You're My Way Home, You're My Backbone.

The thing with being on tour was that it is generally hard to see a doctor unless it was an emergency.

Brendon didn’t think the lump was something that could be counted as an emergency, even though it was becoming very worrisome. It was fast becoming something bigger than a small pimple, almost tripling in size since he had first noticed it. That in itself was starting to freak him out a bit. What if it was some kind of infection or something?

As a couple of weeks past Brendon noticed that the pain that would shoot under his kneecap started happening more often, but at completely random times without an explainable reason. The pain was sharp, like someone had stabbed him with something fine bit extremely sharp like a large needle, but as soon as the pain started it would begin to fade. It didn’t hurt much, if at all, when he poked the raised up area which was downright confusing. Though if he turned his leg a certain way he could almost feel some kind of unexplained pull in the muscles running from his knee to ankle.

Really, it made no sense. Brendon talked himself up to it being craps of some kind, though in the back of his mind he knew whatever this was, it wasn’t muscle cramps.

As the pains started to become a more frequent thing, Brendon hoped that the pain wouldn’t hit while on stage or if it did, then it wouldn’t be too bad. Unlucky for him, it hit the worst for the first time while performing one night mid tour.

The band was half way through ‘Ready to Go’ and Brendon was half skipping, half running around the stage like usual as he sung, trying to rally the crowd into singing with him louder. As the chorus hit he spun on his heal to face Spencer, directly in front of the drums and beamed at his best friend. It took a moment for Spencer to notice from concentrating on the drums, but after a couple of seconds he looked and a flashed a bright grin back.

Brendon jumped up onto the drum platform, mic pressed to his moving lips and Spencer sang happily along with him though his voice got lost in the music and screams, even to his own ears. That didn’t stop Brendon from smiling and he sang louder to make up for it.

Brendon finished the chorus and flashed Spencer another smile before he carefully stepped backwards off the platform watching out for the row of water bottles somewhere close by. The second his right foot hit the ground the stabbing pain ran up his leg like fire, making his knee buckle violently before giving out under his weight. He landed on the floor with a loud thud and yelp that echoed through the speakers from his dripped microphone.

He landed mostly on his elbow but the pain in his leg was nothing compared to it. He groaned out loud and curled up clutching his leg. For a split second the pain reminded him of the time he badly burnt his hand as a kid, but instead of the skin burning it was under the skin, in the muscle and bone.

The bass and guitars faltered for a second, and the drums came to a dead stop. Before Brendon knew what was happening Spencer was crouched down on the ground next to him while Zack hovered overhead. Dallon and Ken weren’t far away, shock clearly written across their faces.

“Are you ok? What happened?” Spencer yelled over the noise, eyes wide in panic.

Brendon didn’t really know how to answer.

*

The lump almost looked as if it was getting bigger by the day and the pains were becoming more often, still random, by the end of the tour. Brendon tried to make it out that he had just pulled something and came up with some story that it wasn’t healing properly because he didn’t have time to rest it.

The crew all brought it including Ken and Dallon, and for a moment Spencer almost did too, until Brendon started wearing baggier pants that what he normally did in public and didn’t walked around the bus anymore in just his boxers when he had the chance. Which normally Brendon never gave the chance up to do.

It was a little bit fishy.

After knowing Brendon for so long, Spencer knew something was up.

But when Brendon started keeping more stationary on stage, not jumping from one end to the other and stepping around carefully, Spencer knew there was something really wrong that Brendon wouldn’t talk about.

Spencer did the first thing he could think of. He called Ryan.

*

Brendon wasted no time in going to the doctor once the tour was finished and he was back home. He had already booked an appointment a week earlier, the exact moment he found out the day and time he would arrive back.

The day almost came too soon but at the same time not soon enough.

To say he wasn’t scared would be a total lie.

Hiding in the back corner of the waiting room, he sunk his teeth into his bottom lip as his good leg bounced up and down from nerves. Usually Brendon was nervous just being at the doctors in general but this time it was from worry of what the doctor would find. It could be something really serious and Brendon tried not to think about that too much. It was hard not to.

