What if I ain't no violinist?

147. Twoset Veterinarian X (In the name of science 2)

It's been 3 days since Eddy got upset at dinner time over his patient Mindy, an elderly cat he'd been looking after since he started working at the current veterinarian clinic. That evening Brett had done some research and found a recent news article about a university research team who studied AIM proteins, a substance found naturally in the body that could be the key to preventing and curing kidney failure in cats.

That evening Brett somehow sensed something was not right the second Eddy came through the front door upon his return from work. Brett was in the middle of preparing dinner and he quickly wiped his hands and stepped out of the kitchen.

"Eddy..?"

Eddy had just finished removing his shoes. Without saying a word, he stood still in tears. Brett stepped in close and held him.  Eddy's whisper was barely audible between sobs;

"I had to euthanise Mindy today."

Brett's eyes widened in shock. He then closed his eyes as he hugged his partner, rubbing his back in an attempt to soothe him.

"Oh Eddy, I'm sorry..."

Brett wondered how his partner coped with all this upset that came with the job as a vet. Eddy had once told Brett that he managed to hold it all in while he is at work. Brett therefore believed it's important to let his partner vent and grieve as much as he needed to once he got home.

Dinner plans were canned, with Eddy saying he couldn't bring himself to eat anything. He sat on the sofa with Pag on his lap as he stared at the TV even though he really wasn't taking in any of its content.

"Eddy.."

"..Yes..?"

"Will you come into my office, please?"

"Brett.. I'm sorry, I just want to veg out tonight.."

"Eddy, I think you should see this. Please?"

Eddy reluctantly placed Pag on the floor and made his way to Brett's study.

Brett stood next to his swivel chair and lead Eddy to sit down. He then placed his hands on Eddy's shoulders and spun him around towards his desktop computer.

"So.. what am I looking at?"

"The email reply from the university I wrote to 3 days ago."

"Oh"

Brett had opened the email with a web browser so that he could click the "translate" button

"Okay.. this is the first time I'm reading this, too. Let's see..."

"Okay, so they ask us to visit a page with a recently uploaded notice in light of the huge interest they received from the news article..."

"Wow so that article did attract a lot of attention.. it wasn't just us"

"Okay so Eddy, I'd actually stuffed up for starters, I was looking at their faculty of Veterinary Medicine page..."

"And we shouldn't have?"

"Nope. Says here Eddy that the guy's in the faculty of Medicine..."

"What..? So he was doing medical research and crossed over to apply his findings to veterinary medicine.. wow.."

Brett clicked on the link. A new page came up. The two of them started scanning the page. It was Eddy who broke the silence first.

"Um... Brett..?"

"Yeah?"

"...isn't that a photo of Herbert von Karajan?"

"What? Where? Who?"