Quentin Guy Lawrence (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
breakthesilence) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
muserevival2014-08-10 10:25 pm
breakthesilence) wrote in muserevival2014-08-10 10:25 pm
Quote of the Day 093.
"When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier."
- Roy E. Disney
contains content that may be triggering for some
Quentin had lost track of the amount of hours he had spent sitting sitting in the NICU beside this incubator and hoping - and yes, praying, despite not being religious - that the answers would just come to him. No amount of sitting here looking at the tiny, premature baby boy through the glass made any of it easier. He seemed to cope better with facing it now, but he knew there wouldn't be a miraculous road sign that pointed him in one direction or another.
Lying on the floor beside his feet was a folder containing a pile of lengthy adoption forms. The attorney had filled out a lot of the section, but they were all yet to be signed. The signing was the hard part. Sitting there, staring numbly into the incubator, Quentin wondered how many of those forms had been filled in and never signed. How many people in this world couldn't go through with giving their baby up? Probably a lot. How did they still cope in all the situations that had led to them trying to make that choice in the first place? He wondered a lot of things over and over again, of many things that he never thought he would have to face in his life. But then, everything his life had become to this day were things he had never envisaged happening to him.
He put his hand carefully in through one of the circular access doors and softly rested the tips of his fingers on the baby's belly that was rising and falling with his breathing that was a little rapid but controlled. One of the many things his system was suffering through trying to withdraw from the drugs that had been passed to him in-utero. His skin was smooth and soft, and Quentin had caught himself wondering what his infant son would look like without all the tubes and medical lines keeping him alive and trying to ease his pain. He wondered what colour his eyes were, or what he would sound like crying. Would he like cuddling in and being wrapped up, or would he be like Quentin was as a baby and liked to let it all hang loose?
Maybe a shrink would think his train of thought over these last few days wasn't healthy, but for some reason, letting himself think and feel everything in this way while he sat there watching the baby was cathartic. It had taken a lot of time, a lot of which he spent confused, crying, feeling sick, wanting to scream or hit something, but it all eventually drew him back to these moments where he was too exhausted to let the emotions override everything and he simply just sat there for his little boy, doing the best he could to be something for him... anything. It didn't matter what, it just had to be something.
But he knew now what he hadn't been ready to let himself know straight up. It was what he had been running from, and what was making him sick inside with guilt. He knew that as much as he loved this little boy, and loved him automatically from the moment he knew he existed, that he wasn't in any state to give him the best of anything. He had nothing to give but love, and the tiny person beyond that glass, under the tips of his fingers he was caressing over his belly, deserved and needed more. He didn't deserve this beginning in life, and he didn't deserve this suffering. Quentin wanted to be able to take it all away from him and take the moral high road of stepping up to the father plate and raising his child, but there was no guarantee that wouldn't lead to more pain and suffering for his son.
It was that absence of guarantee that had Quentin swallowing hard around the lump in his throat and reaching down to pick up the folder at his feet. He had his lips pressed together tightly in a vain effort not to cry, but it was always going to be a fruitless one. He unhooked the pen from the front of the folder and opened it. The tip of the pen was poised hovered over the paper in hesitation, simply just to dig right down deep inside him to push over this hardest hurdle of all.
After a few moments, he blinked, and a couple of tears dropped to the paper right before the tip of the pen finally fell to the signature line of the first form. His messy signature was scrawled over and over at each page flagged with pink Post-Its until he got to the end of the pile. He paused, staring down at the last empty line until his vision blurred with more tears and he scratched his final signature there and closed the folder over.
People would try to placate him by telling him there was no right or wrong choice here, but he knew in his heart that that there was only one right choice to make. His son would go to parents who loved him unconditionally, who cuddled him at night when he woke up crying from nightmares, and wiped his little face down when he was sick and feverish. They would cheer for him at Little League games, and they would take way too many photos and waste battery power filming the entirety of his school plays when all he did was stand in the background dressed as a frog. They would take him shopping for school shoes that they let him pick and they would let him have the Ninja Turtle schoolbag, no matter how impractical it actually was for school. But most important, right now, they would make sure he had the best medical care he needed. They would worry and cry for him when he was in pain. They would fear he wouldn't make it through.
And Quentin would worry and cry for him too. He would fear he wouldn't make it. He would think about him every single day for the rest of his life, and there would always be a part of him that wished he was the one filming the school plays or cuddling him after a nightmare. But he would also know that the only way his beautiful little son had any hope of fighting this was in the hands of people who could give him everything unconditionally and not hurt him more than he already was. He stood up and rested his hand on top of the incubator. "I love you, squirt. Don't you give up. Your mommy and daddy will be banking on it, okay?" he murmured hoarsely, and with that, he put the signed papers down on the chair he just vacated and walked out without looking back... because he knew if he looked back, he would never be able to leave him.
