Odd Feathers

by SnowedLeopard

Summary:

Merasmus usually fumbles some spell or other each Halloween and gives the Teufort 9 some odd set of traits until they wear off. This year, though, they’re all oddly in the same vein. Wings.

The mercs learn to adjust.

(On hiatus! This fic will not be deleted or anything, rest assured, I just have no motivation to update.)

Notes:

I’ve basically been thinking there werent enough wingfics, and I already made designs over on my tumblr of everyone… so why not do this. Sorry it’s not the trucks and vans multichap I was promising. I’m without power for various reasons and this is currently being my comfort writing. I wrote and edited this alll on my phone aheh. I’m safe and all just… ao3 writers curse ig.

This’ll prolly be several loosely connected chapters focusing on everyone’s handling of having wings.

This also exists in a random little au idea I had that every costume the mercs have for Halloween is actually some spel gone wild from Merasmus. This one’s seems a little different though, certain that can’t mean anything… :)

When will this update? Idk… as I go. Your comments feed me motivation though! Even just a simple little “❤️” goes a long way.

Love you all, take care of yourselves, I should go sleep now, it’s 0100, good night - Gray

Chapter 1

Halloween was always a wild time for everyone involved. Mercenaries got tetchy, hijinks got hijinkier, hats got more outlandish, and taunts got more wild. All in all it gave Pauling and Administrator a headache to follow along, and every mercenary went a little up the wall… more so than usual.

Everything usually got relieved Halloween night, when the real shenanigans and odd body changes occurred, and they got to rally properly to fight some big haunted beast. Usually from Demoman’s eye socket, but hey, it worked. It reset them back to a low grade shenaniganry that was far more tolerable to old women in purple with delicate tastes.

The body changes usually wore off pretty fast.

Usually.

Sometimes a lingering effect or two continued on, like slightly furrier than usual legs and whatnot. But by in large, it resolved itself.

This year was especially stir crazy, both team’s Scouts were extraordinarily loud and bounced off the walls so much that it nearly seemed like they could hit orbit. Everyone’s chaotic and off target bullets would probably join them as well at this rate.

It was during one of these mad boundings through the air on Halloween that the RED scout managed to accidentally find Merasmus this year…. Via an accidental full body tackle. As Merasmus was just fading into view in a miasma of green smoke, Scout, on an unchangeavle trajectory, knocked him out of the sky mid spell like a bird strike on the runway gone even more wrong.

Every mercenary, all of whom had a hilarious and stellar view of the collision, raced towards the crash site, already filing away the mental footage for later teasing and taunting. As they rounded to the center of the map where the two lay tangled and battered, they jolted to a stop.

There, floating above the gangly and groaning mass of limbs was an erratically floating tome shining with a transfixing orange light. A whine built in the ears of everyone around as the book glowed to blinding levels.

And before any man knew it.

It exploded.

And everyone went down in a tangerine blaze.

 

Upon waking, the first thing Engineer felt was an extreme pain at his back, radiating all the way from his shoulder blades to his tailbone. Quickly, and fearing the worst, Dell took inventory. He laid flat on his stomach, drooling into the dirt. The slight click in his accelerated heartbeat said that Uber still worked. And the thrum beneath his bones said the same of respawn.

As Engineer fully moved into wakefulness he noticed the pain did not truly radiate from any one point. Still, with an unusual anxiety towards spinal breakages, he carefully twitched his arm and hand, the other arm and gunslinger, each leg and then-

Something twitched that could not before. In what he would later claim to be slow and calculated move (it was not), Dell swung his head around to stare at his back, suddenly aware of a great weight that wasn’t there before.

Upon him, baking in the sun alongside. Were Two. Massive. Wings.

Past them stuck out a little gray tail that matched the gray and white color scheme of the wings quite well. It too twitched at his instinctual attempt.

As Dell stumbled to his feet, still not quite grasping what was happening, he lurched forward, wings flaring back behind him. It seemed despite being able to control the wings innately, his balance was not so easily swayed to adjustment automatically.

He very carefully tried to fold them up, noting the odd way they clipped through his clothes like they weren’t there. Eventually the tail and wings laid mostly flat against him, though they still were quite tall, the wing tips just barely touching the ground if he slouched.

Dell took in his surroundings as well, now with a better vantage point without his face in the ground. It seemed every mercenary there had a similar pair of wings and tail. Oddly his team members seemed to also have facial markings. And as Dell brought a delicate hand to his cheek he realized he too had them. He knew not their color, but they went in a band around his face, similar to how his welding goggles currently sat.

Not a moment later the others began twitching awake as well, feathers fluttering involuntarily in the hot desert air.

It seems Engie wasn’t the only one startled up by this because faster than he could say it, everyone was up and checking their new limbs. The most intriguing responses were certainly the medics, who both had a mildly terrifying glint in their eye when looking at both their team and the enemy team, and the Spies who both seemed distressed at their current inability to maintain their usual grace, poise, and silence.

It all stuttered to a halt when Merasmus finally stumbled up, completely unchanged but just as bewildered as everyone else. He visibly tried to regain his poise before tripping back over his robes again, much to the laughter of the Scouts. The next time, upon his rising, he had an imperious look upon his face as he summoned the now only slightly smoking tome from the ground and glanced at its contents.

He squinted at his pages, looked back at the mercenaries, and then back at the pages before making a real magic act out of his eyebrows with how quickly they disappeared into his barely existent hairline.

He brought himself back to center with a shake of his head and held his arms out, dusty robe billowing slightly in the desert wind and bellowed.

