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

It was always sort of obvious that Brendon was quick on his feet. He had been a pretty good runner in school and was always able to prance across the stage in just a few quick steps, surprising Ryan, Jon, Ian, Dallon or Ken by suddenly popping up besides them, seeming out of nowhere.

But it wasn’t until one morning when he had been lying on the couch and suddenly had to bolt to the bathroom to be sick that he realised, yeah, he could fucking move if he needed too. Weak leg or not.

Brendon was a little proud about it and used that as a distraction to think of all the useful things he could do with that type of quickness, like setting up a water bomb ambush and be able to escape before Spencer can catch him.

Distractions helped but he still let out a groan as he flushed the toilet and lent against the bench. His stomach lurched again and he quickly bent back over the toilet. Brendon closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see anything.

Brendon flushed the toilet again when he guessed he was finish and sat down on the large bathmat, leaning against the shower glass door.

That was where Ryan found him about half an hour later, humming to himself.

When Ryan poked his head around the half open door Brendon hardly blinked. He looked down at his lap.

“Hey,” Ryan said in quiet greeting easing into the room slowly.

“Hi,” Brendon croaked out.

He ignored the frown on Ryan’s face and patted the spot on the mat besides him. Ryan shuffled his way fully into the room and sat down, bumping his leg against Brendon’s.

“How long have you been in here?” Ryan asked.

“Half hour,” Brendon shrugged. “I had been fine ‘till an hour ago.”

“Been drinking water?”

“Not since I’ve been in here. Probably should though.”

Brendon shrugged again and picked at the piece of thread on his pyjama pants. Suddenly his stomach tightened up and Brendon leant forward with it, ready to make the leap across the room, but luckily enough the feeling faded away before he had to. His stomach then made a loud gurgling noise that really didn’t sound all that healthy.

Brendon brought his knees up to his chest and curled up into a ball.

“Raincheck on the movies then,” Ryan stated more than asked.

“Sorry.”

With a soft smiled Ryan shuffled closer, bunching up the mat they were sitting on and wrapped an arm around Brendon’s shoulders. He couldn’t imagine that he smelled all that nice right now after what he had been doing. Ryan didn’t comment on it.

“It’s alright; we can go some other time.” Ryan offered.

Taking slow deep breaths Brendon rested his head on Ryan’s shoulders. After a couple of minutes sitting like that Ryan nudged his side and Brendon blinked his eyes open he hadn’t notice closing. The lights weren’t on but the room was still bright. It reminded him of hospital lights.

“Have you had your pills yet?” Ryan asked half gesturing to Brendon’s stomach.

Brendon nodded and sat up straighter. He cringed when his stomach protested the movement.

“Yeah, but I started throwing up just after I took them so I don’t think they had time to work.” Brendon half croaked out inching forward on the mat a little.

“I’m going to get you something to drink.” Ryan stated. “Are there water bottles in the fridge?”

Brendon nodded sliding forward again and Ryan hesitated for a second before getting up and quickly walking out of the room.

Ryan wasn’t even to the kitchen when Brendon had to make the leap for the toilet. There was a loud wooden creaking noise as his knee smashed into the corner of the cupboard, followed by a loud sickly groan.

Brendon half groaned, half moaned in pain as he finished and shakily reached up to flush the toilet just as Ryan rushed back into the room, water bottle in hand. Brendon glanced up at him and Ryan didn’t hesitate to help Brendon back over to the mat and getting him to drink at least a sip of water.

“You alright?” Ryan asked, knowing full well it was pointless to ask if he was ok, because he obviously wasn’t.

“Yeah,” Brendon croaked. “Shame shit, different day.”

Bending the knee that slammed into the cupboard Brendon knew that it was going to bruise up good. He frowned and lifted up his pants leg for a look. Turns out he narrowly missed the spot where the tumour was cut out, hitting the area just above. Besides him Ryan hissed and made himself comfortable as he could on the bath mat.

“Actually it’s different though,” Brendon stated to say pulling his pants back down. “I still feel horrible, but it’s not ‘I’m so sick I can’t get out of bed; it’s more...I’m sick but I can still get up and do things. If that makes sense.”

“Do you think it’s because of the med your taking now?” Ryan asked curious.

“Maybe. Either that or the antibiotics I’m still on,” Brendon guessed. “Way better that was it was before.”

“You have a lot more colour then those other times I’ve seen you sick, and you’re not staring off into space either.”

Brendon smiled softly looking down at the long thread sticking out of his pants leg and started pulling at it again. It gave easily and snapped without hardly any pressure.

“You do look better then what you used to after chemo.” Ryan said softly.

“Really?”

Ryan smiled and nodded. Brendon smiled, ignoring the twist in his stomach that tried to ruin the moment and ducked his head a little. Hearing that was great because now Brendon knew he was thinking about before Ryan arrive wasn’t just in his head.

