Who: Will and Mary What: Finding Alan Where: At the morgue When: Saturday December 3rd Rating: Medium to High for Will's mouth
For William Dale, December 3rd started off as just another regular day. His alarm clock rang out at 7:30, and after a groan, he rolled out of bed and proceeded to do his morning rituals. One shower, a cup of tea and an English muffin later and Will was ready for work. It wasn't every day that Will had to go into the morgue so early in the morning. He usually took afternoon shifts or depending on what his schedule was like at the hospice. Somehow, watching people die in the morning was easier to stomach than watching them die in the afternoon. It was somewhat of an inside joke with Will, to see the dying in the morning and the dead in the afternoon. It was all he could do to keep from getting too serious about his jobs.
Today, however, Will had agreed to take a morning shift at the morgue, because that night was his little brother's birthday. Will wasn't a party-goer, nor was he all that outwardly affectionate, but he did care a great deal about his family, his brother in particular. He knew it would mean a lot to Alan if Will was at least there for when they cut his cake. Living with an autistic sibling was not easy for Will, who could tell every time Alan was feeling off. Despite himself, Will knew he had to find his own place eventually if he was to attempt working both at hospice and the morgue. There was no way he could deal with having to listen Alan throw tantrums at night if he had to be up early the next day. And as much as Will could soothe his little brother, it also took a toll on Will, who ended up exhausted and still unable to function the next day. Living alone had its perks, though Will still missed his family and spoke to at least one of them on an almost daily basis.
"Good morning, Sara," Will greeted the secretary as he walked into the morgue. She smiled in return and allowed him to pass through the main entry way for employees. Working at the morgue was not the most pleasant thing in the world, but oddly enough, Will found it to be soothing. It was quiet and serene, and he learned more here about human anatomy than he likely would have in school. It gave him a broader appreciation for human life and a sense that he was actually making some sort of difference in the world. He had once read that what made us human was not just how we treated the living but how we cared for our dead.
As he passed through the familiar hallways to his desk, Will waved at a few of his coworkers drinking coffee in their staff lounge. He had his own mug sitting empty at his desk, though he usually drank tea moreso than coffee. It really depended on the day. At his desk, which was small and almost insignificant inside the large office, Will had all his paperwork stacked neatly on the side. His computer lulled quietly with its screensaver whirling away. He pulled back his chair and took his seat. Directly in front of him, he had a framed picture of him and his two siblings, which he caught sight of every time he sat at his desk. They were more than just family. They were best friends. You didn't go through life with an autistic brother without getting to know the finer details of the human psyche.
Calmly, he began to work on the stacks of papers on his desk. Most of it was tedious work, filling out information to send off for death certificates, signing off on information about a particular cadaver, reexamining notes about organs and organizing files for the deceased. He had lost track of time with all this busy work when the sound of footsteps down the hallway broke his concentration.
"Hey Will," Bill, the Head Morgue Technician, called, "Got another stiff."
"I'll be right there," Will said with a nod. Will had never done an autopsy on his own, though Bill always let him help out with the weighing of the bodies and the packaging of the organs. Bill was the main guy who did all the cutting open of bodies and the sort.
Setting aside his paperwork, Will got up and headed down to the autopsy room. The whole place was frigid, but down there, it was even colder. They had a coat rack just by the door where all the employees kept a sweater hung for when they had to go work in the autopsy room. Will picked out his sweater from the rack and slipped it on. He entered the room and went immediately toward the latex gloves and the clipboards with the questionnaires they always had to fill out for the bodies. It was like a laundry list of things to look for, almost like going to the doctor and being asked what hurt and what didn't, except their patients couldn't actually talk for themselves.
"What's the name," Will asked absently, walking over to the mound on the table with the white sheet over it. He was looking down at his clipboard when Bill pulled the sheet aside and frowned at the name on his own clipboard.
"It's... no. No, it can't be."
Will managed to look up from his clipboard at the exact same time that Bill murmured the name, "Alan Dale."
Will's clipboard clanked and clattered the moment it touched the ground. Will's eyes had gone wide. If the body hadn't been there right in front of him, he wouldn't have believed it. Hell, he still couldn't believe it. "What?" He was shaking his head now. "No, no. Alan?" Normally, Will was unafraid to approach a dead body, and for the first time, he hesitated before reaching out and touching his cold, dead brother. His head was still shaking. "Alan? How? He can't... ALAN!"
Will spoke louder as if Alan was going to suddenly wake up and smile at him like he always did, but something terribly grim in the pit of his stomach told Will that Alan would never smile at him or at anyone ever again. "Fucking shit." With the precision of a doctor, Will began to search his brother's body for the cause of his death. He didn't have to look for long.
Alan's limp hand hung off the side of the autopsy table when Will dropped it and stepped away from the table with a gasp. No, it wasn't possible. It just wasn't possible. "Holy shit. Holy shit." Will was clenching and relaxing his hands. He had never felt this upset before. Usually, when everything around him was going to hell, he was the calm one. Not now, not with his brother dead there with sliced up wrists on his autopsy table. Bill, who had clearly never seen Will in such a state, didn't know what to do. In fact, he looked awfully panicked himself, almost as if Alan had been his brother too, and he had just discovered this along with Will.
"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Uhm." Will looked around the room wildly. It embarrassed him that it had taken him this long to think of his family, but he was so consumed with shock and grief that the thought of anyone else hadn't crossed his mind until then. "Bill, I uhm... I... Just... I need to..." He found that he couldn't finish a single thought and instead bolted out of the room without much more of an explanation.
Once he was out of the room, he pulled his gloves off, leaving them lying on the floor discarded as he went for his desk. No, not the desk, he thought manically. The photo. He couldn't bear to see that photo again, not right now. His hands groped around his pockets for his cell phone. No, this was not happening. Someone would have called him. Someone would have let him know. There was no way he was just finding out about this now.
His phone slipped out of his fumbling hands several times before he could get it steady enough to take a look at it. "Fuck me." He had forgotten that it was almost impossible to get reception down here. Maybe because they worked inside a refrigerator practically. He knew he had to get to a phone somehow though, and he slipped into someone's cubicle. It took him perhaps three or so tries to get his sister's number to dial properly, though once it did, he sat there on the edge of someone's desk, biting some part of his nail. His leg twitched nervously as if he was having a spasm, but Will didn't notice. The only thing he wanted was to hear his sister's voice and have her tell him that this was all just a bad dream.