Synopsis: While Betty has been grieving her husband, Jughead's death, he has been looking over her, longing to touch her one more time. But how can when he is a ghost? A response oneshot to "Every Little Thing" by youbuildmeupbeliever.
Genre: Angst/Romance
Pairing: Betty/Jughead
Rating: K+
A/N: This is a response fic to youbuildmeupbeliever's oneshot "Every Little Thing" (on AO3). If you want to get the full experience, please read that oneshot first and then come here :) And yes, they did give me permission to write it.
And yes, "Tell It Every Night" is an anagram for "Every Little Thing".
Tell It Every Night
He wishes he could touch her. She lays there, crumpled between wrinkled bed sheets as if she were part of the bed itself. He hears her tears fall as if they were avalanches instead of raindrops.
She moves. Reaches out to him.
Her fingertips brush through him as if he were just a puff of wind.
Jughead has never wished to be more alive.
It happened quickly. If it had been on a television show, he could have blinked and missed it.
His fingers had thrummed on the top of his steering wheel as he'd lingered in traffic. Heading home was infinitely his favourite time of the day. Although his job was fulfilling, even writing words never lived up to the joy of seeing his children smile. At the thought of them, his eyes lit up, humming to a playlist compiled for by his daughter – mainly consisting of Ariana Grande, he'd noticed. Just as Ariana had begun to belt a high note, Jughead had pulled up to the intersection as the lights had flickered to green.
With a sweeping gaze along the road, Jughead had eased his car out into the intersection, his mind suddenly alight with thoughts of his wife, Betty-
Just as a car squealed in from his left and collided with the side of his car like a can crusher.
Betty heaves herself up from the bed, looking as if the world has just collapsed in on her. Only a long, shivering breath separates her from him. He relishes it, wishing she could see him. In a practiced motion, her hands move on instinct, clutching for the photo frame by her bed and placing it precisely on his pillow. At exactly his eye level were he still alive.
He wants to lie down beside it. He's afraid that, if he does, he'll slip right through the pillow and into the void.
So, instead, he watches her.
He has been since the moment she could no longer see him.
"I took the kids to see Santa at the mall the other day," Betty whispers amongst her murmurs, eyes locked on his photograph instead of on him, "and Mila told him that all she wanted for Christmas was for her daddy to come back." Her voice cracks out in a sob. He shudders, reaching out for her. His fingertips graze her shoulder before they slip back through her body.
She breaks out into tears. He feels them like a waterfall.
He can't stop waterfalls. So instead he leans forward, pressing a chilled, ghostly kiss to her cheek, and whispers, "Merry Christmas."
One Year Ago
Mila sits perched in the crook of her father's arm, thrumming her knees up and down in excitement. A deep chuckle reverberates from his chest as he flicks open the crinkled pages of his worn copy of A Christmas Carol. With a flourishing pause – filling Mila up with even more excitement that she may as well float to the ceiling – he coughs loudly and begins.
"Marley was dead, to begin with," Jughead reads aloud, flexing the words with emotion as he goes. "There is no doubt whatever about that."
Mila lulls her head against her father's shoulder, listening to the vibration of his voice through his chest. He smiles, feeling his heart being tugged away over and over again.
Although he loved her mother very much, it was Mila who had truly stolen his heart.
"Daddy," Mila suddenly pops her head up half way through the first chapter and swivels around to look her father in the eye.
"Yes, Miles?" he hums low, keeping his thumb securely in place inside the book.
Her eyes glisten with thoughtfulness, the kind of look he'd seen captured in the face of his wife many times. It was that familiar mix of mischief and determination.
A smirk tugs at Jughead's lips.
"Why don't you write me a story?"
Jughead pauses, looking at his daughter for a long moment. He wrote for work. That was his job, a book reviewer for a newspaper. But, somehow along the way, the endless repetitions of "great storylines, interesting character development" had sucked away his passions for his own stories.
He hadn't written for himself in so long.
Feeling his eyebrows knit together, he gently strokes Mila's dark curls and slips his thumb out of the copy of A Christmas Carol, resting it closed on the side table.
