A/N: hey again laid ease! i have several unfinished fics i'd rather work on that this tbh but since my brain is dumb and uncontrollable, i whipped this up on a whim in like three hours and. yeah. it's a mess and it's unedited, as always, so my apologies for any spelling errors and the like, but i'm always too excited to post stuff to wait so here this is, voila~~ a trainwreck but hopefully comprehensible.
takes place after the events of Season 3 i guess ?
spoilers for said Season 3 events lol
rated k because there's really nothing graphic i don't think but there are references to acts of violence (stabbing, branding, etc), references to the Grundy conundrum and other canon traumas, references to nightmares, panic attacks, PTSD, etc (if anyone thinks i should up the rating to t, feel free to say so 3)
lyrics from Spanish Sahara - Foals
000
now the waves they drag you down
carry you to broken ground
though i'll find you in the sand
wipe you clean with dirty hands
000
the first time he's back home from his soul searching in the canadian wilderness and he realizes he has to take off his shirt in a room full of unmarred teenage boys, he also realizes he'd rather just wait than deal with all the stares and the shock and the questions and the otherness tattooed into his very skin under the cheap lights of the locker room.
he watches the others go through the motions, their skin patchworks of art; moles, freckles, pale, dark, creases and curves and stretch marks and pimples, a few bruises from some activity or another, flaws and blemishes all the same and yet he studies them like one studies modern art.
they're just skeletons molded with muscle and fat, no better or worse than his – he knows.
yet he feels like an alien, a box dented in at the front in an isle full of prime and perfected products of youth, but they're not goods to be sold, damaged or not, it's not a contest, he knows, and yet – he does, he waits.
he waits until the last possible second to undress but even then it's too soon because Reggie is still there and he's buzzing with something else under his skin, picking fights and poking bears and when Archie finally deigns him with a response that's more than just willing himself to swirl down the drains in the floor, Reggie sees and he stares and asks questions and Archie's never felt so – other.
he wants to run himself through a meat grinder and come out the other side nothing more than a pile of skin and bones. because that's all they are, isn't it? skin and bones and blood, the only thing in this pit of dirt and grime they call life that is truly their own, and yet – his feels more like an animal at a petting zoo, a hand-me-down glove that one too many interested parties have tried on for size one too many times and still decided they'd rather have something else instead.
after that, Archie skips a shower altogether and walks through the rest of his day feeling like ants are exploring every last inch of his body.
after that, Archie decides he'd rather just change with the others and keep his eyes to himself than deal with the feeling of otherness that comes with waiting for everyone to leave, nothing but his thoughts and his own skin crawling to distract himself.
000
the first time Betty sees is a night like any other. a cold december night, open blinds, open curtains, almost as if he'd been asking to be seen, what with his conflicting need to shed his body of any unnecessary layers before bed. lately, clothes are a shield to hide behind not unlike the shadows at night, something he can crawl under and blend into, a second skin that hasn't been tainted by anything other than maybe a few stains here and there. but old habits die hard and he hasn't slept with a shirt on since he was thirteen and naive with more sharp corners and angles than any real muscle.
it feels both familiar and uncomfortable, to get rid of that extra layer, even in the dead of winter. it feels like something Archie Andrews would do, the boy next door, before music teachers and serial killers and teenage fight clubs. it feels like something Archie Andrews would do, the boy accused of murder and found guilty and thrown away and locked away, stripped of dignities and sometimes, yeah, his shirt too, right before he was thrown into an old swimming pool to break and to bleed.
he does it without thinking.
the cold bites at his skin and makes it pucker at the edges, hardened flesh twinging and aching with the sudden change until he stops to dig the heel of his hand into the meat of his shoulder, his chest, dug into the scars running across like a caress made of sharp nails and – loneliness.
he catches Betty's eye through the window and she smiles and waves like always, bright and friendly and soft around the edges in the best of ways, familiar and warm and safe, and he can see the moment that she notices, sharp gaze growing sharper as it drops down to his torso – and she sees.
it doesn't feel like last time. it doesn't feel like pins and needles and ants pricking up and down his body, like eyes too bright and burning for the dark to absorb. no, it feels more like a wave of cold water down his spine, goosebumps and cool air cascading down his neck to his hips, each mark of raised flesh feeling oh so prominent despite the lights turned off and his eyes downcast, nowhere to hide because the streetlight is bright enough and her eyes are staring even if it's not in anything like shock or questions or pity but still enough to make him feel –
other.
he finally gathers enough courage to look back up.
and her eyes are still familiar and warm and safe, if not a little dull, but still just as soft around the edges. just as normal as any other look she's ever given him, whether it's when he was thirteen and naive or sixteen and naive, she's still the same, she's still Betty. and he's still Archie Andrews, the boy next door, the boy accused of murder and found – not guilty.
she calls him and they talk over the phone about nothing and everything until he dozes off into oblivion, warm and safe and soft around the edges beneath the layer of his comforter and the familiar sound of her voice.
