere.

He thought about joining the local police or state trooper force. It seemed like a natural transition: uphold the law, protect the innocent. It’d been his plan, originally. His therapist recommended against it claiming it to be ‘least suitable career choice for him due to his emotional issues from his tours of deployment’.

Emotional issues. That was a nice way of putting it. Candy coated, legal jargon bullshit.

“Have you eaten anything?”

“You woke me up.” Owen replied, fidgeting with a loose string on his jeans as he props his knee back up. He doesn’t say it accusatory. Just tiredly. His father makes a small rumble of disapproval.

“I’ll make you some breakfast. A man needs to eat.”

They drive for a few more minutes, a silence settling between them only for Owen to let out a grunt and grab onto the side of the bed to keep himself from slamming back into the back of the cab as his father slams on the breaks. The tires squeal in protest and the truck engine rumbles it’s own displeasure.

“What the hell?” Owen asks, pushing himself to his feet in the bed to loom over the roof of the cab. Three black cars are parked along the lane. A man looking out of place in jeans and a casual shirt stands leaning against the Mercedes and two men in black uniform flank him, their hands resting on their sidearms. Hardly inconspicuous.

“I thought I told ya to get off my land.” Owen’s father yells as he goes to get out of the truck.

“Stay in the truck, Dad.” Owen warns his father as he hops over the side of the bed, moving around the truck to meet the man who moves forward. Owen watches his lackeys as they mirror his movements.

“Lieutenant Commander Grady.” The man holds a meaty hand out for Owen to shake but Owen doesn’t reciprocate.

“Former Lieutenant Commander.” Owen corrects gruffly. “I’m retired, in case you haven’t heard.”

“Dogs of war like us never retire, Lieutenant Commander.” The man replies with a quirk of his lips into a smile. Owen doesn’t trust him. “I’m Vic Hoskins. Head of Security at InGen on Isla Nublar.”

“I know who you are.” Owen replies curtly.

“You’re a hard man to get ahold of, Mr. Grady.” Vic Hoskins seems adamant on dancing around what Owen really wants to know. Owen recognizes the power-play happening. Hoskins wants to be in control of their conversation and that annoys Owen greatly.

“It’s intentional.” He didn’t want the government or military sniffing him out, he didn’t want to join any support groups. He just wanted to be left alone.

“Want to tell me why you’re harassin’ my Old Man, Mr. Hoskins?”  Owen demands in lieu of asking.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with Jurassic World?” Hoskins inquires with a grin that would put a cat to shame. Except he thinks Owen’s his canary. Big mistake, but for the moment allowing Hoskins to think he’s in charge here works to Owen’s advantage and thus he allows it.

“It’s hard not to be. Advertisements everywhere you look.” Owen doesn’t agree with it. With the de-extinction of the dinosaurs, with exploiting them for money and entertainment. It rubbed him the wrong way on multiple levels …but he knows he has no room to talk. Hadn’t he done the same thing with his animals during his time with the SEALS? Train them to be weapons of war? He’d exploited them for the military, and they’d been used and disposed of in lieu of soldier’s lives.

And it haunted Owen every day of his life.

“You ever been?”

“Nah. Zoos aren’t my thing.” Owen replies cracking a lopsided grin that hides knives beneath it. It’s all a complex mess of feelings for him. He understands with the ‘saving endangered animals from extinction’ prospect of it …but then again wasn’t that what animal sanctuaries were for?

“I have to be honest, Mr. Grady …I’m looking for someone of your particular skill set to join InGen’s team.”

“And what skill set would that be?”

“We’re working on a new project called IBRIS. We’d like for you to research the cognitive abilities and behavior of the Raptors. See if they can bond with the humans, if they can be trained to follow commands. Your file appeared on my desk with a high and shining recommendation.”

The ‘no’ lingers on the very tip of Owen’s tongue. He’s not going to train war machines. Instead of ‘no’, he laughs. He laughs because it sounds so ridiculous. A dinosaur trainer? Training dinosaurs wasn’t like training dogs and horses.

“You want me to train velociraptors?” Owen asks, just to be sure he’s heard Hoskins correctly.

“This isn’t a laughing matter, soldier. It’s a serious offer. It’s a good offer. Misrani is willing to triple your wage you made before you retired.”

Holy shit.

“Full employee benefits. Retirement plans. Everything top of the line. Right at your fingertips.”

It sounds grand but Owen’s not out for money. He gets a nice fat pension from the military as it is. He chooses to live in the old Airstream on his family’s land. It’s quiet. It’s comfortable and he’s never been a man of pomp.

There’s a big question of morality in play. As Owen stares Hoskins down, the other man does the same to him. He doesn’t want to train the velociraptors for monetization and exploitation. Besides that, unleashing velociraptors on a battlefield? Sounds like a massacre waiting to happen. Could he let that happen? Owen gets the feeling that this Project IBRIS was going to happen with or without him spearheading it. If he didn’t accept the job then someone who had no moral compass would come in, in his place. At least if he accepts Owen has a chance to ensure that he’s a valuable piece on the chess board. He can ensure that InGen couldn’t dispose of him when he got in their way because he would get in their way. There was no way that he was going to let them unleash raptors in active war zones. For the sake of both the people and the animals themselves.

“I need some time to think about it.” Owen finally responds. He already knows his answer but he wants InGen to sweat it out for a bit. They want him bad, he can tell by the twitch in Vic Hoskins eye as Owen intentionally displays deliberation.

“You have twenty four hours. There’s a jet waiting at the local airport. It departs at seven hundred hours tomorrow morning. Your name’s on the manifest.” Hoskins tells him before turning sharply on his heel and walking back to the car, his lackeys following after a few prolonged seconds as Owen plants his hands on his hips.

InGen wants him bad enough to assume that he’ll say ‘yes’.

“What’d they want?” Owen looks over his shoulder as the rumbling engine of his father’s truck draws closer, the crunch of gravel under tire slowing as his father pulls the truck to a stop beside Owen.

“To offer me a job.” Owen replies, going around the front of the truck and hopping in the passenger side of the cab.