warning: not for the faint of heart. rated m for murder and all-around disturbing content. this is a dark fic. jeremy is an oc delightisadream and i created. he is gigi and sebastian's tech buddy who is not usually psychotic; that's just how i've written him here. written in second person and clearly with a different style than you've seen from me in the past. if this isn't your cup of tea, that is perfectly fine. all i ask is that you move along and refrain from being a dick in the reviews. title and lyrics below taken from true friends by bring me the horizon.
edit: because i inadvertently confused my sister and posted this at 2:30 am, let me clarify: the name jacquine is nothing more than an inside joke. that person is not present in this story.
. . .
all nerve, no spine. by lovethatignites
. . .
.
—you're all nerve, with no spine;
you made your bed when you worried about mine.
this. ends. now.—
.
.
that you wouldn't dream of telling sebastian should've been your first sign this was absolutely unjustifiably wrong.
but you've been the captain of the debate team for four years straight and your brother isn't straight and jeremy was so charismatic and persuasive and you tried to say it was all for the story and—
you need this, geeg. you're more tense than jacquine lately.
—and that girl really is a bitch and you don't need her brainwashing the upcoming generation with her celebrity status and you especially don't need her in your town promoting her fuckface agenda.
.
.
sneaking out isn't difficult. your parents are out cold from closing the restaurant late and diego is jacking off to gay porn except no one told him headphones don't do much if you have the volume up to blasting.
jeremy is waiting for you in front of the restaurant, looking perfectly normal in the beat-up hummer he bought with the money from his underground virus-making company. you slide into the passenger's seat with nothing but your backpack of supplies. this is the first time you've gone anywhere without your phone or a camera since you were seven and your grandmum, babysitting for the weekend while your parents embarked on a restaurants of america tour, insisted recording people in church was baleful.
you can't imagine what she'd call your intentions for the night.
you're suddenly glad she died of a heart attack three years ago.
"is—" you purse your lips tightly when your voice breaks off. "did you—everything set up?"
"we're a go," he tells you easily. too easily. you realize you couldn't back out now even if you wanted to, as he pulls away from the curb and onto main street, heading away from town. jeremy is easily smarter than you, probably smarter than katie, and for all you know, he has hidden cameras rolling right now, tying you to the crime that's about to take place.
part of jeremy's intelligence? his perceptiveness of nonverbal cues.
"relax. we made a deal, geeg." he eyes you and you recall your explicit demands that no phones or cameras be present when this went down. "i'm a rat; not a snake. you're safe."
it looks like he hesitates for a moment, but then his rough calloused hand is entangling with yours and directing it to the gear shift. you ponder in silence, as you watch your slim fingers twine around his bigger ones, why you're thinking of the soft and slightly clammy texture of sebastian's hands.
"two weeks from now, you'll look back on this with pride." jeremy turns onto the dirt road that leads to the agreed-upon location. "one less sjw polluting the world with her twisted judgments and pity-me falsities."
you think of your brother, of how your dad has a difficult time being around him these days, of the way your dad not so subtly approached jax last month and requested he and emma find a new place to dine. the anger, the indignation of it all bubbles up in your chest once again and, yeah, you want this. you really fucking want this.
you don't realize you're inhale-exhaling like a bull, scowl twisting your face, fingers digging into the bones just below jeremy's knuckles until he grins at you, all convoluted joy. "there's my girl."
.
.
you throw your door open and slam it shut. no one is out here—no one who will be alive by morning. besides, in a moment, much louder sounds than the rattle of hummer door frames will be reverberating in the area.
jeremy is all cool and collected as he exits the driver's side and approaches the warehouse. he doesn't bother with gloves when he pushes open the heavy door. it'll all be in ashes in hours.
"oh, prin-cess..." jeremy's voice slides through the air like eerie butter on the most ominous piece of toast. "i'm back. and i brought a friend!"
the door is slowly-as-fuck inching closed of its own accord behind you when you see her. jeremy's skills from boy scouts most certainly came through: she is on the floor, arms tied back to a huge cement pole in the far left corner of the empty warehouse. her long chicken legs are awkwardly bent up and spilling out to the sides of her body; her hair and makeup is still done from the event she spoke at just hours before. a large piece of duct tape is across her mouth and tears are spilling out of her eyes and a dark thrill races through you.
that's nothing compared to what's coming.
"now, young lady," jeremy chastises her, voice saturated with false disappointment. "my friend here has quite the bone to pick with you. geeg?"
your brown eyes flick from the duct tape to jeremy. you narrow your eyes at him inquiringly.
he leans up against a work bench, waves a hand dismissively. "keep it. you know what it's like when she talks."
her words, the very words that got her here, echo in your head and your face must show it because she looks at you and begins to sob.
you haven't even done anything yet.
your backpack slides off your shoulder and down to the crook of your elbow as you saunter forward slowly, like you're in a drug-induced haze and this is only a dream. it feels like one. you've never seen her in person, and now that she's right here in front of you...
you made the choice you wanted. not the right one, but the one you truly, deep down wanted. you can't deny it now, and you're wondering how you're going to shake jeremy's influence when this is all over because you can feel his crazy in your bones, the hum of adrenaline, of revenge.
or maybe it's not jeremy at all. maybe he only awoke a long-dormant part of you. maybe you're just crazy.
.
.
when you're only two feet in front of her, you crouch down so you're at eye-level. she's wearing a perfume that must have been made with nothing but organic tree bark, and you can't imagine anyone will actually miss her.
you lick your lips once and begin. to your delight, your voice comes out confident.
