Work Text:
Jeremy didn’t notice the first time.
“Your next class starts in ten minutes.”
Jeremy took a stroll to the nearest 7/11 for lunch. He left late and he knew he was cutting it close trying to make it there and back, but man these buffalo wings would be worth it. He didn’t care what the Squip said.
“Several of your popular peers share your next class with you. You’re going to look like an imbecile walking in and make a mess of your face trying to eat those wings in time.”
Ugh. Just let me have this. I’ve been looking forward to it all day. Maybe he should’ve just asked Michael to pick some up for him on his daily trip here. Actually, he thought, looking around the store, he didn’t think Michael even came here today, or school at all for that matter. What’s up with that?
“They’re wings, Jeremy. You will live. Buy a sandwich so you can eat it while walking and still look presentable.”
He rolled his eyes, then gave the cashier a nervous smile when he shot him a look.
“Nice one.”
That’s enough out of you. He reached for the box of wings anyways.
“Jeremy.”
The Squip materialized behind him and Jeremy glanced up to meet its gaze, firm and piercing. He stiffened, preparing for a shock that never came and was met instead with a cold touch in his hand pulling him away. He almost tripped from the sudden force and scrambled to keep up, barely following the Squip as it pulled him to the chilled area of the store. He looked over his shoulder and stared longingly at the wings that could have been, still held in place by the Squip’s projection.
“Get that one.” Its shiny form pointed at a meat filled triangle sandwich. “It will satisfy your cravings and you might even finish it in time for class.” It pretended to look at a watch on its wrist. “Seven minutes, now.”
Jeremy sighed (quietly) and picked the sandwich up in its cellophane packaged glory before shuffling to the counter to pay for it. The Squip followed closely behind. It wasn’t until on his way out the door onto the sidewalk when he tried to open his sandwich that he noticed his hand still tucked neatly in the electric projection of the Squip’s own. He awkwardly pulled away and felt the coolness on his skin slide off.
Why’d you do that?
“You didn’t say anything.”
It wasn’t really an answer. They walked back in silence. Jeremy finished his food with a minute to spare.
-
Jeremy tossed over in bed again hopelessly. A cold sweat emanated from his face, the back of his head pulsating with a dull headache. He was breathing too deeply. His mind raced and trailed, trains of thought ending before they could even start.
It wasn’t anything new. This just happened sometimes. But it never got any easier.
It was maybe 2, 3 AM. He had been staying up finishing a summative project for biology. Maybe the Squip took off the mental toll of the project some, but it couldn’t make up for his unfortunate project planning pre-Squip (“You have a what due on Tuesday?!) nor the physical toll it would take on his body to work for that many consecutive hours. The Squip spared no mercy for him in trying to get this finished.
Just like his schoolwork, he managed to push his stress to the last minute too, now exploding in his head as he lay estranged in the darkness. Not just that. Sometimes it felt like his whole life's worth of anxieties came crashing down on him in these midnight panics, delirious and frantic. His dad, his mom, Christine, Michael, school, loser, loser, loser. He had a SQUIP, he told himself. He was well liked. He didn’t need to worry about that anymore. But years of being conditioned to sink to the bottom of the pyramid of any group he found himself in, years of feeling scorn and disgust in the eyes of everyone in the room as soon as he walked in, years of knowing he was seen as less-than everybody else still had to be rewired.
He sat up in his bed, not being able to stand the feeling of the pillow against his head another second. Just wait it out, he told himself. And so he tried.
A hand grabbed hold of his, firm but gentle. Cool to the touch.
Squip?
He turned his head to the side and found it back to the wall, legs crossed on the bed beside him. It wasn’t looking at him, rather keeping its gaze straight forward on the wall opposite them. Still though, it kept an arm reaching out from its side, hand curled in Jeremy’s own. It was cold and light and smooth, a balm over the overwhelming swarm of heat that clouded his whole body. He never really got to acknowledge the way its touch felt, but it was much more obvious now, the only semi tangible thing he could latch onto. He found himself gripping its hand back tight. This was pathetic. It wasn’t even real. He was too delirious to care.
