A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. I
Brendon wasn’t as irresponsible as everyone thought he was, but that didn’t mean he didn’t sometimes make stupid mistakes. What he’d just done, he knew, constituted a pretty fucking stupid mistake, but it was really the last thing he wanted to worry about as he stumbled around some strange apartment trying to find all of the articles of clothing he’d thrown off on the way to the bedroom. He stubbed his pinky toe twice and nearly tripped three times before he got to the front door and stood in the dark, doing a quick, cursory check.
Shoes, socks, jeans, bright red underwear, t-shirt, hoodie, phone, wallet, keys, all present and accounted for. He had everything he’d walked into the apartment with. Well, almost everything. His gay-sex virginity was gone forever, which wasn’t something Brendon really wanted to think about at the moment. Hell, it wasn’t even something he’d been looking to lose. He’d gotten played; it wasn’t like he’d been an unwilling partner in what had happened, but Brendon knew the game well enough to be aware of the fact that he’d fallen right into it.
It fucking figured that it would happen like this, too. There was kind of a pattern that engineered most, if not all, of his hook-ups. Mix one part lonely-and-bored Brendon with one part social-climbing whore, add two joints and an open bar, and voila! Virtually anonymous sex in yet another foreign bed that smelled weird and too strongly of perfume. Or, in this case, a foreign bed that smelled weird and too strongly of cologne.
With a groan, Brendon fisted his keys and left the apartment as quietly as he could, raking a hand through his hair and navigating his way out of the building. He didn’t have a car and he was on the opposite side of town from home. He was pretty sure that Spencer’s place wasn’t far, but he wasn’t exactly interested in calling him up and asking for a place to crash. Brendon didn’t think Spencer would mind, but he always felt weird intruding on the domestic bliss of his best friends.
He wandered down the street, pulling his hood over his head and scrolling through his phonebook blankly over and over and over. Eventually he sighed and decided to suck it up, dialing Spencer’s number and waiting through ring after ring for him to pick up. When he finally did, he sounded groggy and only mildly concerned.
“Brendon?”
“Yeah, man, did I wake you up?” he asked.
Spencer made a soft sound. “Fuck. Yeah, it’s almost four in the morning. What’s going on?”
Brendon bit his lip and said, “I’m kind of a block away from your apartment and I need a place to crash.”
There was a beat and then Spencer sighed. “Call me when you get here.”
_._
Brendon woke up achy in places he didn’t want to think about with his head pillowed at an uncomfortable angle on the arm of Spencer and Haley’s couch. He shifted as slowly as he could, biting back a groan when his neck protested the movement, and was dimly thankful that at least he wasn’t too hungover.
There was something on TV, but when Brendon blinked his eyes open all he could make out were animated blurs. It sounded a little like Family Guy, though. There was a soft laugh from the direction of the floor and Brendon glanced down.
Haley was sitting at the foot of the couch, an enticing cup of coffee next to her knee. She looked up when Brendon shifted again, straightening his neck out. She raised her eyebrows, a grin playing around the edges of her mouth.
“Morning, Sunshine. What happened last night? You didn’t fuck another crazy scene queen, did you?”
Brendon winced.
He was keeping it a secret. The whole . . . sleeping-with-a-guy-for-the-first-time thing. It was the decision he’d come to the moment he woke up next to his one-night-stand, and he was going to stand by it. Except Haley was looking up at him with a small smile, her hair messy and her makeup smudged and of anyone Brendon knew, he was sure she wouldn’t judge. So he kind of blurted it out.
“I fucked a guy last night,” he said, sucking in a breath when the words were out and sitting up carefully.
Haley blinked. “I didn’t know that was something you, um, did,” she said slowly.
Brendon didn’t reply, just stared down at his hands. He could feel Haley’s eyes on him, and when he glanced up she muted the television without looking at the screen.
“Is that something you do?” she asked cautiously, and Brendon shrugged.
“I don’t know. I guess it is, now,” he said, and Haley made a soft sound.
