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Mae Turner has never really considered herself a “people’s person”.
For as long as she could remember, books and dinosaurs had been her entire life. She grew up in the library, ravenously devouring research journals and newspaper articles. When Jurassic Park was announced, she first tasted the bitter pill of reality as her parents had pointed out no company would hire a six-year-old. After a whole hour of brooding however, that had only kindled her spark even more.
By the time she was old enough to decide her degree, dinosaur studies were no longer so much paleontology as they were zoology.
She finished her studies, published her doctoral, acquired her PhD, and accepted the job at a remote Mantah Corp research facility without even remembering the name of her peers, or the face of her academic instructor. The day she boarded the research vessel, only her mother bothered to give her a goodbye hug.
No matter. She had her own office, the best equipment money could buy, and nobody to speak to except the supplies delivery staff once a month. It had been exactly what she had always wanted. It had been perfect.
It had been lonely.
And then came the indignity of that oaf Kash and her boss. The less said about that, the better. The children though, she had not foreseen. Nor could she have predicted how they would worm their ways into her heart and carve a space there for themselves alongside her dinosaurs, like different niches of one ecosystem existing in harmony.
Or how they would still be here, after all these years.
Her tablet still in hand, Mae paused on her way to the med bay as the sound of laughter echoing from her assistant’s bedroom. Even though the famed Nublar Six have all gone their separate ways, they tried to make time to call each other at least once per day, to keep their love and bond alive. The chorus of their voices were now as much of a daily occurrence in her research facility as the calls of the dinosaurs, but one voice in particular would more often than not be coming from the same side as Ben and not distorted by the electronic world connecting them.
Darius Bowman. He stayed at the island so often that they had pretty much designated one of the spare bedrooms to be his.
She shrugged. Darius was a dinosaur fanatic and Ben was bonded to not one but two living dinosaurs, of course he would have plenty of reason to visit. She double tapped her tablet to turn it on again, and continued with her work.
| | | |
Mae massaged her temple with some displeasure as she typed her report into her computer, along with a requisition for a construction crew and extra medical supplies in the morning. She chuckled despite herself―the Nublar Six seemed to have a knack for attracting trouble to themselves no matter how many of them were actually gathered.
With more dinosaurs in the world than ever before, her little island had become a safe haven to care the sick and wounded among them, especially from the fear and discrimination of people who didn’t know better. After some talks with herself and the staff of BioSyn, Darius had promptly arrived with an injured Edmontosaurus in tow. Things had been going well, until the poor dear’s sedative had worn off while they were trying to move him into the med bay, causing a small rampage that had taken down a section of the eastern wall and given Ben some fractured ribs as he took a swipe of the dinosaur’s tail to his midsection. Darius and herself were fortunately unharmed, but the poor boy had screamed himself almost hoarse trying to find Ben among the rubble, and had volunteered to patch him up by himself so Mae could go and write her report.
Mae was thankful for the help, though her heart ached for them. It wasn’t her place to pry, but from snippets that the campers had told her she had been able to piece together that Darius and Ben had gone through something rather traumatic together on Nublar, the kind that made deep lasting bonds between the parties involved.
As Mae pondered on this, the door to her office opened and Darius stepped in. He was almost as tall as her shoulder now, and there was a maturity in the way he spoke and carried himself. His eyes still shone with that unquenchable childish curiosity, and he smiled at her, ever polite.
“I think it’s time I get going. Goodnight, Mae.”
Mae felt her eyebrows arch up. “You’re leaving?”
“Yeah, Ben’s stable and the ship to the mainland’s about to depart. Not much to do but check in on him every couple hours or so. Can you...?”
Mae smiled at him easily. “Sure thing, love. Leave it to me.”
“Thanks.” He grinned, then it turned into a small frown as he glanced back at the direction of the infirmary. “He’s... not gonna be pleasant when he wakes up. I had to give him some painkillers to help him through it and, well, you know how that stuff is.”
Mae cringed at the memories of her own behavior under the influence of the ghastly substance. “I may have some experience with that,” she said, squaring her shoulder and looking as seriously as she was about to confront another corrupt CEO. “Never fear, Darius, I know exactly how to handle it.”
Another string of chuckles and polite goodbyes, and Darius was picking up his backpack and out of her door. Some time later, a ship’s horn cut through the silence to signify her of his departure.
It took her another hour to finish her report, then after hitting send she decided to get up for a stretch and to check in on Ben. He turned to look at her as she stepped into the infirmary and turned on the light, a loopy smile stretching his face.
