Detective Euan Fitzpatrick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lovesguinness) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
muserevival2014-04-06 11:49 am
lovesguinness) wrote in muserevival2014-04-06 11:49 am
Entry tags:
063.1. Muse prompt
"Well life can be a little hard sometimes,
You do what you gotta do
A lot depends on the luck a man has,
And the cards that's been dealt to you
I'd fold this hand if I could
Or at least take a card or two."
• Good Luck Bad Luck, Lynyrd Skynyrd
This is what it had all boiled down to. Once again, sitting in a hospital waiting room, only this time he was alone and surrounded by people facing the burden of serious illnesses. He was sitting forward, clipboard resting against his knees as he scrawled in the answers to the questions filling a form of no less than 8 pages. He had been surprised they didn't want it written in his life's blood. He was feeling numb, and he was going through the motions on autopilot, trying to avoid the gaze of the heavily pregnant woman sitting across from him. It was making him think of his own loss, and right now, he didn't want salt rubbed in that raw wound.
The pen paused against the paper when he got to the next question, and he looked at it, reading it back over two or three times. Any past history of substance abuse or recreational use. Five lines wasn't fucking long enough, though the form did politely invite him to write on the over-side of the page if required. He skipped the question and went on to the next. He would come back to it once he figured out how the fuck to succinctly answer it. In the corner of the room, a curly-haired toddler started to throw a tantrum, screaming and determined not to stay put like a good boy on his father's lap. The screams were like shards being stabbed into Euan's already pounding head. For fuck's sake, did he want this fucking over with.
"Euan Fitzpatrick?" Euan had finished filling the form out the best he could once his name was called by a friendly nurse giving him a gentle smile. He got up and crossed the waiting room slowly with a limp and handed her the clipboard with his life story on it in very summarised form. She looked at the form, eyes skimming the family history and current family status. "Are you sure you don't want any family members to accompany you today, sir?" she asked him.
He didn't even hesitate. "No." The reply was short, quiet, but it left no room for protest. Not that she would, that wasn't her job. She wasn't here to judge him on why he had a wife, son, and siblings in the city but he was here alone. Which was a relief, because if she did and he had to object, he wasn't sure he would be able to continue to keep his shit together. He followed her up a long corridor, the cane he was using to aid his walking making a soft click whenever it hit the lino. He was led onto a hospital ward lined with leather reclining chairs and ushered to one which he sunk down into, resting the cane against the wall beside it.
It was impossible not to think of all of this as karma. He was Irish and raised on superstition, even if just a hint of it. Was it just bad luck? Maybe that's all it was. He just had really bad luck. Really bad luck that was spilling over to the people he loved, hurting them, affecting their lives. It couldn't just be bad luck. When the doctor came and went over the form with him question for question, his answers were monotone and flat while the nurse fussed around beside him, hanging an IV bag, taking his blood pressure, his temperature, hooking him up to a cardiac monitor.
Once the doctor finished explaining everything, he handed Euan a consent form to authorise treatment. Again, Euan's pen poised at the paper and with one more glance up at the doctor, his eyes fell back to the paper and he scrawled his signature on the line before handing the pen and clipboard back to the doctor. He dropped his head against the back of the recliner and looked up at the ceiling as the nurse clipped the tourniquet around his upper arm and hunted for the best place to insert the IV line.
Why it had all come to this, he had no idea, but he knew it couldn't be anything to do with bad luck.
Euan Fitzpatrick (Original Character)
You do what you gotta do
A lot depends on the luck a man has,
And the cards that's been dealt to you
I'd fold this hand if I could
Or at least take a card or two."
• Good Luck Bad Luck, Lynyrd Skynyrd
This is what it had all boiled down to. Once again, sitting in a hospital waiting room, only this time he was alone and surrounded by people facing the burden of serious illnesses. He was sitting forward, clipboard resting against his knees as he scrawled in the answers to the questions filling a form of no less than 8 pages. He had been surprised they didn't want it written in his life's blood. He was feeling numb, and he was going through the motions on autopilot, trying to avoid the gaze of the heavily pregnant woman sitting across from him. It was making him think of his own loss, and right now, he didn't want salt rubbed in that raw wound.
The pen paused against the paper when he got to the next question, and he looked at it, reading it back over two or three times. Any past history of substance abuse or recreational use. Five lines wasn't fucking long enough, though the form did politely invite him to write on the over-side of the page if required. He skipped the question and went on to the next. He would come back to it once he figured out how the fuck to succinctly answer it. In the corner of the room, a curly-haired toddler started to throw a tantrum, screaming and determined not to stay put like a good boy on his father's lap. The screams were like shards being stabbed into Euan's already pounding head. For fuck's sake, did he want this fucking over with.
"Euan Fitzpatrick?" Euan had finished filling the form out the best he could once his name was called by a friendly nurse giving him a gentle smile. He got up and crossed the waiting room slowly with a limp and handed her the clipboard with his life story on it in very summarised form. She looked at the form, eyes skimming the family history and current family status. "Are you sure you don't want any family members to accompany you today, sir?" she asked him.
He didn't even hesitate. "No." The reply was short, quiet, but it left no room for protest. Not that she would, that wasn't her job. She wasn't here to judge him on why he had a wife, son, and siblings in the city but he was here alone. Which was a relief, because if she did and he had to object, he wasn't sure he would be able to continue to keep his shit together. He followed her up a long corridor, the cane he was using to aid his walking making a soft click whenever it hit the lino. He was led onto a hospital ward lined with leather reclining chairs and ushered to one which he sunk down into, resting the cane against the wall beside it.
It was impossible not to think of all of this as karma. He was Irish and raised on superstition, even if just a hint of it. Was it just bad luck? Maybe that's all it was. He just had really bad luck. Really bad luck that was spilling over to the people he loved, hurting them, affecting their lives. It couldn't just be bad luck. When the doctor came and went over the form with him question for question, his answers were monotone and flat while the nurse fussed around beside him, hanging an IV bag, taking his blood pressure, his temperature, hooking him up to a cardiac monitor.
Once the doctor finished explaining everything, he handed Euan a consent form to authorise treatment. Again, Euan's pen poised at the paper and with one more glance up at the doctor, his eyes fell back to the paper and he scrawled his signature on the line before handing the pen and clipboard back to the doctor. He dropped his head against the back of the recliner and looked up at the ceiling as the nurse clipped the tourniquet around his upper arm and hunted for the best place to insert the IV line.
Why it had all come to this, he had no idea, but he knew it couldn't be anything to do with bad luck.
Euan Fitzpatrick (Original Character)