"Okay," he hums thoughtfully. "How about," he chews on the side of his cheek, toying with his daughter. He flicks his gaze to her out of the corner of his eyes, watching her bubble with anticipation, "we write one together!"
She squeals with agreement, bobbing up and down so much that she almost falls off the couch.
"So," he starts with a hushed voice, "what should our story be able?"
Mila breaks out into a wide grin. Her words trip over themselves as they fight to get out of her mouth; "An astronaut princess who has to save an alien planet from the evil space monster!"
Jughead lets out a low chuckle, flicking Mila once on the nose with his index finger. He lifts a single eyebrow and eyes her challengingly. "You've already planned it out, huh?"
And she nods vigorously.
Present Day
For a while, Jughead has been convinced that his daughter can see him. Maybe only in flickers, maybe only occasionally like a crackling television screen. But in between those crackles, he's caught moments of Mila looking, with her wide, blue eyes, right at him. He used to read studies on the acute connection of children to the spiritual world and had always knocked it as nonsense.
Yet here he is, sitting on the bed he used to share with Betty, watching his pigtail wearing, giddy daughter bounce into the room. She smiles brightly as she runs past him. She looks him straight in the eye.
The first time she'd run into the room after his death and instinctively avoided his side of the bed, he'd thought it a coincidence.
Now, as she bounds up to her mother, bypassing his side of the bed with ease, he's sure she's purposefully leaving the space for him.
"I miss him lots, too," she assures her mother with confidence. Jughead feels a proud laugh escape his throat. Mila is so strong. As if she were born to become president. "But Daddy loved Christmas. He wouldn't want us to be sad on his favourite day, Mommy."
Jughead warms as he watches his daughter. She must have seen his smile.
In a second, she is gone. Caught up in the excitement of Christmas and presents and the need to clean her teeth.
And it is him and his wife alone again.
He feels her slip off the bed in a heavy weight, padding to the wardrobe. Her familiar hands search for the much needed comfort.
Slowly, Jughead eases himself off the bed and paces his way towards her. His eyes linger on her, watching as she pulls his robe from his hanger, clutches it with desperate fingers and then slowly slips it around her shoulders.
He sighs. How is it possible for him to miss Betty when he can still see her and hear her?
He sweeps up behind and, as the ropes surround her, he wraps his cold, lifeless arms around her too, wishing her to sense him, to smell him, to feel him. He buries his face in where he imagines he could still feel her neck.
Betty breathes because she still can. He closes his eyes for a brief moment. The strength in keeping him here is making him weak.
Then, with a sigh, Betty sweeps herself out of his embrace as if he were never there.
Is he even there?
He watches his wife as she leaves the room. His shoulders slump.
It is possible for him to miss her when she can no longer see or hear him.
11 Months Ago
Jughead stares, groaning, at the blinking line on his word document. It flickers repetitively, taunting him. Sneering at him. It is so assured that he cannot pluck a single word out of his brain. It is right.
His brain feels emotionally exhausted. Jughead's head sinks down onto the keyboard. His forehead feels cold as it drops onto the keys. A stream of f's spew onto the screen.
"You should take a break," the lull of Betty's voice sings from his study doorway.
Groggily, he lifts his head from the keyboard to look at her. The stream of f's have already filled half the page.
"I don't think I deserve one," he groans, rubbing his eye irritatingly with his hand. Even his muscles feel tired. "I haven't written a single word."
The floorboards creak. Betty steps towards him. She is accompanied by the blabbering of a giggling Beau propped up on her hip.
He cracks a single smile just at the sound of him. It disappears as soon as it arrives.
"I just- I can't seem to write anything!" a crack of frustration gurgles in the back of his throat. He slams his fist against the wooden desk. Beau silences immediately. Jughead instantly regrets it. "How am I going to have a published novel," he says, hushed, trying not to upset his son, "if I don't have a novel to publish?"
A slim, gentle hand immediately rests on his shoulder.
Jughead turns his face up, catching the gleam of hope that is Betty Cooper. She smiles encouragingly, her eyes so hopeful, so believing. He wonders where she finds all her hope from. Beau blubbers, beginning to chew harmlessly on his mother's sleeve.
