A/N: warning this is a WHOLE mess. it's so scattered even tho i've been working on it for two days. which i guess isn't that long but i feel stretched...like jelly spread across too much bread...
spoilers for up to all of season 4
rated t for confusing and vague touching of sensitive topics like cheating and self image and general identity and yeah idk also some Swears and tragic overuse of semicolons and wordy prose
lyrics from organs by of monsters and men
i am sorry this is always how it goes
the wind blows loudest when you've got your eyes closed
but i never changed a single colour that i breathe
so you could have tried to take a closer look at me
archie knows something's wrong when he starts feeling nauseous every time veronica does anything more than kiss him.
he tries, he really tries, but his hands end up shaking too much to even unclasp her bra and each kiss steals far too much oxygen from lungs that feel as though they can barely get enough as it is and veronica notices. of course she does; looks at him with something like confusion that quickly morphs to worry when it keeps happening. and it only gets worse after he and betty kiss too, although he's pretty sure it started the moment he caught sight of jughead's body sprawled at his best friend's feet in the woods and hasn't really stopped since.
sleep trickles scarce along with his appetite, more hours spent awake than not with bloodshot eyes looking anywhere but meeting someone else's, everywhere else, studying ceilings and walls and floors as his heart's percussion reaches levels too loud and fast to fall asleep too. when he finally rises with the sun, his body tips with vertigo and a constant ache and begins its ripping and tearing at the seems, more twitch than tremble, muscle spasms that demand attention and a good plate of breakfast, but it's hard to stomach food when all you can taste are the lips of the people you've kissed without ever truly knowing why.
he's kissed veronica, many times. veronica is his girlfriend.
he's kissed betty, only a couple times. betty is not his girlfriend, hasn't ever been.
he's kissed kevin. he kissed joaquin, he kissed cheryl, he kissed geraldine.
he's starting to forget who he's kissed and who's kissed him, who he wanted to and who he didn't - did he even know what he wanted, or was he just forcing everyone to guess? he never feels like he knows what he wants, from music to boxing to the community center, from geraldine to betty to valerie to veronica - he doesn't know what's what anymore, if he ever even did.
he just knows he and betty are kissing but it's not real, it's not real, it's not supposed to mean anything and it doesn't, but then it does, and any semblance of peace of mind crumbles out of reach completely and he can't stop thinking about it.
betty's lips, warm and new and intent against his, something like sparks and familiarity blooming behind his teeth. veronica's cool and even more familiar and sweet as they were bitter with reassurance that curdled heavy in his gut until only the sting of bare knuckles could distract it. jughead's cold and still and breathless and tasting of dirt and blood and death until all the air funnelled between them finally caught wind and stayed there.
he can't stop thinking about the heat of veronica's skin against his own, heavy and stark in contrast to spring's early bite, all while someone he's known since playgrounds and sunday cartoons was choking on death who knows how many yards away.
while he and veronica were swallowing each other's bliss, someone was cracking jughead's skull open.
while he and betty were kissing in music rooms and holding hands in school hallways, jughead was locked away underground with stitches still fresh along his scalp.
and then he went and kissed betty when no one was even watching, when lies and half truths were no longer necessary and yet still, she tasted as safe and sane and stable as she did like something poisonous, lingering on his lips far after the fact until it's all he can taste hunched over toilet bowls behind bathroom stall doors. except he can taste veronica too; veronica and jughead and blood from where he bites down on his lip to keep from breaking his hand over tile.
and it's all for nothing anyway.
like it always is, nulled and void and he's left with chicken scratch lyrics on wrinkled paper, blue and black ink swimming in too much candlelight and the water in his eyes, but he blinks it away before it can fall, before betty leaves and the shadows on the wall reach out with overbearing hands until he realizes he can't breathe anywhere anymore - not even the place that's harbored more secrets and dead men walking than he could ever begin to keep track of.
betty's as composed as always the very next day and more, not a hair nor eyelash out of place, and archie thinks he might be going crazy.
