Get Thee To An Aviary (closed to 1605gunpowderplot)

[shutupandgetintheanimus]

Desmond remembered the orb. The electric pains shooting up his arm, into his shoulders and back, the pulaes that made his legs shake and his teeth chatter. How he was able to focus, to bend the damn thing to his will and make it raise the shields that the precursors left behind, he didn't know. He was out after that. He thought he heard Juno, briefly, then the others. Then nothing. Nothing but the most dreamless, restful sleep he'd had in a long time.

Juno and Minerva had been wrong. He was still alive. But the deep, throbbing pain in his back and shoulders that greeted him as he awakened? He wished they'd been right.

He groaned, eyes half-lidded as he lifted his head off the pillow. He'd been sleeping on his stomach. "Fuck..." he croaked out. His throat was dry, lips cracked. His brain was still in a haze of too much sleep and not enough food or water. He attempted to push himself up off the mattress, to get his bearings, but the tingling pain in his right arm and the stiffness in his shoulders nipped that idea in the bud. Desmond winced as he lowered himself back down.

At the very least he managed to pry his eyes open enough to stare at the bandages wrapped around his arm. It had been burned, he remembered. Not as bad as it could have been, probably. Still, second-degree burns weren't fun.

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[1605gunpowderplot]

Shaun gave him a pointed look. "Do I have to spell it out for you? If you don't know how to search for porn at your age, I'm not entirely certain how you ever functioned in a technology driven society."

He glanced down at the remains of what he'd offered Desmond and wondered faintly if he hadn't spoken too soon about that cannibalism business. He'd torn through everything Shaun had given him in a matter of minutes, and the historian was betting that if they'd had more on hand, it would have already vanished into Desmond's every-expanding stomach as well. "If you're just looking into practical matters, you at least ought to known how to take care of your own feathers. And you can finally learn to share my distaste of tiny shower stalls, so there's that to look forward to."

[shutupandgetintheanimus]

Desmond snorted. "Yeah, Shaun. I'm totally a shut-in good Christian virgin who's never even thought about what a vagina looks like. Of course I know how to look up porn. I just have no idea what kind of kinks avians might be into."

He reached for the last apple, running his thumb over the skin. He'd save this one for later. "Besides, I know how to preen feathers. Mom taught me so I could help her. Don't get me started about tiny shower stalls, they already piss me off."

A sharp pain cut through the comfortable haze of the Vicodin, first making him stiffen, then curl his lip back in a grimace. Like being stabbed in the shoulders over and over again with a sharp knife. From the inside. He reached back, pressed against one of the lumps. They were solid. Actual, fully formed bone already. In the span of....thirty minutes? Forty-five? "W-what...fuck...how fast...?"

[1605gunpowderplot]

"Well, and keep in mind that I'm no expert here, I'm guessing that just looking up what you already like and adding 'avian' on the end will do you just fine, yeah?" A part of Shaun couldn't actually believe he was saying this, but he was damned if he was going to be the first person to get embarrassed and break. "It's not as if you're going to stop like vaginas, or whatever else tempts you to stick your hand in your shorts at night."

He paused to roll his chair closer to the bed again, craning his neck and raising a dubious eyebrow at the way Desmond's back had started to deform. "And, er... perhaps it's a good thing you can't see what's going on very clearly. Just, er. Try to ignore it, I suppose."

That was probably utterly unhelpful and Shaun needed to distract from the transformation again, in case that anticipated panic actually began. "So, your mother's an avian? That's handy, at least you won't be completely in the dark with how this all works."

[shutupandgetintheanimus]

"Try to ignore it...? Jesus, Shaun. Yeah. You're right, it's so easy. Why didn't I think of that...?" at least he was right about one thing. He didn't want to see. It felt bad enough.

It looked worse. The wing bones were outlined against Desmond's skin. Growing underneath. Hopefully they would separate out like a newborn's...or maybe that trip to an Assassin-friendly hospital would be needed after all.

Desmond took a deep breath as the surge of pain faded. "Y-yeah. She's...Dad mentioned she's in the field somewhere, back in the temple." but dammit, he wanted to see her more than anything right now. He wouldn't admit it to Shaun, but he was terrified out of his mind. And wanting his mom like an equally terrified five year old.