The sudden ringing of his phone made him almost jump from the chair. Pulling his phone out of his hoodie pocked he glazed up, thumb hovering over the answer button, at everyone in the waiting room. Being three in the afternoon there wasn’t many people around and no one was sitting near him.

“Hello?” He asked answering the call, forgetting to look at the caller ID.

“Hey, Brendon.”

Recognizing the voice Brendon perked up a little, almost forgetting for a split second that he was in the local doctors’ surgery and probably shouldn’t be talking on his phone as his name could be called any minute. But one of his best friends was on the other side of the line, one he hadn’t seen since the tour started, roughly three months or more ago.

“Oh, hey Ryan. How are you?” He grinned though Ryan wasn’t there to see it.

“I’m good. I thought you would be home by now, I tried calling you house phone but got nothing. Spence is home.”

“I’m –“ He glanced down at his right leg and winced. “I’m at the shops, no food what-so-ever at home.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie. The only food he had at home that was eatable was what he managed to grab from the bus.

“Makes sense. Thought you’d be sleeping first though,” Ryan chuckled and Brendon smiled remembering the times he would get home, flop on the couch and sleep before doing anything else.

“Figured I would do something different this time, do the opposite.”

“So how was tour?” Ryan asked, slight curiosity leaking into his voice. “There was a lot of talk about you falling on stage a few times-“

“Brendon Urie?”

Brendon looked up to see one of the doctors, clip board in hand and looking around the room scanning faces. Nerves hit Brendon like a tidal wave almost hard enough to make him feel sick, but he managed to stand on his feet and force a smile at the other man when their eyes locked.

“- and I saw some vids on YouTube that fans took. I talked to Spencer a couple of days ago too, he’s worried.” Ryan continued.

“Oh, it’s nothing to worry about.” Brendon said trying his best to sound cheerful followed by a forced laugh.

He followed the doctor from the waiting room, a slight limp now in his step.

“I have to go, ok? I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bren, are you sure that everything is alright-“

Snapping his phone shut to end the call, he walked into the exam room and sat down on one of the chairs by the desk, across from the bed. His phone rang again and without looking at the caller ID, He simple turned the device off before shoving it into this pocket.

The doctor, which looked about twice his age with greying hair and long but nicely trimmed bread, smiled and greeted Brendon in a kind voice introducing himself as Dr Murray.

“So, Mr Urie, what can I help you with today?”

*

By the time Brendon got home from the trips between the hospital and doctors surgery, it was dark. His leg was aching almost as much as his head was, and he didn’t end up having enough time to go food shopping like he had planned to.

He had been sent for emergency x-rays and blood tests right after he explained to the Dr Murray what was happening. The Doc honestly had no idea what it was and Brendon was glad the Doc wanted to get all the tests done and not just shrug the matter off, like it was nothing.

Though Brendon hated blood tests and almost threw up in the waiting room afterwards, like usual.
Stepping into his cold and long untouched house – untouched apart from that morning when he had walked in, bumped his bags and left- he flicked on the living room light mentally crossing his fingers that it would turn on. For a moment it didn’t seem it would, but flickered a few times and came to life.

Brendon sighed relieved and made a mental note to buy a new globe as he walked into the room to collapse onto the couch, letting out a long breath.

After a couple of minutes he let himself fall sideways and stretch out across the furniture, wincing when his leg and arm –where the blood was taken from – protested. He let out an annoyed huff and tried to get comfortable as he fished his phone out of his hoddie pocket. Turning it on, he watched the screen light up.

Nine missed calls; four from Ryan, four from Spencer and shockingly even one from Jon.

There was also a couple of text messages from Zack, telling him to get his ass to a physio to get his leg checked out because he was not going to carry Brendon around on his back for the whole next tour.

Brendon bit down sharply on his lip and stared at the list on the screen. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell them what was going on, but what was he meant to say? He had a growing lump on his leg that hurt and no one knew what it was? Brendon snorted to himself, that wouldn’t be good enough explanation and if he did tell them they would just worry more.

Brendon hated people worrying over; he was the type to put others first as much as that annoyed some people, namely Spencer. So why worry them with something that even the doctors didn’t know what it was yet?

With that thought, Brendon shut his phone and placed it on the glass coffee table before pulling the throw rug off the back of the couch and stared up at the bland off-white ceiling.