"do you know, darling," you're all ice, and you can't see it from where you're at, pouring malice into the younger girl's eyes, but jeremy is bringing the doughnut of his fist to his mouth, suppressing a laugh, "what a magnificent cunt you are?"
she's shaking now. noises are coming from her throat that don't even sound human. she's not a deer caught in headlights; she's a mouse caught in the gearshifts of a car going ninety on the interstate.
you drop your bag to the floor and undo the front zipper casually. "let me guess: you think this is happening because you stood up for your wonderful new-age beliefs. is that it? you're a social justice martyr who's paying the price for being the anti-faith jesus of our generation?"
she closes her eyes and weeps.
you reach forward and slap her, your backpack forgotten. she yelps from beneath her duct tape, and jeremy hoots.
"that's not why!" you're screaming. you never scream. whine, yes. get a little overexcited at times, absolutely. but you don't scream. you've never had reason to.
but now she's right here in front of you, pissing you off even without speaking a word, and you have all the reason in the world to scream. and so you do. you scream why she's here and if it weren't for jeremy recounting it later, you would never know what you said.
"'queer,' are you? you're 'queer' even though you're fucking straight as fuck? you just slapped this label on yourself all for, what, popularity? huh?" you fist her hair and tug and release on the backwards shove, watch as her skull cracks against the pole behind her. she might cry out; she might not. you're too angry to stop now that you've started, too angry to even really register that the crack you just heard was her head.
"fuck you! you think being gay is trendy? you think calling yourself 'queer' makes you so fucking hip and important and special? you don't know the first thing about what it's like to be gay!"
you remember your backpack and in a fumble you fish out the pocket knife you were searching for earlier. you pull back; she screams. you propel the knife forward and it's pure chance it lodges in her shoulder blade. her skin flushes red as she howls her lungs out, her stupidfuckingignorant blood pooling down her thin upper arm, seeping between your fingers.
"being gay means staying with your opposite sex partner for years because you're too scared to admit what everyone else already knows! being gay means living every day knowing your dad struggles to be in the same room as you! being gay means facing fucking persecution for who you're attracted to! please, tell me what fucking persecution you've faced with your million-dollar mansion and your social media cult following! none! fucking none! because you're not 'queer'!"
"stab her again!" jeremy shouts somewhere behind you over his laughter and her hysterical tantrum.
some subconscious part of your mind registers what he said and you do it. you yank the knife out of her flesh and stab again, this time with purpose. you go for her flat-as-paper stomach, and you push until the tiny knife must be poking out her back. she's flailing, screaming at the top of her lungs, gushing blood and it's not enough. you stab her again and again and again. chest, legs, neck, everywhere. she garbles and her blood is soaking you and you need more more more—
jeremy sidles up to you, calm as day, and picks up your backpack. he extracts the other knife, the steak knife you brought along in your haste, and casually drags the blade up the flesh of her neck. "here you go, sweetheart." he watches as the dark red, almost purple liquid dribbles down her throat. "so pretty..."
she's losing some amount of consciousness, her cries are a fraction quieter, but that's saying nothing. she should have spent her short life being the siren on a firetruck rather than spewing her bullshit, you absently think. and then you start to laugh. you laugh like it's the funniest thing in the world, and—yeah, watching this pathetic piece of human trash slowly bleed out at your hand, yeah, that's pretty funny.
jeremy grins at you and places his hand on your shoulder. you stop your stabbing and look up at him, pulled out of your trance. he motions to the steak knife in his hand and you immediately drop your pocket knife and wrap your hand around his. together, you pull back and plunge the knife into her heart.
.
.
her bright eyes, bloodshot and fearful, give pause. the life seeps away and her head slumps forward, hanging limp between her knees.
you let go of jeremy's hand; jeremy's hand releases the knife. you catch your reflection in a piece of metal equipment to your left. you're soaked in blood: your hair, your clothes, your face.
you barely register jeremy's hands on your waist, pulling you up to your feet. he leads you out the door and into the woods out back where there's a little stream nestled between the trees. the two of you spend the next twenty minutes washing up. from your backpack, you both slip into a change of clean clothes.
when the blood is gone, jeremy takes your hand and leads you back up the path you came. he stands at the entrance to the warehouse and extracts the matches from your backpack. then he tosses the bag, stuffed full of both sets of bloody clothes, inside. he lights a match, drops it to the hardwood floor, and bolts the door shut.
.
.
the ride back to your house is quiet. this time, it is you who takes jeremy's hand. he doesn't comment, only seems content as your ice cold fingers twine with his. the strange madness that had thrummed so loudly between you two earlier has calmed. your insanity has been satiated.
"i'll work on the story when i get home," he promises as he drops you at the curb. you nod, more to acknowledge you heard him than anything else. for the first time in your career as a journalist, you don't care that you'll be the first source to report on a huge story. you wonder if jeremy knew it would be like this and only used the promise of a scoop (remains of young celeb activist found in burnt building) to lure you in.
you smile as he drives away.
.
.
it's half past four and your house is silent but you're not tired.
diego jumps when he registers you at his bedside, arms wrapped around his stomach, head on his chest, wet hair splaying out on his pillow. he smells so clean. you grin as you realize it's the free sample of that new yummy boi mag cologne.
"gigi?" his voice is gravelly, out of it as he comes to. "what's going on?" when you only snuggle closer, he asks, "did you have a nightmare?" logical guess. when you were little and you two shared a room, you'd always hop out of your bed and into his when you had a bad dream.
"nope." your voice sounds dreamy, far away.
"then... what happened?"
you hold him tighter and say, "just love you."
he seems confused by this for a moment but then his demeanor softens and he hugs you back.
"love you, too, sis."