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Claire never really had many boyfriends in high school. Or college. Or… after college. And when she got her job at Jurassic World, she just didn’t have the time. It turns out guys aren’t into the whole “controlling” thing, whatever that means. So she likes to be organized, so what? What’s the point of going on a date if you have no idea what you’re doing? “Hanging out”, psh. What even is that? She never really cared about boys, anyway, not like her sister did. They were rude and inconsiderate and pretty shit in bed, if she was telling the truth. She could do a better job herself, without having to go through the effort of getting dressed up for dates they didn’t even take seriously.
Unlike herself, Karen went through at least a dozen guys before she settled on the right one. And now she’s getting divorced, so really, it wasn’t the right one at all. Claire knows that Karen has Zach and Gray now, and she loves them a lot, but she just wants her sister to be happy. And if wonderful Karen can’t even find the right guy, why should she waste her time?
She’s just saying, she has a right to be cautious, okay?
It wasn’t her fault that Owen completely ruined their date. She’d actually really, really liked him. Before then, anyway. She found herself staring at his hands a lot during board meetings when she really should have been paying attention. They were just… seriously nice looking hands. Rough and callused, but that added to the appeal. She liked to imagine what they would have felt like on her, in her hair, and then after she got into that a little too much she would mentally slap herself and try to focus on Mr. Masrani as intently as possible.
She felt like he could tell, ‘cause he’d look at her across the table with this sly grin on his face like he knew exactly what she was thinking, and he didn’t mind.
She hates him. She sincerely, truly does. What kind of a guy shows up to a date in board shorts? Honestly. She feels like her life is a cheap re-run of Grey’s Anatomy, and she just keeps repeating “Seriously? Seriously?” in her head over and over again. Board shorts. Seriously?
He laughs at her itinerary, which she worked extremely hard on, thank you very much. She just likes to know where things are headed, now more so than ever. Even within a few short weeks of working at the park she had realized that even one small mistake could lead to disaster. She’d always been a tidy person, color coding her notes in college and refusing to get drunk. But now, more than ever, she knew she couldn’t mess up. One slip up, in her line of work, could lead to death. So if that was “controlling”, then whatever. It was necessary.
After an awkward attempt at saying goodbye, with no kiss, mind you, Claire couldn’t look Owen in the eye ever again. She didn’t think her body could withstand the embarrassment. Did he really not want to kiss her? Even though she had been a little frigid, he could’ve at least tried. She’d had worse dates where the guys even attempted to invite her in, which she had politely declined, of course, but at least they tried. Then again, maybe he was just being polite. Not many guys really cared about a woman’s opinion, so that was nice. Claire wants to slam her head against the wall instead of thinking about it, so she just doesn’t anymore. Pushes it to the back of her mind and focuses on work.
When he didn’t call her back it was obvious that he just wasn’t attracted to her. So she avoided him like the plague. It was the only logical solution. Up until Mr. Masrani sent her to collect him, like he was just another asset that needed containing, or something. “Consulting”, ugh. Why was she such a dork? It wasn’t enough that Owen completely ruined their date, and hadn’t even bothered to call her back, leaving her sitting by her phone like an idiot hoping that he would, he actually had the nerve to flirt!
She’d tried to be as cold as possible, considering. But he looked so good in that stupid shirt and he was all sweaty and she hadn’t been laid in, like, years. She was only female, and it was hard to conceal how he made her smile, even after everything. He regarded her like a friend, as if she hadn’t spent months canceling meetings and averting her eyes every time they were in the same room together. He was currently the one being more professional, (although that bungalow joke was low, really low, Grady, she wanted to say) which made her hate him even more. Her simple “Mr. Grady”s weren’t cutting it, and he knew that.
She kind of wanted to throttle him, most of the time, even though she knew he was just being, well, Owen. She could tell he was staring at her ass while they walked up the stairs, and what right did he have to insult her dinosaur-naming skills, anyway? All this from the guy that named a velociraptor “Blue”. Very original.
It was all fun and jokes and banter between them (but she hates him, okay? Get that straight. Claire Dearing hates Owen Grady) up until it wasn’t, and they were running for their lives.
She doesn’t mean to kiss him back. It’s just adrenaline, and she’s confused from all the fumes and the smoke and the dinosaurs flying over their heads. And her stupid heels are killing her, but she isn’t about to step in dinosaur shit and she kind of felt like a badass when she ran in them, whatever. What she does mean to do, however, is save his life. Because he’d actually been helpful, and he was trying to find her nephews, and he wasn’t being a gigantic dick for once. It took her completely by surprise when he kissed her, and for a minute all she wanted to do was push him away.
But then, she realized, no. She didn’t want to push him away, because his arms were really warm, and his beard was pleasantly scratching her face, and his lips felt so so good. She whined a little when he pulled away, and then blushed in embarrassment when she saw that her nephews had seen the whole thing.
And then, after, when he said they had to stay together “for survival”, she let herself smile. Her nephews really liked him, and so did she. Hating him was such a lie, she didn’t know who she was fooling. Herself, maybe, for a while; but never him.
The aftermath kind of makes her sick to her stomach. (Not that the actual event was pleasant, though, so it's only to be expected.) InGen sets her up in a nice hotel for a while, promising her job safety and reparations, but Claire doesn’t really want her job back.
She watches the news even though she knows she shouldn’t, shaky camera shots of the I-Rex making her want to vomit, watching so many innocent people die because of her.
