Chapter Text
The sun has already set by the time Ludwig sees Jerma trending on Twitter, and he tries not to think much of it at first. It happens pretty often on his For You page, which isn’t surprising considering that they’re friends and that he watches him pretty often (maybe too often). It’s a bit more intriguing to see that he’s trending in the US overall, albeit at 26th place.
There’s a pit in his stomach whenever he sees something like this without any warning, and it drops once the numbers sink in his mind. It is Sunday, and he hadn’t messaged Jeremy since Friday morning to bug him about some script deadline that he was behind on, and he stayed behind on it. And he hadn’t responded to that text, if Ludwig remembers correctly. Or the one before that. And he’s trending on Twitter in the US, at 26th place.
But he shouldn’t get ahead of himself. There are other things in the world besides Jeremy’s potentially discovered bloated corpse. Maybe he announced something new about that in-person Houseflipper tournament he was tossing around (or whatever it was; Jeremy didn’t want OFFBRAND to get involved with it, so Ludwig may have spaced out while he was yammering on about it on the phone the other night).
The hashtags paired with it were a bit more concerning, though. Not in the corpse way, but the future-stock-value-of-the-company way. “NO WAY” was typical, sure. “JERMAGATE” makes sweat form on his brow. “NUDES” makes his heart hiccup. Nudes?
Like a good friend, he investigates. Naturally. Normally. And there’s nothing wrong with him for wanting to do that. And there are no visuals painting themselves in his mind when he clicks on the tab, reads the words the whole world is saying.
It takes a few scrolls to even get the basic information: most people were posting vaguely aroused or disturbed (or somewhere in between) reaction images or videos or just long blocks of spammed keys. But it’s finally starting to shape itself into something—something about Holly, or Monica, or whatever her name is. That little quiet girl that Jeremy took himself to, practically worshiped over the phone to Ludwig with a smile in his voice that always made Ludwig want to hang up. Ludwig’s almost relieved. Almost. There’s something about revenge p*rn. Something about rope winding around the delicate corners of Jeremy’s body, about him taking it from behind, his eyes red and glassy. No pictures, though. That was just the vibe he was getting. From the reactions. Yeah.
The lower the like count gets, the more he’s able to piece things together. One of Jeremy’s mods—a friend of Monica’s, of course—posted, on Monica’s behalf, some incriminating pictures and/or videos along with a long manifesto on how Jeremy’s a cheater and a liar and a narcissist and, not to Ludwig’s surprise—or probably anyone’s surprise, if we’re being entirely honest—secretly gay. Their account got banned for harassment, or maybe they just deleted it, but it was too late at that point. The photos and/or videos are allegedly circulating everywhere but somehow nowhere to be found, not that Ludwig’s searching for them, because that would be weird and creepy and gay, and he’s certainly not any of those. The only ones he can find are blurred to tan and brown chunky pixels and covered in a slew of shocked emojis from wannabe drama accounts, but there are no other pictures. His obnoxious white-knight stans must be on some reporting spree.
But Monica, right. She tweeted, per some screenshots, this long paragraph about how sorry she was, that she didn’t mean for this to happen, et cetera. Ludwig only skimmed it. So it was her fault, then, somehow. She must’ve been sharing her boyfriend’s semi-nudes around with her other annoying Jerma stan friends, and then whatever argument and potential breakup between them transpired, and suddenly the pics are… somewhere in here. Ludwig’s a bit giddy about the possibility, honestly. Of the breakup. The idea of Jeremy f*cking a fan always irked him a bit, (especially her, who’s nothing more than a pathetic little bird with no personality to speak of aside from apologizing profusely to Ludwig whenever they happened to interact), not that he would ever confront him about it, because it’s Jerma. The sex must’ve been good. Not that he’s ever thought about it. Regardless. He doesn’t have any other reason for his giddiness.
The man in question is radio silent, as he always seems to be. People are getting suspicious. People are making posts that only seem desperate if you look closely, little things that say
anyway… links? 👉👈😳 #jermagate
and
where did she post the pics again? wanna go report it #jermagate
and
i hope he’s okay.
…I hope he’s okay. Ludwig pauses his scrolling on that one, taking his hand out from his sweatpants—which was there because it’s just comfortable, and he’s just relaxing comfortably, just chilling and using Twitter normally.
I hope he’s okay. Ludwig cautiously pulls down his notifications bar, and there’s nothing but Discord. Five missed calls. Eighteen messages. He turned his ringer off at some point.