“I, THE GREAT MERASMUS, HAVE CAST A GREAT AND TERRIBLE CURSE UPON YOU ALL, THE EFFECTS TO WHICH ARE KNOWN TO NONE BUT MERASMUS. AND MERASMUS IS NOT TELLING EITHER”

Demo just spoke what they all knew from his spot leaned against the wall “Ye’ don’t ken at all what ye did to us, do ye?” He gestured with both a swish of his hand and wing, in an interesting sync. It only sent him slightly off balance since he was braced, too.

Merasmus spluttered, hemmed, hawed, and made several excuses before rushing off in a cloud of smoke, no answered questions in the face of slowly irritating mercenaries that were both regaining proper balance and weapons, fixin for a fight.

As he disappeared, The Administrator boomed over the speaker, in her usual crackly combination of irritated, bored, and disgusted.

“Match dismissed for the day. Resolve yourselves swiftly for tomorrow's battle, or there will be consequences.”

Everyone rolled their eyes, this was the usual rigmarole for Halloween excluding the fact they didn’t even get a large scale battle against a floating eye monster. Talk about a let down. Weird additions and no new fight to fumble and shout through with new abilities? Merasmus was going to get his scrawny ass handed to him the next time he showed his face. At least there was tomorrow's fight to go do.

It’d be interesting having everyone have similar changes this time, though. Engineer already had experience with wings, but something told him this would be a lot different than the barely functioning fly wings from a while back. Something to these wings felt oddly solid in a way most of the magical mutations didn’t.

As they all slowly and haltingly walked back to the teleporter to take them back to base, Dell took stock of the wings around him.

His own were songbird-like, and oddly familiar. He eventually placed them as a shrikes wings. They were viscous little mother hubbers on the ranch. They always made sure to leave lots of their prey pinned on the barbed wire of the fence as a snack for later. That all gave Dell quite the startle when he was young, especially when said prey still wiggled. He still wasn’t quite sure how those itty bitty lil things pinned a still hissing rattlesnake to his front gate’s fence, but it felt like a threat. Still, he liked the imagery. Small, but still quite a threat, scary, even.

Demo obviously had a crow’s wings. The oil slick green -blue-purple feathers on his wings and sprinkled on his cheeks made that clear, but it was odd; his shoulders and elbows were a more matte dove gray instead of continuing the glossy black. He knew Sniper and Medic were both bird nerds, perhaps they could fill him in.

Heavy, the last of defense, had brilliant white wings that were a bit long and thin, almost like a shorebird, though with a clear strength still. His face marking pointed in the same direction with a slightly unfortunate patch of black and yellow on his nose and surrounding. Dell wondered idly what the force generated by the wings in relation to weight and bone strength had to be for flight to be possible, and if Heavy was capable of it with those massive wings of his.

Medic, chattering excitedly next to him despite his uncertain walk, had perhaps the most striking face marks out of everyone. A wide sickle shaped mark of black curved down both his cheeks, and his eyes had a most startling change. His ice blue irises had paled further, and the sclera was now a startling blood red. Fitting for a blood-crazed man such as him, Dell supposed. The outside of his wings was gray and black in an odd vertical bar pattern almost. The shoulders on the inside had striking veins of white at the core of each feather with the rest of the underside a pure snow white.

Sniper and Spy both seemed like some sort of owl, the beats of their more elliptical wings as they stumbled along were near silent as they cut through the air.

Sniper’s were mottled with dark down and white while Spy’s were a much duskier color and a bit smaller than snipers massive wings. Different patterns as well, of course. Everyone’s wings seemed fairly proportional to themselves but still, the differences in size were almost amusing. They both spotted white feathers near their eyes, though Sniper had an odd almost eyeshadow quality around the eyes in his white feather mask, much to Spy’s teasing. Spy’s were more a pale gray though, gently ruffling at his balaclava’s edge.

Soldier and Scout were crowing proudly at each other and flaring their wings, wobbling only slightly as they strutted. Ironic since neither actually were crows, but ah well. Figures of speech and all.

Soldier was booming about how his patriotism had shined through into him being granted the wings of a bald eagle, though the slight color variation that looked like a very familiar, if unusually dark red tailed hawk, said otherwise. Dell couldn’t name a lot of birds but boy howdy did he know what a red tailed hawk looked like, and Soldier was one. He supposed it was close enough though. He certainly wouldn’t be the one to break Solly's heart with the news. Who knows how he would react to the smattering of brown across his cheeks whenever the helmet lifted, though.

Scout seemed to actually know what he was, interesting enough. He was boasting about being so fast as a person his bird was one of the fastest alive. A Eurasian Hobby he called it. When pressed about somehow knowing what he was, Scout clammed for a moment before -clearly lying- saying that he was just so cool he decided to learn everything about speed there was. His wings were a desaturated gray brown on the outside with pale striped inner feathers. He also had very visible markings in the form of two big black patches over his eyes like apostrophes, or cheetah marks like one of his previous years changes.

Pyro had one of their wings in their hands, reverently running their rubber covered fingers over his dark brown and white feathers. They especially seemed delighted by the soft gradient of dark brown to barred white on the outermost feathers. The most interesting bit was how Pyro moved. He easily walked the smoothest out of anyone, always working hard to adapt and succeeding well. Dell didn’t see any markings on the firebug’s mask, but he wouldn’t be surprised if a little bit of his paint disappeared out of their cans and onto Pyro’s mask later. Pyro was a joy to be around like that, ever the optimist, despite being more aware than people think of what laid around him.

Soon enough they came to the teleporter to take them back to base. Right before everyone had their gear removed and put away, Medic and Spy, who had been discussing quietly as the two team leaders of RED, pulled apart as Medic loudly announced a debrief. Scout groaned, Pyro hmm’d indifferently, and everyone else just seemed to resign themselves to having to sit for an hour before getting to properly mess around with their new wings.

