Riverdale does not belong to me; this is mindless fun.
Rating: PG-13 for now; rating may change.
Characters: Archie Andrews, Veronica Lodge, Fred Andrews, Betty Cooper, Jughead Jones.
Pairings: Archie&Veronica, background Betty&Jughead.
Summary: Could be more complicated, but it really wasn't. The girl he loved didn't feel the same, so he wrote a song about it.
Author's note: English is not my first language (I'm Brazilian), and I don't know anyone that could beta this for me, so I'm sorry for any mistakes.
Also, I have no idea what I'm doing. I've written a fair amount of fanfiction before, but this is my first try at Riverdale. I know that ArchieRonnie is not the most popular ship, but it's my favorite – hopefully, there are some thirsty #varchie shippers out there that are desperate for some stories with them as the main couple.
Everything is canon-compliant 'til 2x08. Also, I'm shamelessly using some random pop songs and pretending they are Archie's. The title comes from Rhodes' "Your Soul", a song that is very important to the fic. You should listen to the acoustic version.
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YOUR SOUL
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chapter one
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Well, I never could say,
I never could say again
What I wanted
(Young Summer, The Waves That Rolled You Under)
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"Hey, kiddo," Fred Andrews' voice sounds muffled through the speakerphone. Archie runs around with a toothbrush in his mouth, tired and mostly hungover, trying to get ready. His ride should be there at any time, now. He's in Memphis, about to play in a big festival with big names, "Heard your song on the radio this morning."
He sounds as proud as the first time. Archie laughs through a mouthful of toothpaste foam, "You don't… Wait," he spits out in the sink, "You don't have to call me every time you hear it, dad."
"Oh, that I do," he jokes back, "Listen, son, I know you're in the middle of something right now, but as soon as you have the time, there are some things that I wanted to discuss with you. Let me know when you're back home, maybe you can pay your old man a visit?"
"Yeah, sure, dad," Archie fixes up his hair and puts on a clean shirt, "I have no idea when I'll be back, though. The fest here ends in three days, but we're driving all the way down to Louisiana after that, and I have all those phono sessions scheduled when I go back to New York, so…"
"No need to fret, Archie. But, you know, the business… I'm gonna need your signature on some papers."
"Do you wanna send them to Lau? She can print them for me, I'm pretty sure I'll get to see her sooner," someone honks outside the building, "Shit, dad, that's probably my ride. I gotta go, okay? I'll talk to you later."
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Lau, or Lauren, was his music agent. They practically started careers together, two redheaded tall people. They had slept together a couple of times, back in the Rockstar phase (how his dad used to call that phase), but sometimes Archie thought she looked too much like him and the whole thing made him think about the Blossom twins, an image that was twisted enough to cool things down. She was, ever since, a mix of a best flirty friend and his mom, really. She took care of him and his voice and pushed him endlessly. You need to record a new EP was the first and the last thing she said to him every day.
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He needed to record a new EP, this much was true.
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His first one, launched two years ago, consisted of ten songs, all variating on the same theme. It didn't matter since sad songs were the real fuel of the music business, but lately, he's been on a block. Still, there were only too many concerts he could pull with the same ten songs and a few covers, although his first single was still going strong.
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Could be more complicated, but it really wasn't. The girl he loved didn't feel the same, so he wrote a song about it.
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He has forgotten a lot, at this point. Any memory of her lips skimming over his or her fingertips running their course up his stomach are now only things that might have happened that way. Most of the time he doesn't know if he remembers what has really happened or if he remembers made up memories on his brain. Maybe a little bit of both.
It feels like a million years, now.
He's sung the song a million times, now.
In the early months, he would almost cry as he performed it in those unexceptional gigs, almost being the imperative word. During the Rockstar phase, he'd sing it to other girls, changing lyrics to suit them, in a meaningless effort to get under their sheets, and then he stopped singing it altogether, because it was already on the radio, an endless looping reminder of how his broken heart was the only thing that took him anywhere.
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(Well, more like Cheryl Blossom felt she owed him one and knew someone who knew someone, and suddenly Archie had four months of studio time to be miserable somewhere else than the corridors of Riverdale High.)
Point is, the song he wrote when Veronica Lodge didn't love him as much, didn't love him at all, was the one that put his name out there, the one that got him out of Riverdale to acoustic performances in the Midwest and then to New York, the one that set him in the same tour bus to open much better musicians' concerts, the one that gave him an emerging songwriter award.
He supposes he should thank her for that, one day.
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(He did thank her for that, one day. Not his finest moment, but probably his most honest one.
He was drunk and sad and pissed. She looked so beautiful in her bridesmaid dress, so beautiful wearing her pearls around her head like a halo.
He didn't think about it anymore.)
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"You need to record a new EP," Lauren says immediately when he opens the door, "And you look like shit."
"You'd look like shit if you spent 9 hours on a bus," he replies, aware that he does look tired. Tours were fun, but they were also very hard work, and normally he got home spent. And he wasn't even the type of singer that performed, really; he was a just another guy with a guitar and another sad story. Touring had him acquire a whole new respect for Justin Bieber. "And I missed you too."
She smiles, hugging him for a moment, "How did it go?"
"It was amazing, actually," he makes space for her to come inside his loft, "I can't believe I finally got to visit Memphis."