000
Jughead sees on January 1st, the first day of a new year after sleeping over just like every other January 1st Archie's spent since meeting the other boy. he'd slept with as many layers as he could the night before for a change, as it was one of the coldest nights of the year, drizzle turned to snow turned to ice in the single digits. a part of him was thankful for the excuse to break his habit of sleeping in nothing but a pair of plaid pajama pants, even if for a single night, burrowed under a pile of blankets with Jughead snoring the night away on the air mattress.
a part of him wondered what it would be like if they shared it instead of sleeping no more than three feet apart.
for body heat, of course.
he showers that morning like he showers every morning, but longer, hovering under the hot spray of water until it grows cold and bites at his skin and the marks left there protest the treatment, burn and ache under the force of it. a part of him wants to stay there until his lips turn blue and his fingertips prune, stand there as if he can will his scars not to remind him of their presence, to remind him that his body was never his, not since two summers ago when a music teacher picked him up on his way home from work.
instead, he shuts off the water and tries not to look in the mirror as he wraps a towel around his waist.
he wanders back into his room without thinking.
and Jughead's there, perched on the edge of his bed with a controller in his fingers and his eyes locked on the television, but they quickly dart over to him as he enters and Archie can see the moment that he notices, when his gaze flickers down and he sees.
Archie always feels a million times smaller.
like an exhibit. like an ant under a boot, a piece of livestock under inspection, his body growing cold and still as a corpse just as a small voice in his head for a moment wishes he was one.
Jughead's gaze feels hot and sharp on his skin, a razor blade splitting him open for dissection, poking and prodding and staring, anything but soft around the edges, nothing like Betty's but nothing like Reggie's either – something else entirely.
for some odd reason hovering at the back of his neck, he wants to apologize.
he's not sure for what. not sure why to Jughead.
but he opens his mouth to say it just as Jughead opens his and says –
"is that from the bear?"
he asks it like you'd ask any other question; short and simple, neutral as he inclines his head and indicates the stretch of pale tissue across his chest with his eyes, but he's standing and coming closer on light-footed legs and Archie's not sure what to make of it – anything.
he can feel Jughead's warmth when they're less than three feet apart.
Jughead's eyes are cool and – not gentle, or soft, but light and neutral and normal, and the otherness rising in his chest tames just a little.
for some odd reason, heat hovers at the back of his neck and climbs to the tips of his ears.
Jughead's eyes flicker there instead for just a moment, and the corner of his lips twitch just so.
Archie nods.
for some odd reason, he's at a loss for words. Jughead was always good with them in contrast, both written and spoken, whether it be a novel or a conversation about narwhals, Jughead always knew what he wanted to say and how to say it.
"do they hurt?" this time, his gaze finds more than just the ones across his chest, down to the one on his stomach, the one peaking above the edge of the towel, branded, stabbed, attacked by a fucking bear – they all hurt at the time.
sometimes they still do, but sometimes it's the ones nobody can see that still hurt the most.
he shrugs. "sometimes. when the temperature changes, they hurt a little, like – like something's trapped underneath the skin sometimes. they just ache or sting a little, nothing – it's nothing. major." and it really isn't, but Jughead's watching him closely with that razor sharp edge and it still burns somewhere beneath his sternum.
"they probably bugged you last night, then," he asks, but it sounds more like a statement, eyes back up to meet his and just as clear as before, if not a little more so. something like sympathy swims in the silver there, in the light from the tv reflecting off of them, but somehow, it doesn't feel as – as other as Archie thought it would.
he just shrugs again.
something like sympathy softens the razor blade to a butter knife to something even softer, just a warmth like Betty's but still something else entirely, and Archie fights back a flinch when Jughead reaches for him because – he doesn't want to flinch, not when Jughead's fingers seem to catch on nothing but still boldly continue their course until they brush against the symbol on his hip. a shiver runs through him until the brand might as well be searing hot once again, from the temperature or from the touch almost too light to really feel but he somehow burns too hot and too cold at the same time.
when he finally finds it in himself to look back up from where his gaze had dropped to the floor, Jughead's eyes are sad.
"i'm sorry."
they somehow turn sadder when they meet his again.
Archie just shakes his head and grabs his hand with his own.
they play video games for another three hours until Betty and Veronica invite them to Pop's for some milkshakes dedicated to the new year, and Archie orders strawberry for the sake of years passed even though he's acquired a bit of a preference for the root beer floats.
000
it's somehow months later before his dad sees any of it.
somehow, despite living under the same roof, he's managed to avoid it. not intentionally, or maybe it was. a part of him, at least. somehow, since the first deep scar was left by trembling hands and baby blue eyes washed with tears, a boy just as trapped and alone as he was – somehow, his dad had seen none of it, none of the signatures of each one too many interested parties, each x and o dotted across the lines of his skin left for the next.
blissfully ignorant. though, that's not entirely true; every night bathed in a cold sweat in the dark, every corner of the house he's crammed his body into in the midst of a panic attack, every day and night spent in a daze of hypervigilance and sleep deprivation, his dad was there with duct tape and band-aids to pick up the pieces.
and Archie was so, so thankful.