Chapter 2

Summary:

Sniper knows a lot of birds. He learned every single one native to the places his team was from. It was his sort of love in a way, and he knows exactly who everyone is. Except himself, which turns him to one island long gone that he'd rather not think about after what it did to him. Pyro knows exactly how he feels, and helps pick up the pieces.

Notes:

Alright! first actual chapter to this that isnt just set up. im always rough wehn writing emotions so i hope this works out alright. and i hope i got pyro down okay. I really didnt want to make him a child, as hes not, but also i wanted the joy he finds in everything to be clear still. Hope i balanced well.

I have power back, so i slowly whiled away at this chapter and realized I have accidentally found a theme for this whole fic. Oops. Anyways I have a lot more planned with everyones growing pains as they egt used to This All.

Also Im for once uploading at a reasonable time yaaay

Have a good one, y'all. - Gray

Sniper was trying not to stare at everyone’s wings as he adjusted to his new way of walking. Everyone’s slow trudge to the debrief room made figuring out what they were all the easier.

Scout knew of his Eurasian hobby clearly, and was loud and proud about it.

Soldier’s was obvious to everyone but him, as not a bald eagle but a red tailed hawk.

And Engineer clearly recognized his loggerhead shrike wings from his self satisfied grin whenever he looked down at them. Bloodthirsty little man.

Native to his parent’s home (good luck with that inevitable chat Spy).
Native to his home
Native to his home.

Demo was either a hooded crow or a carrion crow. Depending on the folks you talked to they were the same thing but Sniper wasn’t so sure. He was hearing fringe theories they may just be different species after all, and he was compelled to believe. Given Demo’s size he was probably a Hooded crow then.

Native to Scotland, Demo’s home country.

He looked to Medic, clearly a bearded vulture. Fitting for a violent man of medicine such as he.

Native to his home region.

Heavy, with a swan of some sort? Likely a whooper swan, going off the face. Strong and devoted like all swans. Massive birds as well. They meant lasts acts before death if he remembered what he read right.

Bred throughout his home country every season.

He turned to Spy at the head, leading them to the meeting. He was harder to remember, much less find, bird fitting for his masked rival / friend. He was a Boreal owl, silent omen of death.

Native to the French mountains.

Mick then finally looked at his own wings, so similar to Spy, but so different. He knew his home’s birds the best. He knew every owl, kite, and vulture in Australia. He knew their meanings in as many mob’s legends as he could.

He matched none

And it left a sinking land mine-rotten wood-winder dead trees sort of feeling in his gut because it left one place.

Like Scout, the answer lay in his parent’s homeland.

Not his homeland, never was, never will be. He was Australian through and through, never mind the kiwi jokes he withstood the best he could.

Sniper was something extinct.

He thought it was painfully poetic, or perhaps ironic depending on your humor.

One of the last men alive from a dead island nation. No matter how hard he tried to fit in within his home's people, not even now could he go without a physical reminder that he didn’t belong.

It hurt.

His new wings and tail which he’d been momentarily ecstatic over, felt like lead weights.

Chains tethering him to an Atlantis on the other side of the planet with nothing left for him.

But as Pyro bound past him though, he realized something.

Pyro’s wings were tied to his birthplace too, it seemed.

And.

He was holding them so reverently. Pyro was stroking the soft feathers of his Crested Caracara wings like they were spun glass- golden thread- cotton candy. For a person such as them so blooming with energy, he was delicate and glacial in his appreciation of his wings.

Sniper knew Pyro claimed no ties to wherever he was born. Whether from a lack of remembrance or something else. Pyro was Pyro. Fire- cinnamon- polyester stuffing. From Teufort or the RED team base as far as anyone was concerned.

And yet he seemed so free of the concerns.

Sniper wondered how he managed it.

He craved that looseness too.

But for now Spy was looking at him weird, and Mick realized he had stopped walking without noticing. He hurried to catch up, and when Spy raised an impeccably maintained eyebrow in what others would call suspicion, but the Teufort 9 knew well to be concerned. Sniper didn’t need concern. He’d be fine, and he told Spy he was. He just needed to talk to Pyro once the meeting was over.

Spy did not believe him so clearly it was almost funny, if not for the anxiety bubbling like nausea through Sniper. He tried to brush it off as he stepped into the teleporter, and let the feeling of being shredded and replaced anew wash over him like a new awakening.

But no epiphanies or new calmness treated him on his exit, only the rabble of his team around him exiting as well and already learning to squabble with the new appendages. Scout and Heavy were cheerfully batting each other over the head with the wrists of their wings in an odd whack-a-mole. Their primaries were ruffled like they fought all battle with them and their grins were blinding and unconcerned as the group trundled to the meeting room.

The meeting passed in a blur. Sniper was entirely fixated on Pyro’s wings as his own hung limply. Everyone was preening and fidgeting with their wings and generally getting used to them, even Spy brushed the tip of his wings and tail against each other as he talked. But Sniper was the only one totally still and engrossed with his surroundings.

This did not mean he listened.

Mick blankly nodded along to the plans Spy was making, to the notes made about everyone’s wings and how to use them. He made the usual affirmative noises. But there was nothing but death spirals in a crash to the ground behind his eyes.

Before he knew it, the meeting was over and he was blankly walking back to his camper, Pyro forgotten.

Sniper slumped into the seat at the table and stared blankly at his camper cabinets before realizing with a start he could actually probably ID his wings.