Jerma - Lud are you around?
need to talk
[Missed call]
please pick up
i know it looks bad
[Missed call]
[Missed call]
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you should hateme
i’m sorry
i’m sorry i f*cked everything up for us
the company
i can resign
i’ll resign
[Missed call]
please lud
please pick up
im really scared
i’ll do something bad
I’m sscared i will
[Missed call]
ineed yuo
scared
Ludwig looks down at himself. Swallows.
He’s not sure when he started feeling like this about Jeremy. This desperate. It must be in his head. And if it’s in his head, then he must not be feeling this, and it must not be real. He’s not desperate. For those words. For the pictures that allegedly exist. Real pictures that are probably ruining the worth of OFFBRAND, the worth of Ludwig’s image overall. And all he wants to do is see them. Hear them. Touch. But he doesn’t want that. He wants to blink and for all of this to go away. The last thing he needs in his life right now is another controversy. Surely.
He doesn’t remember when he started feeling this, but it feels natural, like it’s been this way the entire time. A gradual building of too-long stares, too-tight hugs, too meaningful, too caring, too
scared
and it’s all ended with Ludwig feeling himself up to a text message, to the idea of
ineed yuo
with QT in the other room, with Monica somewhere far away. How she broke him, even if on accident. Or he broke her, even if on purpose. Or how someone broke someone else and now the whole world is divided on whether he’s a piece of sh*t or she’s a piece of sh*t and how each side knew it all along.
How Ludwig’s
scared
of opening Discord to call Jeremy back, because that’s when it starts, that’s when all the little things build up to something real: a true, tangible desire.
His phone vibrates.
i need you, please. i don;t have anyone else
Ludwig shivers. He opens Discord.
It takes one ring for Jeremy to pick up, but it’s quiet on the other end. Ludwig can barely hear him inhale, exhale. But when he can, it sounds like he’s putting all his energy into it. His lungs. His chest.
Ludwig opens his laptop over his tented sweatpants. He swallows. “You okay?” He types “jerma nudes” into an Incognito tab.
Jeremy sniffles, and it’s all mucus. Like he’s sick, so sick. Ludwig shifts his legs when he thinks too hard about it, what he must look like. Wet, scruffy kitten, curled up in bed. Suffocating on his own snot and tears, his self-loathing. Sick. A warm, shaky sigh from his lips.
“I-I’m sorry; that was a stupid question to ask.” The first few results are sh*t articles slapped together by ChatGPT. He scrolls. “…Can you tell me what happened? I just—I can’t find anything.”
“I’m scared,” he finally whimpers. It barely comes through the receiver. “I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared.” Ludwig sees him in his mind’s eye, curled up and surrounded by piles of used tissues. He scrolls again, inhaling sharply as his thumb brushes past the bulge in his sweatpants. “You hate me.”
“I don’t—” Ludwig clicks on a Reddit link and finally, finally, Jeremy is so slight and feminine, looking over his shoulder, his eyelids half-shut and lips unpursed. He’s smiling, and he is crying. His lips are sucked cherry red. The photo cuts off right below his armpit, but it’s clear he’s getting f*cked, and it’s real, and Ludwig is looking at it with his own eyes. A man’s hand is gripping him right by his jaw, and the dark, black hair goes past the base of his wrist. It is not Ludwig’s arm. It can never be Ludwig’s arm, no matter how hard he tries to paste himself into the picture, but he does not want to be that man anyway, he would never, he cannot. It’s too crude. “I could never hate you, Jerma. Never. You know that.” He exhales shakily, pressing into his groin. Just relieving some pressure. There’s not much else to it. “I’m worried about you, though. Is she— is she there? Are you, um, safe?”
“No,” he hiccups. “Gone. She’s gone.” In his sobs, there’s this high sigh that Ludwig feels entirely normal about. He’s fine. He’s so fine.
Reddit user zenisburner says it looks like the picture was cut from a video. Every other user asks where the other pictures are. “She was the only good thing, Lud. T-The only good person in my life. I ruin everything. Everything. I-I think I should—” And his voice cuts there, like he’s been stabbed and the shock hasn’t had the chance to soak in yet.
I am the only good person in your life. “…Are you safe?”
And it soaks. This wet, terrible gasp, like a gag. Ludwig envisions him over a toilet bowl, and then he doesn’t. He really doesn’t. “…I-I can’t be here alone. I’ll do something bad.”