“Oh, Brendon,” she whispered, and he would have hated the sympathy coloring her voice except she didn’t sound pitying, just . . . well, kind of like he felt, really. Incredulous but not exactly surprised. A little regretful on top of it.
They were silent for a minute and then Haley said, “so, not a scene queen, then. Was he good? Did you like it?”
Brendon swallowed and thought about it.
The immediate answer was a resounding no, but that was mostly because Brendon had been practicing it in his head all night. The truth was, it had been messy and too quick and mostly painful, but between all of that had been the insistent press of a calloused hand at the small of his back and the clever twist of slick fingers deep inside. There had been lips at his ear and teeth at the back of his neck and hands gripping his hips just tight enough. The pain of actually being fucked had never ebbed and Brendon knew that he should have hated it because of the burn and the discomfort, but there had been a part of him that had known that it could be good and despite it all, Brendon had been panting at the end, straining toward some indefinable, unreachable something.
It was all too complicated for casual sex; it had been shitty for a first time, the guy had been an asshole, and now Brendon was having some kind of sexual identity crisis the likes of which had been avoided since he’d realized he was pretty much in love with Ryan years ago. And beneath it all, Brendon knew that he may not have liked last night, but he could like it, with the right person, under different circumstances.
“Fuck,” Brendon muttered, tipping his head forward into his hands. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Hey!” Haley said, lifting herself onto the couch next to him and curling an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay, Brendon. Okay? It’s not the end of the world. I mean, gay, straight, whatever, it’s not going to make us love you any less.”
Haley, Brendon knew, meant that from the bottom of her heart. But then, Haley, like Spencer and Jon, didn’t care much about a person’s sexuality at all. Brendon wasn’t worried about them. He was worried about Pete and what he would say as their boss and he was worried about Ryan and what he would say as the guy largely in charge of the band. He was worried about his fucking parents and he was terrified that if he logged online, there would be a myspace blog with an accompanying buzznet post about how Brendon Urie was a fucking fag who took it up the ass and liked it.
“I can’t tell anyone, Haley,” he whispered, ashamed of the fact that he was so scared but unable to be anything else.
Haley’s lips pinched in and then she nodded and nudged her forehead against his temple.
“I’ll keep your secret,” she said, “but if you’re really, you know, if it’s not just a one-time deal? You’re going to have to tell them eventually.”
That was probably true but Brendon wasn’t going to acknowledge it. He didn’t want it to be true, really, none of it. He’d been drunk and stupid and maybe a little curious, a little lonely. It wasn’t like anyone had to know. As long as the guy who’d fucked him kept his mouth shut, Brendon was taking this to his grave.
He smiled at Haley and nodded, knowing she could probably see right through him. She sighed, smiling back, and stood up.
“Come on,” she said, extending her hand. “I’ll take you home.”
_._
It wasn’t an easy thing to forget, but it was pretty easy to ignore. For the most part, anyway, but a couple of times, Brendon found himself about ten seconds away from saying something to Shane. Usually he was reeling from a high or he was drunk enough to feel like talking about it. He would open his mouth and imagine, in a bleary sort of way, what would happen if he said, “I might be a little gay.”
Shane was a good guy. He loved Brendon and said so often enough when they were both feeling existential and pleasantly ungrounded. Still, Shane was, as far as Brendon knew, very straight. What if he got worried that Brendon was checking him out when they walked around half-naked? Or what if he expected Brendon to molest him in his sleep? Their relationship would get awkward, Shane would move out, and Brendon would be all alone.
There was also the part where Brendon was beginning to wonder if maybe he had been checking Shane out. He obviously wasn’t going to molest one of his best friends in his sleep, but Brendon was suddenly hyperaware of some weird sexual tension that he was pretty sure existed only in his head. It was embarrassing and made it both impossible to bring it up with Shane and to stop thinking about it.