[1605gunpowderplot]

"It's because I'm a genius. Don't fault yourself for failing to come up with a brilliant idea like mine on your own." Shaun had absolutely nothing that even began to resemble a maternal instinct, and his comforting skills were settled perilously close to 'nil,' but he was still trying. Sarcasm really was the best weapon in his arsenal for any occasion, and perhaps if it wasn't exactly reassuring, it might manage to be a decent distraction from the pain and the overall horror of what was happening to Desmond right now.

Shaun leaned forward again, almost like he wanted to go over and wrap a wing around Desmond, to actually make the attempt to soothe him like he might a frightened chick, but actually doing so was an action that never materialized. For one thing, it would have been intensely awkward for them both, but it didn't stop him from feeling entirely useless and unhelpful just sitting by and watching like he expected Desmond to keel over at any second.

Still. He was trying to distract the man, no use wallowing in his own inability to meaningfully assist with this particular problem. Shaun twitched his wing back again from where it had sneakily started moving away from where he'd tucked it behind him only moments ago, and tried for a casual shrug. "I suppose now that it's all over, there's nothing stopping you from going and looking her up, yeah? As far as I know, we've actually got a bit of time on our hands at the moment. Might even have time for a real vacation."

[shutupandgetintheanimus]

"Yeah. Vacation. Maybe a trip to see where...Altair's..." Fuck. Fucking fuck it was hurting through the painkillers again, and he leaned forward, taking a deep breath to keep himself from cracking and just letting out a scream.

It's going too fast. I can feel them growing... Jesus Christ these things are going to kill me.

"He... He never got a real burial, not really. He's still there. He never left Masyaf."

[1605gunpowderplot]

There were an increasing number of inventive curses going through Shaun's mind as he sat there and watched Desmond stumble over the words. He was honestly trying not to watch his back, to see those bones slowly moving under skin, but it was hard to hide the occasional wince when something noticeably changed in front of his eyes.

His options had become rather limited, at this point, and though it felt extremely weird to do so, Shaun pushed off from the chair and grabbed for the pills again before clambering onto the bed himself and arranging himself in front of Desmond, legs folded and wings half spread as if the internal temptation to wrap them around his fellow Assassin had decided to follow through on that impulse without his brain's permission.

"Keep breathing, you're fine--" He probably wasn't at all, but Shaun knew that saying so likely wouldn't help at this point, and if they could manage a bizarre sort of denial for the time being maybe it would help. "And while I agree that Masyaf could be a fascinating place to visit, I was thinking more along the lines of beaches and warm climates and free drinks, yeah?"

[shutupandgetintheanimus]

Desmond all but flinched from Shaun, leaning back despite the pins and needles sensation it put into his shoulders. All he could stare at were those wings, right in front of him like they were taunting him. It was a shitty thing to think. It wasn't Shaun's fault. He was starting to think it wasn't anyone's fault. Not even Juno's. Something had been triggered in him when he touched that orb. A rewrite. Altering his DNA. Changing it, changing him.

He wasn't fine. Not really. And he suspected Shaun knew that. "Yeah. Yeah, I could go for a beach. Just sit in the bar and down four mojitos." He laughed. It was bitter, strained. "If these damn things don't kill me first."

It slowed, finally. The pain. The sensations of bone and muscle growing, changing. It all quieted, lay dormant. A look at Desmond's deformed back would be the proof. The wings sat in his back in enormous lumps, folded up awkwardly under his skin. But at least it was stopped.

Desmond relaxed slowly. He leaned forward to alleviate the ache in his back, his head almost touching Shaun's chest. "...Call my dad," he managed to choke out. "Please."

[1605gunpowderplot]

"Don't be silly, they're hardly going to--" Shaun started, belatedly pulling his wings back as he watched Desmond start at the way they'd originally flared. He could hardly hide them, but folding them mostly out of Desmond's sight was at least a silent apology since he wasn't about to offer an actual verbal one.

"Right. Your dad. Of course." Shit. He'd been apparently doing worse than he'd thought about being reassuring, and Shaun's estimation of his own skills had been dismally low from the start.

He fumbled the phone from his trouser pocket and dialed, trying to to stare too much at the way Desmond's back had deformed, which left looking up at the ceiling as his best choice. He'd be damned if he was going to admit to being scared, though, and Shaun's voice was as normal and even as he could manage under the circumstances.

"It's Shaun. Yes, obviously, I wouldn't--it's just that your son is awake." He paused, and reached out to pat Desmond's head, soft and entirely too awkward, but he knew what the conversation must sound like from Desmond's perspective as Bill started to demand answers in his ear. "There are some complications. Not life-threatening, no, but you ought to head back as soon as possible."