No, she doesn’t want her job back, or any single one that reminds her of it, either. (Maybe she can be a school teacher. Not Science, obviously, but like, English. She likes to read.) What she wants is time to think and a lot of tequila and Owen in her bed, maybe. She still hasn’t decided. His room is right next to hers, but she isn’t brave enough to knock, yet. She needs to write a couple of lists, let herself cry, even, and then call her sister. They still haven’t had time to talk between the desperate hugging and “thank you”s. Claire was sure her sister would never want to speak to her again, but she was mostly just grateful her children were still alive.
It was all Owen, really. She didn’t think she’d done anything truly heroic, no matter what a select few reporters were saying. It was all her fault, wasn’t it?
And, oh, God, Zara. She needed to plan Zara’s funeral, didn’t she? Unless her family was going to… but then again, Zara never really spoke about her family, but was that because she was scared that Claire would fire her, or just because she didn’t have any family to speak of? Oh, God, oh God, it was all her fault she was the one that sent Zara after Zach and Gray and she was the one that insisted Zara find them and she was the one that let them make the I-Rex and she was the one…
Claire shoved her head between her legs and breathed in, deep, like she used to in college when she had panic attacks. She thought she’d gotten over it, but obviously not, and now she couldn’t breathe and she just needed to do something, but all she could think about was how huge the Indominus Rex was and how terrified she’d felt pressed up against Owen in front of the tiny car, and how she felt for sure that in that moment, she was going to die.
She could practically feel its white, blood-covered teeth snapping her in two, and she wanted to break down and sob but she couldn’t because it would hear her. She thought to herself, right then, this is how I’m going to die. And she was next to Owen and she couldn’t breathe and — and she was okay now. I’m safe now, she tells herself, breathing hard.
At least she was finally out of those godforsaken shoes, showered and clean for what felt like the first time in years, even though she logically knew it had only been a few days. Claire looked at the clock on the microwave in her room and her eyes widened. She hadn’t realized how long the attack had lasted, but wasn’t that how it usually went? What felt like a terrible twenty minutes was actually an hour, and now here she was, awake at three AM and nowhere near sleep.
Before she knew what she was doing, she strode over to the mini-fridge and pulled out a bottle. She could do this. She survived the I-Rex, didn’t she? She could survive the aftermath, too.
She slipped her room key in the pocket of her loose sweatpants and slipped out her door. She must’ve stood in front of Owen’s door for an hour before she could bring herself to knock. Claire worried that he’d still be asleep, but he opened the door almost immediately, not bleary-eyed at all. Claire couldn’t help but notice that he was shirtless, wearing an almost identical pair of pants to the ones she had on. They looked better on him, though.
She held up the bottle in greeting, and he raised his eyebrows, widening the door as an answer.
“Why didn’t you call me?” she blurts, halfway through the bottle of tequila. She had a pretty high tolerance, but after being put through the hell that they were, she thought she deserved more than just a few drinks. Her cheeks flush after his eyes lock on hers for a little too long, but she doesn’t look away. She needs to know, for… scientific reasons.
He just shrugs, almost as drunk as she is, and says, “Didn’t think you wanted me to.”
She doesn’t know what to say. “I thought I didn’t.”
“Claire,” he starts, his eyes softer than she’d ever seen them, and then he’s on her, suddenly everywhere all at once. (It’s like a bad habit that he has, kissing her out of nowhere, at the most unexpected times, when he knows he shouldn’t. Why couldn’t he have just kissed her after their date? It would’ve solved everything.)
She barely has time to set down the glass she was holding before she she tangles her fingers in his hair, moaning into his mouth. It’s too much, too much, she can’t think, she can’t breathe, she just wants more of him right now. She crawls into his lap, causing him to curse into her mouth, all warm breath and tongue. He doesn’t have a shirt on so there’s nothing she can use to pull him closer, so she settles on just tugging his hair, hoping he’ll get the message.
His hands are fisting in her top, shoving it upwards to touch the bare skin of her back, and she makes a high-pitched sound she didn’t think she was even capable of making.
His mouth moves to her neck, sucking and biting the skin there and she feels so hot, so hot and it feels so good and just, “Owen”, she whines, clawing at his back. More teeth, Gray had said, and that’s all she can think about now; more teeth, more teeth, more teeth, more Owen.
He pulls away a little, panting, and she lets out a choked breath. “Why’d you stop?” she asks, a little petulantly, and it makes him laugh a little.
“Don’t really want our first time to be drunk, do you?” he retorts, and her heart is still pounding and all she wants to do is say yes and just go at it, what’s the big deal? But he’s right, she knows he’s right. That doesn’t stop her from being a little angry about it though, because she can feel him, hard underneath her, and knows they could’ve. They end up spending the rest of the night on the couch watching infomercials and talking about the attack. She doesn’t want to, but she knows that she has to tell someone or she’ll explode. She could lie and say they didn’t see it coming, everything was fine, but that’s not true.
There were years of history telling them not to, and they went ahead and did it anyway.
“It’s not your fault,” he tells her, when they finally drag themselves to (his) bed. His arm feels so secure around her, and his breathing is steady, and she’s never felt like this about anyone before. And she really, really wants to believe him. So she snuggles into his side and tries to fall asleep, for once not caring about the fact that she has no idea what tomorrow will bring.