Right after the consequences of Gray Mann’s take over and the battle following, Sniper had bought one single thing relating to his biological donor’s home country. A rare book of New Zealand birds from the early 1900s. Maybe it would hold the answers he sought.

He paged to owls and spent a long hour trawling through each entry for pattern and markings before finally settling. An endangered species of owl at the time of writing, obviously extinct nowadays, called the laughing owl. Ninox albifacies.

He committed the name and image to memory before reading the entry. A tall and unusually patient bird, with a loud laughing like caw eerily similar to his own laugh. A sparse list of habits due to its apparent secrecy. It sounded just like him. And something about that just. Hurt.

And before Mundy knew it he was looking to the roof of his camper and pretending it was the night sky that had fallen, and he held back tears. He started to feel too cramped with his dead owl wings pressed so firmly into the seat and he nearly flew out of the door and onto the rough with how he flapped as he struggled out the door and up the ladder. He flopped painfully onto his stomach as he looked at the night horizon and breathed harshly.

It was just too much.

The knowledge he couldn’t run, or even fly now from the past that didn’t belong to him.

The knowledge he was so irrevocably tied to people who clearly didn’t care for him.

The knowledge he’d never even get to see the bird he was named for.

The knowledge he just couldn’t be satisfied with something that usually made him giddy every year.

THUNK.

Sniper snapped out of his spiral to hear the sound of squeaking rubber and heavy boots climbing his camper ladder. From where he was jolted to half standing, he realized he could see Pyro- intelligence- whimsy- acceptance Pyro- climb. He was a little unbalanced from the new weight at his back but he moved near naturally. Comfortably.

Mick sat back down, cross legged and drew his wings back in from where they had mantled when he startled. They were tight across his back, somewhere between an anxious vice grip, a safety blanket, and an unconscious hiding like they were made from an act of shame.

Pyro slowly mirrored his position on the camper roof, with the exception of his wings. He let them spread and gently rest on the roof, long primaries ruffling in the twilight breeze.

From his pocket, he carefully took out one of his favorite lighters, as gifted from Spy’s massive and varied collection. It was a compact little disk that slid against itself with a click to show a bright and high reaching flame. It was like a little finger begging and beckoning up to the moon.

Pyro scooted closer and Sniper realized his rapid breathing had slightly slowed as he focused on the flickering growth and shrink of the flame in his friend’s hand. Pyro was smart like that, knew how calming flames could be and submersed himself in it. Submersed others in it. Like a bath in needles and honey.

As he slowly uncoiled from being wound up like a striking snake, Pyro started mumbling to him. Long years had made him clear to the team though. The pattern to the supposed madness and all.

“I saw you staring at my wings earlier and looking very sad. You looked so happy at first, though; is something wrong? Do you want to talk about it or do you want me to distract you for now? I brought crayons,” he asked kindly. Pyro was good like that, his extreme brutality was balanced by just as extreme kindness.

Sniper needed his hands to be occupied all of a sudden or he might rip his feathers out. He also couldn’t repress the burning urge to ask Py how he managed being alright with it all. “I’ll talk if we can do crayons, that awright, mate?”

Pyro brightened considerably, probably at both parts of the answer, “Yes, of course!” He scrambled back down the ladder and returned with his usual crate of doodle supplies.

Pyro slowly spread them out over the floor and laid flat on his stomach, wings spreading like a halo around the art supplies. Mundy slowly unscrunched himself and did the same, keeping soft and silent feathers close to chest still. He tentatively grabbed papers and drew what he had spent so much time thinking about: birds.

The birds flitted from his fingers and through the wax like they were Audubon drawings. But his finger kept drifting towards one shape. A lanky owl with a pale face and brown and white elliptical and silent wings. His owl.

After drawing like this for 15 minutes he looked at Pyro and started speaking slowly. “How d'you deal with the wings being from… ya’ know. Not where y'are as a person.”

Py stilled. He couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and that still scared Sniper, even all these years later. Pyro was animated, he was big gestures and talking with his arms to make up for a lack of face and little movements. He was golden yellow and rain traced down windows and jumping in mud puddles. Pyro stalling out was like taking away his fire, it was not supposed to happen

He tilted his head after a long moment. “What do you mean? My wings are just a marker of physical birth, not the birth of Me. Why would that determine anything unless I let it?” Pyro looked back at his drawing, idly beginning again, flowers and happy scenes of the mercs playing together blooming beneath.

“It’s a part of my physical past, yeah, but it didn’t really make me who I am nowadays. So I just continue on.”

Sniper, in mirror of earlier, stilled at that too. It was such a simple ideal to hold, but it still seemed impossible. But he didn’t quite know what to say, so he peered idly at the drawing of the laughing owl spread beneath him over a few pages overlapped. It swooped towards the viewer, large wings spread wide.

Sniper doodled himself then, and slowly overlaid the corners of the laughing owl drawing pages with the wings onto him. There was a noticeable edge between the drawings. The wax wasn’t blended between them, so idly, Sniper did with a deep purple.

But what blended his wings to him, despite the different styles, the different places both parts were really from? Sniper looked at what he’d done. The wings were now spread wide above him, like his slowly relaxed and spread ones across the chilling metal of the roof.

Sniper reflected on the traits he read from the owl.

A laughing like cry, supposedly similar to his coffee- smoke- red sand-scent cover cackle when he killed the spy on a particularly pesky day.

A large and tall owl often sequestered away, like Mick slouching away from near eye level with Heavy. Not like shyness but like always coiled to strike.

Sneaky, sit and wait, like the slow and hidden crawl to his nests sprinkled in the maps. Quiet like dusty crates- light between boards- empty coffee. Quiet like not seeing his laser sight until it’s too late.

