1807:Adopted – Chapter Five, Part One

Title: Adopted
Author: Angie J Trifid
Media: Movie
Topic: Jurassic Park
Genre: Friendship/Romance
URL: Adopted
Critiqued by TacoMagic and Eliza

Heyo, patrons!  Welcome back to Prehistoric Bestiality 3 Adopted.  If we split this chapter up, we’ve got just enough fic left for two installments.  So soon we’ll be free of Raptor and I forever!

“Until you do the rewrite.”

So basically forever!  So, what happened last time?

“Well, Fitz hurt his leg, Annie fixed it, Fitz and his sister baton-passed the point of view a bit to exposite his affection for Annie, and then Muldoon and nameless keeper twelve shot Fitz’s father.”

That feels like a lot of progress for one chapter, especially given that the first three chapters limped along like a wounded sloth.  I’d pretend to be surprised that the pacing is so inconsistent, but I won’t insult the intelligence of our patrons like that.  Instead, let’s get this party rolling!

Chapter Five: Kiss

Author, don’t make me put a bestiality warning on this riff!

Sharifa’s POV

“So, what did you set up this week for Ghostie?”

Nothing special, just put her in charge of the Library’s fireworks display.

*Eliza looks out of the Suddenly There™ window in the riffing chamber.*  “I never knew Xenomorph entrails were so festive.  And so luminescent!”

We’re like fifty feet underground.  How does that window even work?

“No time to explain, keep going!”

“Hey, guys!” I yelled over my shoulder. “Zip it! I think she’s waking up!”

So, the gunshot that only bruised the Sue also managed to knock her unconscious.  Nope, no, that’s fine.  I’m totally sure that make sense.

ANNA MCNEIL was lying in a nest.

*Taco is blown out of his chair*

Why is the narrator screaming Ann’s name at us!?

“Ddrama llama.”

 The other humans hadn’t found her, but from what we’d overheard them saying, Hammond was extremely angry at them.

*Taco retakes his seat* My boss gets so angry whenever his employees kill one of the new hires.

“Really?  Lyle never gets angry at any of us when one of the interns goes inexplicably missing.”

Lyle never told OSHA about this place.  Far less paperwork involved than what my boss has to deal with.

Not only for Alpha’s death, but for ANNA MCNEIL’s “death”, too.

*Taco is blown back out of his chair.  Again.*

“It’s because her nametag is in all capitals, isn’t it?”

That theory is too stupid not to be accurate.

“Thanks!”

…

“I’m sad that I was right.”

It had been several days since the incident and I was actually starting to wonder whether or not ANNA MCNEIL was going to wake up.

*Taco is blown back out of his chair*

So, to reiterate, Ann took a bullet to the chest which bruised her rib and knocked her unconscious for ‘several’ days.  Anyone who’s okay with that, please see Lyle after class for a complimentary hit upside the head with the clue-by-four.

*Taco dusts himself off and reseats himself*

Meanwhile, we were stuck with the infant she had brought with her, who refused to move from her side.

“And Ghostie was right about the baby raptor adoption!”

*A light blinks to life on the console*

“Huh, somebody just checked out the key to the closet of weeping.”

 And wouldn’t stop calling me “Auntie”.

I bet that’s so annoying.

“You eventually learn to embrace the unsolicited macaroni art.”

Now, don’t get me wrong.

“Oh.  Um.  Taco, do you happen to want a wrong?”

Can’t say I do.  What brought this on?

“Nothing.  Just suddenly have a wrong that I don’t know what to do with anymore.”

I’m generally a fairly nice person, and I like kids.

Do all raptors lack self-awareness?

“Some of the ones in the first few batches of cloning attempts weren’t quite right in some ways.”

But I hate it when people call me Auntie.

Which apparently has happened before.  At some point.  Off page.

“It’s way better if we’re told this information anyway.”

And by ‘better’ you mean?

“Shorter!”

Roy stepped in and told everyone to shut up and it went a little too quiet.

It’s too quiet.

“Sweep the area for raptors, they’re probably sneaking up on you.”

