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

The fork made quiet scrapping sounds against the china plate as Brendon pushed his food around in lack of appetite. He could feel Ryan’s eyes burn into the top of his head but he didn’t look up high enough to lock eyes. He knew what he would see in Ryan’s eyes anyway and was afraid that if he did look up, he wouldn’t have the nerve to tell Ryan what was going on.

Brendon was actually planning on telling Spencer first or at least both him and Ryan together, but Spencer couldn’t make it to lunch.

It’s been around two and a half weeks since Brendon first went to the doctors and it’s taken that whole time just to get over the shock. He still feels bad, terrible, for telling the guys worry for so long and that in itself is making it harder for Brendon to do so now.

If his friends were putting together the pieces yet themselves, he didn’t know. It wouldn’t surprise him if they have.

“You know,” Ryan spoke lightly. “I told Spencer not to like, yell down your throat demanding what is wrong, because there is obviously something that you are not telling us.” He continued slowly like he was testing the words as he said them. “I get that it’s you decision to say or not, but it’s seriously starting to freak us out now.”

Ryan took a deep breath and sat back in his chair placing the fork down on his almost empty plate. Brendon pushed a piece of meat around on his own half eaten one, the painkillers he took this morning made his stomach feel sour and a little sick. And this conversation, right now, wasn’t helping that.

“We are worried about you, you know.” Ryan almost stressed. “Has it got something to do with your leg? You’ve been limping all day; there is no way you could hide that.”

“I know.” Brendon murmured softly, finally speaking. “I-it’s-“He swallowed hard and forced himself to look up. Ryan deserved that. “You’re right.”

Ryan was quiet, thinking for a moment, gaze still burning.

“I’m right about what exactly?” He asked slowly, thoughtful.

Sighing, Brendon finally locked eye contact with Ryan, coming face to face with the worry and confusion showing in his eyes. Brendon made himself keep talking.

“It is my leg.”

“Spence said that you said some ‘crap about pulling a muscle’ as he put it.” Ryan said leaning forward in his seat again.

“Well, yeah. It was crap.” Brendon admitted.

He went to continue but when he suddenly realised how busy and tightly packed the cafe was, he stopped. This wasn’t the place. Ryan looked confused as he looked around the room trying to see why Brendon stopped talking, and when he looked back Brendon was pushing himself out of his chair, legs a little shaky.

“Can we talk about this somewhere else? In the car or home or something?”

Ryan nodded and quickly stood from the table following Brendon quietly out of the cafe. As they approached Ryan’s car only meters away from the shop door, Brendon half tripped on the parking curb he was stepping over. Luckily Ryan a step behind him and reached out, grabbing his arm before he could fall onto the hard concrete.

Brendon smiled at Ryan in thanks and carefully stumbled over to the passenger’s side door, sliding in when Ryan unlocked the car. It only took a minute for Ryan to get into the driver’s seat, start the car and pull out of the parking spot.

After watching Ryan drive for a while, Brendon realised they were heading back to his house, which was only a ten minute drive away from the cafe. From the corner of his eye he could see Ryan look at him every few seconds waiting for Brendon to say something. Ryan didn’t press for anything which Brendon was thankful for.

“I’m sorry.” Brendon said so quiet it sounded like a whisper. “I wanted to say something sooner, b-but I didn’t know how. In a way I still don’t- the doctors still don’t know all of what is going on yet.”

Ryan cut the engine and turned in his seat to fully face Brendon, who was already looking at him with soft, sadden eyes.

“Has it been going on for a while? Is it the reason why you were falling on stage?” He asked confused.

“Yeah.” Brendon nodded.

He nodded again when he realised he didn’t know what to say next, tongue tied. Glancing down at his leg he decided to not beat around the bush any longer.

