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

Brendon blinked hard as he stood in the kitchen in disbelief. A hysterical bubble of laugher escaped his mouth as he shook his head, not sure if he should collapse to the ground laughing or be extremely pissed off.

Instead of either reaction, he simply turned and grabbed his phone of the table and shot a quick mass message to everyone, asking if someone was or were planning on going shopping today. It didn’t take long before he got a reply of someone calling. It was Zach.

“I’m at the shops, whatcha need?” Zack asked bypassing a greeting when Brendon answered.

“Well,” Brendon said sheepishly. “I was wondering if you could stop somewhere that sells home appliances.”

“Why?”

Another bubble of laughter escaped and was hard to hold back as Brendon tried to speak.

“My toaster shit itself. Totally dead.”

Brendon slid to the floor, laughing silently as tears welded in his eyes. On the other end Zach laughed so hard he dropped the phone.

*

Whispering could he heard before footsteps and a creak of a door.

Lying in the middle of the bed with a pillow over his head, Brendon figured he should be a lot more worried that his house was being broken into then what he really was. Though he couldn’t make out a lot of the whispering, he did catch pieces of ‘Shhh’, ‘do you think he still has chocolate somewhere’ and ‘shut up, he might be sleeping’. It was pretty obvious who was out there and he was glad he wasn’t actually asleep because their attempt to keeping quiet was terrible. A deaf cat could hear them from down the street.

Slowly the footsteps got closer to the bedroom and Brendon easily recognised one as Spencer’s but the other two were walking together making it hard to guess. When his bedroom door slid open, Brendon didn’t move other than lifting his hand in a small wave.

“Good morning!” Ken yelled jumping onto the side of the bed bouncing Brendon up a little.
“Morning.” Brendon said muffled from the pillow.

“How do you feel today? Good enough to go out for lunch?” Ken asked, climbing over Brendon’s mid section and flopped down.

Brendon groaned and tried rolling Kenny off but failed. Ken poked him on the shoulder waiting for an answer.

“No, you just broke my back.” Brendon gasped as Spencer said “Ken, get off him.”

Kenny made a low whining sound but moved, lying down next to Brendon and spreading out to take up much room on the bed as he could. A light laugh came from the doorway, then someone was pulling the blankets away and Brendon fought back, curling up into a ball tugging on as much of the covers in his arms as possible. The pillow hid his smile.

Spencer huffed and lightly kicked the side of the bed, just enough for Brendon to feel it.

“Are you good enough to come out of hibernating, yes or no?” Spencer asked now resorting to finding Brendon’s feet under the blankets.

“Yes,” Brendon finally answered kicked his feet around and shaking his head to make the pillow slide off his face. “When are we going?”

“Once you’re ready.”

“An hour, cool.”

“Now.” Spencer ordered, grabbing one of Brendon’s ankles.

Jon, watching happily from the doorway, laughed and started heading back down the hallway. Brendon scrambled out of bed to keep his feet safe from Spencer’s fingers and stumbled over to his wardrobe. He started going through a pile of clothes looking for something that was clean. Ken started making the bed, half heartedly.

Spencer smirked and walked out of the room.

*

An early lunch turned out different from what Brendon was expecting. He was thinking of a small quiet out-of-the-way-cafe with just the four of them, not some huge fancy restaurant that Kenny parked in front of and the huge table they were seated at. He asked Jon what was going on, but all he got was a smile in reply.

Brendon sunk down in his seat and sipped on his glass of water while looking over the menu. He didn’t know if he should eat or what to eat after only taking his meds half an hour ago. He was unsure if they working fully yet or not. But he couldn’t sit there without anything in front of him either, too awkward in a restaurant like this.

He dropped the menu on the table and pushed it away in distaste. Ken looked at him in question but Brendon didn’t notice, too busy watching the water twirl around in the glass as he moved it around.

A large hand clamped down onto his shoulder suddenly and Brendon all but jumped out of his skin. Somehow the glass in his hand wasn’t knocked over and spilt all over the table, it was a close call though. Brendon closed his eyes as he tried to get his breath back.

“Sorry!” Zach exclaimed. “Didn’t mean to scare you there. But I have to admit it did wipe the frown off your face.”

Zach patted his shoulder and moved over to the empty seat next to Jon and stole a menu off Spencer as he sat down. Brendon slowly opened his eyes and Zach shot him an apologetic look. He forced himself to smile to show he was alright, still breathing despite his heart felt like it was missing beats. Brendon let go of the glass before it did tip over in his dazed shock.

As everyone else at the table settled down and started studying the menus and talking, Brendon looked around the restaurant looking at the decorations. When he looked back to the table Ryan was taking a seat next to Spencer. For a moment he wondered if Dallon was going to show up too, but he was usually an easy bird for this kind of thing and would’ve been here by now. There was still three seats empty.

“It’s too early to eat.” Ryan muttered looking over Ken’s shoulder at the list of food.

