Chapter Text
Jeremy thought about the Squip having all of this information on him. On Blinky. Being blackmailed just so someone could date your friend was probably bad enough on its own, but not only was Jeremy’s privacy on the line but Blinky’s too.
He tried not to think about it. Maybe he could just get away with not worrying about Squip at all. But when he read Blinky’s first email that morning he worried even more.
The worst part about the Squip situation was that Jeremy couldn’t tell Blinky. He had already decided that. Jeremy hated hiding something from Blinky, but it was just another thing to add onto a list of secrets that the two were keeping from each other. Still, Jeremy wished that he could have talked it out with Blinky.
Jeremy had already told Blinky so much. He had shared so many secrets, so many things that defined him as a person.
Things that he had never told anyone else.
But Jeremy was sure that if Blinky was a real junior, a real person who existed at Middleborough High, who had his own locker, who drove to school every day in his own car, that he would not be telling him even half of the information that he was telling him.
Jeremy knew that logically, Blinky was all of those things. But for right now the two of them not knowing each other, Blinky existing only on his phone and laptop at that moment was more than enough.
Blinky was careful about things. Obviously, more careful than Jeremy. If he found out that fucking Eric “Squip” Addison had screenshots of their messages, Blinky would freak-out in a complete Blinky way.
Meaning that he would stop emailing Jeremy.
And it was selfish but Jeremy didn’t want that. In the same way that he didn’t want Christine to stop talking to him. If she found out that Jeremy was using her, basically, she would stop talking to him too.
Jeremy let out a heaving sigh and looked at his phone again.
I think my favorite thing about the end of September/beginning of October is that there’s a bunch of new Halloween stuff to mess around with. I think my mom is exhausted with me pressing the button on one of those dancing skeleton things every time we go into Target.
Also, I have the chance to get free sour patch kids.
It’s not weird to trick or treat if you’re the older sibling
Love,
Blinky
PS. I missed signing my messages with love, so i'm doing it again
Jeremy had spent some time in bed, just looking at the email.
“Halloween, huh?” he muttered, finding the simple and mundane topic to be calming. Focusing on something other than the screenshots, the threat… it made Jeremy relax just a bit.
Jeremy began to type up a response, despite knowing he wouldn’t get an answer back from Blinky right away. It was 5 am, nearing 6 am, and most people weren’t up at this time. At least, most high schoolers weren’t.
It was especially early for Jeremy himself to be awake but he couldn’t sleep that night. He had spent a lot of it tossing and turning, the sleep he got wasn’t a lot since he had woken up from a stress dream.
Since freshman year Jeremy and Christine had been doing couple costumes. Freshman year the two of them were Kronk and Yzma, sophomore year was Miguel and Tulio, junior year had been Sharkboy and Lavagirl. This year, after a lot of discussions and some arguing, they had decided to dress up as Robin and Starfire from Teen Titans.
He looked back to Blinky’s message. When he checked the timestamp he had to laugh. Blinky had apparently sent this to him at 3 am. He was definitely going to die when he got to school that day.
You were up pretty late last night. I gotta wonder what you were doing
Are you planning on dressing up for Halloween? I’m going as a character from a comic book
Love,
Jakku
PS. Ill join you in signing off with love
As he sent the email Jeremy got the idea that if he found out who Blinky was, that the Squip’s threat wasn’t going to heavily effect either of them. Sure, the Squip would make all of the information public. And that’s an awful thing. But if Jeremy played his cards right there was a chance he could get away with it.
Right?
Jeremy rolled onto his side, grabbing one of his pillows and holding it against his chest. He stared out his window like before. It was foggy outside, the leaves on the trees were especially brown and red now.
He allowed his eyes to slip close, falling into a small nap that didn’t last long. His usual alarm clock screeched and woke him again. Jeremy lifted the pillow he had been cuddling to his face and groaned.
School was a bit of an adventure.
Jeremy had been avoiding Squip. It was actually a lot harder than Jeremy thought it would be. He avoided him during class, in the hallway, during lunch, and he planned on avoiding him during rehearsal unless they were supposed to be acting on stage together. Jeremy saw him trying to catch his eye, saw the charming smile begin to make way on his face. Whenever he saw that he would turn heel, go the other direction. It was a cowards move, Jeremy knew that.
It made him feel like a majorly stupid coward at that. He had already agreed to help him, or to go along with his blackmail, whatever it was called. Jeremy felt sick thinking about it.