So what if being from New Zealand was their one dissimilarity, from what he saw the others had theirs too.

Engineer and Demo’s birds both lived far past the range of their homes.

Heavy’s bird only mated in Russia and didn’t live year round.

Scout’s bird wasn’t even native to the same continent as him.

Medic’s bird barely even existed in Germany.

Spy’s was only native to the mountains.

Almost none of them were exact location matches with indigenous birds, no matter his first impressions. And that comforted him. All of them. had their dark purple blends to the wings. They still fit their personalities so well. And maybe his bird would too, if he let it.

Sniper finished the piece. He added in the tail that couldn’t be taken from the first laughing owl drawing. And he looked up to find Pyro looking at them with a sort of fondness you can only detect because it’s Py. And Sniper realized he had on a gentle wool- rainy day- mourning smile directed at his art that seemed unusually soft for its similarities.

“I think I get it.”

“I think you do.”

The evening proceeded with more coloring until Pyro gently dragged him off to dinner with the rest when Engie rang the train bell they used to call everyone. Spy seemed relieved to find him perkier, though still concerned over his non responsiveness earlier. But for now he just sighed good naturedly over the others behaviors as wings were used as shields and weapons in food fights, and Sniper thought about how similar they were to their person, locations be damned.

As he shot a laser precise glob of mashed potato into Scout’s wing shoulders, who was tickling demo in the nose with a primary, he figured these feathers could be something worth working to at least like.

Notes:

Thanks for reading! If you have tips, or spotted spleling mistakes, tell me in the comments. Or if oyu just have ideas for the future do tell. I ADORE comments. comments make me write faster, they are my puny flesh prisons food source.

Chapter 3: Chapter 3

Summary:

Demo goes bonkers trying to find what Merasmus cast, Spy is there for camaraderie and support.

Notes:

Sorry i dissappeared, but uhhh i dont know how frequent updates are gonna be. hopefully more often than the last wait. i wrote this off the motivation of one kind comment and the stress of the US presidential election.... fun.

in other excellent news: i have a beta now! their tumblr is: prognostic-santhanas. Robbo was a ginormous help in this chap to fix my terrible manner of typing and grammar (it mirrors how i talk and im... quite inelegant and convoluted)

on the topic of those little 3 word blurbs i use to describe emotions and stuff: no i dont got synesthesia, neither does the cast in this fic canonically, im just like this. i have a very visual mind (part of why im an inelegant writer) and i struggle explaining my emotions and the things i think of when i explain characters, so those odd strings of verbs and nouns are like me giving yall a peak in my brain and the characters brain to get a better insight into how they feel. sorry for the confusion

On the other side of the base, and quite a bit earlier, Tavish Finnegan Degroot was losing his mind.

He was poring over every even vaguely magic-related book in his collection to find out what the hell Merasmus had cast. Despite the alcohol that clouded his thoughts, Demo was very certain of several things. These included, in no particular order: His knowledge of bomb-making, his love of his itchy grass- glass shards- copper piping team and his cut metal- cold morning dew- nitroglycerin mother, his hatred of the BLU Soldier, and his near-encyclopedic knowledge of magic and the supernatural.

But apparently not encyclopedic enough. Because Tavish had no bloody clue what Merasmus had done to him.

He had looked at every single transformation spell he had (plenty, often used on Scout when his pranks were too obnoxious) and nothing had matched up. Harpies? No, none of them were more bloodthirsty than usual and the changes didn’t include scales or talons. None of the wings his friends had were remotely similar to bats, dragons, or anything of similar ilk.

He supposed it could be a botched bird transformation, the ones that almost everyone had gotten at some point? But then Demo would figure there’d be more changes to their faces. Plus, these wings seemed to match up with the personalities of the mercenaries.

As Demo plopped his face into the book at his desk and groaned slate blue- dust- wood fire smoke, he finally acknowledged the weight of his own wings, pressing into his back like an incessant, lumpy blanket. He couldn’t deny the quiet giddy he had in his initial moments of stumbling around with them, but now they just felt like a tease.

Hell, he wanted to like them, Demo had always loved the Hooded crows, or Hoodies, that lived everywhere he had. They were curious and Tavish befriended them readily when he was little. A flock had come to follow him through much of his life in Scotland. Some would call them ill fortune, especially after the death of his adopted parents, but they were the most comforting and stable friends he had through it all. Right now, though, they were irritating mysteries, and if it were not for the fact Demo still needed to be able to read, he’d be rifling through his store of scrumpy for more. As it was, his thoughts already felt groggy, like wet stone and wool.

A knock at the door had him bolting up from where he was face planted at his desk and trying to not look like he was smacking his head against a book.

The red mark on his forehead did not lend well to the impression work was going smoothly, but it was the thought that counts.

He stammered out a “Come in!”, nearly tripping over himself as he ran around, tidying his room and trying to not seem like he was losing his mind. He gave up part way through after realizing that Spy was already inside.

Spy didn’t say anything, but his raised eyebrows and somewhat bemused look like clouds- pale yellow- beige was enough for Demo’s harried expression to fall flat. Spy’s new wings made it even worse. He clearly wasn't used to restricting the emotions shown with them yet and they were practically shaking with kept laughter, despite his still shoulders.

It was only after this did Demo figure out the source of his amusement, as a sticky note chose that perfectly timed moment to flutter down to Tavish’s feet, where it said simply, in all capital letters, “BIRDS?” Complete with a small excerpt of a spell for summoning birds that Demo had earlier thought possibly related to what Merasmus did.

Demo sighed, and picked up the note “What do ye need, Spook? I found nae answers yet, if that's what yer wanting to know.”