"Yeah, I had a pretty good time when I first went. Did you get to see Elvis' house?"
"Went with some of the guys, yeah," she arches one eyebrow, and he rolls his eyes, "Okay, went with a girl."
"That's more like it, Casanova. Did she inspire you?"
He laughs despite himself. The girl was just a random girl, but Archie was, most and foremost, a good guy, and he thought the right thing to do after having sex was at least going out on a date with them and try to get to know them better, "Well, I don't know. I did try out some chords."
Her smile got bigger, "Yes! You go, Memphis! Let me hear it."
"Not yet, it's too rough," he says. She looks exasperated, "C'mon, Lau, give me a break here, I'm trying. It doesn't work that way."
"I'm giving you a break for the past couple of years, Archibald. Try harder," she sighs, "Okay, you have phono tomorrow at a quarter to ten. I'll come pick you up. What are you doing today?"
He's a little annoyed, but he knows she has his best interest at heart. He wishes she understood that it wasn't that easy. He didn't wanna be Adele, singing about the same ex for the rest of his life, he was supposed to be better than that, "Just laundry, I guess."
"Take your guitar with you," she kisses the side of his head quickly, something she does every time she's a little angry with him. It reminds him of Betty's condescending reprimands. "I have to go, I'm supposed to meet Bruce for brunch in fifteen. Oh," she stops and opens up the maxi bag she was carrying, and hands in a big brown envelope, "I forgot. Your dad sent me those papers for you to sign. You need to…"
"Record a new EP. Got it, Lau."
She smiles at him before leaving the apartment, and Archie is left with an envelope he discards on the kitchen counter and the feeling that he is, again, failing.
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Archie had to give up football in his senior year, when his dad had a heart attack (about two years after that fucking serial killer) and doctors encouraged him to take a test since the condition was apparently genetic. The test came out positive, and Archie's future as an athlete was compromised. Exercising wasn't ruled out, though – he still needed to work out three or four times a week and to take water pills before bed.
The upsetting part wasn't giving up football, or college. Business school would take him back to Riverdale and Andrews Construction and even though Archie really knew nothing, the one thing he was always sure of was that he didn't want to live his father's life. He didn't need football or school to become a singer or a songwriter. He just needed his voice and his words.
The upsetting part was knowing that his broken heart wasn't just figurative. That it could really kill him one day. Somehow, it felt like he failed. With a girl that wouldn't love him, with a heart that didn't work, with a father that he couldn't save, with a man that he didn't want to become.
Most of the time, Archie forgot he had HCM. It was just one of those things that he had to deal with, like eating vegetables in every other meal or Lau's moods swings. It did prevent him from going full spiral during the Rockstar phase. Sometimes, though, when he tires too much after weight lifting or singing a long note, it gets him thinking that he can't be truly good at anything.
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He hits the gym and then spends the whole afternoon in the laundromat, because he was a successful singer, but not at all a rich one, and walking back to his loft with a heavy bag of clean (though not pressed) clothes gets him extra tired. He lays down on his couch, heavy breathing for a while, and falls asleep that way.
His phone startles him awake about half an hour later, and he declines the call when he sees it's his dad. He's not in the mood to tell anyone about his day, since, as days go, this was incredibly uneventful, pending to the crappy side of the spectrum, and recapitulating it seems like a huge waste of time.
Archie checks his texts. There is one from Lau so, how is that new EP going? that he answers with a skull emoji, some in the tour group chat he doesn't bother reading, and one from Betty asking if he's back to New York already. He smiles softly at her avatar, a picture of her and their new rescue dog, Nancy, and replies, yep. Come see me? x
Betty and Jughead have been living in Philadelphia for the past four months now. They've moved when Betty got a job as an editor in the Northeast Times, and Jug decided he could write his young adult angst anywhere. That left Archie alone in the East Village loft and in New York City.
He screws around his phone, pointlessly checking his social media. His last post on Twitter, it's been a wild ride! and a picture of him besides the tour bus had reached almost four thousand retweets. He scrolls down his Instagram feed, likes some pictures, Val looking as beautiful as ever on a stage; Lau and her boyfriend Bruce at brunch that same morning; Betty, Jughead, and Nancy looking like a little family, spending their morning in a park.
And a certain vlodge, at the Hamptons, kneeling on a bright yellow beach towel and looking away. He couldn't see anything but the sand and the blue skies around her, and she's wearing sunglasses and a striped black and white bathing suit. Her skin looks almost golden in the sunlight, and her dark hair is damp. The caption reads Beach in May? I need a little sunshine.
Archie doesn't like her picture because that would be weird. He only follows her because she did it first, when they were seemingly friends again, although being friends meant coexisting in the same city (all the way up the 3rd Avenue, almost a straight line from his place to the Upper East Side) without ever talking to each other, especially after Betty and Jughead moved.
He stares at the picture for a while, and the lines form in his mind, coming from nowhere. I see you under blue skies, I need a little sunshine.
Archie curses himself, refusing to get inspired in that precise moment, and closes the app.
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Fred Andrews calls again, but Archie thinks later, throwing his phone somewhere on the couch.
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tbc
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Note: so, what's going on with Fred? Also, pining!Archie might be my favorite. The HCM thing I shamelessly copied from One Tree Hill, but it serves a purpose. This is cross-posted on AO3. Loved it? Hated it? Let me know (: