doc aodhán cassidy / d6 / fin

fire as his name, fire in his belly, stoked day by day by a father with ambitions above his station. his father lets him sit up in the front of the ambulance he drives when he's a teenager, and he tells him that in the future, things will be better. aodhán and his peers won't have to toil away at the long hours the generations preceding them did if all goes according to plan. it didn't, of course, because the world wasn't ready. that's what his father told him. his hands were old, calloused skin loose on his bones at that point, but they gripped him by the shoulders and shook him just the same as when was young.

aodhán, he said, things will change. 

aodhán never doubted otherwise. he studied to become a doctor, specialised in paediatrics. everything starts young, including the attitudes these kids would have forever more. if aodhán could help them fight their illnesses, maybe he can inspire them to keep fighting against anything else holding them down. the anything elses would be many, of course, but he didn't tell them that. he shook their little hands when they were discharged and told them he hoped they didn't have to meet again. they'll grow up, move onto bigger and better things.

none of this is permanent. again and again aodhán told people that things will get better.

in his personal life, he floundered. his friends, his graduating class, slunk into their roles with embarrassing complacency that was beyond his comprehension. they didn't care about the children, the future, or even their own rights. they complained, they drank, but at the same time they waved him off. dreams were for sleeping, their real lives were all their waking hours had time for. to aodhán it wasn't a dream. they'd fed off his warmth during their exams, during their residencies, throughout it all. but now that they'd made it, he was a jester of idealism in their eyes. of course he worked in paeds. children were the only ones who wouldn't roll their eyes at the word union.

but he understood them eventually. in search of people who would listen, aodhán talked himself into a multitude of situations, a patchwork quilt of beds, sewn together from one night to another. it was easiest like that for a while, to distract himself, until it wound up harder than anything. he wondered how his father did it. how did he raise a boy, near singlehandedly? aodhán's mother had disappeared when he was still very young. he could, if he squinted with his mind's eye, remember the glassy expression she wore near permanently. if he focused especially hard, he saw her walking into the city's bated breath on a misty winter's day, arms outstretched. but otherwise, it was him. it was dad. and things were going to get better. 

in short, he didn't know how to be a husband. but given the situation, marriage was the right thing to do, according to his father, who, despite his union dreams, was still an old fashioned man at heart. his ideas were all based on his own staunch moral compass, that which he passed down to his son. at twenty two, aodhán married a woman he liked well enough, but couldn't say that he loved in any way other than physical. he was never a good husband, no, but being a father was a different matter. he managed to carve out time for his children. although he was taken away from his cause, aodhán's dream grew each time he looked at his children's faces. 

fidelity had always been hard. eventually, it was impossible. long hours at work led to longer hours at bars, making connections of all kinds just like the good old days. the colder the silence at the cassidy household got, the more aodhán stayed out. even during a rare day off, or even more of a novelty, a day he got home early, aodhán would go out with the kids rather than stay home. eventually, they got older though. iced themselves away from him too, gradually, day by day, until the morning his wife served him papers. 

things could get better again, he told himself. the divorce was a good thing -- that, he hadn't quite convinced himself of yet. but for sure, his kids didn't need him anymore, not in the way they did when they were young. they didn't need him right by their side. they'd made that clear enough, lining up behind their mother throughout all proceedings. still, he wouldn't begrudge them their futures. that was all he could give them now. approaching his forties, aodhán felt weariness overcoming him, a greater despondency than ever before descending upon him, greying him out, literally and figuratively. his fire needed to be stoked again. 

aodhán took the initiative himself. his fire was going to extend across district six before it finally went out. what happened after that was up to the children -- the ones he worked alongside, the ones he cared for day in and day out. his father was long gone, gone the way of his mother. but this time, aodhán saw it clearly. he saw his mind melt away, his tongue slackening in his mouth. the last thing his father gave him was a squeeze of one hand in both of his. the final nail in his coffin was the first in aodhán's; what else did he have to live for?

as a union leader, aodhán's embers drew people in. trustworthy, in the ways that counted at least, and warm, with soft eyes to balance out the rest of the angular body. a living fire poker.