The Squip remained silent, averting its gaze, which was weird. Jeremy figured it would have something to say. Not comforting, obviously. Maybe a comment about how this was useless and how he should just go back to bed. And yet it remained, caressing its thumb gently over Jeremy’s. Was this supposed to be comforting? It was supposed to know, ah… everything about human interaction and dating and all that. Of course it knew how to hold someone’s hand. He didn’t take it as something that cared about if he was panicking, though. He could hear it now, ‘something something if you don’t sleep well you’ll look terrible at school tomorrow blah blah blah.’ He chuckled dryly to himself and almost expected the Squip to respond to his mockery. It never came. In his thinking, he didn’t realize that the waves of heat had subsided. His breathing slowed. He let out a sigh and it was probably the best feeling he’d had the whole day, tension melting away with the air. He felt a weight press down on his shoulder, a tickle against his chin, and looked down to see the Squip leaning on him, head nestled in the crook of his neck. Now that was strange. He didn’t find himself minding, though. It was nice. He leaned his head into the Squip’s.
-
He was on his way out, passing through the kitchen. The play was today. He carried the box of squips. He was stopped by his dad. Questioning.
Like clockwork, a prompt entered his ears and out came words. He hardly even knew what he was saying. But it was working, for sure. His Squip would make sure of that, anyways. It stood solemnly behind him, mumbling into his ear. It grabbed hold of his hand and laced its fingers between his own. A slight tug to its wrist as it eyed his father defensively.
“Disdainful denial.”
He denied, disdainfully.
“Wait.”
He waited.
“Tell him the truth.”
He did.
“Alright, if you’re not gonna take me seriously—”
Something in him snapped at that. Waking from his state of autopilot, he opened his mouth and didn’t stop. He felt a tug at his hand but continued anyway. Jeremy didn’t need the Squip for this. He already knew what his dad needed to hear.
“Good talk.” He grabbed the keys, all that he was really here for, making sure his dad heard them jingle in his other hand, loud and clear. “Don’t wait up.” He turned away, dragged his Squip by the hand, not caring how that looked to his dad.
He was still seething as he walked out the door, slammed the car door open and slumped into the driver’s seat. His chest burned with the kind of anger you only feel towards your parents. The kind you discover when you’re 6 that never changes for the rest of your life. He slammed his head against the wheel and blinked hot tears out of his eyes that he didn’t realize were there. Fuck. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid dad. Who does he think he is. Piece of shit never did a thing for him. Not for Mom, either. Not even for himself. Jeremy refused to be like that. A failure, a letdown, a loser. He wanted to change his life, and so he did. He’d probably done more for himself these past few weeks than his dad had in his whole lifetime. He didn’t need Dad. He didn’t need Michael. He didn’t need anyone.
Well. Almost.
He sat straight and turned to his Squip, now sitting in the passenger's seat next to him. It was already looking at him, apparently. Its gaze startled him, eyebrows downturned, eyes gentle and piercing and melancholy all at once. It smiled a little smile, not like its wide grandiose grins or mischievous smirks, but subtle, like it wasn’t doing it on purpose. It reached a hand out to grasp his cheek. It was cold, as always, thumb rubbing at tears that would be wiped away if it weren’t a mere figment of his mind. Ah. It’d never done this before. He didn’t care how weird it was. It was nice. He let it continue. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, trying to let the built up tension in him dissolve away into the touch.
“Hey. Squip?” He spoke aloud, opening his eyes.
The Squip raised an eyebrow at him, breaking its stare as its eyes shifted from Jeremy’s cheeks to actually make eye contact with him.
“Yes?”
“What are we gonna do after the play?”
The Squip paused, gaze fixated on Jeremy. “Well. Whatever you want.” It looked down then, taking its hand away from Jeremy’s cheek and instead wrapping its fingers around the back of Jeremy’s palm. “You’ll have Christine. Everyone will like you. The world will be yours.” It guided Jeremy’s hand to his cheeks, manipulating it to actually wipe the tears away.
“Really?” It was weird having his hands move against his will. But the gesture was soothing.
“You look surprised.”
“I mean. I dunno. You’re not gonna make me become, like, an entrepreneur or something?” If he tried hard enough he could imagine the warmth of the hand on its face really did come from his Squip.
“Is that what you desire next?”
“No. God, no.”
“Then no. Your goal will be completed after today.” It grazed its thumb over his own. “Our goal.”
