A/N: This is way messier than I wanted it to be, and a lot less wrapped up as well, but I'm impatient and already late to the after-1x10 fic party, so I'm kind of just dropping this here, unedited and basically unfinished. Oops. Eh, Jug is a mess, FP is a mess, my writing might as well be fitting.
Spoilers for 1x10, The Lost Weekend.
Alternate ending.
Rated T for... language, I guess.
The lyrics are from Birdy - Skinny Love
000
And I told you to be patient
And I told you to be fine
And I told you to be balanced
And I told you to be kind
000
Jughead hates it when people get drunk.
Maybe hate is too strong a word. It's hard to decipher what it is he feels when he sees booze at parties, when he notices the shift from comprehensible sentences to mindless slurs. All he knows is that his heart slithers to his throat and beats faster than it probably should. All he knows is that his palms get slick with sweat and waves of adrenaline make him twitch. All he knows is that he's afraid.
It's quiet and subtle, but fear nonetheless. His skin crawls, his lungs start to feel too small for his body.
But it's fine. He ditches parties. He opts out of conversations. He wipes the sweat on his pant-legs and forces himself to stay calm.
It's easy to know they're just stupid kids having a good time. That they have designated drivers, friends assigned to make sure they don't do anything too stupid. They lean on each other and stumble home or their mom friend ushers them into the backseat and takes them wherever it is they need to go. It's easy to know that they're just kids and Riverdale is just fucked up sometimes and they just need a respite.
But he finds it's much harder to make himself believe.
He remembers the first time he saw Archie drunk.
Archie's 15th birthday, when his parent's separation was fresh in mind. The party had been down by Sweetwater River. Archie practically invited the whole school, and none of them turned down the excuse to go get drunk off their asses at a bonfire. Jughead had ducked out early with a smile and a wave; he wanted to give Archie an after party of sorts. Something small, but pleasant, so he'd purchased a couple bags of candy, a CD he knew Archie wanted (which was thankfully not mind-numbing), and Mario Kart 8. He didn't bother wrapping them.
He was surprised to find Mr. Andrews' truck absent from the driveway; he'd been working late... again. So he let himself in, dumped the bags of candy into a bowl, and settled down in Archie's room to wait, gifts laid out on the bed and the bowl in his lap.
He sat there for two hours, bowl significantly less full by the time Archie finally stumbled home. Jughead listened to the sounds of him tripping over his own feet before he appeared in the doorway.
Jughead knew before he saw, but seeing didn't make it any easier.
And so Jughead cleared the bed and left the bowl on the floor. He helped Archie out of his coat and shoes and covered him with a blanket after he collapsed onto the mattress, face pressed into his pillows. He tidied up the room and stayed when Archie asked him to through tears. He listened, heart clenched, as Archie rambled about his parents until he fell asleep.
When Jughead eventually made it downstairs, his hands were trembling.
He camped out on the couch that night. He didn't elaborate on said night's events and Archie didn't ask. Mr. Andrews made waffles for breakfast and they played Mario Kart all day, fingertips sticky from skittles and ring-pops.
That was that.
But it doesn't take rocket science, does it, to think maybe a kid with an alcoholic parent gets uncomfortable around alcohol? And it doesn't take superpowers to at least ask if you're not sure.
So he thinks the pang of offense he feels when Archie invites crazy teenagers with multiple kegs of beer into the house, at Jughead's own birthday party no less, is entirely justified. Yeah, it's Archie's house, but it's his party, and Archie had already messed it up enough, bailing on their traditional outing, spilling the beans in the first place, letting the others do as they please when he knows it isn't what Jughead wanted, and at this point he's just tired. But Archie doesn't see his incredulous stare, the dip in his shoulders, doesn't hear the pace of his heart increasing as the amount of people in the room does.
Tension continues to escalate, nerves rubbed raw by the time he decks Chuck without thinking, by the time his face is assaulted by a fist, a table, and the floor. By the time he spills out into the dark with the rest of the crowd, by the time his dad's familiar and unwelcomed grip tightens around his arm.
He barely registers what's being said over the roar in his ears, the electricity pulsing through his every move, thrumming through his veins until they're tight beneath his skin.
Don't run away.
Dark eyes pleading with him, clearer than they've been in a long time. But they don't placate him. No, they do the opposite.
You've got something good here... Something that we could never give you.
Rage bubbling in his blood. Hot. Charged.
Man up.
Something dry and brittle snaps in his head, reverberating through him like split bones and shattered glass.