“Heeeeeeeeeeey Mae,” he slurred. “Help a guy out here, would ya? I’d go check on Bumpy, but I can’t seem to get my legs to cooperate.” As if to prove his point, the boy’s legs shuffled under his blanket in an uncoordinated manner, like he was riding an invisible bicycle.
“Darius insisted that you rest, Ben,” Mae said softly as she rested a hand on his forehead. Seemed normal enough, but it could never hurt to be careful.
“Bah, Dawius!” Ben said, the words distorted as Mae stuck a thermometer into his mouth. “Who does that little nerd think he is, ordering me around like that?”
“Your friend, maybe?” Mae took out the thermometer and gave it a look. Temperature was stable, so risk of infection seemed minimal.
“Yeah right!” Ben said in distaste as if the word repulsed him. “If he was remotely my friend he wouldn’t torture me like this.”
“He means well,” Mae tutted as she put a small flashlight to Ben’s eye to examine his pupil dilation. He seemed not to notice, instead looking wildly around the room as if searching for a spectre.
“Has... has he gone?”
“Yes, dear.”
She was not expecting the grief-stricken expression crossing his face. Her hands instantly went for the pen and notebook on his nightstand―perhaps his injuries had been more severe than expected?
“D-Did he say if he was coming back?”
Now that was an unusual question. Darius would probably be back before the week was over, if his past visits had been anything to go by. “Why would he not?”
Instead of an answer, all she got was a wail of despair.
“Ugh, I’m such an idiot!”
“Ben, I’m afraid I don’t follow, darling.”
When he did not answer her still, Mae decided to press her fingers to the side of his neck, where the artery would be. His pulse was slightly elevated, but that could easily have been from his current emotional state. He turned to look at her, eyes glazed over as if daydreaming.
“You’re still here, at least.”
“Sweetie, I live here,” she said comfortingly before withdrawing her hands and making some notes to check the validity of the painkillers later on. “And I’m quite sure Bumpy can feed herself for one night.”
“It’s not about freaking Bumpy! It’s himself that he’s denying me from!”
Mae’s fingers froze in the middle of her note-taking and she felt her cheeks heat up. The nature of Darius and Ben’s relationship had been a subject of much debate and even gossip among the Nublar Six, and Brooklynn had even invited her into a betting pool on whether the two boys were ever going to get their act together. She had declined, of course, but it seemed she would be the one to put that bet to rest after all. Still, having to find out from Ben as he was drugged out of his mind felt... wrong, somehow. Unethical.
“God, he’s so beautiful, Mae! So. Beautiful!” Ben went on, punctuating each word with a growl, lost in some distant memories that Mae was not privy to. “I thought I’d lost him forever when I fell from that tram, but then I found him again, and lost him again, and again and again! Even with the Scorpios or Hawkes or Kash gone, I still keep losing him!”
“Sleep will do you wonders, love,” Mae said, closing her notebook with a decisive snap and reached out to pull up his blanket. “Go on, try to get some shut-eye. There’s a good lad.”
“If only he was still here.” Ben’s expressions were taking on a dreamy look now. “Then he could be the one to tuck me to bed.”
“Whatever you say, darling.“
“I had him right here! I had him in my hands!” Ben said, gripping the blanket in front of him like it were a shirt collar. “And then he was gone. Just like that.”
“Ben, really. That’s quite enough of this talk, don’t you think?”
Ben sighed dejectedly, covering his face with one hand. “I disgust him, Mae.”
“Now you’re just talking nonsense.”
“Then why does he always leave me?! Why does he keep going back to that mean world outside instead of staying in our little safe haven?!”
“Well, uh... Someone with a heart as pure as his, I imagine he’d want you to keep all your wits about you before you guys discuss anything serious?” Mae suggested as she busied herself with his bedsheet, deliberately not looking him in the eye. “There’s already been enough hurt between the two of you, I can see why he’d err on the side of caution.”
Ben huffed and rolled his eyes, and so Mae finally decided to overstep her professional boundaries and delivered the final blow. “Thing is, Ben, what’s important isn’t that you always lose him, but that you always find each other again.”
Ben stared at her for a moment, before his face broke out into a dopey smile once more. “Daaaaamn. You’re smart, Mae. You would give my English teacher a run for her money.”
“Sure thing, love.” Mae chuckled and patted his shoulder affectionately, then tried to add with as much strictness as possible, “Now go on, to bed with you.”
