February writing challenge: day 19
using table 7 from the 5sentence_fics community
Fandom: Gundam Wing, Pairing: Heero/Duo, Rating: PG, Warnings: HEAVY ANGST, BL, word count: 343, see previous stories here. NOTE: PLEASE take the angst warning seriously on this one - the story was taken directly from something that happened here in omaha a couple of months ago. it's rather haunted me, and i'd only heard about it through the news. it's one of the reasons we all need to keep track of each other someway, somehow.
Table 7, #16 - Teddy Bear
At the door, Heero and his partner slipped on shoe protectors, and pulled on latex gloves while listening to the gray-tinged uniform tell of how the neighbor hadn’t seen the resident or her child in a couple of weeks - give or take a day or two - and how the apartment manager wouldn’t check on her, but gave over quickly enough the police when they were called, and how neither the officer nor her partner touched a thing, since the smell and position of the bodies were visible from the doorway; Heero nodded his acknowledgment, keeping his lips pressed shut and his eyes on the coroner examining the bodies.
He didn’t have to look at either body to know they weren’t victims of foul play, that they were just victims; Heero’s stomach knotted when the coroner began his report, and for the first time in months, if not years, he felt bile begin to rise, and fought it down. The neighbor mentioned that the mother had been sick, a head cold she said - indications of the mother’s general state, her manner of dress and position of her body on the couch confirmed - the coroner added that by the level of decomp, ToD was approximately fifteen to sixteen days before; the toddler lying on the floor beside the couch was almost two, and had lasted longer, putting his time of death at less than ten days.
In the tiny kitchen, there were signs of the toddler looking for something to eat, and eating the dry cat food from the dish on the floor - the neighbor confirmed the cat had been outside the day before, and when Heero asked why no one had reported the child crying, he was told the child had been mute, and didn’t speak or make a sound.
Heero picked up a child's toy, watching as the coroner prepared the bodies for transport, and repeated to himself that at least it wasn’t a homicide, that there was nothing he could do, no wrong to avenge and set to right - that it was just a normal every day tragedy.
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