he wants to go to the naval academy - wants to leave riverdale by any means necessary and never come back but he's not sure if he can even graduate, what with the grades he has. even with veronica's help, he's only just barely scraping by, and just barely scraping by after a year of even less just won't cut it, and he's pretty sure he can't join the navy without a high school diploma but it's not like he's exactly known for knowing what is and what isn't.
time remains indifferent, however, the day of graduation and in turn prom fast approaching between blinks of staring at homework until it blurs and at every discreet opportunity avoiding his friends - and girlfriend, and betty, and it's hard to pin down the point of making a distinction; he just knows betty was his girlfriend for weeks at some point, and he's pretty sure each and every one of these friends has a quickly expiring time limit, whether it be college or poorly kept secrets.
lunch is unfortunately not a discreet opportunity, though he does his best to keep his nose in a textbook, sentences jumbled beyond comprehension but it gives his gaze something to do other than avoid, avoid, avoid, however much he indulges without convenient excuse anyway.
when a hand lands on his lately ever-bouncing leg, he jolts like he's been struck, slamming it between his knee and the table with enough force to rattle everyone's lunch trays and startle a yelp of surprise from its owner. he blinks up at all the eyes blinking back, at veronica's pools of mixed confusion and concern and a little bit of pain, and down to her fingers where they massage the knuckles of her left hand.
his own eyes suddenly sting.
it's stupid - he's stupid, and he knows a quick apology and dismissal would be enough to at least get everyone to stop staring at him long enough for someone to change the subject, but the words don't come. they tangle and catch on the lump in the back of his throat, choke him for just a moment too long, long enough for his heart to start hammering hummingbird beat against a shrinking ribcage, and he thought he had this down by now. between serial killers and fight clubs and grizzly bears, he thought he'd learned how to grin and bear it but somehow all he has left between fight and freeze is flight.
so he flees; stares at the floor as he makes a beeline for the exit and doesn't even bother to grab his things first. he just goes, knees feeling far too loose to stand on but he somehow makes it to the boys' bathroom anyway and locks the stall door behind him with twitching fingers, hovering close over the toilet. the stall is cold beneath his palm, whiteknuckled grip tightening as the floor tilts under his shoes, body stooped but not kneeling, adam's apple bobbing with each convulsive swallow. he reaches out with his left hand to the opposite wall and closes his eyes for a moment before thinking better of it.
he's being overdramatic. he's being stupid. except he's not, because this is his life and he's pretty sure it's falling apart.
his grades have never been lower than they've been in the last two years and he wouldn't even care if it wasn't for knowing it's not what his dad would've wanted. he would want archie to try, to graduate with his friends, not to mention the fact that it's one of the easiest routes to putting riverdale in his rearview as soon as possible, aside from straight up hitchhiking. it's also what his mom would want, what she does want, and what parent wouldn't?
but it looks like he'll be lucky to even graduate, more so go to any college. not even lucky - he knows he's missed his window of opportunity. mr. honey warned him, and mr. weatherbee before that, and archie didn't listen.
he never listens.
he hasn't been in the ring for months for more than just sparring, hasn't touched his guitar with any sort of seriousness for longer. that was until he and betty kissed, microphone between them and guitar still slung over his shoulder, and the words had started flowing for the first time in years.
god, he kissed betty - he cheated on his girlfriend with his best friend's girlfriend - and he doesn't know why.
why did he fuck everything up? why does he always fuck everything up? things weren't great but they were fine all things considered, at least between the four of them. even when everything else was blowing up in his face, the four of them were always still in one piece, always there to gather in a booth at pop's and grin over milkshakes, to remind him things can still be okay, are okay.
but here he is ruining his life, his future, and he can't shake it. the precipice looming in front of him, the fact that he has no means by which to cross it. the fact that it's not even the worst of it, to know he won't be graduating with his friends, won't be going off to college with the rest of his class.
every second of every day, he's constantly aware he's losing three of the most important people in his life.
he should have known the moment he kissed betty that he lost all three of them.
when he finally loses the lunch he didn't eat, at least the toilet bowl is there to catch him.
