Spy played with his butterfly knife, opening and closing it. He looked calm but it was evident that he was doing that so he didn't kill someone for the loss of his suit and becoming and hideous monster. While the rest of the team was sat at the dining table, Engineer and Medic remained standing.
Since Medic seemed to be there with his arms behind his back, as if he was still trying to pretend he has nothing to do with the matter, Engineer spoke for both of them.
"...This Halloween Medic and I were at the lab, working on fancy decorations, drinking beer, having a few laughs; you know that..."
"And then a werewolf crushed in and bit you!" Soldier predicted.
"Well, no."
"The teleporter failed and you fused with a rabid dog!"
"Nein. I transformed." Medic replied.
"Yeah, but why?" Scout asked.
"That is the interesting part..." Medic adjusted his glasses again, "I have no idea. It just happened."
"Just like that?" Demoman asked. "It can't be."
"Well, if a werewolf had bitten me I would have known."
"So when he turned, he basically tried to eat me." Engineer continued. "I tried to scream for help but the music was too loud, I guess."
"Ah, well, yeah. Also, Merasmus came to kill us again and we beat him black and blue." Scout said. Now he knew why the geniuses had not joined the fun.
"Got to break his legs but the wounds were infected by his venom. I couldn't kill him. I turned too. Good thing you guys were having fun and didn't come to see us."
Although Engineer didn't mean that as a reproach, most of the team felt terrible about completely forgetting their teammates and leaving them alone in such a situation.
"Why didn't you tell nobody?" Heavy asked, his arms crossed.
"We had the same problem as our partners here: with so much alcohol around, would you have believed us? Also, we thought it would be better not to spread panic. We thought we could solve this—ahem—little problem before you even found out." Medic replied.
"That night and the next were full moon, so I quickly built a cage in the lab for both of us. That's why we've been so absent these days, always locked in there. During the day, we analyzed our bloods, the recordings of our transformations, tried all we came out with; by night we became monsters. It worked fine at first. You guys didn't seem to suspect a thing and we had our instincts under control..."
Engineer then turned towards Medic.
"BUT..."
"Hum. Yes...Two days ago I was attending my birds, stretching my legs, getting a bit of fresh air..."
"Aaaaand..."
"Well, I hadn't been outside for days..."
"AAAAAAND..."
"And I thought: 'there's a lot of space here to run and hunt'...So I transformed in the desert. But Engineer was howling. I came, looking for him..."
"So it was you?" Demoman slowly stood up with his eye wide open and fixed in the doctor. "You were the wolf who bit us..."
"Don't look at me like that. I should be the one who's angry. You killed me." Medic narrowed his eyes.
"Fuck, Doc, you screwed everything up with your big doggo face!" Scout frowned.
"Uhm, if these two dummkopfs had told us about it..."Medic pointed at Soldier and Demoman.
"Hey, you were the one who couldn't stay in his cage!" Soldier replied.
"Okay, mates, listen, this isn't the time to accuse each other. What's done is done." Sniper sad, to which Spy nodded. He then turned to Engineer. "What do you know about this...whatever this is?"
"In common terms, it is some kind of disease. At least, it works like one. Once a fluid like blood or saliva of an infected person is in contact with the bloodstream of a let's say normal one, the infection takes place in matter of seconds. Apparently, full moon has nothing to do with the changes. Night triggers it. We experimented a little bit to see if certain lights could delay or stop the transformation, but it didn't work. That's all we know."
"Maybe Merasmus has something to do with this?" Heavy muttered.
"I don't think he can do that." Soldier said. "And he's more of a vampire person."
"But there was to be an origin." Spy insisted.
"You haven't been experimenting on yourself, right, Doc?" Demoman asked.
"But my experiments involve bird heads and evil doppelgangers, not wolves." Medic replied. "Wolves are not my thing. They aren't easy to experiment with. They drool, they shed so much hair..."
"Then?" Demoman shrugged.
"We'll have to keep on investigating," Engineer said, "and try to live with this in the meanwhile."
For some reason, Pyro clapped enthusiastically.
"Look, I-I can't be a werewolf. My mom never let dogs into the house. I can't go back home looking like a freakin' mutt!" Scout complained. He had all the sensations of the transformation fresh in his brain and it was extremely unpleasant to recall them again and again.
"None of us likes this, boy, but that's the way it is." Engineer replied. "We'd all better assume it. We are monsters, so we gotta be careful and adjust a couple of things."
"Yeah, well, if only it was that easy." Sniper crossed his arms. "Next time they send us to a mission we'll be in big trouble."
"True that!" Soldier jumped at the realization. "We can't fight the BLUs like this! We'd slaughter them, and that's great, but they'd turn into beasts too!"
"It might take us a long time to understand how this works and control it." Engineer said.
"It would be convenient to hide this from our employers, there is no doubt about it." Spy lit a cigarette.
"It's a pity that we have to waste half of the day howling and peeing on the floor." Medic sighed.
"If only we had someone to monitor our behavior." Engineer joined him.
"Who could help us hide this from the Administrator." Demoman nodded.
"And made sure that we don't do something bad." Heavy scratched his chin slowly.
Silence. Each of the mercenaries was looking into a different direction, pensive. Then, they turned to each other.
"Pauling here. Oh, hi, Heavy—What am I doing? Oh, nothing, just burying bodies. Why?—Huh?—Can't you tell me what it is? Well, okay, I'm almost done. I'll be there soon. I hope it's important."