Squip intercepted that day on his way back from the lunch line. There was the rare occasion where he forgot to bring lunch and the lunch room had something decently appetizing. Jeremy had almost been there, to an oasis, a safe haven when Squip saddled up next to him.
“Room for one more?” Squip asked.
Jeremy looked over to where his friends sat, “We, um, we already have… eight people? Including me, so, um.” Jeremy felt small under Squip’s gaze.
“Is that a no, Heere?” The tone in his voice made Jeremy shiver uncomfortably. He had the brief recollection of his mother’s voice, the smell of alcohol on her breath when she go close to his face, asking him a question that made him feel like a scared animal. “I didn’t know assigned seats were still a thing in high school,” Squip sneers just a bit.
Jeremy had never considered that before. They sat where they always sat. An unspoken rule.
At the table sat Rich, who was failing to stay focused on the homework in front of him, Jake who was trying to help Rich with his homework, Chloe and Jenna who were engaged in a conversation that was making them both frown and glare, Brooke who seemed to be trying to jump into the conversation, Christine, who met his eyes and quirked her brow (Jeremy furrowed his own at her, trying to tell her everything was okay), and Michael who tended to flit in and out of the groups table. Like Brooke, he was trying to interject Chloe and Jenna’s conversation.
It was a tight squeeze already.
“You’re supposed to be helping me, Heere. We have a deal,” Squip pointed his finger at Jeremy’s chest. Jeremy recoiled, backing up a bit.
“Yeah, well,” he tried to come up with a good excuse. “Just, just, just give me time, man,” his shoulders sagged. “Adding you out of the blue would be weird, right?” He let out a choked laugh, “Don’t worry, I’m going to talk to her! Just give me some time,” he felt sweaty.
Squip’s gaze was burning right through him. He could see everything, Jeremy’s insecurities, his fears, the blackheads and pimples beginning to develop underneath his skin.
“Whatever, Heere,” Squip shrugged.
Jeremy felt his gaze all the way back to the lunch table. Christine looked at him.
“What was that about?” She asked.
“Nothing,” Jeremy tried to wave off her concern. “He was just asking me about rehearsal today,” he lied. Lying to Christine definitely felt wrong. Jeremy shared everything with her.
Well, almost everything.
He checked his phone as a way to back out of the conversation.
I don’t really do Halloween costumes, not since middle school anyway
If I’m being honest I might just end up wearing a sweater and stealing the candy from my siblings while they’re trick-or-treating.
I’ll definitely look out for some guy wearing tights come Halloween though ;)
Love,
Blinky
PS. glad to know youre on board with me signing off our messages
▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁
The days tick by without Jeremy talking to Christine about Squip at all. Jeremy could feel Squip’s patience running thin. He seemed to follow Jeremy around, which made Jeremy begin to wonder if this was how prey felt. Being hunted by an apex predator was incredibly terrifying.
Jeremy didn’t know what the Squip wanted. Did he want Jeremy to get them alone together? To lock them in classrooms? Pull something straight out of a fanfiction that Christine had found.
As a way of avoiding him, he’s taken up to straight up disappearing. Or making sure that he was always around two people — and usually without Christine. Jeremy didn’t miss the looks, and she kept texting him about it. But Jeremy couldn’t risk Squip coming up to the two of them and trying to make Jeremy play wingman.
Thankfully, Jeremy had free blocks when Squip didn’t.
Currently, he had curled himself up in the auditorium. Technically, he couldn’t be in there without some sort of teacher. But there wasn’t a class going on and barely anyone went in it during this time. He was hiding towards the back anyway, in the audience. The only issue was that he kept hearing his name being called.
“Jeremy?” Okay, no his name was definitely being called. He pulled out an earbud, turning around and seeing Christine. He should have figured that she was going to seek him out since they shared the free block. “Can I sit?” She asked him, her voice soft even in the quiet of the auditorium.
“Of course,” Jeremy nodded and she smiled at him.
“Thanks,” she sat down next to him. For a moment, neither of them said anything. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What are you doing?” She finally asked, glancing over to his phone.
Jeremy showed her the screen, “Just watching music videos.”
“What band is that?” Christine asked, looking at the main singer who was bathed by soft sunlight in the video. Jeremy gave her an earbud. “Oh! I recognize them. You’ve played them for me before,” she smiled at Jeremy.
“I have a song stuck in my head though, can we listen to it?” Christine was already making grabby motions towards his phone.