The good natured smirk slowly faded from Spy’s face but the light- faceted glass- mirrors sense to his expression remained.

“I’ve come to assist, my friend. You've locked yourself away in research for our sake, and forgotten that there are several on the team capable of helping you. While I may not know the supernatural as keenly as you, I still know how to read a book and point out anything similar to our affliction. I’ve also brought a good bottle of wine to soothe the process over, if you’d indulge with me?”

Ah, Spy was as long winded as ever, but just as sneakily compassionate. Demo must look very harried for him to not even pretend to be grouchy about assisting him and to bring a bottle of his ‘good wine’ to share. Spy said Demo didn’t appreciate it enough, Demo told him there's only so much value you can get from snorting wine and making up words about its 'full body' before it's best to turn the cups bottom up so it doesn't turn to vinegar.

Realizing he had gone dead eyed and stared into space for perhaps a moment longer than usually considered polite, he startled, and tried to pick up where Spy left off. "Yeah mate, yer free to join me. Issue is I'm not gettin' tae anywhere, yer free to bang yer head against the wall with me, though."

Spy let out a snort but then led on with something more helpful "Well, what is easiest to discuss first? What you do know, or what you don't?

He sat carefully down in one of the armchairs around Demo's table overflowing with books, shoving his wings around to the place of comfort and idly picking a tome up to leaf through. The luck with Spy helping him was that the menace was at least more of a polyglutton than a polyglot, and so only the more arcane and esoteric books could not be read by him.

"Well," Tavish started, "It cannae be a verbal component spell, so those are out ta window. Transformations specifically fer Mythical Animals seem ta be a no-go as well, but I'm not willin' to count them out yet…"

As Tavish narrowed down what he knew couldn't be it while pacing, Spy took the moment to tidy up Demo's poor space organization with the books. Any he could clearly see to be a nixed category were put in their own pile. Ones that were a 'perhaps' or a good lead were left to their own, much tidier stacks closer to the table. Demo usually kept his room and books suitably tidy for Spy's visits and tastes, but his frantic searching had lead him to lax in cleanliness. Ah well, Spy could live with this, more pertinent matters were at hand.

As Demo finished off rattling criteria, they were left with a small stack of works that were to be considered, and an even smaller stack containing probable spells. At this point they would likely have to just sit down and read through to see.

Neither of them exactly minded this, it was a familiar song and dance to read and quietly drink a bottle of alcohol, often traded back and forth on whose responsibility it was to bring. Demo was often left to his mythologies, diaries of unfortunate endeavors with esoteric, and other such magical texts. Spy far preferred his historical accounts and classics by great authors. The nights always slowly passed by like soothing records of symphonies, warm candles, and brushed bronze.

As the bottle emptied they often turned from the texts to each other to discuss their readings, meandering from topic to topic, emotions much more well defined and freely shown between them both. It was a good tradition to indulge in.

However, today they did not quite fall to this. Instead it was like they were following an odd parody of it, like a forgotten or unfinished symphony.

With wings and tails oddly shoved and bent around their armchairs, they instead quietly looked over books. Spy would periodically show pages to Tavish for him to look over, he would either nod or shake his head, and Spy would leave the book in its corresponding stack. Rinse and repeat with glasses of wine interspersed for what seemed to be ad infinitum.

It has been a couple of hours now. The wine was long gone. Tavish and Spy both looked and felt about ready to tumble into sleep in their respective tomes. The hazy fog- lead weights- olive green feeling was thick in the air with exhaustion. Blessedly, the piles of ‘maybe’ and ‘probably’ had dwindled and now only a single book was left.

It was a small thing with a wood cover stained into a deep orange and engraved with odd animal patterns. Feathers morphed into claws morphed into fur morphed into eyes, then into a fifth thing entirely.

Spy had yet to see this piece of Demo's collection, and Demo narrowly remembered buying it off some sharp looking man in a black suit many years ago after a long night of barhopping. He didn't recall anything that was in it, but from the external appearance alone he hoped it would work. Usually the sort of high and mighty wizards that toyed with transformations at least had the grace to fancifully engrave their tomes accordingly. Made it rather easy to spot them.

They leaned eagerly over the table as Demo carefully paged it open.

The first page was empty.˜

Both men's faces fell accordingly.

Demo flipped to the next and saw the title. Oh.

They would laugh later, but it was a late night. Neither man was firing on all cylinders. They were currently full of spite, hope, and a dose of alcohol that meant they honestly, without thinking, expected the first page to be an appropriate spell.

But as they slowly paged through together they seemed to be getting closer and closer to what they needed. The spells were along the lines of gifting people squirrel tails or turning them into toads. It seemed along the right track but there was little mention of a non-spoken spell gifting people bird wings.

They slowly paged further and further through the manuscript to no avail, but more than half of the way through, something finally clicked.

There was a page simply titled "BIRD" in all capital letters. The page itself seemed hurriedly written and sparse, ink stains and a feather crumpled in the pages, like whoever wrote it was in a hurry. It was absolutely soaked in a sense of blood feathers-claws-charcoal ink. Not concerning in the least.

The page was smudged, but blessedly written in English. From what Demo and Spy could both tell by reading it slowly, it was a spell that reportedly "revealed the soul's true nature by gifting someone the wings of their heart's bird" which honestly sounded like some fanciful bullshit to both of them.

The spell probably had a far simpler machination, but neither could be arsed to figure it out, especially while they had to do what Merasmus couldn’t and undo it more than anything.

As Spy brushed another feather out of the way and traced the words to the bottom of the page, one bone chilling sentence was left past the description and instructions. It was smudged, blurred, and nearly blotted out by a puddle of ink, but it was clear in meaning regardless.