Ludwig stops scrolling. A MediaFire link. “Like what?”
“…I-I’ve been, um… I’ve been clean for years, and I…” He inhales, snottily. There’s this soggy sound that must be him wiping his nose into his palm.
Clean. Ludwig sweats. Could it really have been heroin this whole time? Or maybe just pills. What sort of drugs do you do when your life falls apart? He downloads the file. “What?”
“…Please don’t call the cops on me. I won’t. I won’t I won’t I won’t. Nothing’s gonna make it better. I can’t.”
Jeremy’s voice has always been comforting to Ludwig in a way that he’s always been too afraid to put a name to, a sensation. His laugh, his smiles. But something claws at the pit of his gut now, the way he breathes into his phone’s mic, the background static of cotton sheets. The tremors in his voice. Nails digging into skin. Clean.
“…H-hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Just, um, just stay on the phone with me.” He drags a finger up the backside of his co*ck, and he shivers. The .zip file loads in.
“I’m not okay.” Some thumping sounds come through the speaker. “I-I’m gonna f*cking kill myself.” He inhales sharply. “I-I didn’t, no, I’m not. Please don’t call the cops. Please don’t call the cops. I just— I-I can’t eat. I can’t go in the kitchen. And I can’t go in the bathroom for long. And I can’t take— oh no. Please don’t call the cops.”
Ludwig stares at the first photo in the album. Jeremy in a bath of sunlight on a hotel bed, his hands crudely tied behind his back, ankles the same. His knees spread wide, his smile wide, the rest of his face in a puff of light. He’s an angel. He has to be dead: he’s an angel. An angel in dark gray briefs, thin white lines dotting across his upper thighs. Clean. “I’ll be there” falls from Ludwig’s lips. “Tonight. I’ll head out in a minute.” The next file is a video of the photo from before, of Jeremy’s head lolling in pleasure, the man’s hand around his neck. He’s freshly shaven, and he’s taking it from behind (one can only assume). When it gets to the frame from the picture, the video freezes in Ludwig’s head. It’s something that belongs on the ceiling of a cathedral. “Is there anyone nearby that can be with you until then? I should be there at—” he checks the time. 6 p.m. “—around midnight maybe. Unless traffic’s bad.” He quickly sends a message in his Discord server canceling a stream that was supposed to start ten minutes ago. Personal reasons. He uses the word “indefinitely.” He stares at the third photo: Jeremy facing a bright window with his arms tightly bound behind him, an intricate pattern of red rope. His chin is tucked over his shoulder like a sleeping dove. His lips are parted. His eyes are locked with the camera’s lens.
The photo’s red lips move to say, “No. There’s no one. They all hate me. They all hate me. They’re all Monica’s friends and she probably told them all how terrible I am.” Tears come to Jeremy’s eyes, and they trail freely down his face. His arms do not wrestle from the rope to wipe the wetness from himself; he knows he isn’t permitted movement. He doesn’t deserve that privilege. “I deserve to die.” He bats his eyelashes. “I deserve it.”
A tremble leaves Ludwig’s lips, and then a gasp. It’s never taken him long to get off, but at his big age, he’s surprised himself somewhat. He covers the grunting of his org*sm with a set of sharp coughs, a “sorry.” He doesn’t have anything to be sorry for, of course. Just relieving some pressures. Nothing wrong with it. He’s not Catholic. “You,” Ludwig begins, but then stops. “Just stay there. Get some rest. I’ll be there soon. I promise.”
The line goes quiet and then the hang-up tone sounds. In the right corner of his laptop’s screen, the notifications pop up, one after the other.
i will
i’ll be good
And Ludwig’s fist starts up again.
“Ahem.”
“f*ck—!” Ludwig stumbles to slam his computer screen shut at the sound behind him, haphazardly placing it on his lap to cover what she had clearly already seen occur. Blaire, who manifested in the doorway behind Ludwig’s shoulder at some point. Not that it really mattered. He’d rather have her see it than anyone else. “—Hey, um, hi.”
Her lips are in a tight line across her face, and she belatedly covers her eyes with her palm. “Christ,” she sighs out before continuing, “Well, I invited some of my girls over for dinner, if you care. It’s ready.”
