Chapter Text
How Jeremy came to be climbing up the spiral staircase to the attic of Jake’s house behind a staggering Chloe Valentine, he wasn’t quite sure himself. After she found him on the patio, Chloe has seized his hand and breathed into his ear about what Brooke wanted to give him. Prompted by the Squip, who’d been swaying almost in tandem with Chloe, he’d asked whether a square punch to the jaw qualified as a gift.
“Ohmygosh, you’re soo funnyy,” she’d giggled. “Maybe I’ll be- have something to give to him- umm, you, too.”
And that was how he’d ended up in what he now realized was a suite bedroom at the top of the house, with no Brooke in sight.
The Squip, much to Jeremy’s dismay, was still standing entirely too close, a hair’s length barely separating his soft blue outline from Jeremy’s right shoulder blade, not that he was paying the faint warmth all that much attention, no, and he certainly hadn’t been over his eighth-grade biology notes last week to be able to identify which parts of his skin flickered to life as the Squip’s electricity grew nearer- no. Certainly not.
Slowly, Jeremy turned his head to meet the Squip’s blue gaze. In response, the Squip merely quirked an eyebrow.
A problem? he drawled, undoubtedly bemused.
A shiver tore down Jeremy’s back, settling at the base of his spine in a few spots of burning cold. He didn’t dare look down to see if it was the Squip’s fingers or merely his own depraved imagination. He shook his head slightly, dazed.
“Jerry!” Chloe whined, pulling him back to physical reality.
“Where’s Brooke?” he felt the need to inquire, but although his experience with girls could be chalked up to a puffy round balloon, Jeremy wasn’t always a complete idiot. The girls had been fighting, and he’d seen enough teen comedies to know how this would play out. She’d try and kiss him, and stop a few inches from his face, overcome by guilt. Then she’d run out and go make up with her best friend, and Jeremy would be free to slink away to a hallway somewhere to ponder what effect the Squip was having on his brain.
Hugging the bannister with one arm, Chloe carefully undid the buckles on her heels and kicked them off. Jeremy noticed how her hand kept missing the shoes: it appeared that along with basic coherence, depth perception had been the first attribute for her intoxicated mind to shut down. She then proceeded to walk towards him, both arms held out for balance, but swerved at the last minute and crashed straight into the wall behind Jeremy.
He briefly wondered whether he should offer an ice pack or call an Uber, but then Chloe started making out with a painting.
On the wall by the window hung a Romantic-era portrait of some young fellow with dark hair and a sulky expression. That was all Jeremy had time to see, however, because Chloe had taken to kissing him frantically, gripping the frame more to steady herself than anything else. She began to moan and gasp and thrust her hips up against the wall- that is, until Jeremy let out a cough and she turned around blearily.
“Oh, wasn’t you,” she mumbled. “Nevermind.”
‘Christ, how drunk is she?’ Jeremy grumbled internally.
Oh, that’s hardly fair, the Squip began, leering from the bench he’d fallen onto. Did you know, Jeremiah, I myself certainly would have confused you with that brooding delight of a boy; but no painting I’ve encountered of yet blushes as prettily. He winked.
‘Are you- are you coming onto, uh, me?’
Don’t be ridiculous , he murmured. Then winked again.
‘Oh god, are you gay?’
Like you’re not?
A sharp crack popped, and Jeremy dimly realized its source when shooting pain flared through his spine. He’d straightened painfully fast, and his eyes were now shielded, turned upwards to the ceiling and closed in a silent prayer to anyone, to anything , for this all to be some twisted nightmare and to wake up in his own bed. His computer was gay? He was gay? What the fuck? The Squip was drunk, nothing he could say meant anything. But still, the three words echoed in the empty silence of his mind, a silence that roared louder and louder, swirling and screeching and locking into place with a sick sort of clarity.
Like you’re not?
Like you’re not?
Like you’re not ?
“Jesus Christ,” he rasped. Admittedly, it did account for a certain number of things. Then he spun around to face the Squip, who appeared stricken. ‘But I want Christine!’
You want to date Christine, Jeremiah, the Squip slurred, eyes more piercing than ever. Who you want is entirely different.
It was then that Chloe grabbed Jeremy by the shirt, dragged him over to the bed. She sat him down with a weak giggle and started to unbutton her top.
“Oh- oh, no,” Jeremy said hurriedly. “I, uh- Chloe, you’re cool and all, but I really don’t-“
“Shhhh” she crooned, and started to sing quietly. It was some terrible little snippet from a children’s program she’d modified, and it did not sound good. Chloe could’ve been a world-class opera singer sober, Jeremy certainly wouldn’t have known, but at the moment she most closely resembled a talking doll whose battery had run out and could only produce agonizing screeches.
“Do you wanna hang, do you wanna hang, do you wanna hang for a bit?”
Her top was thrown to the side, exposing lacy pink lingerie, and she started on the zipper of her skirt, still warbling away.
“Just you and me, intimately, talking about all of our feelings-“ she leaned in, and grinned proudly. “And shit!”
The Squip was laughing silently. You realize she came up with this sober. Who was she planning to sleep with in the first place, I wonder?
“Do you wanna get, do you wanna get, do you wanna get really deep?” With a series of painfully awkward hip movements, in her underwear, Chloe was attempting to do what appeared to be pole-dancing without a pole. Jeremy wondered if this was what Jake liked. He cringed.