“If it’s any sad Broadway song, no,” Jeremy moved his phone away from her.
“It won’t be sad! How dare you refuse a good musical song,” Christine pouted at him.
“I don’t want to be sad in my next class, Christine!” Jeremy defended himself.
“You listen to Sufjan Stevens. He’s basically just sad, hipster music,” Christine rolled her eyes good naturedly.
Jeremy laughed despite himself, “You take that back!” Christine wasn’t wrong.
As a compromise, the two of them squished close together and watched a few episodes of Bob’s Burgers . It’s a perfect distraction for them both. Christine leaned her head onto Jeremy’s shoulder, and for the moment it felt like everything was fine. Nothing was bothering Jeremy. He kept an eye on the clock, since he didn’t want to miss his next class. But he definitely didn’t want to run into Squip in the hallway.
Jeremy also knew that the show was distracting Christine, or at least she was pretending that she didn’t notice something was up with Jeremy. Instead, she just sat with him and watched the show. For a brief moment, everything felt like it was put back into balance.
Admittedly, it left Jeremy in a pretty decent mood for the rest of the day.
Until rehearsal came around.
Jeremy was early for rehearsal, which wasn’t being held in the auditorium that day, so he stayed in the auditorium. He laid on an ottoman that they had been using last rehearsal for a scene since they didn't have a bed yet, scrolling through Tumblr as he tried to distract himself till the time came.
“Heere, mind making room?” Squip’s voice made him jump. He didn’t move for a moment before sliding over to the side and sitting up. Squip sat down beside him, spreading his legs and staring at the wall before speaking again. “What’s your deal?” Squip looked at him.
“W-What do you mean?” Jeremy followed up.
“You’re avoiding me, Heere,” Jeremy looked down at their feet. They were both wearing converse. Jeremy’s were old, well worn and cared for. Squip’s were new, with only one scuff mark on the toe of his left shoe.
“I’m not avoiding you,” he defended himself.
“Are you sure about that?” Squip was looking at him now. “Because it sure seems that way. There hasn’t been any process with Christine. I think she’s actually avoiding me now too. So I’m pretty sure you’re either bad mouthing me to her, or you avoiding me is making her not want to talk to me. I have those emails. I don’t plan on showing them to anyone, you know.”
“Then why hold it over my head?” Jeremy couldn’t help the spark of anger.
“Because I can,” Squip rolled his eyes, his voice holding a very ‘duh’ tone in it.
Looking at Squip’s face, Jeremy found it hard to believe that Squip had ever been someone nice before. He seemed like the type of kid who would’ve pushed others off the swing set. Sure, he was handsome. He reminded Jeremy of Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted. But right now, Jeremy couldn’t see him as anything other than a massive asshole. Mainly because he was being a massive asshole.
“I’m going to talk to her. Okay? These things take time,” Jeremy frowned. He stood, intending on leaving the auditorium.
“Wait!” Squip stood up too, quickly.
“What?” Jeremy asked, his good mood ruined.
“We should trade numbers,” Squip told him, pulling out his phone.
Jeremy blinked, “What?” He said again, even though he had heard the Squip clearly.
“We should trade numbers. To make this whole thing… easier. It just makes sense,” for a moment Squip looked like an awkward teenager and not a blackmailer.
He frowned, grabbing his own phone. “Fine,” he agreed begrudgingly. The two of them traded numbers before heading off into the choir room.
As soon as he got there, Christine latched herself to her arm. “Jeremy!” She all but squealed, giving Squip a passing smile before tugging him over. “Thank god you’re here to save me from whatever is going on over there,” she gestured over her shoulder where, when Jeremy looked, Jenna and Chloe seemed to be caught up in another intense debate.
Jeremy raised an eyebrow, looking at Christine with clear confusion on his face. “What are they even fighting about?”
“Some TV show,” Christine waved her hand. “They’re getting very intense and it’s super over-stimulating,” she leaned against Jeremy with a small whine. “Jeremmmy.”
“What show are they arguing about?” Squip decided to add himself to their conversation.
“I don’t know,” Christine shrugged, a little on edge than she usually would be. Christine tended to get really irritated whenever she was over-stimmed.
Jeremy ignored Squip, pulling Christine away from where it was loud. “Are you going to be okay during rehearsal?”
Christine bounced on her heels. “Hopefully, can’t exactly get out of it.”
“Maybe you can, if Mrs. Goodman and Mr. Reyes let you work on some of your solos, or something,” Jeremy scratched the back of his neck.