"You just need to remember," Betty utters calmly. She breathes slowly, in and out, in and out. The very action eases him to breathe in sync with her, "what's always been important to you."
Before he can respond, Betty slips away, mutter sweet words to her son, and Jughead is left alone again. Pausing, he swivels back around to his laptop screen, mulling over her words. What is important to him?
He stares at the blinking, black line for a moment longer before grabbing his mouse and instantly deleting the page of f's. Then, poising his hands over the keyboard, feeling a spark of life fizzle at the end of his fingers, he begins to type;
The Princess had always wanted to be an astronaut since the very beginning.
Present Day
"Well, we made it through our first Christmas without you." Betty's voice whispers. It sounds like it's on the borderline of tears. Jughead has never heard anything more like the grating of a dam about to be opened.
He puffs out a breath, not even seeing the oxygen escape his lips, and sighs beside her. This feels familiar. As if he's relived this moment over and over again.
Jughead and his Betty. Forever unable to touch.
They didn't return until late. He'd watched them bumble into the family car, a mix of giggles and tears, ruffles and scuffs. For a brief moment, as he'd watched out the window, he was convinced Mila had waved to him. And then that brief moment had gone and they had all disappeared into the car and down the street.
Without them around, his energy had waned. Flickering in and out. Like the brief moment before fainting. His ghostly body couldn't hold onto form much longer, not without others around to cling to.
And when they had returned, his hope had bloomed at the sight of them. And then had crashed back down at the look of grief on Betty's face.
He wanted to whisper to her that it was okay, he was fine, he was here.
And yet the lines creasing her face told him that she didn't believe him.
"We left a chair for you at dinner, the one right beside me," Betty tells the picture frame. Jughead wishes she was looking at him instead. "You would've loved all the food. I think my mom forgot that you weren't going to be there today, she made so much food."
"You should have brought some home," Jughead smiles quietly. A gentle laugh barely escapes. "You knew the food was my favourite part of Christmas."
Betty smiles at his photograph as if she's heard him. Her face contorts into sobs.
Her words drown out Jughead's feelings. He watches her, wishing he still had water in his body to cry.
Sinking to the floor, he watches her from the side of the bed, feeling his body fade and flicker with grief.
"I love you, Jug," Betty gasps, her tears hitting the photo like tsunamis. They splatter on the glass, blurring his own picture. It almost looks as if he's crying too. "Always and forever."
She clasps the photo frame to her chest, hugging it in the way he wishes he could hug her.
"I love you," he mutters over and over again, wishing in desperation that she could hear him. He clasps forward, trying to grab her hand but his fingers keep insistently falling through her skin. "I love you, I love you."
Betty falls back onto her pillow, clumsily rocking the photograph back onto her night stand. Then, with shaking hands, she pulls open the door of the stand, yanking out a stack of papers.
They are scattered and only half finished but she clutches onto them as if they were her heart.
Jughead catches his breath, pulling himself up to his feet.
Betty breathes heavily as she collects herself. Then, laying the pages out in front of her, she begins to read;
"The Princess had always wanted to be an astronaut since the very beginning," she hiccups once before smiling at the familiar words.
Jughead watches in awe as she reads over his novel, the one he never quite completed. He supposes sometimes talking to his picture is not quite enough. Instead, she needs to hear his words talking back.
A slow creak whispers across the room. Betty and Jughead both lift their heads, watching a pyjama clad Mila scurry in.
"I heard you crying, Mommy," she smiles. It is the brightest and saddest of smiles.
"Oh," Betty sighs with the briefest of happiness. She sets down the papers and ushers her daughter into the bed. Mila buries herself into her mother's arms.
"Don't worry, Mommy," she assures her mother, looking her brightly in the eye. "Daddy is crying too."
Betty gasps. She stares at her daughter, her eyes widening in confusion and hope. And then Betty lifts her gaze up and looks right at him.
Jughead breath shudders with shock. Betty's eyes slip away. He knows she can't see him. And yet he feels a cold, sliver of a tear run down his ghostly cheek. A tear that should never exist. It drips from his chin and hits the floor like an avalanche.
And then, clutching for the papers, Mila picks up her story, dropping it into her lap and begins to read.