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1-
In Techno's defense, Phil was the one who'd caused him to mess up the potion, barging into their house at two in the morning during a thunderstorm, dripping water onto the floorboards and generally making a nuisance of himself.
He'd gotten up to grab a towel for his stupid bird husband, (which had rapidly turned into needing a towel for himself too), and then he started to preen carefully through the Avian’s feathers, a careful cloth drying off the excess water and a practised hand smoothing down the ruffled feathers. He’d done this thousands of times before, but with the sheer number of feathers he had to tend to, (and Phil’s fussiness in using wing oil too), it was a good few hours until they were dry, shiny and smooth. All of which meant that he'd entirely forgotten about the set of health potions he'd set to brew.
In fact, it wasn't until the next day, when he saw the darker-than-normal pink bottles still bubbling away, that he remembered what he'd been doing at all!
They looked mostly fine, though, and the extra boiling time technically shouldn't have ruined them, and so he labeled and stored them as usual, waiting until they needed to be used.
As it turned out, that was sooner than he'd anticipated - he'd been playing- sorry, feeding and grooming the dogs, when one of the puppies had gotten a little too excited and took a chunk out of his wrist. Nothing too bad, and certainly nothing that a swig of a health pot wouldn't fix.
Which was how they were now in this position, Phil doing his best not to laugh while a comedically large (and coincidentally bright pink) crow sat on their kitchen table, looking decidedly unimpressed.
Techno cawed indignantly when he saw his husband attempt to snap a sneaky picture with his comm, still giggling - this was not funny! He had been severely afflicted with an abnormal potion, which had forced a species change! They should be attempting to reverse it, not taking pictures of his admittedly splendid plumage.
"I'm sorry, Tech," Phil snorted, "It's just- I've never seen a crow look so offended! I mean, I deal with Chat all the time, and they're bloody menaces, but this is- cmon, stand still for a sec so I can show Puffy."
Techno puffed up his chest, spread his wings, and flew directly into the man's face, claws spread and ready to afflict-
He cawed again, louder this time, as Phil held him easily in one hand. Once he was back to his normal size, he was going to find as much blackmail as he could and print signs around the server. They were both immortal beings, he was sure there was something as bad as this.
2-
It took an embarrassingly long amount of time for either of them to figure out that, much like with every other potion in existence, the cure was probably milk.
Phil had a smug little grin on his face the whole time Techno was putting his clothes back on, only a few scattered pink feathers as evidence that any of that had just happened. Well, aside from the dozens of pictures on his comm-link, anyway.
Techno was gonna have to fight to get those deleted.
"Where you going?" questioned Phil as he moved to tug his boots on, thick and sturdy leather to get him through the harsh winter snow.
Techno raised an eyebrow, "Just because you spent the day laughing at me instead of doing chores, doesn't mean that the animals don't need feedin', Phil. You gonna help me or not?"
"Is it that late already?" Phil questioned, looking out the window. It got dark mid-afternoon, here, so the position of the sun wasn't exactly much help in determining the time, "I didn't realise- yeah, give me a second to get my shoes- ouch damn it!"
"Hey! Watch the language!" Techno scolded, doing up his laces, "You'll get me demonitised!"
Phil cursed again, turning back around so Techno could see the blood staining his hand, "Who put a sword in the shoe-horn stand?"
Techno raised an eyebrow, "One, probably Tommy so that's entirely your fault considering you're the one with a wife, two, no one know what a shoe-horn is, old man."
"It's a piece of horn you use to- you know what, never mind." Phil sighed, reaching out blinding to their potions cabinet and sipping a health pot, "I'll talk to him about leaving swords around."
Techno squinted at the bottle in his husband's hands. "Hey Phil, did you make sure you didn't pick up the-"
A pained grunt came from the floor, followed by a sad whistle.
Techno stared for a moment at the green-and-white-striped capybara on his kitchen floor, before very, very slowly, raising his camera.
3-
Tommy whistled to himself cheerily as he strode through the thick snow of the tundra, letting the flakes settle gently on the thick fur lining of his cloak.
Well, technically Techno's cloak, but finders-keepers and all.
"Dad? Tech?" he called out as he approached the large cabin, hearing the barks of the dogs, the whistle of the wind, and the moos and baas of the livestock, but no reply from either of the immortals.
"Huh…" he said to himself, picking the lock of the front door. Maybe they were out?
But no, the fire was still blazing, and Dad always set it out before he left, and when he exited through the back door, he could see Carl hitched up to the cart.
Investigating a little closer, he found a box of potions sat on the back of the cart - health pots, if he knew his colours. A little darker than normal, but maybe Techno had been trying out a new recipe? Regardless, he stashed them in his inventory, not feeling bad at all for the thievery - if it wasn't nailed down, it was fair game.
A few steps away, there was what appeared to be the smashed remains of a bottle, but whatever potion it had held was sunken into the ground now, and he couldn't tell the colour.
Maybe it had been a potion of harming, and they'd rushed off to find some milk?
Tommy doubled back around to the cow farm, but it was entirely empty, no sign of ailing fossils to be seen.
Huh…. weird as fuck!
Maybe he should check in with Tubso and Ranboob, see if they'd seen the two anywhere around, since they were practically neighbours.
… maybe just a little peek into Techno's golden apple chest first-
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in a snow bank, a few metres away from the broken bottle, and rather close to the ground
"I can't believe you dropped that bottle on us, Tech."
"I can't believe your son is stealing my stuff again!"
Phil huffed, and attempted to cross his arms, which would've worked better if he hadn't been a rather small beetle, "Stop shifting the blame, Tech, do you know how long it's going to take to walk over to the milking station?"
"At least you can walk! I'm a worm!"
"A very handsome worm."
"If you're trying to seduce me, I'm still aroace."
"Don't be a hussy, Tech. Now cmon, I think Tommy stole the rest of those potions, and we need to stop him before half the server ends up as lemurs."
+1
"I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, and say we didn't get here in time."
"What gave it away?" Phil asked, surveying the carnage in front of him, "The zoo-worth of animals walking around, or the potion-selling van over there that is definitely Tommy's, based on the spelling."
It was a testament to how often ridiculous things like this went down that no one looked particularly panicked. Most of the animals just looked bemused or tired, and the people were busy attempting to identify which of the various sheep, elephants and chinchilla's were their assorted friends, family and blackmail victims.
Thankfully, no one seemed to have turned into a fish or water-breathing creature, and presumably no one had been stepped on yet since there wasn't any screaming.
"Should we start to hand out milk?" Techno inquired mildly, watching a spider-monkey Tommy attempt to chew the ear off a moose who he assumed was Wilbur, Phil's other son, "Or-"
"We should," Phil nodded, but didn't make a move to do so. "In a minute. Or a few minutes. You know what- it should wear off by itself, right? Potion effects are never permanent."
"Good thinking," Techno nodded, "We might as well take advantage of being in town, get some supplies while the crowds are distracted."
"Give me a second-" Phil said, pulling his comm out from his pocket, "Kris is gonna love this picture-"