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“Owen! Owen, they’re hatching!”
Barry’s soft accent bursts across the radio with a crackle of static, and Owen jerks awake, flailing his arm out to grab it.
“What? Wh-,” Owen blurts out, before realizing he didn’t have the talk button pressed. Compressing it, he speaks into the receiver, feeling his heart going a mile a minute. “What did you say, Barry?”
“They’re hatching! The raptors!” Barry replies frantically. Owen can hear the raw note of excitement in his friend’s tone. “Get your ass over here! Vite!”
The radio crackles into silence as Owen drops it on his pillow, hopping up out of bed. Searching around on the floor, he finds the dirty pair of jeans he’d dropped there earlier. Rushing to his chest of drawers, he yanks out an old tank top, throwing it on over his bare chest. The Coca Cola label is faded and cracked with age.
Rushing out of the bungalow, Owen hastily shoves his bare feet into the closest pair of work boots he can find, jumping the few feet off the porch. Stumbling a little, he lurched forward toward his motorcycle, throwing his leg over the seat. Seconds later, he’s speeding off down the path towards the park, throwing up pebbles and dirt at every sharp turn he slides through.
Normally it takes Owen about 20 minutes to get to the park from his bungalow, but letting out the throttle on his bike, he skids in front of the Innovation Center is under 11. Not bothering to park the bike properly, he quickly shuts the engine off and darts up the stairs, yanking the double doors open.
There are no visitors at this time, thankfully, it being just past 3:30 in the morning. Owen is more thankful for that than ever as he skids past the memorial statue of Dr. Hammond, giving it a fond pat for luck as he points himself towards the Creation Lab entrance.
Owen doesn’t have clearance to get to the lab through the back door, so he pushes his way through the visitors entrance, where he finds Barry waiting for him.
“Took you long enough, ami. Let’s go, it’s almost time!” Barry says when Owen stops in front of him, grabbing his arm to pull him towards the door into the lab.
Owen has only been in here once before, when the scientists responsible for the velociraptors told him they were expecting a new patch of eggs. These eggs will hatch the raptors that will become Barry and Owen’s new behavioral project – to see if they can be taught commands.
That had been two weeks ago. Barry and Owen have both been on “baby watch”, as Barry affectionally calls it, ever since then.
There were a group of scientists huddled around the small incubator, as well as the main scientist, Dr. Wu. He waves them both over with a smile.
“Boys, these are your raptors,” Dr. Wu says, turning back to look through the glass dome. Owen can’t help the fission of thrill that shoots through his stomach as he lays eyes on the five medium sized eggs in the incubator. Three of them were rocking slightly – they’d be hatching soon.
“As you can see, we’re incredibly close now. I’d give them another twenty minutes or so before we see them all,” Dr. Wu continues, “I know you two will be working with them in the nursery and beyond, but it would still be nice if you’re one of the first things they see. It’ll make the imprinting process much easier on down the line.”
Barry nods at this, and pulls Owen a little closer to the incubator with a hand on his arm. The two of them knell down, putting them at eye level with the shivering eggs. Four of the eggs are moving steadily now, but Owen is focused on the one in the back, which hadn’t began to show any sign of movement.
Owen feels Barry’s fingers squeeze into the flesh of his arm, and he glances over, giving him a small smile. Barry returns it, the white of his teeth bright even in the glare of the overhead lights. He can’t help the light feeling of warmth that dances across his skin from where Barry’s hand is still on his arm. This is bad.
“You’re in deep, buddy,” he chides himself.
Barry and Owen have been dancing around their feelings for each other for months now; always acting like parallel lines, never intersecting. And now that they’re going to be spending practically every day with each other raising these raptors, Owen isn’t sure if he can continue to keep them bottle up inside.
For now though, he doesn’t have time to continue to dwell on it, as the first soft noise comes from inside the incubator. The left most egg has begun to crack open – Owen can hear the soft scrap of razor sharp claws against the inside of the shell.
After that, it’s almost like a domino effect. As the first shell begins to chip, the egg to the right of it also begins to rock and crack. Owen could see the very tip of a sharp, dark claw poking its way through.
“Oh, mon dieu…” Barry whispers, pressing the tips of his fingers to the bottom part of the dome.