Gently Brendon brought his leg up, resting his heel on the edge of the seat. He twisted a little to give Ryan a better view and pulled up his track pants up over his knee, exposing the large lump that was taking up most of the room below his knee on the outer side of his leg. A small bandage that looked a little worse for wear was sitting where the biopsy had been done a day ago.

He could almost feel Ryan freeze in shock in the seat next to him.

“It’s a tumour, Ryan.”

Brendon hesitated before moving his gaze up from his leg to Ryan’s face, which showed complete utter shock. He bit his lip and quickly looked out of the windscreen at his garage door. He blinks back the sudden wetness in his eyes.

“I-what?” Ryan sputtered in disbelief.

“Yeah.” Brendon choked out.

For a long moment it was dead quiet in the car, if a pin was to drop it would have been too loud in the small space. All Brendon wanted to do was run inside and crawl into bed. Though that was not an option. At least not the running part with the state of his leg. He knew that hiding didn’t work, he already tried that.

The sudden feather like touch on his leg made him just startled. Ryan quickly pulled his hand away looking apologetic, but still shocked.

“Do they know if it’s cancer?” Ryan asked, voice flat without much emotion.

“Not yet.” Brendon’s voice didn’t sound any better. “I don’t find out until next week at my next appointment.”

Ryan nodded, numbly and sat back heavily in his chair without looking away from Brendon’s leg. A whole range of emotions twirled in between them, most that neither could place a name on. The air was thick but at the same time, had a certain lightness to it.

The weight of the stress that had been sitting on Brendon’s shoulder started to melt away making him feel suddenly tired.

“Well, fuck.”

Brendon just hummed lightly in agreement.

*

“You know how Jon said he was thinking about flying out next week?” Ryan asked as soon as Spencer had picked up the phone.

“Hello to you too.” Spencer deadpanned. “Yeah, he was thinking about maybe Thursday. Why?”
“You better call him and tell him to come as soon as he can, and get in contact with Zack.”

“Why, what’s happened?” Spencer asked, starting to sound panicked.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ryan took a small shaky breath and started pacing back and forth across the kitchen lino.

“Just, just call Jon. Then get to Brendon’s house quickly as you can. He told me, at lunch. About what’s he was hiding,”

“Shit, really. Is it serious? Is he alrigh-“

“I don’t know, it’s hard to tell what he’s feeling like. And yeah, it’s serious.”

Loud footsteps echoed from Spencer’s side of the line.

“Fuck, um, I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Spencer said quickly before hanging up.

Placing his phone on the table, Ryan walked into the lounge room and looked over to where Brendon was curled up on the couch, asleep.

*

As Brendon started to stir on the couch he could hear faint murmur of voices floating in from the kitchen. Slowly he fluttered his eyes on to see that the lounge room was mostly dark, with just as small dull light shining in from under his curtains and small strip of light from the kitchen that spread across the carpet from the door way, coming to a stop by the chair.

Blinking slowly he stared dopily across the room for a few minutes as the fog of sleep drifted away. He couldn’t quiet here what was being said in the kitchen but was clear that it was more than one person in the other room.

Brendon slowly and gently, mindful of his leg, sat up on the couch. His leg felt tight like he just spent four hours straight performing on stage. It didn’t hurt exactly so he ignored it as he yawned widely and stood up on shaky legs. He shuffled sleepily across the room to the doorway leading into the kitchen. The moment he stepped into the light, he winced and threw up an arm to cover his eyes. All faint murmurs from before stopped.

Brendon tried to move his arm away but the light was too bright and he couldn’t open his eyes yet.

“You alright, Bren?” Ryan asked from where he sat at the kitchen table with an empty coffee mug in front of him.

“ ‘s bright.”

He shuffled forward a step but stopped, swaying a little on his feet. Spencer got up and rounded the table, taking Brendon’s elbow to lead him forward. Ryan reached over pushing out a seat for Brendon to sit on.

“Thanks.” Brendon sighed trying again to move his arm away as he sat down.