"Spell can not be undone. It is a permanent change."

Demo was so frustrated, from the hours of research, from the stressed reading, then this final revelation, that he stood up from the table, threw his arms in the air, and yelled.

"What kind of arse-backwards,” untranscribable Scottish swearing, “bloody wizard designs a spell that ken be set off BY ACCIDENT with NO REVERSING it? They clearly are worth at least a pinch of their salt if they could design ta spells in ta first place, but nae!" His wings were puffed like a balloon and flapping about madly; his tail was fanned out to its fullest extent, both rumpled from the armchair they were furled into.

He dissolved into angry wine-tipsy spluttering as he sat back down and planted his elbows on the table, feeling something like burnt wool-sour milk- fireplace ash.

Just before Spy face planted as well, after swearing vigorously in several languages with similarly fluffed up feathers, stole the book out from in front of Tavish to further scrutinize. He stood up to pace around, shaking his wings out and trying to avoid Demo’s slumped ones.

The book seemed accurate, though. The ink and handwriting was the same throughout, and the smudges were uninterrupted. No matter how scrupulously Spy looked at it, they were all stuck with massive. Unhideable. Wings.

He did not look forward to helping Demo break the news to the rest of the team at the morning briefing. He supposed he could tell them at dinner and try to rip off the bandaid, but that seemed too fast. May as well let them revel in the joy for now.

Until then, Spy slumped back into his chair, wings pressing uncomfortable into the armrests, and held a hand out towards Tavish.

Without looking up or saying a word, he passed Spy a blessedly full flask of scrumpy, from which Spy took a long and indulgent drink.

Notes:

A reminder that comments sustain me and motivate me to keep going, and if you wanna yell ideas or headcanons or speculations i HIGHLY encourage it.

my ask box is open on tumblr at snowed-leopard and i have a bsky now too at snowed-leopard.bsky.social if you wanna ping me there! you can see all art for this au at my tumblr blog under the tag of #team birdtress 2. if you shoot me a message there for anything on this au id prolly die for u

if theres a typo please tell me!

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

Notes:

Yeah I don’t have any excuses I can explain succinctly for taking 4 months. Sorry… :(
Also how the hell does this fic have over 1000 hits??? Where’d all y’all come from.
For the actual tldr for life till now:
Had finals, had holidays, applied to university (still gotta pick between 2), started the new semester with a very art heavy course load that’s left me drained, and the yearly spring depression has hit. And of course for the satisfaction of the AO3 writers curse, my mentor for one of my big hobbies, sailing, passed away. We stay silly in honor of his memory bc he’d kick my ass if I didn’t.

Thanks Robbie (tumblr: prognostic-santhanas) for being my beta again! I don’t words so good but they ensure my comprehensibility :p

Medic was absolutely lime green- static electricity- flash flood- bursting at the seams with excitement at the chance to examine the teams’ new wings. The art of somehow transplanting perfect copies of bird wings onto a human body– and every biological intricacy that came with it– enamoured him.

The wings, firmly and seamlessly anchored to Medic’s back, thrashed into walls during Medic’s mad scramble to the infirmary. It was so different from body parts they had in past years, which either floated through objects or never even slowed them down, unlike these oddly solid limbs.

Well, apart from clipping strangely through the back of their uniforms, but who knew if that would last! Magically created body parts always interact with other objects oddly in the first 24 hours. Medic had yet to find a definitive conclusion on how exactly they could intersect with clothes and walls while still being solid objects. With no battle for the rest of today however, perhaps he could finally crack it!

As he whirled around the last corner, his great wings unfurled and flapped madly for balance. Too caught up in his own elation, the doctor hardly noticed. Ludwig grabbed clumsily for his keys, dropped them twice, and finally unlocked the operating theater’s door. His thick x-ray gloves were not exactly conducive to small maneuvers like unlocking doors or surgeries, and they were often such a bother in every other part of life as well, but he had yet to take them off in his ecstatic hurry.

He finally burst into the room, setting down his medigun and pack with only a fraction of the usual care. His mumbled neon- electricity- glacial blue- excited mutterings were already going a mile a minute, then stopped, the man himself freezing in place. Something was off with his entrance.

He slowly spun in a circle, trying to keep his wings tight to not knock into any trays or tables as he figured out what was wrong.

As his eyes locked onto the rafters. None of his doves had come to greet him. Even if they were at least napping, Archimedes usually came to visit him.

How odd.

He looked off towards their cage and called out.

“Archimedes? Are you napping?”

Nothing but quiet and oddly frightened cooing and the flutter of feathers met him. Perhaps a bat was in the base scaring the birds into a corner again? It had happened before…

As Medic finally rounded into his office he was met by quite the sight. 

All of his doves were nestled in the corner, fluffed out completely in terror, and staring at Medic with a look like steel- wet stone- rust-  fear. It was something Ludwig was used to seeing more in his enemies and the cognitively questionable folks of Teufort, but it was startling to see that in his beloved birds.

Ludwig instinctively held his wings closer to his body to seem smaller, more friendly, to his beloved birds. He took a few small steps forward, cooing warm milk- carded wool- scented candles- calm words to them. He did not know what had startled them, but he needed to make sure they were unharmed first before he dealt with the problem.

Ludwig stopped in his tracks when instead of calming down like they had reliably done before in the face of his comfort, his doves instead puffed up further and trilled louder. Some of them, Medic noted Diogenes and Sappho, even began flapping their wings wildly. Even Epicurus and Epictetus, ever at odds, were pressed in tightly to each other, beady dove eyes watching Medic’s every move.

