Title: A Relationship Based on Mutual Respect

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not

Rating: PG/K+

Summary: "How many times do I have to say it, woman?" Alec hissed over the comms. "Dinosaurs don't make good pets!" 1000 words.

Spoilers: Post-series for Leverage; set mid-Jurassic World

Notes: Written for Fiona_nk, who asked for: "Leverage/Jurassic World; Parker, Alec Hardison, Owen Grady. 'How many times do I have to say it, woman? Dinosaurs don't make good pets!'" Title from an Owen quote from the movie. Barry's last name borrowed from elsewhere in the fanverse, because I couldn't find a canon one. Originally posted to LJ on January 3rd.

"How many times do I have to say it, woman?" Alec hissed over the comms. "Dinosaurs don't make good pets!"

He could see what Parker was doing over the internal cameras, in the hold of the boat they'd commandeered to transfer the velociraptors from Jurassic World to the preserve at Site B. Watching his girl crouch over one of the most efficient killing machines known to nature, staring intently into its slowly-blinking, drugged-up eye, was making him more nervous than facing down a Sterenko. Even with its alpha trainer crouched right there cooing soothing noises to it, you couldn't have paid him to be that close to a raptor. At least where he was, Alec had access to all the tools he needed- laptop, antenna, and the boat's power systems- to rig a version of the park's e-fences to shock the raptors' skin, not just implants, if he had to. He'd done it around the perimeter of the park's Main Street while Eliot and the ACU crew hunted the I-Rex; it would be even easier a second time.

Now that had been some crazy shit. It was a good thing they'd already sent Eliot under with the Asset Containment Units before the script had changed on them; no one had been expecting the Indominus Inquisition, especially not the guy who'd hired them. If Eliot hadn't been manning the big gun in the chopper- well, Masrani's guys had come damn close to chasing that locomotive of teeth and fury into the Aviary as it was. Whose brilliant idea had it been not to chip the flying monsters like every other damn dinosaur on the island? Alec had been horrified when his hack of the control network had turned up that little omission.

"Aw, are you sure?" Parker replied, leaning closer to examine a scary-sharp sickle claw. Over the comms, she sounded wistful and a little pouty, like when she had cash in her hands and had to hand it over to someone else. "I know we can't keep these ones, we already promised Barry we'd rescue them from that Hoskins guy, and they might eat the clients. But what about one of the babies from the zoo?"

Alec knew she was probably only seeing the money-colored scales and the potential applications of an unusual, trainable animal partner, not what they'd have to do to keep an actual, full-grown dinosaur happy at the brewpub back home. Nevermind the laws about exotic pets; just feeding and housing a prehistoric Fido would be a nightmare. The smallest dinos in the park were the compies, which weren't exactly herbivores, and even though some of the big boys did come in cute infant sizes...

He abruptly remembered seeing her coo over the chicken-sized, newly-hatched gallimimus in the arms of the ranger lady in the petting zoo, and blanched. The adult ones were better than six feet tall just at the hip. "Parker, tell me you didn't already steal one," he groaned.

"Okay, I won't tell you," she chirped in reply, straightening up so the camera could see the way her souvenir hoodie bunched in the front... complete with a little lizard head poking its nose up out of the neckline.

"Steal one what?" Barry asked. The assistant raptor trainer had come along to drive the boat; and because no matter how grateful the park manager might be that 'Owen's Friends' had rescued her and her nephews in the process of collecting the raptors' alpha and convincing him it was time to go, the climate on Isla Nublar would be pretty dangerous for both trainers once iNGen realized their prized living-weapon program had disappeared.

Alec raised his eyebrows and spun the laptop around so Barry could see the screen. "Tell me it's a veggiesaurus, at least," he winced. He'd picked up the term from one of the rare interviews Lex Murphy had given before the park opened, recommending that Jurassic World stick to herbivores if they really intended to honor her grandfather's legacy.

Barry frowned at the screen. "Is that the gally from Gentle Giants? Yes, it's an herbivore, but... the caretaker will be out of her mind with worry!"

From the look on Owen Grady's face as the inquisitive little dino turned its head to take a look at him, and the emphatic gestures Alec could see him directing at Parker, the other trainer was expressing much the same opinion, though Alec couldn't quite make out the words over the comm. Not that it was going to do Grady much good, from the tilt of Parker's chin. "Well, it's too late to take it back now. We'll have to leave it on Sorna with the others."

"But they'll eat her," Parker objected, directing the words to all of them. "She'll be safer with me!"

"Parker, she'll be bigger than a horse when she's full grown," Alec hinted.

Parker gasped, covering the dinosaur's earholes with her hands. "Don't insult her like that!" she objected, glancing up at the camera with a frown.

When Barry Devoe had pitched them the job, Alec been too busy geeking out over Henry Wu's genius and diving into iNGen's secret corporate memos to verify the trainer's suspicions to really consider what it would be like to actually see and touch the resurrected animals; he supposed he shouldn't fault Parker for the same, especially since she'd probably missed out on the usual dinosaur-manic phase in her childhood.

"Well, we did say we operated on an alternate revenue stream," he joked, wryly; the rest of the argument could wait 'til Eliot was there to back him up.

"Merde," Barry swore in disgruntled French.

Alec snorted, then perked up as a shape popped up on the radar.

They'd successfully stolen five dinosaurs. Whatever happened next? They'd already raised the bar. Let Nate try to top this one next time they traded stories.

"Speaking of streams," he said, grinning. "We're almost at the dock. Parker? Time to back off and let Mr. Grady go to work."

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