Snippet #2816241

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes,
unique in each way you can see.
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
serving something beyond me.

He really had no idea how long he’d been sitting in this one spot, staring at the wall across from him.

Vines were growing up the brickwork, interlacing themselves amongst each other and reaching upward with hopefully tendrils towards the sun. He liked tracking a single vine, following it with steady eyes before losing it amongst the growing chaos of the plant. Beautiful in a way that only nature could manage, artful its simplicity, pure decision to just survive even if a brick wall stood in its path.

Cassidy wasn’t too sure where that train of thought came from other than that it felt very important, very true, and utterly meaningless. Listlessly he broke his staredown with the wall, tugging at his overlarge sweater as a gust of wind cast up the street he’d been inhabiting for the better part of the morning. Or maybe he’d been there for a few days? Years? He wasn’t sure about a lot of things right now, lost in a sea of blankness and over sensation. If he focused, he could remember the necessary information.

His name was Cassidy Aisling. He had a mom, a dad, a brother, and a chronic illness that was supposed to kill him by 25. He’d spent the last week sick with phenomena, it had gotten worse and worse until the doctors had been forced to put him on a ventilator. Atlas had been there, with a sever set to his mouth and eyes cloudy with a look that Cassidy had wanted to ignore. He'd held his hand and read to him now that he could no longer manage it, filling in for his family when they were too exhausted to stay awake. Atlas has looked mournful, which had frustrated Cassidy because he was stuck to a goddamn machine and unable to force a smile on that annoyingly serious and handsome face. And then….

Disjointed thoughts, foggy from drugs and an unusually dark darkness. His brain could conjure up yelling, someone crying, the wail of a flatline, but they all seemed like memories he was pulling from an old television show. None of them seemed real, just images his brain pulled together to make sense of it all. He didn’t trust any of it, it made him physically uncomfortable to think about, so he just stuffed it deep into the “ignore-this-shit” portion of his brain and moved on.

What he did know is that he’d been sitting at a public bench for a while now, shivering slightly from the cold but relishing in the sensation, and breathing. Deep inhales fully in through his nose and gusting out of his mouth. The plume of hot breath in front of him was glorious, large and full and leaving him with an elated high he’d never known before. Cass had never breathed like this in his entire life, never enjoyed what the expansion of a healthy set of lungs could do for a human. He should probably be figuring out how his broken body was managing this, but for now he was just enjoying the fact that he was defying everything ever expected of it.

There were other weird things. He'd stuffed his hands in his pockets earlier and pulled out a set of keys and phone, both definitely not his but also his at the same time. He’d known the password for the phone, for instance, and he’d known what route to take in this small town to get to where these keys opened a door. Cassidy’s brain had instantly tried unscrambling this knowledge; he had never lived on his own, what with his parents house and the hospital being the only places someone manage his health. But like every time he tried making sense of things, his whole being screeched to a halt and wanted to scramble the hell away from it. And either way, he could breath, so who cared about a stupid new phone and an ominous set of keys?

People began walking by, dog owners on their morning walks or early birds out to fetch a coffee. Cass leaned back against the bench a little more casually, letting the ease of his breath settle him into a comfortable sort of meditation. The absence of struggle had never felt more freeing and he was perfectly content to let the world move around him for a bit, so different then how his life used to be. Everything had been hard before; he’d lived in a world where the basics had been a struggle, he’d had to claw towards every breath and just force his body to keep up with the pace of others. Now everything just worked, he was a functioning part of the world around him and it felt absolutely amazing.

Someone walked out of the building in front of him, a rigid skeleton of a man that Cassidy almost didn't recognize amidst his inner delight and contemplation. It was one of his first times seeing Atlas outside of a hospital coat and his black turtleneck and pants were strikingly odd looking on his pale skin. He also just looked bad, his body caved in like a puppet without strings, his hair limp like dying hay, his brows and eyes screaming ’leave me the fuck alone’.

Obviously, Cass had ignored that expression every time he’d seen it. That was the face that had originally made Cassidy what to crack the med student open, so all it did now was break his own face into a blooming smile. He sat up, grinning from ear to ear and perched on his bench ready for Atlas to smile back in return-

Only to have the man walk straight past him, eyes averted purposefully. Cassidy almost laughed, immediately assuming that this haggard state was something Atlas did not want his patient seeing him in, until the man actually did turn back around relectuantly.

He looked worse, if that was possible, then Cass had originally noticed. He looked like a shell of a human, a gutted pumpkin with only a husk left going about its normal routine. Cass’s smile faded for a moment when unfathomably sad brown eyes locked with his, then he threw himself off his perch and slapped the brightest smile on his face.

“Atlas!” his voice was a croak from misuse- when was the last time he’d spoken out loud?- but he just coughed it away, “Are you ignoring your favorite patient!?”

Atlas blinked at him slowly, like he'd been lost in thought somewhere far away, like he hadn't noticed it was Cassidy he'd just walked passed. When his gaze finally did focus on him, but there was still something not quite ... right about it. "What-" he said, then swallowed thickly and started again, "what are you ... doing here?"

Cassidy threw himself into his normal cheerfulness, hoping that whatever was happening that had chipped apart this man could be fixed with some tea and smiles. He laughed and gestured at the building Atlas had just exited, "I guess its pretty weird I am sitting outside your apartment this early in the morning. I swear At, I am definitely not stalking you. Let's just call this a fun coincidence and ignore all the awkward implications?" He walked a little closer, testing the edges of Atlas's obviously distraught mood, "Are you...okay? You look as uncomfortable as a shrunken wool sweater on tumble dry"

Atlas snorted softly, the way he always did when Cass said something weird. For a moment, that odd expression on his face slipped into something more normal, but it was back far too quickly. "Halloween Market," he said, random, avoiding the question. "Do you ... still want to go?"

"YES!" Cass's answer was instant, loud, and accompanied by a full leap forward. He'd never been able to move like this before and it felt absolutely great to follow up his energetic personality with actual energy, "And I don't even need you as a medical chaperone anymore cause I'm good as new" He took a big inhale to punctuate his point and thumped his perfectly functioning chest, "So just as friends?"