“Hopefully,” Christine sighed, resting her head on Jeremy’s chest. Christine was a touchy friend. Jeremy didn’t mind her touching him, at least. She only stopped leaning on him when rehearsal officially started up.
Squip kept looking at him during rehearsal. Jeremy was pretty sure that he was mad at him for taking Christine away when he was trying to talk to her.
Mr. Reyes was himself, as usual.
It was a music rehearsal, so Mr. Reyes actually wasn’t doing anything but eating a hot pocket while the choir director worked with them. The choir director, Mrs. Goodman, was trying to get them to focus on singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” seriously.
The actor of Ludwig kept getting distracted, which made it hard for them to get even a bit through the song since he was the main voice in it.
“Clyde! Can you please focus on the song,” Mrs. Goodman pinched her brows. She looked over at Mr. Reyes for some help. Mr. Reyes just sort of blinked slowly on her. Jeremy sometimes wasn’t sure that Mr. Reyes was sober during rehearsals.
“Sorry, Mrs. Goodman,” Clyde gave a grin that read that he definitely wasn’t sorry. Adakias lifted his head and glared at Clyde. The glare seemed to have some sort of effect, especially with the combination of Mrs. Goodman’s glare because Clyde actually began to focus on rehearsal. Jeremy let his gaze linger on Adakias for a moment, trying to imagine him as Blinky. He was on his phone. Could he be writing a message to Jeremy right now? Could they be in the same room and not even know it?
Jeremy doubted that Adakias was Blinky. Yet he wanted to entertain the idea. Adakias had lovely hazel eyes, dark curly hair that looked soft, and he had recently switched from glasses to eye contacts which just made his long eyelashes even more noticeable to Jeremy.
Adakias met his eyes and Jeremy looked away quickly, hoping that he wasn’t blushing.
His phone vibrated in his back pocket and he tried to focus on the actual rehearsal. Even if he wasn’t singing right now, it was still good for him to learn or at least listen to what the others were doing.
“When you’re singing this song, I want you to make it sound almost like a lullaby,” Mrs. Goodman instructed Clyde. “I want you to almost make the audience fall in love with this song, which they shouldn’t be doing since it’s the song of the Nazi party,” she demonstrated what she wanted Clyde to do.
Jeremy got sent away to go and work on his solos. It both made him feel relieved because he no longer had to interact with Squip or be in the same room. At least not for an hour or so. He eventually had to come back to work on "Finale Ultimo.”
At the end of rehearsal, Jeremy felt completely drained. He just wanted to go home and lay in his bed.
“Alright, keep reviewing your music until next rehearsal. You should have all made notes, I don’t want to go back and fix the same mistakes,” Mrs. Goodman told them.
Afterward, she dismissed everyone. People grouped up together naturally, Christine latching onto his arm again. “Jeremy, can you help me learn my lines?” She asked him. “We can go to Perkins. Maybe the others want to go to,” Christine swayed with him. They began to head out to the parking lot.
Squip was lingering near the two of them. The threat was definitely there on the back of his mind. “Yeah, iHop sounds like a good idea,” he glanced over at Squip. “Are you having issues with your lines?”
Squip smiled at him as if they were friends, “A little bit. It’s mainly the accent I’m having trouble with.”
Christine gasped, feeling better from earlier since she did manage to be alone for a while, “Me too! I can totally help you with accents.” Christine smiled at him.
“Sounds good, so Perkins?” Squip looked at Jeremy.
“Yeah, Perkins is good. Should we ask Jenna, Chloe, and Brooke if they want to join us?” Jeremy asked Christine, not caring for Squip’s opinion.
“I think they’re already gone,” Christine scanned the parking lot for their cars.
“Oh,” Jeremy frowned. He felt miffed that they had left without saying anything to the two of them before leaving, but he couldn’t exactly hold it against them. They had probably thought that Christine and Jeremy were busy.
“That’s fine. I can drive us there if that’s not an issue. Besides, it’ll probably be better with just the three of us,” Squip smiled at Christine.
“It will be less overwhelming that way,” Christine tilted her head to the side, considering it.
Jeremy couldn’t exactly say no. “Yeah, it’ll be fine,” he said, hiding how he didn’t want to just have one buffer between him and Squip.
“Great! Let’s go then,” Christine looped her arm with Jeremy’s. “Lead the way to your car,” she grinned brightly at Squip.
Jeremy felt that he was in for a long night.