Egg
“Billy,” Teddy called from the bathroom.
“What?”
“I… Just come here.”
They stood there, together, looking at the egg in the bathtub.
“What am I looking at here?”
“I… think I just gave birth.”
“Do you call it birth if it’s an egg?”
“I just laid an egg, then.”
“Huh.”
“Maybe it’s not fertilized yet?” Billy volunteered optimistically, standing over the egg. It was slightly slimy and stuck to the floor of the tub in viscous goo.
“I don’t even know if it has to be fertilized. There could be a living creature in there already.”
“Like a lizard?” Billy always wanted a pet lizard. His mother said cats were more beneficial to stress-relief. Billy was allergic to cats. He got nothing.
Teddy looked at Billy quietly, exhaling through his nose. He seemed like he was counting backwards from ten. He was mouthing the numbers, at least. He stopped at five. “No, Bill. Like a person. A Skrull-slash-Kree-slash-human. Part reptile, part cockroach, part wizard.”
Billy’s stomach flipped. “I’m going to be sick,” he admitted, clutching his torso.
“No,” Teddy said calmly. “You’re going to be dead.”
“The fruit of my loins,” Billy proudly announced. Kate twisted the egg in her palm, inspecting.
Teddy hung his head in his hands, elbows perched on the dining table. “Oh, my god. I don’t know how, but the Skrull Empire is going to find out I have a predecessor and invade Earth. Because of me. Again. And then the Kree government is going to go, Hey, I wonder what those green bastards are doing! And they are going to also invade Earth. Because of me. Again.”
“It needs a face,” Kate decided, placing the egg on the counter gently and heading off in search of a marker.
Billy patted the egg gently on the head. “You haven’t even held him yet. Before you go off predicting the end of the world — you laid an egg! How cool! You’re like a xenomorph or something!”
“A xenopmorph,” Teddy repeated numbly. He cocked his head, looking at Billy curiously. “Where did you get such charm with men? If it weren’t for you, I don’t think I’d ever have been called a xenomorph. Least not in a positive way. In fact, I don’t think I’d be in this situation at all if it weren’t for you.”
“Hey, let’s not go pointing fingers,” Billy warned, pointing his finger. “You were completely fine without the condom that night, if I recall.”
Kate returned, marker in hand, and began to doodle on the egg.
Teddy shook his head. “I didn’t think that — I didn’t think I would get pregnant! I didn’t think that far ahead. I didn’t think that it would — that my organs would…” Teddy watched in a numb sort of way as Kate drew, watched the careful loops and curves of the marker.
“Again, I don’t think you can really call it ‘getting pregnant,’” Billy air-quoted. “You laid an egg. You didn’t give birth.”
Kate gave the egg a mustache.