Keep Me Out Of Trouble (FOB FanFic ft. Brendon Urie)

Chapter 25

Jane and I were standing in the foyer of Pete's house, with her fixing my tie. The boys were running around the house, playing some game only they understood, waiting to be told it was time to go. Where? To Brendon and Elisa's calling hours.

"Hey, Jane?" I asked, looking down at her.

"Yeah?" She responded, keeping her eyes on my tie as she tightened it.

"I should feel sad about this, right?"

She bit her lip, "I don't know. Should you?"

"I don't know, that's why I asked you."

"Well, do you?"

I hesitated to answer, afraid she'd think differently of me because of my answer. "No, not really." There was a pause as I waited for her response, and when she didn't give one, I tacked on, "Does that make me a bad person?"

"Patrick," Jane sighed, "Brendon took away everything you had and Elisa broke your heart. The two of them sent you to jail. They made you pay for a crime you didn't even commit-"

"I didn't commit this one either, but that doesn't make me feel any less guilty," I confessed, interrupting her.

She gave me a sympathetic look, "Look, Patrick, we're not going to this because you feel bad. We're going to this because it's the right thing to do. She was your wife and he was your best friend. Plus, you have to be there for Declan. He's still your son, you know."

Yeah, a son who doesn't even know who I am, I thought, but refrained from verbalizing.

There was a brief moment of silence, disturbed only by the laughs of Bronx and Saint from another room in the house. I stared down at Jane, who had just finished adjusting my tie. I swallowed the lump in my throat and asked "Hey, Jane?" again.

"Yeah?"

"Will you marry me?"

She gazed up at me, blood rushing to her cheeks and turning them red. "Will I marry you?"

Her response wasn't exactly the one I was expecting, but I kept my calm. "Yes."

"Patrick..."

"Look," I took her hands in mine, "I know this is a really bad time, but, Jane, I love you. I have ever since a year after I was locked up. First, I just thought you were someone I could talk to, a person I could find comfort in in that horrible place, dare I say, a friend. But then I realized that you cared about me, you really cared about me, and that was something I thought nobody did anymore." She tilted her head down, trying to hide the fact that she was flattered. I smirked and tucked a piece of her hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear, "Jane, I really don't know what I'd do without you. And I don't ever want to find out. So please-" Before I could finish, Saint ran up behind me and clung onto my legs.

"Uncle Patrick! You've got to help me!" He glanced back over his shoulder worriedly, "Bronx is going to eat my brains!"

I chuckled and picked the little boy up, "What are you talking about?"

"He's a zombie and he wants to kill me!"

Just then, Bronx stalked out the kitchen, his arms extended out in front of him as he slowly approached his new family. "Braaaaiiiins," He groaned. Saint shrieked and buried his face in my shoulder.

Jane giggled and shook her head. "Come on, guys, we've got to get going," She walked around Saint and me and opened the front door, motioning outside, "Including you, Mr. Zombie."

"Braaaaiiiins," Bronx retorted, following us out as we made our way out to the car. Jane smiled and closed the door behind her.

*****

The four of us stepped into the funeral parlor that was filled with people, most of whom I knew. Andy and Joe were there, as well as Brendon's former band mates, various band members, Elisa's friends that I hadn't seen in years, and of course, their parents. Declan was there too, shyly standing behind Mrs. Yao's legs. She was talking with my parents, who were also in attendance.

I tugged at the collar of my shirt, the room growing warmer and the air becoming thinner. Jane gave me a slight, reassuring squeeze of the hand.

"Hey," Joe noticed me, walking over and crossing his arms over his chest. Andy followed shortly after. "Patrick, what are you doing here?" I froze.

Jane cleared her throat and said, "We're here to pay our respects." She looked down at Bronx who was holding two roses - one red and one white - that we intended to lay on the caskets, among the other flowers others had brought.

"We didn't think you were going to show up," Andy murmured.

"Why is that?" She inquired.

"Well..." Joe began to reply as I stepped away from the group, taking the roses out of Bronx's hands and walking over to where the caskets were, set up head to head. I approached Elisa's and couldn't suppress the tears that flooded my eyes.

I had moved on, but Jane was right. Elisa was my wife. And there was some sort of level of love that I still had for her, that I would always have for her. After all, she did give me a son.

I gazed over at Declan. He was so innocent, so perplexed as to why all these people were there, why all these people were telling his grandparents and him that they were sorry for their loss.

All he knew was that his mom and his "dad" weren't there for him, that he hadn't seen his little brother in days, that he'd been staying with his grandparents.

inHe didn't know that his mom and "dad" were dead, and that he was never going to see them again. He didn't know that he wasn't going to see his little brother again either, that he had been taken away and was given to another family, one who was going to raise him as their own. He didn't know that he'd be moving out of his grandparents to live with, as far as he was concerned, a stranger. I was merely just a name to him, someone he claimed to miss but knew nothing about. The "dad" label didn't belong to me, but to Brendon. Brendon was the guy who was there to see his first steps, to hear his first word, to help him grow out of diapers, to be there for his first day of preschool. And me? I was the guy his mom told him stories about. "Your dad", she'd address me as when telling him these stories, but that label meant nothing to him. I wasn't around long enough to make any impression.

And there was nothing in this world that was going to change that.

I heaved a sigh and tightened my grip on the roses in my hands, muttering, "There's no going back in time and getting those years back. So what are you going to do?" I chuckled sadly, "That's what you said to me, Elisa. You probably thought I forgot, but I didn't." I painfully looked down at her, her body lying in the satin-lined coffin, with her eyes closed and her hands folded over her stomach. "I remember because I never gave you a real answer. And that's because at the time, when you asked me, I didn't know. But now? Now I do." I picked out the white rose and placed it down on the closed half of Brendon's casket. The red one? On Elisa's. "What am I going to do, Elisa? I'm going to raise Pete's kids for him, and then I'm going to marry a girl named Jane. It might not be today, but I'm going to marry her. Because I know she's never going to lie to me, to cheat on me. You want to know how I know that? Because she's had enough lying and cheating in her life. And we both deserve better. Lucky for us, we finally found it."

I slipped my hands into my pockets and exhaled softly, staring at the two corpses with my vision blurred. I sniffled and tilted my head down, "I just wish that this wasn't what it had to take for us to finally come to that concl-"

Just then, there was a tap on my shoulder and I glanced back, seeing that it was my mom. She said nothing before pulling me into a tight hug.

"I'm sorry, Patrick," She whispered into my ear as I pulled my hands out and hugged her back, "I'm terribly sorry..."