“We could connect-“ Not likely, snorted the Squip. “If I get wrecked-“ Already happened , he sing-songed. “You could rock this baby fast asweep.”
That was enough for Jeremy. He jumped up to his feet- then discovered he hadn’t moved a muscle.
‘I. Can’t. Move. My. Legs,’ he thought furiously. ‘What the fuck have you done?’
The Squip simply rose from his bench and came over to sit beside Jeremy. Chloe had resumed her warbling, but all Jeremy could make out was the pounding pressure of his blood in his ears as his panic grew larger and wilder.
Jeremiah , the phantom began, the goal I have calibrated your life with is to get Christine. This is the path to take .
‘I don’t want Chloe!’ He was shouting now; shouting in his head, to a being who didn’t even truly exist. ‘I never wanted her, and if you think I’m… that I like… that I’m not even interested in girls, why would you ever let me get here?’
The Squip fluttered its eyelashes up at Jeremy woefully, but remained silent.
‘Let me go,’ he begged, as Chloe started crawling towards him, attempting to slide off her tights by rubbing her legs energetically on the bedspread. ‘Not this. Not her!’
You wouldn’t comprehend, Jeremiah.
‘Try me!’ A sick sort of fear, poking deep inside him, through his guts and nerve ends, was taking over.
But then the Squip was suddenly moving his legs up onto the bed, stretched out towards Chloe.
‘No!’ Oh, why had he ever bought the pill? To make his life better? What a sham, what a painful, bitter ending this would be-
And then the Squip was looming over him, crouching in the empty space between his knees. Jeremy’s fear abruptly merged into a new sort of panic, one he felt even less qualified to deal with.
In mute silence, he gaped at the Squip as he leaned closer and closer, and stretched out a hand to stroke Jeremy’s jaw. ‘This is it,’ he registered dimly. ‘This is how I’m going to die.’
The Squip gave him a slow, smug smile, and Jeremy failed to breathe for the next forty seconds.
My plan for you was calibrated with certain facts as pillars to the entire structure. You want Christine; therefore, one of these facts was your attraction to women. Spending a few - please, Jeremy, who do you think you are, really, just a few - pleasant minutes with Chloe lines up with what we originally supposed. We agreed that to get Christine you’d climb the ladder. This is a rung like any other.
Jeremy was reduced to silent, fearful horror. Everything he said was true - but then why did it feel so wrong ?
If this girl is truly so repulsive to you, I can make the experience easier, the phantom continued, trailing an index down the boy’s throat. His intentions left little room for doubt. We’ll simply wipe the memory when the deed has been done.
And very slowly, the Squip dropped closer and closer, leaning down his head, eyes glistening in the half-light, until Jeremy could almost feel the simmer and crackle of electricity on his lips.
He was just about blue in the face.
And then, without warning, he found himself with a mouthful of Chloe.
Turning his head frantically in an effort to shake her off, Jeremy spotted the Squip perched on a dresser in the corner. ‘What a fucking tease,’ he thought, suddenly angry with himself, for daring to be disappointed , of all things.
Kissing Chloe was decidedly unpleasant. She tasted like liquor and misery, and kept trying to seemingly wiggle her tongue down Jeremy’s throat, all while moaning as if she was auditioning for a certain type of movie. Perhaps she thought she was.
The sound of shattering glass was what finally did it. Jeremy bolted upright, Chloe tumbling to the floor in the process. Shards of broken window decorated the right half of the room, and on the other side of the frame was a very drunk, very upset, Jake Dillinger.
“Jeremy!” he yelled, eyes unfocused. “Are you having sex in my parents’ guest room?”
“No!!” Jeremy was quick to yell back. “Look, we’re not even kissing anymore! You can go!” He rather hoped, in fact, that the Squip would make the experience easier once more; and Chloe would forgive him for sacrificing her to the carpet.
“I WANTED TO HAVE SEX IN MY PARENTS’ GUEST ROOM,” bellowed Jake, and the lasser he’d used from the porch began to sway.
“Oh- okay? Yeah, I can leave if you want-“
“WITH CHLOE.”
“Uh, sure. She’s wasted though, don’t take advantage or anything-“
“JEREMY, DID YOU RAPE MY GIRLFRIEND?”
“NO” he screamed. The night had managed to take a pitiful turn for the worse.
“I’m gonna kill you,” Jake slurred, and he lifted himself over the windowsill, then ran to Chloe’s side.
“Babe, you good?”
She opened her eyes very slowly, and batted them. “I’m good, you scumbag. We broke up, wemember? Jeremy obviously wanted to fuck me, so I dared Brooke to go hook up with that blonde cheerleader with the huge boobs, so she’ll feel guilty enough not to blame him for cheating, and we were just getting down to it when you dropped by.”
“That’s it, man.” Jake turned to Jeremy, a drooping smile on his face. The cheeriness in his eyes matched nothing else in the room. “You die.”
He took a few, stumbling steps towards the door, which Jeremy had inched up to while the madness had been taking place.
Jeremy figured he probably couldn’t do much to hurt him, if walking itself was a feat, so he calmly pushed the other’s flailing arms aside and opened the door.
“Chloe!” He called. “Sleep with him, you have my blessing.”
Immediately, Chloe seemed to leap across the floorboards to press against Jake, opening her mouth for some more kissing. He obliged, and Jeremy ran, pursued by the awful little wet sounds and moans that color the art of making out, desperately wishing he’d thought to close the door behind.