He managed to open his eyes slightly, but only really enough to see the table in front of him. So he placed his elbows on the surface and rested his head in his hands, hoping it would help wake him up.

“How did you sleep?” Spencer asked taking his seat again when it didn’t look like Brendon was going to fall out of his chair.

“Good. Could have been longer though.” Brendon croaked.

Without Brendon noticing, Spencer and Ryan gave each other a worried look, eyebrows raised and lips flattered into lines. Brendon tried to look up at Ryan but the lights were still a little too bright around the edges of his vision. For a brief moment Brendon wondered why the hell he had such bright lights in his kitchen.

“When did I fall asleep?” He eventually asked breaking the silence.

“When we were talking. You started drifting off after just a few minutes, you didn’t even stir when Spencer knocked on the door,” Ryan said, voice soft.

“I haven’t slept well the last two night. Sorry, didn’t mean to flake out on you.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Brendon nodded before yawning. With eyes still half closed he sat back in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. He mouth felt dry but didn’t really trust himself to get it without falling over until his eyes adjusted properly. He must have slept like a rock for his eyes to take this long.

“So I have to go for a bit, hour or so. Do you guys want me to bring something back for dinner?”
Ryan asked before looking at Brendon. “If that’s ok with you.”

“Take-away is fine. Just not Chinese though, I’ve been eating enough of that lately.”

Ryan nodded and grabbed his phone and keys from the middle of the table. He gave a little wave as he headed for the front door.

The house sat silent until Ryan’s car could he heard reversing down the driveway.

“So, I’m guessing Ryan told you?” Brendon eventually asked.

“Yeah,” Spencer said slowly, lips still pressed into a thin line. “I wish you could have told us sooner though.”

Guilt swirled in Brendon’s stomach. He knew he should have told, weeks ago and wanted to kick himself for not doing so very, very hard.

“I’m sorry...I just, didn’t know what to say.” He let out a lung full of air. “I’m pretty much still in shock now, it’s confusing, it hurts and the lump is fucking huge. I’m still trying to come to grips with everything.”

“Ryan did say it was big.” Spencer stated quietly.

Now that his eyes were adjusted, Brendon reached out over the table picked up the huge white envelope from the other side. Spencer took it when Brendon handed it to him and gave Brendon a confused look. He just nodded at the envelope and watched as Spencer carefully pulled the x-rays out.

Spencer held the first one up to the ceiling light. His draw dropped and Brendon imagined that was probable what his reaction was like when he first saw them. He also felt slightly self-conscious about this leg suddenly and tucked it under his chair, though it couldn’t be seen under the table.

“Wow, that is- shit,” Spencer half gasped, placing one print down and picking up another. “How long have you had it? It’s like a size of a gold ball.”

“I first noticed it at the start of the tour, about the size of a mosquito bite at the time.” Brendon purposely kept this gaze away from Spencer. “I noticed when changing after a show.”

Spencer stiffen before looking over at Brendon in shock. Brendon still wasn’t looking at him and a frown was pulling at his lips.

“So, around three months.”

“Pretty much,” Brendon nodded softly. “The doctor said it was possible it could have been there longer without being noticed, but we’ll never really know for sure.”

Spencer blinked hard a couple of times and sat back in his chair just staring at Brendon. The same Brendon that only months, maybe weeks before was his usual happy, cherry, bouncy self. Now he looked too pale with dark lines under his eyes. Spencer couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around the fact Brendon was suddenly dealing with something like this and managed to keep it so quiet for so long.

Silence settled around the two of them, but it wasn’t heavy or awkward, though Spencer was still somewhat staring at Brendon as the other man looked down at the table top. Neither knew what to say, but right now that was alright.

It stayed quiet for a few more minutes before Brendon coughed from his dry throat. Rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes, he stood up and went over to the sink. He grabbed the already used glass sitting on the bunch, watched it out before filling it up and taking a sip.

