You Are My Fight Song (Rytrick/Brallon)

Chapter One: Brownies

"Ryan! I brought the brownies!"

I rubbed sleep from my eyes as my large foreheaded friend skipped happily into the room with a taller boy hurrying behind him. Brendon and Dallon. Two of my closest friends for as long as I could remember. The only two to stick with me since I got the news as well...

"Dal added some chocolate chips for extra pizzazz." Brendon said as he plopped himself next to my bed. Dallon sat next to him and smiled warmly at me.

"How you holding up today?" He asked as Brendon rummaged through his bag for the usual plastic container.

I shrugged. I just woke up. I wasn't in the mood to feel things yet. All I knew is that I'd probably be hurting somewhere soon. I always did. This disease inside of me was slowly killing me in the least humane way possible.

"I'm fine." I finally replied. That earned me a skeptical look from Dallon. "I mean it." I said, more sincerely.

"You're a terrible liar, RyRo." Brendon said absently, finally pulling the plastic container from his backpack. He let out a cry of success and snapped off the lid, quickly passing me a small square.

I nodded in thanks and took a bite. Even this didn't really help me anymore... I couldn't feel the high. It just made me kinda hungry... For some reason, craving chocolate pudding... Which was good I guess, since the hospital had so much of it...

"Sorry we're late, by the way." Brendon said, biting into a brownie of his own. "Dal was helping out a friend real quick." His voice was a bit mumbled by the brownie bits.

"He just moved back to town." Dallon said, "He had to leave because... Well, family stuff." He frowned a bit at the end.

"I miss anything to do with the word..." I mumbled, turning the brownie in my hands.

After my mom died... My dad just wasn't really there. He was there more for his own binge drinking than me... And it certainly didn't help when I was first diagnosed.

"Fuck that old bastard!" Brendon mumbled through his brownie stuffed mouth, "We're your family. I call mom."

Dallon shot Brendon a questioning look. "Dare I ask?"

"You're too tall to be a mom." Brendon shrugged, "And besides, I look way better in heels than you."

"You can't just deny me motherhood because of my height."

"You are just no fun are you? Walk ten steps in heels and we'll talk."

I took another bite of brownie as they bickered playfully back and forth. I hadn't really had a family since I was ten. My mom was sick most of the time that I knew her, but she was still the most wonderful person I knew. Even through all her pain, she'd smile when she saw me. She would always find a way to make me smile despite my constant fears of losing her...

The day her cancer finally took her, I was by her side. I was holding onto her hand as its grip slipped and became fainter and fainter... The last words she ever said being, "Don't worry baby, mama's here..."

The last words she heard from me being, "Don't go mama. I love you..."

After her funeral, I thought it was over. I thought maybe life would get a bit better. I didn't anticipate my dad's new addiction... Or the hospital trip that would happen just a few years later...

I was at school, out in the field with some of my friends, when I suddenly woke up in the hospital. Apparently, I had randomly just passed out. After the doctors ran some tests, they discovered a similar branch of cancer like my mom had.