There’d been a lot of problems in deciding what to do with ANNA MCNEIL.

*Taco goes flying across the room and slams into the wall.*

Not shouting her name at the audience seems like a good choice.

Some raptors wanted to eat her straight away

“Howard Raptor is right!”

You hacked my Netflix password again, didn’t you?

“You should make sure to double-check what your keyboard is plugged into before you type stuff.”

and some said that maybe we should return her when she woke up.

Those were probably banking on her dying of her injuries while in the coma.

“Raptors are good at playing the odds.”

Is that why Crunchy always beats me at blackjack?

“Nope. Crunchy cheats.”

But Roy wouldn’t hear of it, and since he’s Alpha now – or will, be, anyway, when he chooses a mate – they’ve gotta listen to him.

Still not how a pack works.  Hell, that isn’t even how a hereditary monarchy works.  I’m not sure anything works that way outside of a romantic comedy.

“You leave Princess Diaries out of this!”

I think he really likes her. I wonder when he’s gonna kiss Nedry?

Little tip, Angie: repeating the same not funny joke multiple times doesn’t make the joke good.  All it does make you look like an idiot.  And a shallow idiot at that.  And while we’re at it:

*SLAM*

Jr. High Raptors: 16

I’m just going to keep counting it whenever that stupid joke shows up.

Oh well. She was waking up – that was pretty important.

“You’ll have to forgive the author her understatements, she’s from the U.K.”

The infant – who we still had to choose a name for – ran up to her, squeaking.

Do baby raptors squeak?

“Only if you step on them.”

Anna’s POV

“Hey, where’d she get a mortar that shoots Yautja!?”

I started waking up really slowly. And I mean, reeeeeeeally slowly.

“Super mega slowly!  Super ultra mega slowly!”

Pacing of this fic slowly!

I think I was still asleep by the time I’d actually opened my eyes.

The hell is that even supposed to mean?

“Wizards sleep with their eyes open.  Maybe she’s a wizard!”

Please don’t give the fic ideas.  The last thing we need is a Raptor and I / Harry Potter crossover fic.

And I could tell this, because I saw those damned raptors from my friggin’ nightmare again.

Oh, so the nightmare was alluding to this moment.  I have to hand it to you author, I’m more whelmed than I thought I’d be.

So I pretty much fainted, or whatever it was I did, straight away.

“Regardless of what it was, she certainly did a thing of somesorts.”

I woke up again a while later. I think.

If only there was an award for being wishy-washy.  This author would have taken the trophy with the last two lines alone.

I’m still not exactly clear on what I was thinking at that point in time.

Given your history of thought, I’d say noth-

Something along the lines of nothing, I suppose.

Well played, if still wishy-washy as fuck.

And then the big male raptor with the broken leg came up to me and started making these weird noises, like he was choking or something.

“Somebody’s about to get some dinner!  He’s even saved you the trouble of chewing!”

And the one who’d swallowed the soda can looked like she was having a laughing fit.

Because raptors definitely laugh.  Just like how falcons laugh!

“You mean like this?”

Fiiiiiiiine.

Maybe somebody’d spiked my drink at that party and I was still tripping, or something.

For the record, when you’re far gone enough to be having visual and auditory hallucinations, you generally aren’t lucid enough to ponder the possibility of having been drugged.  Just saying.

I mean, I didn’t know dinosaurs – raptors, especially – could act so… well, human.

Because they don’t.  Not outside of wish-fulfillment fantasies, anyway.

“Or characters rescued from those fantasies.”

The broken-leg-raptor was still making choking noises and now he was moving his mouth, too. Maybe he was sick? I couldn’t tell. It sounded like he was trying to say “Roy”.

So wait, the raptors in this one are going to speak English?  Well, that’s different.  Stupid, but different.

“Is it?”

Well, outside of formatting issues, yeah.

“SCENE BREAK!”

Fitzroy’s POV

*Several rapid-fire concussions rock the bunker*

Looks like we’re at the finale.