It could be the new medication, but he was still a good couple of steps in the right direction.

“Seeing as we can’t go to the movies now, wanna play some video games?” Brendon asked. “Once I find a bucket.” He added after a beat.

“Sure. I’ll go look for a bucket in the laundry.”

Brendon watched as Ryan stood and walked out of the room. It wasn’t long before Ryan was back with a bucket in hand. Brendon had a little trouble getting off the floor and Ryan quickly ducked down, wrapping an arm around Brendon’s waist to lift him up.

He made Ryan wait a moment, in case his stomach protected, and nodded when he was good. Ryan helped him to the lounge room and into the couch.

Sitting comfortably, bucket next to his feet and a game controller in his hands, Brendon relaxed. For once when he was sick he could still have fun and totally beat Ryan’s ass at the same time.

*

It was a bit humid under the little fort made of blankets but Brendon found it pretty fucking awesome. It reminded him a lot of when he was about ten, because back then it was coolest thing to do and Brendon was awesome at making them.

Right now though, thought it was still greatly made, he was doing it under the false hope that if he couldn’t see the world around him then the world couldn’t see him. It wasn’t working really well because he could hear Ryan shuffle around in the kitchen and the bedroom door was left open so Ryan could walk in at any moment.

Brendon was reading the pieces of paper Ryan had given him in the hospital and was hoping the blanket fort was enough to drown out any small sounds he was making. Since being home he has not touched the pages until now and being that he was bored, figured he give it another go.

It wasn’t any easer then all the other times, but Brendon was taking it better, just making small gasping sounds along with slow tears tricking down his cheeks at the most heartfelt messages.

There was a sudden loud crashing noise from the kitchen, followed by Ryan swearing. Brendon read to the end of the current message and looked up towards the direction of the door though the blankets covered the view. Making a little hole between two of the blankets, cool air flooded in and he peaked out. He still couldn’t see anything of what Ryan was doing down the hallway.

“You alright?” Brendon called out just as there was a small thud.

“One of your plates tried to attack me!” Ryan yelled back. “I used my ninja skills, it’s all good.”

Brendon snorted and started closing up the hole again. Noticing that it created more light than what the touch did, he pulled the torch away from where he was holding it between his chin and shoulder and dropped it to his side.

About halfway down the page, he paused placing the page down to clear away the wetness on his cheeks. More bangs echoed from the kitchen and Brendon hoped that Ryan wasn’t destroying the room in attempt to make lunch.

Brendon shook his head and began reading again. With all the noise Ryan was making in the kitchen, he was completely silent as he walked into the bedroom and scared Brendon half to death when he peered into the hole on the side of the fort.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked sounding moderately surprised.

Placing a hand over his chest and drawing in a deep breath, Brendon took a moment to let his heart calm down before speaking. Ryan snickered.

“Reading.”

“Seriously?”

Brendon nodded. Ryan raised an eyebrow and help up two plates.

“Extremely late lunch is ready.” Ryan announced.

Brendon gave a light tug on of the ropes by his head and the fort collapsed. He pulled the blanket off that was covering his head and let it fall around him as he reached out for the plate Ryan held out. His lunch was pretty simple meal of a couple of pieces of toast made into a sandwich, some fruit and a couple of pieces of cold meat. As long as it was better than any of the meals he had in hospital Brendon wasn’t fussy with what he ate anymore.

“Whatcha ya reading?” Ryan asked sitting on the edge of the bed before stuffing one of his toasties into his mouth. “Not interrupting am I?” He added around his mouthful.

Brendon shook his head and he was sure Ryan could notice the red rimming around his eyes and the other obvious tell tale signs that he had been crying. Ryan’s eyes scanned over his face but didn’t say anything about it which Brendon was grateful for.

He pulled the pages out from under the blankets as Ryan could see and picked up a chunk of apple, eating it slowly. Ryan glanced at the paper and nodded like everything now made sense, which it probably did.

“How much have you read?” Ryan asked.

“Last page. I’ve been reading it slowly.”

Ryan took another bite of his lunch and Brendon picked at his toasted sandwich, noticing Ryan had cut it into bit sized pieces and smiled.

“When you finish those I have more I can print out for you, if you’d like. I have about six more pages on word that I did when Spencer called last night complaining about his new Lego thingy.”

“Please and thank you.” Brendon smiled. “Spencer called me too, pretty much swore in my ear for half an hour.”

Ryan rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth turning up.

“Next time I’m just going to put the phone down and see how long it takes him to realise.” Ryan chucked and then blinked as if realising something. “Did you seriously make a blanket fort to read?”

Brendon almost choked on the meat laughing.

"There is no age limits on blanket forts."