/\
the days before prom come and go in flashes of schoolwork and pacing, of meals that taste like drywall and dreams caught between hypnic jerks that he can't quite recall. veronica's not even trying to hide her attempts at pulling strings to help him graduate, but he can't bring himself to care when every push and pull between them tastes like a lie before their lips even touch, when all he can think of is blood-slicked beanies and betty's lips instead of her's, when he still can't catch his breath the moment they deepen.
he's still not sleeping and veronica still notices as well as betty and jughead, but archie just tells them it's all the studying he's doing even though all of them know he's past the point of it making any difference.
prom night finds him folded on the edge of his bed in a t-shirt and jeans without any idea what to wear.
the only nice suits he owns consist of one he wears to funerals, too well worn yet somehow still stiff around the edges, and one that brushes at memories farther back than he prefers, all the way to the first year everything went wrong, to another school dance with two girls on his arms and a third tucked out of sight, so he's left with nothing but a sour taste in his mouth as he stares at his floor instead of his closet.
in the end he goes with the one he wore to jughead's funeral.
though he has the sense to switch out the gray undershirt with a white one and tries not to think about how he's wearing the same thing he wore to his dad's funeral too, white shirt and all.
he doesn't know why he's going at this point.
the stairs don't creak under his feet but he doesn't feel them anyway, doesn't remember saying goodbye to his mom by the time he's out in the truck though he knows he did. brass teeth making craters in his skin is what he feels instead, keys lukewarm in his hand from where he's been clutching them for what feels like hours. he's not sure how much time actually passed since he closed the front door behind him, but the sun is low and his palm sports key-shaped indents of reds and purple when his phone suddenly rings from his pocket.
he grabs for it only to shut it off completely.
somehow he makes it to the cemetery instead of the school.
he's halfway to his destination on automatic feet before he seems to come back to himself, footsteps faltering, gaze catching on familiar granite and giving him pause, if only for a moment. the grass is green and there are slightly withered daisies tied in a bouquet at its base; a gift that could be from anyone in town for all archie knows.
he likes to think so, anyway. he knows without a doubt his dad touched most of the town in some way or another in the span of his life.
the grass is green even where archie half expects freshly dug dirt, that day feeling as if both mere days and entire years have passed since, but it does feel spongy and soft at his knees when he sits, both hands limp in his lap before he reaches out to brush stray blades of green and dandelion stems from the stone's creases. his pointer finger catches on the 3 in july 3rd, 2019.
he didn't even make it to fifty.
his dad had entire decades left to live; by all means should've been able to.
why didn't he?
why didn't he?
archie's learning life has far too many questions to ever be answered. far too many to bother asking, but he does anyway, because he's not exactly known for knowing what is and what isn't and because never in his life has he felt like he's gotten an honest to god answer to anything.
though, his dad was always good at helping him pretend.
"i don't know what to do," he whispers, eyes tracing the words that memorialize his father's name. they taste hollow, feel heavy.
it's easy to pretend his dad would give him advice instead of an earful. maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't, but it'd be more than evening crickets and summer breeze, were he still here.
but he isn't.
archie doesn't know what he's doing. maybe he never has, as much as he wished it was singing, football, boxing, construction. as much as he wished it could be as simple as giving a roof to the homeless, breaking ice with his hands, breathing air for another, stopping serial killers with bluffing bullets and bears with dumb luck, but it never was, never will be.
everything he's done at this point has just been grasping at straws. distractions. excuses.
he doesn't know what he's doing, never has; just simply did without thinking.
that's his problem. that's why he fucks everything up, but now he can't seem to stop unless he's several bottles down and throwing his guts up the next morning until his mom finds the bottles tucked between his mattress and the wall. he can't stop thinking now, hasn't done more than eat when he has to and sleep when his body can't afford to not, because the last time he did without thinking he kissed his best friend's girlfriend.