"No. No, you don't get to say that. To me. You, a sniveling coward who hides behind his addictions as an excuse to never be there for his family. Who has as many empty promises as he does empty beer bottles."
He knows people are watching. That they're now privy to a piece of him he's never let anyone see.
He doesn't care.
"You know what, I do have something good, dad. I don't deserve my friends. I probably never will. They've done more than you ever have. Hell, Archie put a roof over my head because my family is so fucked up. Because of you... You don't get to tell me I should hold on to them. I should be able to hold on to you. They aren't replacements."
Rage.
"They're not more excuses for you to never be there."
Grief.
Clear eyes glazing over again, shame, guilt, resignation.
He doesn't care.
"'Man up'." A dark chuckle that tastes like he's losing it. His next words are spoken low, emotions threatening to spill over if he says them a even fraction too loud. "You don't get to say that to me."
And then he's leaving—don't run away—cotton replacing the rage and the grief and the electricity, chilled night air tempering the flush along his neck. The adrenaline ebbs away gradually, abandoning him to his exhaustion until he's panting in the parking lot of Pop's, hands planted on his knees as a shiver runs through him.
But he doesn't want Pop's and he doesn't want the drive-in and he doesn't want the school; his many homes away from home.
He wants home.
But he doesn't have one.
So he wanders Riverdale with his eyes on the sky and hands in his pockets to keep them warm. A lethargy to his step, lead in his breath, weights on his ankles. He's tired. Tired of high and dry, of a duffel bag instead of a bedroom, Pop's instead of a home-cooked meal, locker-room showers instead of a bath. Friends instead of a father.
His steps are automatic, habit, so he's not as surprised as he should be when he's standing at his dad's front door, grasp already around the knob. He hesitates.
Home.
No. Not home, but...
He turns the knob and steps inside, the musty smell of stale carpet and hints of beer invading his senses.
...it's better than nothing.
Dad wouldn't be home for a while; not after what Jughead said to him. He's probably already at the bar, licking his wounds with the sting of alcohol.
He winces at the venom of his own thoughts. That wasn't fair.
But what is?
The couch isn't great, but it is more comfortable then the floor. Regardless, he chooses the carpet instead of cushions, sliding down against the wall and pulling his knees to his chest.
He's tired.
Dark eyes, shadowed, hurt—his dad fucking deserved it. His dad should be ashamed. Jughead felt it in his stead for as long as he can remember, gaze downcast to avoid the stares of strangers, embarrassment flushing his cheeks when everyone elses' dads showed up at school and he was left alone, another replacement with sad eyes that looked between the ginger head and the beanie-ed one.
Hypocrites. Both Jughead and his dad.
Eyes closed and heart-rate slowing, he almost misses the quiet vibration of his phone in his pocket... He knows who it is before he reads it, before he unlocks the screen to respond.
Archie: Are u ok?
Heat and ice swell in different directions, goosebumps sprouting over his skin in a wave. He's not there, he's drifting, swimming, and the room pulses for a moment in time with his heart, stars peeking at the corners.
'Are you?' he replies, fingers tapping faster than he can proof-read the question in his head.
The next text is almost instantaneous.
Archie: No.
Archie: But today wasnt my bday.
He shrugs in the dark empty trailer, fully expecting Archie to somehow know that's all he has to say about that, yet painfully aware of his momentary isolation.
A pause, a quirk of his lips, bitter.
'Momentary'.
He stares at the phone's keyboard.
Archie: Are you coming home tonight?
And maybe it's the adrenaline, or lack thereof, maybe it's the fact that he's in his dad's trailer, maybe it's because he's alone, maybe it's because it's his goddamn birthday, but tears spring to his eyes as he reads, blurring the thin black letters to smears. And it hurts, but it also chases away the chill in his bones.
Home.
Damn Archie Andrews.
He doesn't deserve the Andrews family.
And his dad doesn't deserve redemption.
But goddammit, it's his birthday and he's too tired to care about who does or doesn't deserve what.
So he drags himself to his feet, steps back out into the cold, and closes the door behind him. The crisp air doesn't feel as biting as it did before even though his breath puffs like smoke, the bruises on his face throbbing in response to the temperature. He feels warm. Hot, from the anger writhing like a snake in the back of his mind, but also from the simple question his stupid best friend asked nestled deep in his jacket pocket.
He's going home.
It might not feel real, but it does today.
000
And now all your love is wasted
Then who the hell was I?
Cause now I'm breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines
000
A/N: Maybe I'll come back to this later and fix it. Hopefully. Until then, if you enjoyed this mess, please leave a review bc they literally keep me alive no pressure :))) love you all