XO (FOB FanFic ft. Brendon Urie)

[Chapter 6] My Only Hope

I was walking down an unfamiliar, deserted Chicago street, the cold air hitting my exposed skin like knives. My hands were shoved in my pockets and my head was hung low. I was phoneless and penniless. I had no idea where I was, but there was no way I was going to go back to Claire. I didn't like her, and it was obvious that she didn't like me either.

But then again, she was the only help I had. And accusing her of being XO was...irrational on my part. Maybe XO planted those things on her fridge. I hadn't noticed them the night before, so maybe XO came into her apartment during the night and put them on the fridge.

I stopped in my tracks and looked back.

Maybe I should go back, apologize.

No. No, you're not going back. She told you to get out. She told you she was done helping you.

I heaved a sigh and continued walking down the barren street.

I hadn't gotten more than a block before deciding that I would go back. My reasoning: Fuck it. It's cold, I don't know where anything is, and she's the only hope I've got in finding Pete, Andy, and Joe. So I turned on my heel and began running back the way I came.

*****

I knocked on the door and stepped back. I waited a few moments before the door swung open to reveal Claire. The happy expression she had before she opened the door disappeared when she saw me. I smiled.

"I thought I told you I was done helping you," She greeted coldly.

"I-I know," I stuttered, "But I'm sorry, Claire. I shouldn't have accused you of being XO."

"You're damn right you shouldn't have." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me.

I sighed, "You're not making this apology any easier." She shrugged her shoulders. I rolled my eyes and said, "Please, Claire, give me another chance. You said it yourself, it was a dream. I took things out of proportion." She opened her mouth to most likely reply with something along the lines of 'You're damn right you did' but before she could say that I put my finger up and continued, "XO said it in the letter, you're my only hope. And I can't find my friends without you. So..." I gave her my most kindest, most sincere, most genuinely innocent look, "...will you please accept my apology and let me back in?"

She stood there for a little before groaning and saying, "Fine. You can come in but it might take some time for me to accept your apology."

I flashed her a smile before stepping back into the warm apartment.

*****

"So, what do you remember?" Claire asked me as she put the pen in her right down to the notepad she had in her lap. She was sitting on the chair while I lied down on the couch, my legs propped up on one of the arms and my hands folded over my stomach. It was like I was in a therapy session.

"Where do I start?" I replied.

"Preferably the beginning?" She retorted with an attitude, as if it was obvious. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

"Well, the first vision I had was of me and the guys standing backstage." She began to write. "We were waiting to go on, you know, for the show. But then these people approached us."

"What'd they look like?"

I closed my eyes and tried to picture the scene again. "They were wearing all black, so I thought they were backstage people. You know, people to help keep things moving. Like when we had to transition between songs. Like if a piano need to be brought out or something."

"That's great but what did they look like?"

I looked up at her, "What do you mean?"

"What did the people actually look like? Like, hair color. Skin tone. Were they fat? Skinny? I need specifics, Patrick. Come on..."

"Um..." I closed my eyes once again, really trying to remember the specifics Claire was looking for. "One of them, the skinnier one, had straight, light brown hair. I think she was wearing glasses. I'd say she's Caucasian. And the other one...slightly overweight, dark brown hair, no glasses. She was African American." I opened my eyes and looked up at Claire, "Is that specific enough?"

She nodded her head yes as she continued scribbling down what I had just told her.

I began to look around the room, waiting for her to ask me what happened next. That's when I zeroed in on one of the pictures. It was one with her and the two girls that I noticed before. I sat up and walked over to the picture, picking the frame up in my hands. The girls I had described and seen in the darkness of the backstage were standing on both sides of Claire in the picture.

"These girls!" I exclaimed, turning around so I was facing Claire. She looked up at me over her black, Harry Potter style glasses. "These are the girls who gave us the water bottles."

She laughed, "Kiera and Scarlett?"

"Yeah. Who are they?"

"My friends," She answered, taking the photo frame out of my hands, "You think they were the ones who gave you the waters?"

"I don't think, I know."

Claire laughed again, "That's crazy. They wouldn't do something like this."

"You never know, Claire," I sat down on the couch, took my hat off my head to fix my hair, and put it back on, "I mean, why don't you call them? Ask them where they were the night of the concert?"

She glared at me for mocking her.

"It's only fair. You know, someone once told me that from the TV shows they watch, they learned that the suspect usually is someone close to the victim. A relative. A friend. Or in this case two fr-"

"I get the point," She cut me off harshly, pushing the glasses farther up the bridge of her nose before going back to writing stuff down, "But they didn't do this. They couldn't."

"And how can you be so sure?"

"Because they were with me that night!" She snapped, slamming the pen down on the paper. "They were with me..."

There was a moment of silence before I questioned, "And how do you know that? You can't remember anything from the night before either." She remained silent. I straightened my posture ever so slightly. "Or do you and you're just not telling me...?"

"No, I don't remember," She murmured under her breath, keeping her eyes locked on the notepad in her lap, "But I know they were with me. They were with me that afternoon. And I don't remember leaving them or them leaving me."

I heaved a sigh and decided to move on from the subject, but not forget that her friends, Kiera and Scarlett, were possible (and maybe even probable) suspects. "After that, I had a vision of me in the back of some van." Claire finally glanced up at me. I nodded towards the paper, indicating she should be writing this down. The pen began moving again. "Someone, I don't know who, was holding up an ice pack to my head. Probably because I fell on stage and hit my head. I don't know." I then went on to tell her about the elevator vision, the one where that same person was talking to someone on the phone, telling whoever was on the other end to "just call her", and then finally the one with her. Claire. Pulling off the black mask to reveal it was her.

"Is that all?" She made sure, finishing the last sentence she had to write down.

"So far," I sat back in the couch.

"Okay then," Claire retorted, pulling off her glasses and setting them down on top of the notebook she placed down on the coffee table in between the couch and its adjacent chair. "We've got ourselves a step closer to finding your friends." She flashed me a smile. I smiled back.