Owen can see his breath condense on glass. He smiles at the sight, turning back to the eggs. One of the raptors is almost completely out by now, one little arm stuck out of the shell. He feels his breath catch when he sees her face for the first time.
He can feel Barry doing the same thing next to him, and Owen reaches out to grip his knee, squeezing slightly. He isn’t even concerned with how this looks to any of the scientists here – it’s an emotional moment for the two of them.
All of the other eggs have begun to crack now, including the smaller one in the very back, even though it only has the littlest sliver in the shell. The very first raptor’s shell has completely cracked open and the baby is gazing up from out of the amniotic fluid that is still wrapped around it.
“Bonjour, mon bébé,” Barry breathes, as the little raptor looks their way. It’s difficult to see with the sheen of fluid on her body, but Owen can make out several mottled green patches all over her body.
The little raptor snaps her jaws, turning its head to look at the other shells. The next raptor has made its own appearance, the pieces of shell pushed out of the boundary of the cradle that holds the egg. She is almost the twin of the first raptor, but with a longer stripe of green along her tail.
It takes another ten minutes, but finally all five eggs are hatched, and the little raptors are nosing around inside their small incubator. The smallest one continues to draw Owen’s eyes, especially as she is colored so differently from the rest of her pack mates. Where the majority of the raptors have mottled green skin, hers is a skin much closer to blue, vivid and shiny under the amniotic fluid that still clings to her skin.
“Thinking of any names, gentlemen?” Dr. Wu asks, grinning at the awed looks Owen knows is evident across his and Barry’s face.
Barry nods. “Bravo, Charlie, Delta…”
“Echo, Foxtrot,” Owen finishes for him, “but now that I see that little one, I think her name should be Blue instead, because of her coloring.”
Barry glances back at the incubator, and Owen watches as his eyes follow the small blue raptor.
“Yeah, I like that for her too,” Barry whispers, letting his fingertips linger on the glass once more. “Owen will be the Alpha, I think. He’s perfect for it.”
Owen glances at Barry, wondering where that had come from. They’ve talked about it before – Owen has more experience in animal behaviors, but he has figured they’ll both act as alphas to the raptors.
“Who’re you gonna be then?” he asks, nudging Barry’s shoulder.
“I just wanna be Barry,” Barry replies with a grin.
Dr. Wu smiles at this exchange before nodding to one of the other scientists behind him, who scribbles something onto the clipboard in her hand.
“Well, there’s not much else you can do for now. We’re going to get them moved to their little area in the nursery, where they’ll be for the next few months, until they can be out in their own paddock,” Dr. Wu explains, leading Owen and Barry over to the door of the lab.
“We’ll get in contact with you when they’re ready to be worked with in the nursery – you two will be their primary caregivers now, as you know. It should be sometime tomorrow night. Go get some sleep, gentlemen. You’re in the time of your lives now.”
Barry beams as they both shake Dr. Wu’s hands before they duck through the door. Owen glances back at the raptors – their raptors, he thinks – who are now huddled together in the middle of the incubator. It makes his heart swell, as does the look on Barry’s face when he looks back at him.
“So this is what it’s like to be proper parents, huh? I’m already in love,” Barry murmurs, his accent full of warmth as they head out of the outer part of the lab.
“I think it must be, Bear. I’ve never felt anything like this before,” Owen responds, holding the door open into the front lobby of the Innovation Center for Barry to walk through.
They don’t speak for a few more minutes as they walk through the center – it is starting to wake up now, different park employees moving around. They all look a bit bleary eyed, but they’re all moving in an orderly fashion, getting everything together.
Barry checks his watch. “The diner should be open now – you wanna go get some food? Ice cream, maybe?”
“It’s 6am!” Owen laughs, stopping in his tracks as they pull up to his bike.
“So? It’s never too early for ice cream.”
Owen shakes his head. “Okay, yeah, I’ll split a pint of Ben and Jerry’s with you.”
“Chunky Monkey?” Barry asks, voice hopeful. It makes Owen’s stomach cramp with the same feelings from earlier. He still doesn’t want to put a finger on them, but he knows it’s too late to deny anything. Everything earlier had attested to that.
"You're fucked," the little voice inside Owen's head tells him.
“Yes, of course. It’s always Chunky Monkey.”
Barry beams at him, reaching up to ruffle Owen’s hair, before helping him to push his bike towards the gift shop.
It’s going to be an interesting year.