Kiss It Better, Dr. Ross

Bedside Talk

You're just a sad song with nothing to say
About a life long wait for a hospital stay
And if you think that I'm wrong
This never meant nothing to ya

~~~

"You think he's okay?" Ryan was gripping Brendon's hand, not taking his off of the sleeping man.

"He's okay. He's strong," Spencer reassured Ryan.

"Does this happen often?" Ryan wanted to give Brendon a full medical checkup for his own peace of mind. Spencer felt guilt burning in his chest. Up till now, he was the only one this worried about Brendon. Now seeing how worked up someone else got, he wanted to at least explain why it was happening.

"No," he decided on. No matter his wishes, it was Brendon's decision to tell Ryan.

"Too bad this happened. I would've liked to see Brendon butcher a song," Ryan said to try to calm their uneasiness. Spencer let out a small laugh.

"Brendon butcher a song? I can't imagine that." Ryan finally looked away from his boyfriend to look at Spencer.

"What do you mean? He said he couldn't sing. Does he have some magical voice that I don't know about?" Spencer gave a sad smile, debating on telling Ryan the truth. I mean technically he was only told not to speak of the cancer.

"He used to." Ryan furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"'Used to'?" Spencer gave a small nod.

"Music was his passion. Studied it for a couple years before dropping out of college. Ended up becoming a barista at some cafe that had open mic every Friday night. The owner would let him go up for his breaks. He always had the place packed with people waiting to see the boy with the angel voice and guitar." Spencer smiled at the memory.  He turned to Ryan who was listening intently, curious to know more.

"He never told you?" Ryan shook his head.

"He's told me about being a barista and that being his last job, but he never talked about music. I wouldn't have guessed."

"He was really good. Caught the eye of some record label recruiter."

"Really?" Even without hearing about this before, Ryan felt excited about that. The thought came quickly to his head that Brendon didn't do anything about it seeing that he wasn't still doing music. "What happened? If he loved music that much, why wouldn't he continue doing it?" Spencer let out a sigh, eyes brimming with tears.

"He was going to. He really wanted to but something happened. One day, he was practicing and his throat started bugging him. I told him he should get it looked at but he was determined to get signed by a label. He was overworking himself and then he just couldn't take the pain anymore," Spencer squeezed his hands over his knees, remembering how powerless he felt at the time.

"Doctor told him he had swollen lymph nodes and got them removed. When he recovered, he realized he lost a good majority of his higher vocal range. He only got more and more frustrated trying to sing like he used to, but it was pointless. The surgery took away his passion. He lost his chance for a record deal and hasn't sung since."

Spencer shut his eyes, pushing away the memories of discovering his illness because of his nodes. From the moment Brendon had that funny feeling in this throat, everything seemed to get harder for him. Even now, Spencer knew that Brendon was getting worse. The man's appetite was getting smaller even if he tried to hide it. He was gradually losing more energy, eventually everyone will notice how much more tired he's getting. It left Spencer on edge, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

"I wish I could've seen it." Spencer looked over at Ryan. The man watched Brendon with soft caring eyes, stroking the back of his boyfriend's hand with his thumb.