“Oh.” The word resounded in his head. Our. He was so wrapped up in this whole thing that he supposed he never thought of all this as its objective, too. “So what are you gonna do?”
It smiled again, almost mocking. “You tell me. What am I gonna do?” A light chuckle laced its words.
“You’ll still be around?”
“Of course.” It let Jeremy’s hands drop down to the space between seats, cupping them in its own. “Always.”
“Ok. That’s good enough for me.” At that, the Squip smirked, raised an eyebrow and gazed at him quizzically. Jeremy smiled back at it, wry but genuine.
Thanks.
For everything.
He didn’t say it aloud. The Squip didn’t respond, either. But the squeeze it gave his hands told him everything.
He looked down at the box of squips in his lap. Everything would change after tonight. Christine would like him, no one would pick on him, everyone would be happy. Everything would be wonderful.
Right?
“Right.”
-
When Jeremy was still enchanted, enthralled, seduced by the Squip and its promises, he almost believed its actions came from a place of fondness. Endearment. Commendment from his partner in crime for a job well done, with a face all too human and a touch all too delicate.
He knew better now, of course. In fact, his delusions had likely been intentional on part of the Squip. Just another way of getting Jeremy to trust it. To listen to it. Obviously. It was a computer. It only knew what it had to do to get results, and if feigning acts of human closeness would be the means to the end, so be it. He felt embarrassed that he was so in over himself and so detached from normal connections that he could even believe that… That…
He usually stopped his train of thought there.
Jeremy had now come to accept that his Squip would always be a part of him, perhaps in the way that one accepts there will always be mosquitoes around when they go camping. He was better, though. Stronger. Mostly. Some days he heard his own name being called, no louder than a whisper. Some days it was so loud he’d blow his ears off with music to drown it out. Sometimes his wrist would flick against his will, almost sending his pencil flying away. Sometimes the muffled interjection of a math answer still echoed in his mind when he stared his homework down too long.
Some days, he’d feel that never-forgotten touch envelop his fingers, palms, cool on his skin. He could sometimes swear he felt a squeeze, or a thumb graze up and down the back of his hand, or a weight pressed down on his shoulder.
Jeremy knew better. Knew better than to think it felt feelings or cared for people or whatever he convinced himself it did. He wanted the phantom embrace grasping his hand to make him scared or angry or worried or remind him only of all the tactics that that thing had used against him. Against everyone.
But of all of the little annoyances that his Squip left behind, he couldn’t reason why, why this one remained. Not trying to antagonize him by making his life harder nor trying to win him back by making it easier. It didn’t beckon for him at all. It never threatened to take control over his muscles or tried to drag him elsewhere as the Squip had before. The sensation laid there wherever his hand laid, followed wherever his hand followed, let go when it was tugged away. Jeremy knew better, but he couldn’t help but remember. A gaze that saw straight through him, his anxieties and strange behaviors. That peeled back his person, imbued with a fleeting fondness he almost didn’t catch. The way it spoke to him that last, fateful day, tender and gentle and without a trace of command or reprimand in its voice. Every memory of a grasp of his hand, a touch to his face, left him wishing now, if anything, that he took the chance to ask the Squip why? Why did it do that?
It was there now as he sat in class. One of his hands was draped to his side as he sat in his chair, and there it was. A ghostly cool grip slid tentatively into his hand. A weight leaned on his shoulder. Light touches caressing his hair. He usually tried not to acknowledge it, a strategy he’d learned to use against any and all lingering Squip-y phenomena. But he pondered as he lazily watched the professor drone on at the front of the room, paying more attention to the slow strokes moving across the back of his palm. He tried to imagine it there, sitting next to him, reaching its own hand out to meet his, head pressed against his shoulder, fingers tracing through his hair bed. He had no idea what this could possibly accomplish, in the Squip’s current state. It wasn’t truly ‘touching’ him anymore, with projected body parts in contact with him. Just a trick of the nerves. A weak one at that. Perhaps it got bored being reduced to math answers and pencil throwing.
He remembered its words.
“Of course.”
“Always.”
Does a book miss its reader? Does a phone miss its user? No. But he couldn’t help but wonder if…
If.
He felt a gentle squeeze in his palm. He glanced a bit to his peers, left and right, making sure he wouldn’t be seen, and squeezed it back.