He wracked his brain, trying to understand why he was scaring his birds so much. Ludwig had shaved, so no beard rendered him unrecognizable to his animals. He was in no Halloween costume, no silly hat, no–

Oh! He was in a sense, was he not? The wings he had pressed into his body without thinking were still quite undeniably there to his intelligent pet’s keen eye. Medic felt a mix of fascination at this new bird instinct and a twinge of pain that he was the cause of his beloved doves’ fear.

The Bearded vulture was notorious for being possibly the vulture that hunted the most, instead of only going for already deceased prey to scavenge. They were brutal creatures, much like Herbert was. It was only logical his birds had such an instinctual fear of him.

He backed away from his dove’s room for a moment and regarded himself in the infirmary’s mirror. He scrutinized himself, trying to puzzle out what exactly terrified his birds so deeply. 

Maybe if he could minimize the most intimidating trait temporarily and slowly reintroduce them, he could have his flock back to snuggling into his hair and shoulders in no time.

He finally removed his gloves and coat and set them on a nearby countertop to examine himself, bottom to top. The tail he had passed through his pants, shimmering with both magic and an itchy feeling he decided were growing pains, was not a likely candidate for his birds’ fear. While Ludwig could splay and move the feathers as any raptor could, they were not exactly massively bulking up his appearance.

Next were his wings, an array of feathers in black, brown, and white, though already bloodied in appearance like a real bearded vulture, from the red dust of New Mexico already coating them from his walk back to base. Something inside him preened at the plain white insides of the wings as they grew further from the elbow and wrist of his wings. Surely something so similar to his doves wings, massive as they are, could never inspire such a reaction. They were gorgeous.

Finally, Herbert drug his eyes to his face and he gasped quietly in excitement. Where before tanned skin and human, though manic, eyes had been, downy black feathers in sickle-like shapes drew through both his eyes and down his cheeks.

And oh, his eyes.

They were much akin to the drawings and photos he’d seen of the magnificent animals, red in the sclera but still with Medic’s piercing ice blue iris. No wonder his teammates had stared oddly at his eyes, they were beautiful like this. Surely his doves felt the same?

Despite Ludwig’s appreciation for his new form he was no closer to understanding his dearest pets and companions any further. As he took the time to tidy his operating theater from last night’s experiments and biopsy with Misha, he resolved to simply try and acclimate his dears the best he could. 

Starting with cleaning their cage.

It was perhaps his favorite of his tasks. The birds adored coming to watch and inspect his changes to their home every evening and Herbert found the meditative dusk- soft fluff- motes of dusts- movements of it relaxing. It was his favorite thing to do to relax post-battle.

He just needed to grab his supplies, fit his shoulders in the cage to reach everything and-

Ludwig twitched a suddenly ruffled wing.

Oh.

A downside to his lovely wings found. Herbert had managed to get himself stuck in quite the awkward position inside this dear birds’ cage. 

The door had closed on his wing’s elbows when he had carelessly tried to close the door with his shoulders. The wing’s bulk, and subsequent rearrangement of his muscles from his earlier transformation (which he had still been yet to thoroughly examine!), meant that his arms were now pinned out in front of him, like one of Scout’s flying superheroes from his comics.

All that to say, Medic was effectively wedged in place.

He wiggled in place and groaned in irritation, but suddenly stopped when a curious, though still frightened coo tinged with cerulean- dense foliage- shuffling dirt- echoed out behind him, closer than the distant shuffling of his scared flock hiding in his office. 

Then, a sudden weight on his back.

Medic couldn’t see behind him but he had a guess as to who was most likely to get over his fear to see what was happening to the coop.

“Archimedes?” Herbert queried, voice soft..

“Coo.” Came the small voice in reply, but it may have as well been an agreement considering how well Medic knew the voices of his dearest companions.

“Ah! Archimedes my friend, please could you go get Heavy or perhaps even Herr Engineer? Please, I do not wish to occupy the doorway to your house any further, I was just-” More cooing cut off his blood orange- linoleum- itchy wool-begging.

Archimedes cooing was then followed by the rest of his flock and gentle wing beats, his doves seemingly having gotten over their fears. 7 more tiny weights landed along his back, plodding up and down and poking at his feathers. 

This was all well and good but Ludwig was still stuck and his begging was growing slightly more desperate to the either indifferent or uncaring Archimedes. Still the discomfort was handleable until he felt a sudden peck at the base of his wings.

“Please just- Agh! Which one of you did that?!- Sheisse, no! I know that was you Apicius, your weight gives you away-” Medic noted that the new additions were quite sensitive but his doves seemed to not care. They were more curious to have the terrifying thing in their father’s form at their mercy to inspect, heedless of the squeaks and screeches rapidly evolving into strained laughter from the press against Medic’s ribs.

Even as he wriggled and lightly thrashed around, Ludwig’s torment didn't stop. A part of him feared it would carry on for a good while until someone came to see why the good doctor, ever impeccable in his eating habits, hadn’t arrived for dinner.

Despite the near painful lemon yellow- wire brush- popping bubbles- laughter, Herbert couldn’t find it in himself to be mad. At least his doves were not terrified any longer, even if through an unexpected and unusual manner. He did wish for his rescue sooner or later, though.

Notes:

Again, feed me comments, I am eternally hungry for them and cherish even the simplest of them. I don’t bite I prommy.

Also! Here’s a link to the art for this au, all done by me :)

https://www.tumblr.com/snowed-leopard/tagged/team%20birdtress%202

If you see spelling mistakes or have ideas for wing based shenanigans btw, tell me! You can do it on anon on tumblr even if you’re too shy here