and so, so – sorry. for every second of hell he's dragged behind him like a corpse in the woods, like his own bodyweight was a burden, and it is, a heavy and buzzing pile of skin and bones that he wishes wasn't his – because it never was, isn't, and he wishes it was.
he's a stick of dynamite with a fuse that changes lengths at the drop of a hat.
somehow – somehow, his dad has the patience to douse it with a bucket of cold water each and every time it gets too close to going up in flames, every time it goes up in flames anyway and ends up burning the both of them.
but this time, it burns, down and out and up in their faces. this time, without nightmares or hyperventilating or dissociation – just a cool spring morning, too early for the early birds but too late for the night owls, the clock on the kitchen wall ticking over a quarter til four when he flicks the light on to get a glass of water and some celery sticks. his dad said he used to love them with peanut butter as a kid, just like his mom, but he can't seem to stomach the combination anymore.
the kitchen counter is cold against his thighs as he hops up to sit on it instead of moving to the living room, but he's always loved how the kitchen feels at night, when the windows are still tinted dark and the lightbulb's flickering feels all the more noticeable.
and there he sits, sipping his water and chewing quietly on his celery when his dad walks in.
he thinks nothing of it; figures he accidentally woke him with the creaky stairs on his way down, so he smiles and waves, bright and friendly and naive, and for a moment, he forgot his body had ever belonged to anyone other than himself.
then his dad stops in his tracks and turns a shade of gray under the cheap kitchen and early morning light.
his smile falters.
he sets down his celery and follows the shaking gaze to his own bare chest just as it all clicks together and falls apart at the same time.
for the first time since a kid shoved a knife in his gut, his dad sees, and Archie wants to find the back door to his body and never come back. he wants to slip through the cracks in the floor and never return, dig his own grave in the woods, in an old swimming pool stained with blood and sweat and tears, hidden in the shadows of a fucking prison cell, a cabin, beneath the burn of rope and yellowed claws and everything else between now and two summers ago, before any marks were left behind hands that weren't his, seen and unseen, but always there, just along the surface.
his dad sees and Archie wishes he didn't have eyes, didn't have anything but a disjointed spirit to haunt the rest of them like the phantom hands at his throat.
Archie hops off the counter and his knees nearly buckle under the weight of his own body.
his dad finally takes the last few steps toward his son, the stick of dynamite blown to oblivion and still burning, hot and cold and shivering in the cool spring morning until the room blurs at the edges.
for some odd reason wrapping tight around his neck, he wants to apologize.
he wants to run away, wants to cry, wants to stay and tell his dad that everything's fine, everything's okay, he's safe and familiar and whole but he isn't, and for some odd reason that makes him want to apologize until he can't even breathe anymore.
and he opens his mouth to say it just as his dad reaches for him, touch almost too light to really feel but he flinches back all the same, and he's sorry, he's so sorry – no son should flinch back from his own father, but he does, because his body isn't his and never was and never does what he wants it to or be what he wishes it was and –
"i'm sorry," he says, again and again until he can't even breathe and he means it, even when his dad shushes him with eyes washed with tears and tries to put him back together without duct tape or band-aids, just calloused hands still warm from sleep wrapped around his bare and scarred body until it stops shaking, breaking at the seams into pieces too small to burn the both of them.
somehow, somewhere, hovering in the back of his mind, a part of him wasn't sure what he was apologizing for. maybe nothing. maybe everything. maybe nothing and everything between now and two summers ago.
or maybe, a part of him was thankful for the excuse to keep those same two words from coming out of his dad's mouth instead.
his dad had nothing to apologize for. neither did Jughead.
maybe nobody did.
but he apologizes all the same until there's just the soothing mantras he's grown familiar with between the nightmares and the panic attacks since he came back home from the canadian wilderness, hushed 'it's alright, everything's okay, you're safe' whispered into his hair, and Archie holds his dad back just as tightly and wills the words to come true, to be true, for both him and his dad for the first time since – since too long.
they hold each other for what feels like hours until Archie pulls away first, despite the burn in his eyes and in his lungs, the weakness pulling at his skin and bones from what feels like a marathon through a meat grinder, he comes out the other side feeling more like he kept Fred Andrews from falling apart this time instead of the other way around.
though, there's know way of knowing.
as the windows tinted dark grow ever brighter, the cool spring morning aging slow for the early birds and groggy night owls, they sit across from each other at the kitchen table and talk about nothing and everything between now and two summers ago for the first time since he felt robbed of his own body. and for the first time in too long, he feels like his body had never belonged to anyone other than himself.
he feels like Archie Andrews, the boy next door, the boy accused of murder and found not guilty. Betty Cooper's best friend, Jughead Jones' – something, and Fred Andrew's son.
000
the spanish sahara
the place you'd wanna
leave the horror here
forget the horror here
000
A/N: aaaaand thank you for reading this far my lovelies! i'm sorry i don't post that often, but thanks to all you who stick with me regardless? oof it means a lot. 3 as always, comments and kudos are MUCH appreciated, and thank you for reading; i hope you liked it. 3
if you want to reach me elsewhere, you can find me jarchiekinz on tumblr