Quentin Lawrence
original character
- Roy E. Disney
Quentin had lost track of the amount of hours he had spent sitting sitting in the NICU beside this incubator and hoping - and yes, praying, despite not being religious - that the answers would just come to him. No amount of sitting here looking at the tiny, premature baby boy through the glass made any of it easier. He seemed to cope better with facing it now, but he knew there wouldn't be a miraculous road sign that pointed him in one direction or another.
Lying on the floor beside his feet was a folder containing a pile of lengthy adoption forms. The attorney had filled out a lot of the section, but they were all yet to be signed. The signing was the hard part. Sitting there, staring numbly into the incubator, Quentin wondered how many of those forms had been filled in and never signed. How many people in this world couldn't go through with giving their baby up? Probably a lot. How did they still cope in all the situations that had led to them trying to make that choice in the first place? He wondered a lot of things over and over again, of many things that he never thought he would have to face in his life. But then, everything his life had become to this day were things he had never envisaged happening to him.
He put his hand carefully in through one of the circular access doors and softly rested the tips of his fingers on the baby's belly that was rising and falling with his breathing that was a little rapid but controlled. One of the many things his system was suffering through trying to withdraw from the drugs that had been passed to him in-utero. His skin was smooth and soft, and Quentin had caught himself wondering what his infant son would look like without all the tubes and medical lines keeping him alive and trying to ease his pain. He wondered what colour his eyes were, or what he would sound like crying. Would he like cuddling in and being wrapped up, or would he be like Quentin was as a baby and liked to let it all hang loose?
Maybe a shrink would think his train of thought over these last few days wasn't healthy, but for some reason, letting himself think and feel everything in this way while he sat there watching the baby was cathartic. It had taken a lot of time, a lot of which he spent confused, crying, feeling sick, wanting to scream or hit something, but it all eventually drew him back to these moments where he was too exhausted to let the emotions override everything and he simply just sat there for his little boy, doing the best he could to be something for him... anything. It didn't matter what, it just had to be something.
But he knew now what he hadn't been ready to let himself know straight up. It was what he had been running from, and what was making him sick inside with guilt. He knew that as much as he loved this little boy, and loved him automatically from the moment he knew he existed, that he wasn't in any state to give him the best of anything. He had nothing to give but love, and the tiny person beyond that glass, under the tips of his fingers he was caressing over his belly, deserved and needed more. He didn't deserve this beginning in life, and he didn't deserve this suffering. Quentin wanted to be able to take it all away from him and take the moral high road of stepping up to the father plate and raising his child, but there was no guarantee that wouldn't lead to more pain and suffering for his son.
It was that absence of guarantee that had Quentin swallowing hard around the lump in his throat and reaching down to pick up the folder at his feet. He had his lips pressed together tightly in a vain effort not to cry, but it was always going to be a fruitless one. He unhooked the pen from the front of the folder and opened it. The tip of the pen was poised hovered over the paper in hesitation, simply just to dig right down deep inside him to push over this hardest hurdle of all.
After a few moments, he blinked, and a couple of tears dropped to the paper right before the tip of the pen finally fell to the signature line of the first form. His messy signature was scrawled over and over at each page flagged with pink Post-Its until he got to the end of the pile. He paused, staring down at the last empty line until his vision blurred with more tears and he scratched his final signature there and closed the folder over.
People would try to placate him by telling him there was no right or wrong choice here, but he knew in his heart that that there was only one right choice to make. His son would go to parents who loved him unconditionally, who cuddled him at night when he woke up crying from nightmares, and wiped his little face down when he was sick and feverish. They would cheer for him at Little League games, and they would take way too many photos and waste battery power filming the entirety of his school plays when all he did was stand in the background dressed as a frog. They would take him shopping for school shoes that they let him pick and they would let him have the Ninja Turtle schoolbag, no matter how impractical it actually was for school. But most important, right now, they would make sure he had the best medical care he needed. They would worry and cry for him when he was in pain. They would fear he wouldn't make it through.
And Quentin would worry and cry for him too. He would fear he wouldn't make it. He would think about him every single day for the rest of his life, and there would always be a part of him that wished he was the one filming the school plays or cuddling him after a nightmare. But he would also know that the only way his beautiful little son had any hope of fighting this was in the hands of people who could give him everything unconditionally and not hurt him more than he already was. He stood up and rested his hand on top of the incubator. "I love you, squirt. Don't you give up. Your mommy and daddy will be banking on it, okay?" he murmured hoarsely, and with that, he put the signed papers down on the chair he just vacated and walked out without looking back... because he knew if he looked back, he would never be able to leave him.
original character