The strange impulse to tell Shane never went away, just sort of lingered under Brendon’s skin. He just felt like he needed to tell someone. Haley knew, but Brendon wasn’t going to call her every five minutes just to have someone tell him it was okay that he wasn’t completely straight. He needed a friend, a best friend, not a best friend’s girlfriend. He could have gone to Spencer, maybe; he was a good listener. He could have gone to Jon who gave pretty solid advice no matter what the situation. The one person he didn’t think he could go to was Ryan. Brendon hated it, but he had his reasons.
For one thing, Brendon had been fighting off a crush on Ryan since they’d met, waging an epic internal battle to maintain a certain amount of emotional distance from him and largely failing. Admitting to Ryan that he was gay or bi or whatever would feel too much like admitting that long before the stranger and the party, Brendon had been gay or bi or whatever for Ryan. And there was no real way of telling how Ryan would react. If he was stoned enough, he’d probably just laugh. If he was sober and relaxed, he might be understanding. If he was sober and stressed, it would ultimately come back around to the future of the band and how nothing, not even their lead singer’s sexual orientation, was allowed to fuck that up.
Ryan wasn’t mean or anything, not on purpose, but he was focused on making music and on being authentic. Brendon knew, he just knew, that after spending so long fighting off the gay rumors and having to deal with the fanfiction and all that bullshit, Ryan wouldn’t be happy if he had to turn around and tell the fans, just kidding, one of us is gay after all.
That limited Brendon’s options because he didn’t want Ryan to know and if he told Spencer or Jon, it was incredibly likely that they would let it slip to Ryan. Not because they couldn’t keep secrets, but between the four of them the lines that kept them separate from each other were already blurry. Add to that Ryan and Spencer’s ageless friendship, and Jon and Ryan’s whirlwind and platonic courtship of each other, and there was no way he could share his secret with anyone in the band and not expect it to get back to Ryan within hours.
Brendon had no one to tell but Shane, and even that was a risk. He didn’t want to lose a great friend and an awesome roommate over something as trivial as a glitch in his sexuality. Reminding himself of everything he had to lose was what made it easy for Brendon to keep his mouth shut. He could pretend, outwardly, that nothing had ever happened. The guy he’d hooked up with wasn’t saying anything, no one at the party had a clue who Brendon had left with, and Haley wasn’t going to tell.
If Brendon tried, he could probably convince himself it was all just a dream, even. A weird, unpleasant hallucination brought on by too much weed and alcohol and too little sleep. That, at least, was something Brendon could mention to Shane, the way his reality felt fuzzy around the edges sometimes.
They were in the kitchen, baking cookies because that was what they always did when they were this stoned, and Brendon said, “have you ever done something and after, you weren’t sure if it really happened or not?”
Shane hummed and leaned his hip against the counter. His hair was getting a little too long and Brendon could barely see his eyes behind the bangs. Dylan whimpered hopefully from where she was sitting near his feet, eyes darting from the mixing bowl to Shane’s face. He ignored her and focused on Brendon instead.
“Well,” he finally answered, licking sugar cookie dough off of the tip of his finger, “yeah, who hasn’t? Why? What’d you do?”
Brendon thought again about just confessing it, that he’d hooked up with a guy, like for real, not the random making out that sometimes happened at the parties they went to. He shrugged the urge off.
“Nothing, just thinking about it. Sometimes life feels like a fucking dream, you know?” Or, in the case of the last few days, sometimes it was like a nightmare. But Brendon wasn’t going to say that.
Shane reached out to ruffle his hair and Brendon arched into the touch.
“If this is a dream, I don’t think I want to wake up just yet,” he said, and Brendon grinned at him. “And,” he added, pulling his hand back and grabbing the spoon they were using to mix the cookie dough, “now I really want to watch the fucking Matrix.”
“There is no spoon,” Brendon said, and Shane looked at the utensil in his hand for a long, intense moment. When it didn’t do anything interesting, he shrugged and shoved it into his mouth. Brendon caught himself staring and looked down at the floor. Dylan was watching Shane enviously.
“None for you,” Shane told her, the words muffled. “And we have to watch The Matrix now,” he added to Brendon.