“So,” Spencer said gaining Brendon’s attention. “Do you want to watch a movie until Ryan gets back?”

Brendon nodded around a mouthful of water, thankful for the suggestion. Spencer smiled softly and headed into the lounge room, flipping the light on as he went. Brendon re-filled up the glass and followed. He sat on the couch as watched as Spencer turned on the TV, grab a random DVD and place the disc into the machine.

Once the disc menu of ‘The Croods’ appeared on the screen, Spencer sat down next to Brendon and pressed play. Brendon smiled and shuffled around until his head was on the pillow he was using earlier. He wanted to stretch out and use Spencer as a personal foot rest like he usually did, but he didn’t, instead he curled his legs up to his chest.

Out the corner of his eye, Spencer took a look at Brendon’s right leg at the clearly visible lump pressing out from under Brendon’s track pants. He wanted probably just as much as Brendon did, to just close his eyes and opened them again to see the lump to be gone like it was a bad dream.
But things never work like that.

*

“You’re in luck, Brendon.” Ryan called as he pushed open the front door. “I have food and a surprise.”

Brendon perked up a little and tried leaning over the side of the couch to see out the doorway of the lounge room that lead into the hallway. He couldn’t see much and made to move off the couch but when his leg ached dully as he tried to move it, Brendon thought better of it and stayed where he was. Spencer bit back his grin.

“What type of surprise? Can I lick it?” Brendon called.

Spencer turned his head away at the muffled ‘what? Eew!’ that came from the kitchen so Brendon couldn’t see him trying not to laugh. Brendon looked at the kitchen doorway now, opposite the other doorway, confused as Ryan laughed out loud.

“I don’t think you’re surprise would like you licking it, cuddling maybe.” Ryan said over the noise of rustling paper.

After a moment Ryan walked into the lounge room with paper wrapped fish and chips, and placed it on the coffee table along with some cups. He walked back out the room and Spencer took it upon himself to unwrap the food. No waiting Spencer popped a chip into his mouth, only to end up spitting it out a second later when it burned his tongue. Brendon laughed.

Ryan walked back into the room with an arm full of plates and a couple of bottles of cool drink. Spencer grabbed one of the bottles before Ryan could put it down and started pouring. Brendon shifted to place his feet onto the ground, moving slow as possible, while still snickering at Spencer.
Just as he was about to reach out for a plate, something warm covered his eyes, blocking all vision. Brendon squeaked, just a little, but it was enough to make everyone laugh. He could feel the person laughing where their hands were covering his face.

It took a second or two to recognise the voice and just beamed when he did. He could pick out that voice anywhere.

“Surprise!”

Brendon pulled the hands away from his face and spun around the best he could on the couch and came face to face with his ‘surprise’. A I’ve-been-sitting-on-a-bus-too-long looking surprise.

“Jon!”

“Hi, Brenny,” Jon smiled, moving to sit down on the couches armrest.

“Holy shit, what are you doing here?” Brendon all but exclaimed poking Jon’s arm to make sure he was real. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but yeah, you know,”

“Well, I was planning on flying over next week, but a couple of birdies told me to come over earlier,” Jon explained not so subtly pointing at Spencer and Ryan. “I was visiting family 3 hours from here and was just about to leave for home when they called. Decided to head south instead.”

Brendon didn’t let the reason why Jon was here, other than just too randomly visit, dim his smile. Since the band split, they didn’t see each other much, if at all, other than on webcam due to busy lives. Like with Ryan, their friendship continued privately out of the eye of the internet and Brendon liked it better that way, and never will a visit from Jon or vice versa ever not cheer Brendon up.
Smiling brightly, Brendon reached for a hug and Jon happily wrapped him in a bear hug, squeezing tightly. As the pulled away from each other, Brendon quickly stuck his tongue out and licked Jon’s cheek.

“Ha! I can lick it!” Brendon yelled scooting across the couch to Spencer as fast as he could.

