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

“I’ve been thinking-“

“Did it hurt?” Ryan snickered.

Brendon snorted loudly in annoyance. Ryan’s laugh echoed through the phone, loud enough he had to pull it away from his ear for moment.

“As I was saying,” Brendon muttered. “I’ve been thinking about what you said a while back, about the fan comments.”

Ryan when silent then and Brendon weren’t sure if he should continue. He had been thinking about this, a lot over the last couple of days lying in the hospital bed. Being stuck here without having much to do or not feeling well enough to attempt, he had all the time in the world to think. As usual there was a constant nagging in the back of his mind about the band, which led to thinking about the fan comments.

He wanted to see what the responses were. Wanted to see all the heartfelt comment that made him smiled. Cheered him up. He felt he could use something like that at the moment.

“I-I was wondering...if you could, like, print some off for me to read? Or something? I don’t know.”
Brendon could hear Ryan let out a long breath and bit his lip waiting for a reply.

“Sure. I can, yeah. I can do that for you,” Ryan said sounding a little hesitant. “Did you want me to bring them to you? I’ll be going up there later today.”

“Yeah, that would be good. Um,” Brendon paused before shaking his head. “Is it ok if we keep this between us for now? Just in case I start blabbering like a five year old again, I don’t want the others to see me like that. I don’t want to stress out Spencer anymore right now either.”

He wanted to add, everyone’s seen enough pain from me lately, but kept that comment to himself.

“Of course. Secret’s safe with me, lock my lips and all that shit.” Ryan chuckled.

“Thanks,” Brendon smiled, though Ryan couldn’t see it.

“No problem.”

It was quiet on the line when neither knew what to say next, at least until Brendon broke it, trying to get rid of the sudden awkwardness.

“You’re my best friend...” He half sung quoting Queen.

Ryan laughed.

*

Brendon was sitting in the hospital bed, shakily holding up his latest x-ray to the light when the door creaked open. Concentrating on holding the pictures up, he didn’t glance over knowing who it was already. Only deaf people wouldn’t have heard Spencer and Ryan squabbling about something all the way up the hallway like a couple of ten year old kids. Knowing them it was probably about something kids that age would argue about.

Sometimes Brendon wondered how he managed to live with them squashed into a tour bus for all those years.

“Are those the x-ray that was taken the other day?” Ryan asked, smacking Spencer in the arm.

“Yeah.” Brendon nodded softly. “The doctor has already explained them, just thought I’d have a closer look myself. It’s interesting.”

Spencer punched Ryan hard in the arm and quickly ran around the opposite side of the bed. Brendon tried to hold up the photo higher but his arm started shaking more from effort. Sitting in bed for days without doing much wasn’t doing him good. Spencer took the x-ray from him and held it up higher for all to see.

It was an x-ray of Brendon’s chest when the doctor was checking for a chest infection. It was clear, but it was still interesting to look at. All his ribs were accounted for that was for sure.

Spencer handed the photo back and Brendon passed him the latest one of his right leg. Spencer held it up and Ryan moved closer holding the arm Spencer punched.

It was easy to see the difference from this x-ray to the first one. The huge white blotch was gone replaced with a small slightly darker blur shade that was a small amount of scar tissue from the operation. It looked good, very good.

Brendon let a wide smile pull at his lips. Considering that he had a huge tumour in his leg not all that long ago, he has came a long way. Still far to go but there was noticeable progress.

That was something to be proud off.

“That looks so much better than before.” Spencer said handing back the picture and holding up the next one Brendon handed him.

“You can see the difference between both legs in this one.” Brendon said pointing.

Ryan shoved Spencer and pointed to his arm.

“I’m going to need an x-ray now because of you. That fucking hurt.” Ryan glared.

Spencer scoffed but reached over to rub Ryan’s arm better.

“So still not back flips for a while yet, huh?” Spencer joked, glancing at Brendon. “Well there goes my entertainment of waiting to see if you’d land on your head.”

Brendon flicked his arm and Spencer laughed. Ryan tried to reach over the bed to flick Spencer too, but he easily stepped out of his reach.

“Pass me that one of your leg again?” Spencer asked holding his hand out.

Brendon passed it over and Spencer held them up to the light. Looking them over carefully. Before Brendon could ask what Spencer was looking for, there was a light tip from his other side. He looked over just as Ryan pulled some paper out of his back pocket and handed them over without saying anything. It took a second for Brendon to realise what they were.

He hid them under his blankets before Spencer could notice them.

“You have a point, these are interesting.” Spencer nodded as he eventually put the x-ray back into the envelope. “Did they do one of your head to see if you have a brain?”

Ryan started laughing and though both tried to step out of arms reach, Brendon still managed to him them both on the arms frowning.

“Jokes aside, they look good. Well from what I can tell anyway.” Spencer shrugged sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“There is no huge white blob anymore, so it has to be good.” Ryan smiled.

Brendon nodded in agreement and picked up the bottle of juice from the bedside table Dallon had brought for him. The chocolate was tucked away safely yet to be touched. He doubts he should be eating something like that when he still couldn’t stomach a full meal yet.

“So on the scale of one to ten, ten being the worse, how bored are you?” Spencer asked leaning closer and flashing a smile.

“Twenty. Why?”

Ryan suddenly nudged Brendon over to one side of the bed to make room when he climbed on. Brendon grumbled but moved over anyway. Spencer pulled his IPod out from the bag he has brought with him and tapped at the screen. Once he found what he was looking for, he held made Ryan bend his legs up as a stand and hit play.

Despicable Me started playing and Brendon smiled.

He fell asleep about half way though after a large coughing fit, but the guys kept the movie going in case Brendon woke up before it ended.

*

It wasn’t until dark and visitor’s hours were over that Brendon remembered the bunch of papers Ryan had given him. He had to search most of the bed, shoving the heavy blankets around before he found them, crumpled by his feet. How they got that far down the bed he had no clue, but they were all there and were able to be flatted out.

As he started to unfold them, he noticed a little note Ryan had written on the back of one of the sheets. Slowly sliding out of bed and holding onto the bedside table he reached for the bright over head light switch, turning it on. It was almost blinding as it flickered on but once his eyes was over that he slid back onto bed.

Once he was back in the middle of the bed a small coughing fit rattled his lungs and he waiting patiently as he could for it to pass so he could read what Ryan wrote.

‘If you need someone to read these with, call me. Anytime. I picked out a bunch of nice one’s for you; ones that I think you’d like the most.
-Ry’

Brendon smiled and stalled himself, talking a deep breath before unfolding the pages completely. Without reading anything yet it was clear Ryan had printed a lot for him to read. That made Brendon pause for a moment; it felt different reading like this, away from a computer screen like if having the messages on paper made them more personal somehow.

Pushing the feeling away, he started reading, taking in each world carefully. The first couple were sweet little ones that made Brendon beam, but as he went on, it got harder as more words borrowed in. Tear started pricking and blurring up his eyesight.

No matter how many messaged Brendon has read, he still couldn’t believe so many people cared enough to take time out of their day to write these onto internet despite knowing that there was a chance Brendon would never see them. He’s glad he gets to, that he gets chances like right now that he can.

By the time the day’s exhaustion started to catch up to him, he managed to read two pages of the five Ryan had done. Before going to bed he ate the rest of the yogurt from dinner and curled up under the warm blankets.

The nurse would be in soon for the next lot of meds but he tried to get some sleep before then with the pages neatly hidden in the bedside table draw with the chocolate.