“Yeah, okay, cookies first. I’m fucking hungry,” Brendon said, and Shane nodded his approval.
They finished baking and had devoured the cookies by the time Keanu learned kung fu; Dylan managed to steal at least two from Brendon and one from Shane, but they didn’t try all that hard to keep them from her. They were pretty easily charmed by their dog when they were high.
It was all completely normal, the cookies and the movie, Shane, Dylan and a pleasant buzz in the brain; Brendon’s own special version of domesticity. For the first time in days he could feel himself relaxing, his head in Shane’s lap, Dylan a warm weight next to him, while the movie played on.
_._
“So, what do you think for the fall tour?” Spencer asked idly.
They were in Ryan’s condo, Brendon and Spencer sprawled out on the living room floor listening to Jon and Ryan strum their guitars on the couch behind them. They didn’t even have to start thinking about the tour for another month or two; it was barely July, but this was kind of what they did. They would sit around thinking about tour ideas for 2010 if they were bored enough, and Jon was only in town for a little while. They were on break and probably should have been seeing a movie or something, but instead they were back to the business of being creative.
“I don’t know,” Brendon said, shifting to try and get comfortable. “I kind of miss the old days. Let’s bring back Lucent Dossier. And then I can spend the whole show trying to get in Ryan’s pants again. It’ll be awesome.”
Brendon tried to keep a straight face, but the way Ryan’s features suddenly pinched all the way in was too much and he barked out a laugh.
“Holy shit, stop trying to kill me with your eyes, Ross, I was kidding!” he said, while Jon and Spencer laughed.
“Dork,” Ryan said affectionately, and Brendon grinned up at him before squirming again.
His back ached; there was an unfamiliar and constant twinge centered low, and he couldn’t make it stop. It had been doing this off and on for a few days, a weird pain he’d never felt before, but it was really bad today. Spencer mentioned something about a light show while Brendon gave up trying to find comfort on his back and flipped over onto his stomach. It didn’t really help. The dull, painful pressure was still there.
“You okay?” Spencer asked, leaning close with his eyes narrowed in Spencer-like concern.
Brendon shrugged and pillowed his head on his forearms. “’m Fine. I think I did something to my back, though.”
“Pussy,” Jon teased.
“Shut up,” Brendon shot back affably, trying to relax and forget about the unusual pain.
They went back to talking about ideas for the fall tour, going from the totally possible to the completely outlandish in just a few minutes. It usually came back to fire and live animals for them, and Spencer was convincing Jon that it would be awesome to have cheetahs.
“Seriously,” he said, “fucking cheetahs.”
“People used to keep them as pets,” Brendon said, a little absently as he shifted again, arching his back and frowning when no amount of stretching helped.
“Exactly!” Spencer said excitedly. “See? Cheetahs.”
“We can do a jungle theme,” Jon said, a smile in his voice. “We could have monkeys.”
Ryan wrinkled his nose at the idea but didn’t look away from Brendon’s restless squirming; Spencer started arguing with Jon about how cheetahs weren’t fucking jungle animals, dumbass, while Brendon was melodramatically resigning himself to a life of backachey misery.
“Brendon, seriously, what the fuck did you to do yourself?” Ryan asked, sliding to the floor.
“I don’t know,” Brendon muttered, his voice close to a whine.
Ryan huffed out a sigh and Brendon was going to say something about how this seriously wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t done anything stupid this time, promise, when Ryan straddled the back of his thighs and started kneading at Brendon’s back with his hands.
“Relax,” Ryan said sternly when Brendon tensed up.
Brendon bit his lip and forced himself to relax, but even when he managed to loosen his shoulders, his lower back still felt tense and too tight. It was getting annoying, enough so that Brendon made a small, pitiful sound of discomfort into his folded arms.
Ryan kept massaging his back, his long fingers finding every knot and smoothing it out. It hurt almost as much as it felt good, and eventually Brendon stopped thinking about the pain in his lower back and managed to concentrate just on the feel of Ryan’s hands. Beginning to feel boneless and comfortable, Brendon listened with half an ear as Ryan and Spencer discussed the merits of another scripted show while Jon resumed plucking out aimless melodies on the guitar.
