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Immediately upon entering the barn, Stephen was hit with a wave of malodorous scent so strong he had to cover his nose and mouth to keep his lunch down.
“What the hell happened here?” He asked, turning to the man in the veterinarian coat next to him. The man only nodded in the direction of a pink mass on the ground close to an ailing cow. When Stephen focused his sight over the tears that were gathering in his eyes, he could begin to piece together what that mass was in reality.
“What the… Gray, that calf…”
“It looks to be mummified, yes.” The veterinarian responded.
Stephen attempted to step closer. He had seen many things in his years working as a veterinary technician, but this… was a new one. The calf, obviously dead, looked, at first glance, like it was rid of skin, or so underdeveloped it never made one. Even knowing what had gone wrong with it, Stephen had a hard time piecing it together.
“What do we do, then?”
“Tell the owner to get rid of it and try to save the mother. Bring me my gear.”
When Stephen and Gray came back home, they were hungry and exhausted, but most importantly smelling like death. Stephen only agreed to shower second because he knew Gray would crash the bathroom while Stephen was there if he had to wait a second longer. Which Stephen normally wouldn’t mind, but preferably not when they just came back from a full day of dealing with irresponsible owners.
“What are we going to do about the case?” He asked, taking off as many of his outer, smelly clothes, as he could and throwing them in the washing machine to stop the putrid scent from spreading. “No sane owner just ignores a problem like that. We should report animal abuse on that farm.”
“You think the police will care about some old lady who didn’t check in on her pregnant cow? We’ll only make people distrustful by ‘ratting her out’,” said Gray over the running shower.
“We can’t just let her run free, though! Refusing to give treatment is a form of animal cruelty!”
The shower stopped, and Stephen could hear footsteps and the sound of a towel being taken off the rack.
“The average animal cruelty case is either dropped or settled with little to no consequence. There is no point taking this to the authorities.”
The door opened, revealing an undressed Gray Yeon, who casually walked past Stephen to open his wardrobe to grab some comfort clothes.
“Then what? We let it go? Just like that? And hope that next time she comes to us when problems start to appear?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
Gray turned to Stephen suddenly, halfway through putting on his trousers, balancing on one leg to drag the other through the cloth.
“The law is ridiculous. Reporting people will discourage others from calling a vet when they fuck something up. Helping and making them feel better about it, while it seems fake, is the objectively more effective way.”
Stephen sighed loudly, leaning on the door frame, his gaze falling to his shoes. What was the point of his job if he couldn’t even help a cow like this?
There was a soft sigh, then a gentle hand on his hair.
“Go shower. I’ll order us Chinese takeout. You did a good job today.”
It was a quiet apology. Stephen took a deep breath and nodded. He leaned over the other man, with the intention of leaving a kiss on his head, but Gray ducked out of the way.
“Try again when you don’t smell of a mummified calf,” he said with a chuckle.
At which Stephen groaned and pushed himself to wobble his way into the bathroom.