*Eliza pokes at her phone* “I”ll get Markus up there with a mop to keep the bulkhead from melting.”

I promised Dad I’d look after the human girl, and I did. I made sure no-one in the pack – no-one in my pack – ate her.

“Does that mean it’s okay if I eat her!?”

Technically, yes, but that means you’d have to go into a Raptor and I fic.

So when she woke up, obviously I had to try to talk to her, right?

I’m not following the logic of protecting her requiring speech in this case, but then I find it difficult to think like an idiot.  Pour me a few drinks and maybe this will start making sense.

I tried making human sounds but I can safely say I royally screwed up. I’d wanted to say “Roy” so she’d know what to call me, but I sounded like an idiot instead.

“Should we tell him?”

Naw, better he not know that he does more than sound like an idiot.

This was going to be the harder of the promises I’d made Dad. Harder than choosing a mate. Which, admittedly, was getting easy.

Which we’re hoping the fic glosses over before the icky dinosaur sex starts.  If I wanted to read that, I’d have riffed one of Christie Sims’ books.

How am I gonna get into the main building, then?

“The door?”

“I win the bet then, do I?”

Who’s talking?  I mean, contextually I can assume who’s talking, but this is a new scene so you need to put in some kind of identifier, Angie.

I jumped and screeched in surprise. Sharifa had snuck up on me!

I can relate.  You can’t do anything around the Library without a Raptor stalking you.

“I like the high-pitched scream I get whenever I hide in your shower.”

“Get lost!” I snarled.

“Just admit it,” she sneered. “I win the bet. Of course I do. I always do.”

“And yet he still made the bet.”

Look, we haven’t been calling him an idiot because of his stellar decision making.

“Yeah, you carry on believing you’re matchmaker of the century,” I snarled sarcastically. Then I changed my tone. “Anyway, how’s the human?”

I like how the entirety of his interraction with her is having his leg fixed and then watching over her unconscious body.  Truly a match blessed by the gods.

“That Romeo and Juliet comparison is looking pretty apt.”

Yeah, I gotta say that Angie nailed that one.  Shame that she didn’t do it in quite the way she intended to.

“She’s getting better,” Sharifa answered, in a way that indicated some kind of shrug.

Her rib is less bruised?

“So that’s why she woke up!”

 “But she’s still weak. If we do return her –”

“Not only weak, but covered in several days worth of her own excretions.”

Dude, ew.

“Fine. That’s why if is the key word. If we do return her, it’ll be a while before she’ll be healthy enough to go.”

“Several months worth of convalescence is required for bruised ribs.  I should know, I’m a raptor.”

I gave Sharifa a look. She wasn’t acting like herself. She was suddenly being so… serious.

Credit where it’s due, this is true.  Up until this moment Shari has acted like a fourteen-year-old valley girl with a sugar high.

Like she cared about the human. Like she wasn’t just trying to wind me up.

Do we have one of those showing and telling counters?

“I could go steal it, but we’re almost done with this little fic.”

Yeah, probably not worth it for just this week and next.

I could barely recognise that tone of her infuriating voice.

“This is why we banned autotune in our pack.”

I don’t blame you, I’ve heard Crunchy on karaoke night.

And that was when I realised it. Sharifa did care about the human.

*ALARM BLARES*

Think of how surprised the DRD agents will be when they try to cross the giant field of acid that’s sitting on top of the bunker right now.

*Eliza peers out the window* “I don’t have to imagine it.”

I’m still dubious of that window.  I don’t even understand how that works.

*The window suddenly implodes, leaving a blank wall in its place*

“Aww.  Better not let Bifocals know.”

She was obliged to, after all: the human had saved her from choking on a… thing I don’t know the human word for.

A hindrance that hasn’t stopped you from using human words like ‘kissing’ that you shouldn’t have any concept of.

But Sharifa was being deathly serious about the human’s well-being.

*ALARM BLARES*

“Awww.”

You could always text Marcus.  He could probably get you some nice footage.

“It’s not the same.”

And I’d chosen Sharifa as Beta female of the pack. I had to listen to her.