Brendon didn’t notice he was drifting off until he woke up, his mind a little fuzzy and his body still tired but not quite as sore as before. His head was still pillowed on his arms but Ryan was no longer a warm weight across his legs. There was, however, a familiar hand moving gently over the expanse of his back in one prolonged and directionless caress. When Brendon cracked his eyes open, Spencer and Jon were nowhere to be seen, but he could hear their voices coming from the kitchen.
“Hey,” Ryan said quietly, and Brendon turned his head and looked up at him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
It was a valid question. Usually, Brendon wasn’t the one falling asleep on people. His energy seemed to be constantly spiking, never ebbing. He was the guy people fell asleep on if he sat still long enough, but he was rarely the one to nod off randomly in a room full of people. Unless he was sick, he could go strong for hours and hours on little sleep.
“Kinda tired,” Brendon said with a shrug, sitting up and squeezing his eyes shut when the room spun. “And dizzy, fuck.”
“Maybe you’re getting sick,” Ryan said, reaching out to rest the back of his hand against Brendon’s forehead. “You feel a little warm.”
Brendon sighed gustily. “Great, that’s just what I need.”
Ryan smiled and tugged him close until they were sitting side-by-side, backs to the couch. “At least we don’t have to play any shows until the beginning of next month,” Ryan said a little cheekily. “It’s not a bad time to get sick.”
“Any time is a bad time to get sick,” Brendon countered as Jon and Spencer wandered back in with bottles of beer in hand.
“Agreed,” Jon said, sitting down on the couch. “Who’s getting sick?”
“Brendon,” Ryan told him, and Jon and Spencer made a big show of backing away and warding off whatever illness he might be carrying.
“Fuck off,” Brendon said, but he was smiling a little as he said it.
They decided to watch a movie, something they hadn’t seen since they were kids. Brendon lasted about half-way through before he fell asleep again, his head tucked up under Ryan’s chin.
_._
Brendon thought maybe the early signs of sickness had been a false alarm. He was fine for a couple of days, going out with the guys and staying up late with Shane to watch zombie movies and smoke a bowl. His energy seemed mostly normal and the backache was manageable enough that he could easily ignore it. Everything seemed fine and then, the day before Jon went back to Chicago, Brendon crashed in a major way.
Shane was spending the weekend with some friends in LA so Brendon didn’t have anyone to try and keep him awake when the exhaustion hit except for Dylan and she wasn’t much help. At around ten at night, Brendon couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore; it hit like a speeding car, his whole body going thick with sleepiness, his eyelids becoming too heavy to hold up. He managed to get undressed and crawl into bed before passing out, but it was a near thing. He didn’t dream. He just fell into the deepest sleep of his life and woke up to the feel of someone shaking him, the hand on his shoulder a little rough.
“What?” Brendon murmured, forcing his eyes open and blinking rapidly until the shapes in front of him solidified into a freaked-out looking Spencer, Ryan and Jon.
“Dude,” Jon breathed, “you wouldn’t wake up.”
Brendon’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion and Spencer nodded, punching him a little in the shoulder he’d just been shaking. “You scared the shit out of us, asshole. You wouldn’t answer your fucking phone.”
It took a minute for the words to filter in. Brendon sat up slowly and squinted in the direction of his alarm clock. He felt queasy when he realized it was almost three in the afternoon and that he’d slept for over sixteen hours.
“I seriously slept all the way through the morning?” he said, before remembering that Jon’s flight had left two hours ago and he obviously wasn’t on it. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We were worried about you,” Spencer said, and Ryan nodded.
“You still sick?” he asked.
Brendon didn’t know if sick was the right word for it. He felt off, yeah, a little nauseaus, his body strangely heavy. His back still ached intermittently and the exhaustion was new. It was a little scary; even when he was sick he wasn’t this useless.
