The first thing he becomes aware of is the absence of pain, and the curious sensation of floating, like being cushioned inside a fluffy cloud. His head feels fuzzier than before, but it doesn't seem to hurt, and for several moments he revels in the feeling, not daring to move.
Unfortunately, too soon, a weird little noise from across the room makes his eyes shoot open.
"Hey, buddy," Dustin says gently from a chair across the couch, lowering the comic book he's been reading. "Feeling any better?"
Steve gets up into the sitting position, wincing, and his head pounds just a little, vaguely and as if from a long way away.
"Yeah, actually." He rubs his eyes. "What time is it?"
"Seven o'clock. You slept for three hours. Good thing I brought entertainment." Dustin taps the small pile of books and comics on the table next to him. "Seriously, for rich people's home, this place is super boring."
"Tell me about it. You mentioned something about chicken soup…?"
"Yeah, it's in the kitchen," he says, as Steve proceeds towards it, "though it's probably cold by now."
"I really don't care, I'm so hungry I could eat a –"
At the kitchen door, Steve stops in his tracks. For a few moments, he simply stares, unsure if he's dreaming or really hallucinating this time. He walks back to the living room and looks at Dustin until the kid raises his head.
"What did you with the pile of dishes?"
"I washed them," Dustin says matter-of-factly.
"You… washed them," Steve repeats.
Dustin nods.
"You washed that entire thing," he says again, vaguely aware that he's repeating himself, but his brain feels too hazy for this kind of life change to register.
"Yep."
Steve blinks.
"You actually washed all of those –"
"No, I hosted a yard sale while you were sleeping and sold them. Yes I washed them, what do you think I did? They're in the cupboards."
"Jesus," Steve mutters.
He sits down on the couch, feeling his eyes burn. It's this stupid illness, making him all mushy –
Crack.
Steve jumps. Something that sounds like a tiny firecracker going off comes from the floor where Dustin's backpack is lying. It twitches several times, making that noise again, and then it stops.
"Okay – I saw that, and I am not hallucinating," Steve says, as Dustin opens his mouth. "Spill. What's in it?"
Dustin scrambles for the backpack and places it on his lap, putting a hand over it protectively.
"It's nothing, okay?"
"It's not nothing, nothing doesn't jump around and make weird noises!" Steve yells. "Now what the hell is going on?"
Dustin looks panicked for a few moments, then he heaves a great, huffy sigh.
"Son of a bitch. I was gonna wait for the right moment, but seeing as you just won't let things go," he says, glaring, "guess I'll tell you now. But…" He sighs again. "Okay, it's a huge secret and I need you to promise you won't tell anyone."
"Fine, whatever. I promise."
Dustin shakes his head. "Not good enough. Swear on something you love. Swear on your hair."
"Dustin, if you don't tell me right now, I swear to God –"
"Alright, alright. But you promised, okay? Means you can never ever tell, no matter what."
"Fine, I won't," Steve says, and sits back down. "Jesus, what's with all the secrecy?"
"None of the guys know about this. Nobody knows." Dustin opens his backpack and carefully reaches inside.
Steve doesn't know what he's been expecting, but it's definitely not what he sees. An oval object of some sort comes out, like a smooth, dirty white rock a bit smaller than a basketball. Dustin places it on the table, not before making a sort of nest for it out of the backpack so it could stand upright.
Steve gets up from the couch and sits on a chair next to Dustin.
"What the hell…?"
"It's an egg," Dustin says, beaming.
Steve lowers his head closer to it, examining the faded patches of green on the surface that look as if someone took watercolors and made a few random splashes. He places a tip of his finger on one of the thin fissures shooting from the top downwards.
"Where did you get this?" he asks.
"I found it in the woods when I was returning from Mike's one day."
"And you just… took it."
"I didn't take it right away," Dustin says defensively. "I thought the mom or the dad might come back for it, so I left it. But they didn't, Steve, it just sat there in the leaves for days all by itself, and it's so cold, I didn't want it to die. So I brought it home. I made a nest for it out of some old clothes and put it under this lamp. I thought it was dead already 'cause nothing was happening for like a week, but yesterday it started making these cracking noises, and see this?" He points at the fracture nexus on the top of the egg. "I think it's about to hatch," he says with excitement.
As if to confirm his prediction, the egg does a small jump. Another tiny crack appears.
"Okay, you need to get this thing out of here," Steve says.
"Where am I gonna take it, Steve? I can't take it back home. If it's a bird I don't want Tews to eat it, and if it's like a lizard or something…"
"… You don't want it to eat Tews," Steve finishes. He puts a hand over his forehead and sighs.
Dustin shrugs, looking down.
"Mom's really attached to her," he mumbles. "After Mews…" He trails off.
Steve puts another hand over his forehead. "What do you think it's going to be anyway?" he says resignedly.
"No idea. I looked it up in some library books, but I couldn't find anything similar. Like it's really big, most birds' eggs are much smaller."
"What about a bald eagle?"
"Size of a tennis ball."
Through the haze in his head, Steve tries to remember the more dangerous possibilities of Indiana wildlife they've learned in school about.
"Are there like… alligators here?"
"I'm not sure," Dustin says. "I don't think so. In any case, their eggs get kind of squishy when they're about to hatch, this one's still rock hard. It doesn't look like any lizard or snake egg I found in the books either. Which means… new species," he says, grinning.
Steve sighs again as Dustin strokes the egg lovingly.
As if it's been waiting for that cue all along, something that looks like a wisp of smoke starts coming out of the cracks on the top.
Frowning, Steve glances at Dustin. He may not have paid attention to most of his Biology classes, but do eggs normally do this…?
Dustin's expression tells him they don't.
The egg starts vibrating on the table, and small bits of the upper shell start falling away like rubble. The smoke intensifies, and after a few seconds, the whole thing crumbles as a lizard type of thing jumps out.
It looks like nothing Steve has ever seen before. It's the size of a young cat and mostly covered in slime, with its back all wrinkly and crumpled and a long, slim, alligator-like tail at the end. Under the slime, it appears to be dirty white in color, with uneven, vaguely green patches all over its body.
Expecting to find a mirrored expression of disgust on Dustin's face, Steve looks at him.
The kid's face looks as if Christmas has come early, and he's just heard he's getting all his birthday presents at the same time.
Steve looks back at the creature. It opens its eyes, and they are big and somehow beautiful, a dazzling pale green of first life in spring. It looks up at them and blinks, then it shakes off like a wet dog, causing some of the slime to splatter on the kitchen table.
As it does this, Steve realizes it isn't its body that's crumpled after all. It's something else.
Stemming from just behind its head, pressed into its back like those of a newly transformed butterfly, there are two translucent wings.
Slowly, hesitantly, as if it's just realized they're there, the creature spreads them.
"Uh," Steve begins. "This isn't, like, a…" He stops. Because of course it isn't. It's stupid to even think –
"Yes," Dustin says in awe. "It is."
The creature blinks at them, as if confused itself, then gives a tentative flap with its wings.
"No," Steve says weakly, the air from the motion blowing his hair from his face. "It isn't."
Blinking rapidly, the creature lowers its head and opens its mouth. From somewhere behind the tiny, needle-like teeth, in the dark red depths of its throat, a glowing flame rolls forth. They both jump, overturning their chairs as the fire shoots between them and towards the ceiling. It fades away before reaching it, leaving a huge black mark in the corner.
For a moment, except for the sound of heavy, terrified breathing, everything is silent.
Dustin is the first one to speak.
"You were saying?"
A/N: Please let me know what you think! :D