And that’s still definitely not how packs work.  If you’re going to make a thing with packs in it, at least do some baseline research beyond knowing a few letters of the Greek alphabet.

“But I want to tell you, Roy. I think she’s better off here. I think she’s safer here. And we might be safer with her here, too.”

“In the nest surrounded by the safety of the void.”

Well, they certainly found a place nondescript enough to avoid notice, I’ll give them that.

Yes, that made sense. With the human here, we could learn about humans in case they tried to kill any more of us.

“Before you ask, yes Sun Tzu was required reading while being reared in the hatchery.”

Now I know you’re making stuff up.

And we could protect her much better than that rock nest the humans all sleep in.

“As long as you don’t turn your back on her too long when the prey gets scarce, anyway.”

“You’re right,” I sighed finally.

“She is?”

No, but Fitz isn’t smart enough to realize that.

“Emm… ‘scuse me?” I heard the human’s voice and snapped my head round to see her. She looked dead and was leaning on my brother, Alerio.

Dude!  Alerio just snuck in there and made the kill while they were talking!

*Eliza fans herself* “Finally somebody to get excited about!”

“Hey looky, it’s your girlfriend,” Sharifa teased. I snapped at her and she ran off.

*SLAM*

Jr. High Raptors: 17

Doesn’t know what a can is, but knows what a girlfriend is.  Consistent tone is for suckers, right!?

“Pass her to me,” I told my brother. He did, gave the human a concerned look and ran off too.

Dude, Fitz just Bogarted Alerio’s kill!

“Alpha gets first bite, even when he’s a jelly brain.”

The human was now leaning against my side, with an arm over my back.

“Is a dead body still considered human?”

Hard to call.  It’s human remains, but I don’t think it counts as human.  Sorta like how a zombie is an animated human corpse, but not actually a human.

I knelt down on the ground so she wouldn’t have to try to stand. She looked so pale…

Corpses do indeed have a pallor about them.  Maybe you should eat her before she spoils.

“Hey, nothing wrong with letting your food season a bit!”

“Were you trying to say “Roy” earlier?” she asked me, straight out. I nodded.

AAAAAAH!  The corpse talked!  Zombie!

“Zombies can’t talk.”

EVEN WORSE!  VAMPIRE!

*Eliza checks the fic listing* “This wasn’t supposed to be a Twilight crossover.”

We got ninja-Twilighted!

*A stick of butter shoots out of the duct vent and hits Taco in the face*

“I don’t think they appreciated the association.”

“Was that your dad who was killed?” she asked, and I nodded again.

How did she work that out.  Does she have a copy of the fic?

 “He was the alpha?” I nodded. “So you’re the alpha now?” once more, I nodded.

Eliza!?

“Look, she asked me and said please and everything!  I figured it wouldn’t harm much if she had a copy.”

“And Roy’s your name?” another nod.

So, if ‘Roy’ sounds like ‘Roy’ in English, why is there a raptor equivalent that just happens to be the same name but is indecipherable to humans otherwise?  Angie, this isn’t how language works.

“Didn’t you gripe about that in the other fics.”

Probably. And if I didn’t, I SHOULD have.  Raptors having human names but spoken in raptor bugs the living crap out of me more than any other part of this.  Because of how dissimilar the language is, naming shouldn’t translate this cleanly.  Hell, I had a friend growing up who asked us all to call him Matt because his real Hmong name was difficult to pronounce and there was no direct English equivalent.  It’s like saying that Nissan or Kaname are Japanese for Joseph and Lindsey.

“Nice to meet you, Alpha Roy,” the human girl smiled. “I’m Anna.”

At this point the fic devolves into a fairly long segment where the POV changes hands every five lines or so.  It’s been a long week and just looking at it makes me hurt, so we’re calling it here.  Sorry if it’s a bit short this week, but there’s not really any better place to stop until the end of this thing.  So, until next week, stay frosty, Patrons!

“Do you think there are any more agents up there?”

Couldn’t hurt to look.  You know, provided we gear up in the acid-proof environmental armor first, anyway.

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