“I’m just really tired,” Brendon answered, because it was the easiest explanation.
Only, it wasn’t just being tired. They’d barely gotten to the airport when the headache came. It didn’t even start off as a low-level pain; it was an instantly sharp ache in his temples and behind his eyes that made him want to cry. They saw Jon off on the later flight he’d booked and Brendon managed to be as natural as possible until they dropped him off at home. As soon as Brendon was inside with the door closed behind him, he whimpered, tracked down a bottle of aspirin and swallowed four dry. And then he crawled back into bed.
He was sleeping fitfully when Shane got back. The headache was even worse than before and now it was punctuated by a rolling nausea that never seemed to coalesce into actual throwing up. It just lingered, tight and hot in his stomach.
“You don’t look so good,” Shane said, sitting on the edge of the bed and pushing the damp hair off of Brendon’s forehead.
“I feel like shit,” Brendon moaned, and Shane frowned.
“What the hell did you catch?”
Brendon would have shrugged if he wasn’t wishing desperately for someone to just chop his head off already. He had no idea what sickness he’d gotten, but he was miserable and it hurt and he kind of wanted his mom. He settled for accepting the Tylenol P.M. that Shane brought him and waiting for it to tug him back under into a somewhat restful sleep.
The headache and the nausea didn’t go away. Neither did the fatigue, for that matter. The next time Brendon woke up, he felt almost human for about an hour. He got halfway through breakfast before it all flared up again, the headache worst of all. Painkillers only did so much and Brendon wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and try to sleep it off. Again.
He managed to pass out for a few hours, but The Cab had a show that night and Brendon had promised months ago that he would show up and hit the stage with them. When Shane woke him up, Brendon was tempted to call and tell them he couldn’t make it. He knew they’d understand, and he felt so shitty he’d probably be useless to them anyway. But he couldn’t make himself pick up the phone and bail so he crawled out of bed and forced himself to get ready.
“You really need to stay home and get some rest,” Shane said with a frown, watching as Brendon rummaged through his clothes for something to wear.
“Yeah, mom, I know. But I fucking promised.” He knew he sounded pissy, but he felt pissy. He was tired of feeling sick and he just wanted his life to go back to normal.
He always got like this when he wasn’t feeling well, and that just made him more frustrated. Why couldn’t be cool about it like Spencer or Ryan? He was such a baby, sometimes but he couldn’t help it. He was just so fucking tired and his stomach wouldn’t settle and his head was killing him.
“Dude, you okay?” Shane asked slowly, and Brendon realized he was breathing raggedly, dangerously close to some kind of panic attack.
“My head fucking hurts, I feel like I’m going to throw up, and I want to sleep for another two days, what do you think?” he yelled, blushing a little when Shane just stared.
“I think you should stay home,” Shane finally said, voice slow and patient like he was talking to a little kid.
“Fuck you,” Brendon shot back, grabbing his clothes and pushing past him into the bathroom.
The guys were milling around backstage when Brendon showed up. They all beamed at him but were too busy with last minute stuff to talk. Brendon settled sidestage with a tech he thought he recognized and let himself be distracted by watching the methodical tuning of guitars.
“Hey,” Ian said, walking over. Brendon blinked blearily up at him and Ian winced. “You look like shit, dude. Shane wasn’t kidding.”
Brendon rolled his eyes. “Shane should mind his own fucking business,” Brendon shot back.
Ian huffed in amusement and kicked Brendon lightly in the shins. “He’s just worried about you. He does that sometimes, you know.”
Brendon shrugged. He felt a little guilty about biting Shane’s head off earlier, but that was overshadowed by the fact that he still felt sick and vaguely irritated about everything as a result.
“Look,” Ian said, squatting in front of him, “if you’re really sick you can go home. It’s not like we don’t understand.”
Brendon shook his head. “I’ll be fine. It’s really not a big deal.”
Ian frowned but didn’t push. He’d always been good about that; even Cash and Singer said so. He patted Brendon’s knee and wandered off. Brendon sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, trying to find some reserves of energy he could draw from for the show.
