#revivedrust

Aaron was sick when I met him.  My grandmother was a patient in the same treatment center as him.  Cancer is a fucked up disease, and it is one that ruined parts of my life, while bringing me other good things.  I would find love in those days and nights that I spent there visiting my grandmother, Aaron, and the other kids.  You’ll hear more about one special one later.  I lost my grandmother.  The cancer got her, as we knew it would.  She knew it, but she remained strong until her last moment. That was when the world changed. It grew darker for me, as my parents saw fit to rip me from the last lifeline I had – Aaron.

For a year, my life was the story of an after school special.  My parents had thrown me out.  I was on my own, and I turned to the wrong things to survive.  There is nothing about living in surviving, and it was that which nearly killed me.  I can’t, and won’t, write about those things there.  No love was found in that year – no, I’m wrong.  There was love.  The love of an adorable grey pit bull puppy that was as lost as I was.  Sprocket became a new life line, one that kept me together until fate saw fit to have my path cross with Aaron’s again, with Widget’s.

He would save me, from myself and the demons, literal and figurative, that had me captive.  I won’t be as stupid as to believe that love was the magical cure all.  I know it wasn’t, but it was a support, a grounding, that I could lean on in those hard nights.  The nights were drugs or a bullet sounded a lot simpler than the pain of withdrawals. It would be those nights that I would come to meet Mako Shark, and that’s where this story gets really interesting.

Mako was a friend that Widget had come across in the year that we were apart.  That Shark was unlike anything that I had ever known in my life, but in the same sense, I could understand him.  We would talk about plants, healing, and other randomness. Above all, Mako listened.  He didn’t judge me, and he sure as fuck never coddled me. He told me it straight, and he protected me through thick and thin.  The love that I have for him is one of a big brother, of someone that will take all the pain with all the good.  I knew that I could lose my shit around him, and he would hold me together.  Yes, I had that with Widget, but it was something different.  It was for the worries that couldn’t reach Widget’s ears, and it was for the days that inched along when Widget was gone.

The next person in this tale is the one I alluded to earlier, a fellow patient – Jesse.  Now, don’t go calling him that.  He’ll likely punch you.  Call him Topaz, but he is my best friend.  I love him dearly, and I’ve seen him through a lot.  He puts on this tough face, and he worries, but he is good. He will do anything to protect those that can’t protect themselves.  Topaz might be, no – wait, he is shit when it comes to expressing his emotions in words; but you know when he cares for you.  He’ll make sure you are okay, he’ll check on you, and without fail, he’ll be there. Many a night that meant holding me as I slept after Widget died, making sure I ate – even showing me his prized DVDs. It’s the small things with Topaz, no matter what he might tell you other wise.

Merle came along sometime after Widget and Topaz found me.  I don’t really remember, so I’m thinking he was somewhere in that span of time that is foggy still in my brain.  I do know that Merle is not what everyone sees.  Most only see a many that shares his bed every single night with someone. Now, he has Rassie, but even then, those two often have company.  I have been that company one night, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  Merle loves everyone that he meets.  He truly cares for them.  You don’t take photos of people that you want to forget – people that are nothing but a warm body.  If you want to think that of Merle, then you’ll have me to answer to.  Unlike Mako, Merle might sugar coat things, but he does it from a place of protection.  I know that he has hidden things from me, but I also know why.  He is my fabulous bestie, with the gorgeous hair, and I love him very, very much.  In the weeks and months after Widget’s death, he helped me to realize that I couldn’t keep living for the past.  I had to live for me.  Some might see that night as wrong, but trust me, it wasn’t.  I don’t think so, and neither do they.  Neither does Widget.

Now, speaking of that man, Aaron, or as most know him, Widget, is the man that I love.  I loved him when he was sick, when I knew that one day he would die.  I loved him after he died, carrying on our lives – my life.  I could have left the Rust the day that Widget died, and no one would have questioned it.  Even Topaz. Yes, they would have worried, but they would have understood.  I stayed because the Rust was part of me – it was our family.  Death didn’t end that, nor the love that encompassed it.  Widget’s death shook everyone.  Yes, cancer can be a certain thing, and life has a certain end; however, it doesn’t mean that you are really prepared for it.  Not totally.

I got him back, but it wasn’t him.  Not fully. I had to make an entirely new peace with our situation.  The world was changing, and I knew of magic beyond that of Mako’s.  To say that it was a mind fuck was a damn understatement, but I had Widget back.  I did. I knew part of him loved me, and it was that love that kept him close.  It wasn’t until Phoe came that she fixed what was wrong.  Widget’s himself, once again.  A little wilder, crasser, but it’s Widget.  My Widget.  The insane, full of the fire that cancer had dampen in him.  We have to work to know each other again, anew; but you know what? That love survived.  Through all the shit, even through death, the love held true.  I’m thankful for that.

I’m just human.  I’m surrounded by magical creatures, and things from storybooks and myth that I never believed could be true.  I might not have the magic to merge into others, or to steal the moon, but I have the love I feel for them all.  I have the love that has forged bonds with Widget, Mako, Merle, Topaz, and Phoe – and even some of the mergs.  I have that.  If anything, that can be my magic.  The ability to love them all – thick or thin, agree or disagree, happiness or pain. Maybe that’s what Mako meant when he told me humans have it best – I can love them for their flaws, love them despite my own flaws, their mistakes…I can look at it all from the outside.  That old Shark is always right, now that I think about it.