Ludwig digs his teeth into his bottom lip. “I, uh, I already ate, sorry.” He doesn’t remember if he ate. He doesn’t remember anything before this. Prepping for stream? What stream? But he sits up in what was once their bed, wiping sweat off his brow. “Um, I-I’m gonna have to head out soon. Something came up.” His mouth is dry.
Her sweet bleached hair is fraying at the ends now, her dark roots making significant headway down her scalp. Before that final make-out session with Aiden made her and Ludwig split, she had mentioned something to him about wanting to go back to her natural color, but he can’t really remember at this point. It almost clicks for him then, half meeting her peeved-but-not-surprised expression: she looks just like him—her strong brow bone, the angle of her jawline. Or he looks just like her. Or surely the pictures of him in rope and the memories of her in rope made his dick act up. Or perhaps some chemical in his brain is firing rapidly and missing all the wires up, crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed, crossing lines of rope over Jeremy’s abdomen until the skin bulges from underneath, until he cries out—
“Yeah, I can see,” Blaire scoffs, and then she turns on her heel. “Give me a heads-up when you’ll be back.” And she walks back down the hallway.
Ludwig sighs, tossing his legs over the bed. “…I’m sorry, QT!” he cries out. She feels like his mom, and his deflated dick feels like a failing report card. There’s a useful metaphor somewhere in there.
“Whatever,” she calls back. Her footsteps stop. “Don’t get yourself involved in something f*cked up. I don’t wanna get wrapped up in your sh*t while chat still thinks we’re together.” And she continues down the stairs. With his headphones off, he can more clearly hear the calamity in their kitchen: the clinking of glasses, the consumption of pricey cheeses and fig jam on crackers, the chorus of shrill laughter. The bleach-burnt ends of her hair. The house’ll be sold in three months from now, and then she’ll be gone forever.
The clattering reduces to a collection of food-cutting sounds and delicate chatter by the time Ludwig brings his haphazardly packed duffle bag downstairs. Blaire abruptly shouts out “bye” at the sound of the door opening, and Ludwig shouts it back. And the door shuts. Beyond the evenly trimmed green lawns and the weird mix of hyper-richness and bland suburbia that makes up this part of the Hills, Ludwig can see the glow of LA buzzing on the horizon. He blinks maybe once and then he’s within an incredibly similar complex with a harsher, drier tug on his skin and the sky pitch black. A sea of near-identical, costly (due to the area) houses each light the streets with their near-identical lampposts planted next to their near-identical mailboxes. He turns around, and there’s his parked car in Jeremy’s driveway. His mailbox is hanging open and stuffed with envelopes. All of the lights are off. His curtains are shut.
Some erotica-induced psychosis must’ve taken over Ludwig up until this moment because he can’t recall a second of driving, nor where he got Jeremy’s address. He doesn’t worry too much about it. Sometimes you just lose yourself. He must’ve gotten Wendy’s at some point since the bag is demolished in his passenger seat, but he still feels peckish.
Up three stairs is the dark walnut door to Jeremy’s home. He’s starving.
He knocks twice and hears nothing. Ludwig swallows. He knocks a third time, calling out, “Jerma, it’s me!” Nothing. No lights on. No windows open. Nothing.
Ludwig remembers then that something follows life. His hand is liquid around the door’s cool brass knocker, and the gold of his father’s ring on his index finger, and the watch clenched around his wrist. It’s so cold, suddenly. The metal is all liquid, and when his father died, he saw the blood spurt from his mouth, he saw the cool tone in his eyes, he saw the liquid. He saw where liquid would’ve poured out of Jeremy’s thighs, once upon a time. He saw them bared toward the camera, he saw his lips lift. He saw his lips lift when they were playing characters for the camera, when they were playing personas for money, and when they weren’t playing, when they were alone in the reserved, private room at that restaurant, and Jeremy was dipping his bread into butter. His lips lifted then, for him. For Ludwig.
In the third photo from the leak, Jeremy’s eyes were cool. His eyelashes were long. They batted against his cheeks.
Ludwig pounds the knocker once more and there’s a wet sensation on his shoulder, suddenly. It doesn’t rain in Vegas. There’s pressure around his abdomen and those are Jeremy’s arms around his waist, pulling him so tightly into himself. Ludwig can feel the nails dig in.
“I’m here,” Ludwig says, and Jeremy hiccups pathetically at that, his wet mouth smashed into the armpit of Ludwig’s shirt. “I’m right here.”
Ludwig takes two steps forward, guiding Jeremy’s body back inside, and he closes the door behind them.