Being out on stage wasn’t actually that bad. Brendon’s energy peaked just in time and he didn’t fuck up, which was a relief. After, though, he ended up slumped over backstage, stomach tight, head aching, and a painful cramp starting up low in his belly. That was how Cash found him later.
“Whoa, hey, you gonna be alright?” he asked, rubbing a hand in circles over the small of Brendon’s back.
Brendon accepted the small comfort for what it was and nodded slowly. “I’ll be okay,” he said.
“You need a ride home or something?” Cash asked.
“No, I’m good. I just wanted to tell you guys it was a good show,” Brendon said, straightening. “I’ll talk to you guys later, okay?”
Cash still looked worried when Brendon left, but Brendon wasn’t lying about being okay. He felt well enough to get himself home in one piece, at least.
Shane wasn’t waiting up when Brendon got back, but there was medicine laid out on the bathroom sink and a note taped to the mirror that said, “don’t die on me, asshole.” Brendon grinned despite the various aches making a pincushion of his body, and washed the pills down with water.
_._
The vomiting started later that week, and it didn’t stop. The first day, Brendon threw up everything he’d ever eaten ever all over the course of about four hours. He didn’t eat anything for a couple of days but that didn’t seem to matter because he would be fine, a little weak and tired, but fine, and then all of a sudden he was making a mad rush for the bathroom to puke up the lining of his stomach. Shane brought home what looked like an entire aisle of the drugstore, but nothing worked. So Shane did the next best thing: he called his mom.
“Yeah, no, he’s been feeling pretty sick for about a week now,” he said.
Brendon was kneeling in the bathroom, pretty much hugging the toilet bowl in the kind of desperate way that was usually reserved for a night after three too many tequila shots. He could hear Shane pacing, his footsteps agitated and loud, his voice concerned.
“Um, he can’t keep anything down. Like, not even his own intestines. Yeah, we tried that. I don’t know, mom, he’s just. He’s really sick.”
Shane’s voice was more than just concerned, now. He sounded a little scared. Brendon could understand. This didn’t feel like normal sickness, not with the way Brendon had taken to moving around listlessly and sleeping like the dead and not with the headaches and the cramping that hadn’t gone away since the show a couple of days ago. Shane had been watching Brendon suffer and both of them were starting to worry that it wasn’t just some weird strain of flu.
“Okay, like saltine crackers? Okay. Yeah, lots of liquids, I know. Uh-huh. Seriously, if he’s not better in a week, I’m taking him to the hospital. Yeah, I promise.”
Brendon wretched loudly over the sounds of Shane’s goodbyes and then finally felt his stomach settle. Shane walked in and knelt next to him ignoring the smell and the fact that Brendon was a fucking mess.
“So, she said she doesn’t know what it is, but that saltine crackers should help with the nausea a little bit. And, you know, the usual plenty of liquids and bedrest.” He palmed the back of Brendon’s head and said, “I’m dragging your ass to a doctor if this doesn’t work.”
And then he pulled Brendon to his feet and watched as Brendon brushed his teeth. It was weird, having Shane around to take care of him. Usually when Brendon got sick, he was in the middle of a tour with Ryan and Spencer and Jon to make sure he didn’t die in the middle of the night and hold him upright after shows. Brendon hadn’t had anyone actively look after him in years. He hadn’t really needed it in years. He hadn’t expected his best friend to be so willing to fall into the role of caretaker, and Brendon remembered there was a seven year age difference between them as Shane forced him to lie down on the couch. It never seemed like a big deal; Brendon forgot about it completely most of the time. It was kind of comforting, though, having Shane take charge and take care of him.
“You need to drink more water. I don’t want you getting dehydrated,” Shane said, setting a tall glass next to him on the coffee table and arranging a blanket over him. “I’m running to the store. Call me if you need something, okay?”
Brendon just nodded weakly and was asleep before Shane had even closed the front door behind him.
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