“Says the guy who probably just got out of bed five minutes ago.” Spencer half stated.

Ryan shrugged but didn’t deny it.

“Awesome, they do Chinese here,” Zach grinned. “Are we all sharing meals or getting separate ones?”

“Depends on what everyone wants to eat.” Ken shrugged.

“I’d like to share.” Spencer announced. “Do they have group meals here?”

They continued talked about who wanted what, how much to get of each to share and so on. Brendon kept quiet hardly paying attention unless he was asked something. Talking about food these days was as unappealing as thinking about it and put his appetite off more. Just six months ago he would have chosen at least four meals he wanted and nagging someone, mostly Zach, about which one he should get because he totally couldn’t make up his mind.

Stupid bloody chemo fucking around with his stomach.

Brendon frowned down at the table and someone kicked him. Spencer gave him a sharp look raising an eyebrow, defiant. Brendon bit back what he wanted to say, swallowing the words and kicked Spencer back hard enough to make him wince.

If they are going to do the whole ‘you are not allowed to frown or look sad’ thing he’s going to get up and just walked home. Brendon wasn’t in the mood for that sort of rubbish. Spencer must have picked up on something because he said a quick sorry under his breath so only Brendon could hear.

“Should we order now? Has everyone decided?” Zach asked.

“Wait until the other get here.” Ryan smiled.

Zach look confused, but nodded leaning back into his chair. Spencer and Ryan shared a knowing grin, looking a little too pleased with themselves.

“Who’s coming?” Brendon finally asked when no one else did.

“Surprise.” Ryan beamed.

Then as if on cue, two people walked behind Jon and Zach. At first Brendon just glanced at them, not talking much notice but immediately did a double take. He wasn’t the only one, Kenny did too. Jon jerked his thumb towards the new arrivals, looking at Spencer and Ryan in question, they nodded.

Brendon blinked hard, once, twice. Yeah, he wasn’t seeing things.

“Hello everyone!” Pete greeted with a huge grin.

“Hello.” Patrick echoed with a wave.

They went around the table hugging everyone, leaving Brendon until last, who sat there basically gaping. Pete laughed and wrapped Brendon up in a tight hug, squeezing softly. Another pair of arms wrapped around them both. It was awkward with Brendon sitting making the other two lean over in odd angles but he managed to somewhat embrace them back.

“What are you guys doing here?” He asked into Pete’s hair, or was it Patrick’s?

“Visiting. Seeing the sights. Cheering up sad friends by appearing without warning. “Pete said like as if he was talking about the weather. “You know, stuff like that, just because.”

Brendon smiled as they pulled away. Pete flashed another grin and dragged Patrick over to their seats down the other end of the table.

“The whole fancy restaurant thing totally makes sense now.” Zach noted. “And here I thought it was someone’s birthday I forgot about.”

“I wanted to sneak into Brendon’s house and scary the crap out of him. This was Ryan’s idea.” Pete chuckled.

Ryan made a hand gesture as if to bow for the great idea. He looked back over Ken’s shoulder at the menu and after a second, rolled his eyes, stole the book and flipped to the page he wanted.

“I’m guessing no one had ordered yet?” Patrick asked getting no’s in reply.

It took another fifteen minutes for everyone to make up their minds while chatting away, this time Brendon got in on the conversation more. He watched amused as the poor waitress that had to write everyone down, at least ten plates of food and was starting to sort out drinks when Patrick stole his attention crouching down next to him so they could talk without yelling across the table.

“So Pete showed me a tape about a Gummy Bear song.” Patrick snickered.

Brendon groaned and glared at Pete. Pete flashed a bright grin and pretended to hide behind Zach. Patrick laughed.

*

The next four days were better than most Brendon had lately. It was good to have Pete and Patrick around physically rather than just via phone or webcam. For the most part they stayed at his house and apart from them; there was a steady stream of visitors, including his parents on one day. It was a good distraction and cheered him up a lot, though entertaining people constantly was tiring.

By Thursday, the night before the last chemo treatment, he was back to square one. Distractions didn’t stop the panic and stress anymore.

That and Patrick had to leave early to deal with some stuff with FOBs new tours that were being booked. Pete managed to get out of it to stay. Patrick promised he would try and get back soon as possible and Brendon was keeping his fingers crossed.

“You ready for tomorrow?” Pete asked.

Continuing to stare up at the ceiling for a long moment, Brendon slowly shook his head.

“No.”

Without saying anything Pete reached over where he was taking up half of Brendon’s bed and squeezed his arm in comfort.

“It’ll be ok. You’ve done this heaps of times now, tomorrow won’t be any different other than I’ll be with you this time.” Pete smiled.

Brendon wanted to say think you but wasn’t able to get the words out. Instead he reached up and placed his hand over Pete’s.

Tomorrow was going to be different and Brendon knew he could get through it fine. He just had to keep repeating it to himself when he needed to.