“Goodnight, Mae.”
“Goodnight, Ben.”
She turned off the lights to the infirmary and closed the door behind her, then went back to her own bedroom, pondering the events of the night along the way. Darius had seemed like his normal self when he was saying goodbye to her, it was hard to imagine he had just rejected Ben mere minutes before. Perhaps the sedatives had simply been too strong and Ben had seen his own fantasies come to life?
Or, perhaps, Darius was just as adept at deceiving his own heart as he was deceiving villains.
By next morning, Bumpy was happily eating out of Yaz’ hands as the Nublar Six had assembled to take care of their invalid friend, and to bug Mae in general and disrupt her work. And honestly? She couldn’t find it in herself to complain.
Ben didn’t wake until noon, and if he possessed any recollection of last night, he did not show it.
| | | |
Eventually Ben was well enough to physically wrestle with dinosaurs on a daily basis again, and their lives resumed. Then came the locust debacle that occupied everyone’s attention for several months, until one morning saw Mae spending her breakfast watching Dr. Wu’s confessions on the news, and that his solution to redeem himself by neutralizing the plaguing insects was working smoothly. She was on her way to her lab later on when a sight made her stop dead in her tracks: from one of the windows, she could see Firecracker, now grown enough to easily tower over buildings. The great dinosaur was gently snoring in the early breeze, and sitting against her belly was Darius.
And Ben was straddling his lap.
Her first instinct was to look away, lest she intrude on a clearly very intimate and private moment. But her innate scientific curiosity won out, forcing her eyes to glue themselves to the spectacle, even stepping up to the window for a better look.
Two figures below, one dark and gentle and the other bright and fierce, locked in some conversation for their ears only, their noses touching. Darius’ hands were resting casually on either sides of Ben’s hip like they had always belonged there, while the latter was having his own cupping Darius’ face as if handling the most delicate of relics.
They exchanged looks, whispers, laughter (one of them loud enough to even make it to where Mae was standing) until at last their lips met. Hands began to move until the sight of Ben’s pale lower back, revealed by his drawn up shirt from Darius’ caressing, shocked Mae like an electric jolt. She hurriedly stepped away and went on with her business, scolding herself for looking but unable to stop smiling.
She had to feed the dinosaurs all by herself that night.
Hours later, Mae was about to turn in for the night when she once more heard voices from Ben’s bedroom as he and Darius had their phone call with the rest of the gang. As usual Darius and Ben’s voice were perfectly natural while the rest of the campers went through an electronic filter. Mae went on with her preparations, shut her lights, then crawled into bed.
It did not escape her that after the phone call ended, there was no footstep leaving Ben’s room.
| | | |
Not much changed in their daily routines after that, save for the fact that Darius and Ben tended to whisper to themselves more, that Darius asked her for the WiFi password of the island, that occasionally it fell to Mae to give Bumpy heat pats and scritches before bedtime because the dinosaur’s master wouldn’t open his bedroom window, that there were now two gifts for her on Christmas and her birthday. The changes came slowly, subtle as the thawing snow after winter, that she didn’t realize spring was here until its warmth was shining on her face.
That warmth came to her on one particular morning. It had just been Darius’ birthday the night before, and her little research compound had been filled with conversation and laughter as the entirety of Camp Cretaceous―including Dave and Roxie―and his family had come to the island to celebrate it. Food and drinks flowed, Darius had blown out his birthday candles (hand in hand with Ben) and they had sat and reminisced until the early hours of the morning. When dawn broke, Mae had decided to go with the guests to see them off the island herself, and as she walked back to her lab from the docks, a sight suddenly hit her that made her realize several things at once.
That there was now an extra pile of laundry and mail at the end of each week.
That the guest room for Darius was just a regular guest room now.
That Darius’ name hadn’t appeared on the passenger list for the supply ships for... how long has it been? Mae attempted to make the calculations in her head and realized the date of the change escaped her.
That sight was Darius himself, greeting her at the lab’s entrance, with a smile rivaling the sun.
“Hey Mae, fancy seeing you out here!” he said, ever cheerful. “Figured I should get an early start on the Kentrosaurus dung report. Some parts of last week’s analysis were really― are you okay?”
He paused in the middle of his ramblings, concern flashing across his face as he took in her expression. Mae gave her head a tiny shake to dispel the proverbial cobwebs and gave him her warmest, sincerest smile.
“Nothing, Darius. Just glad to be home.”