Jon blanched and started wiping his cheek with his shirt. Spencer almost spat out his drink laughing and Ryan his own smile behind his glass.

“Brendon, that was disgusting.” Jon said trying for a flat voice but sounded more amused than anything.

Brendon snickered and grabbed a plate from the table, a small smile lingering on his lips. He piled food on his plate though he still didn’t feel all that hungry from lunch, but he knew he had to eat something today. After pouting a drink he sat back and started eating as the other chatted happily.
He wonders if Ryan or Spencer had told Jon yet, but didn’t ask. Instead he kept his mouth busy with food as Jon talked about what he had been up to lately.

“Are you two seriously watching Ice Age 3 again?” Ryan eventually asked when he finally realised what was playing on TV.

“Yep. What about it?” Spencer challenged.

Ryan rolled his eyes but didn’t comment.

“So, um, Ryan told me about you leg.” Jon said, keeping his voice light, when he put his now empty place on the coffee table.

Brendon nodded once and looked down at his drink, watching as the fizzy bubbles floated up from the bottom of the cup and popped.

“You don’t mind that I did, right?” Ryan sounded unsure. “I kind of guess you didn’t want to explain it again today...” He trailed off.

“It’s fine.” Brendon looked over at Ryan. “I don’t mind that you did. I’m glad that you did, actually.”

Ryan’s lips twitched up slightly for a second before he nodded. Brendon turned to face Jon and silently debated if he should show Jon his leg or not. Before he could talk himself out of it, he passed Spencer his drink and rolled up his track pants to his thigh. The bandage was almost falling off now, but he just pressed it back into his skin.

“I didn’t actually think...that it would be so big,” Jon said leaning over Brendon’s lap for a better look. “Does it hurt if you touch it?”

“Sometimes, not really. I can feel it there pretty much all the time though,” Brendon sighed, sitting back into the couch. “It hurts sometimes, at random, mostly aches but it feels like it’s pulling the muscles there tighter. Almost as if it’s in the muscle and it can’t stretch anymore.”

Jon moved back as Brendon covered his leg back up. He looked around the room at his friend to gage their reactions before taking his drink back from Spencer. Ryan opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but closed it.

“Can you walk alright? I know you’re limping but,” Spencer asked honestly.

“Kind of. Other than the limping I can more around fine.”

For now, he almost added but swallowed the words back.

The room was silent for what felt like a long time even as Spencer reached out and placed his hand carefully on Brendon’s knee in a comforting way. Feeling a lump stick in his throat, Brendon tried to keep it down but it only made it worse. His eyes started to water to the point that everything was blurred, no matter how much he blinked.

It took longer than it should have to realise he was trying not to cry. He want to, he could feel it heavy on his chest like a dam ready to burst. All the emotions he had been bottling up were fighting to spill out and he didn’t know how to keep them controlled anymore. Brendon took a breath in attempt to calm down but instead a small noise escaped.

“Hey,” Jon breathed. “It will be alright. You’ll be alright.”

Jon wrapped his arms gently around Brendon’s shoulder and Ryan quickly stood up from where he sat and took a couple of steps to be in front of the couch. Being slow and careful, Ryan took the glass from Brendon’s shaking hands and placed it on the table before crouching on the ground.

“You won’t be alone through any of this, no matter what happens when you go to the doctors next week. Us three will be there the whole time,” Ryan whispered reaching up to place one of his hands over Brendon’s. “Zack and many other will be close by too.”

Brendon, with eyes closed, nodded stiffly and flipped his hand over wrapping his fingers around Ryan’s hand and leant his weight back against Spencer and Jon’s arm. He could feel himself shaking in their hold and a couple of silent tears rolled down his cheeks.

He had his best friends with him, all in the same place, at the same time for the first time in quite a while. They were closer to him than anyone else, including some of his family – they are family. He was more than grateful for that.

Right now it was all he wanted. All he needed.