Do you have any more headcanons for your Jurassic Park AU?
pal i always have more headcanons for my jurassic park au
kara is an up-and-coming journalist who is invited to the park so she can give it some good publicity. she brings along her friend winn, a security expert, to give an accurate opinion on the safety of the park
the first stop on their tour is one of the paddocks. head scientist lena luthor is there, examining a sick dinosaur. she has obviously just come from the lab–a blazer and heels are not particularly appropriate for field work–but she looks at home here, standing over the largest animal kara has ever seen. kara has never been so amazed.
(and terrified? yeah, that too. these animals are huge, and winn is kind of freaking out beside her, and there are an enormous amount of ethical questions that need answers. but in that moment, when she’s watching this stranger lay a hand gently on the side of this actual dinosaur, she’s struck by a sense of total amazement)
she decides to stay and watch, both because she’s entranced by the examination and because, well. the way lena looks up and smiles, says, “i’d shake your hand, but i’m slightly muddy at the moment” is all too endearing. winn heads back & makes her promise to text as soon as she’s on her way back
of course, none of it goes according to plan. one by one, each fence fails, and she and lena find themselves trapped in the jungle
they try to make their way to a climbable tree, but on the way they attract the attention of a small pack of compsognathus. though only the size of a chicken, one manages to badly cut lena’s shin, and there is a horrifying moment when they each think that this is it (lena assumes kara will go on without her, for why wouldn’t she? she has no reason to stay.) (kara worries that she will not be able to do enough, not be able to save them both, but oh, she will try)
as soon as they’re away, kara nonchalantly tears off a strip of her shirt and presses it against lena’s skin. lena cannot stop staring at kara’s exposed skin, though she tries to tell herself it’s the blood loss, the delirium
(and then kara’s hoisting her up a tree, and well, there goes that idea, because she has never felt so alert and damn, she cannot take her eyes off of her companion’s biceps)
they spend the night in the tree, talking. despite her apparent confidence, kara is scared, and lena tells stories to keep the fear at bay. once, she says, my brother and I didn’t fight. we had a vision for this place. can you imagine how wonderful it could have been? and kara can, now that she is staring out over the jungle from above, now that she is safe, at least for now
they point at the heads of each dinosaur visible over the canopies and make up a story, say that one, well, obviously they’re a bit of an outcast, maybe they haven’t ever truly felt at home here, maybe they’ve lost some family, maybe they’re not sure they ever had one. and if the stories were never about the dinosaurs at all, neither says a word.
and when they have to stop in the jungle because lena’s leg has started to ache, kara reciprocates, tells her all about her apartment back home, how she just found out dogs are allowed and how she’s planning to get one when she gets back, how her sister said she absolutely won’t help with walks and training but kara knows she will. and throughout the stories, kara drops in you’re going to come with me and pick out my puppy, right? and you’d love alex, I can’t wait for you to meet, and the words, said with so much certainty, are the only thing that makes lena think she’ll make it home.
in the middle of the jungle, the roar of some creature closer than either would like, lena stops, tugs sharply on kara’s arm, and kisses her, because she has to. kara’s grip digs into lena’s hip. “we’re going to make it back,” she promises.
when they make it back to camp, winn is frantic, having assumed the worst. but kara walks in, shirt torn, mud smudged across her cheeks, one arm looped around a limping lena, and he all but charges toward them. he had to fight, he says. he had to fight an actual, legitimate raptor, and he’s talking too quickly for one sentence to finish before another begins, but there’s something haunted behind his gaze, in the way his hands tremble.
they escape, the three of them. and one night several weeks later, lena calls kara, having woken with a nightmare she cannot seem to shake. and when she gets to kara’s apartment, winn is already there, jacket pulled tightly around his chest. this happens frequently, these silent gatherings. the only thing that makes it all bearable is the grip of kara’s hand in her own, the meek smile winn offers when their gazes meet. the only thing that makes it all okay is that they are there, that they are working through it together.
kara never writes her article–there is no need to, not when the entire world knows what happened on the island. instead, she writes a story about paleontologist lena luthor, and now she has joined the faculty of a nearby university, determined to use the research of her family’s bioinformatics company for good, rather than for profit.