he kissed jughead's girlfriend and jughead asked him to, but then they stopped and he kissed her anyway.
jughead asked him to because his classmates tried to kill him - did kill him - while archie was having sex in the woods with veronica, while archie was kissing without thinking, doing without thinking, jughead's lungs stopped working, heart stopped beating, and didn't start again until archie did both for him.
jughead asked him to, trusting it was just pretend, just for a couple weeks and that'd be the end of it. betty asked him to, veronica trusted him to.
she trusts him now, every time she climbs into his lap and he has to stop. every time archie can't bring himself to even kiss her sometimes, can't even look her in the eye.
he can't keep doing this.
but he has to, because if he doesn't he'll lose all three of them, and he's already lost them before. already had betty look at him like he'd betrayed her, jughead look at him like he was a stranger, veronica like he was a murderer, and he knows he can't do it again.
a part of him knows secrets like these don't stay secret forever. he learned it well three years ago when his music teacher skipped town because of them and a serial killer strangled her to death in her own home.
/\
he wakes with a start and a crick in his neck.
fingers find soil in place of blankets, rock instead of pillow, and for a moment he's too disoriented to do anything other than blink until a hand settles atop his shoulder, to which he starts even further and reaches from earth to bare wrist with a vice-like grip hard enough to bruise.
everything's dark save distant the streetlight through tree branches.
despite having been asleep, he strains to adjust his eyesight, wills his pupils to dilate appropriately nevermind the lack of oxygen to his brain, chest heaving from his place hunched against headstone, mouth gone dry and skin suddenly damp with perspiration. it's only when the wrist wrenches in his hold hard enough to rattle his teeth that his ears adjust first, take in the gritted curses and the source of them.
"jesus christ, archie," it says, hissed and wading out a fraction, and the next time archie blinks he sees jughead stood over him, dark eyes blinking back pools of mixed confusion and concern and a little bit of pain, left fingers massaging the span of his right wrist.
archie's own eyes suddenly widen.
"jug," he breathes, out a stuttered exhale and in deeply for the first time since waking.
"i guess that's what i get for waking a guy who fell asleep on a grave." it's obviously a joke even if it doesn't sound like one, jughead's attention still trained on his arm that's sure to be black and blue by tomorrow, but archie feels properly reprimanded regardless.
"sorry," is all that comes out however, thin and choked, and archie hurries to swallow down the knot quickly forming at the back of his tongue. "are you okay?" he asks, thin and awkward, because he has to, because he really wants to not hurt jughead more than he already has, because he really wants to stop doing things without thinking, no matter how adamant his body is in doing the exact opposite.
"i'll live," jughead mutters, eyes finally flicking back down to archie's just in time for him to look away.
he joins him on the ground when archie doesn't move to stand.
"what about you? we've been looking for you for hours." he's crouched low as if speaking to a child, not quite fully committed to getting comfortable in the grass, though his tone isn't anything but normal, if not a little tense. "all our calls kept going straight to voicemail."
"i-" he begins without any real direction in mind, eyelids fluttering as be backtracks to apparent hours previous. "i shut off my phone." he remembers now, albeit distantly, holding the home and power buttons down at the same time with pins and needled fingertips until he could see just his own reflection staring back at him. he can't remember why.
jughead's eyebrows pinch further and archie has the strangest impulse to smooth them out.
"why?"
i don't know, he wants to say, but then he thinks of the heat of veronica's skin against his own, heavy and stark in contrast to spring's early bite, of blood-slicked beanies and betty's lips in his garage, of chicken scratch lyrics on wrinkled paper and bittersweet kisses that taste like a lies before their lips even touch, and all the lies and half truths on his tongue suddenly taste poisonous in his mouth. it's all he can taste anymore, distractions. excuses. safe as they are bitter, the taste of too many lips of people he's kissed without ever truly knowing why.
and it's all for nothing anyway. secrets like these never stay secret forever, as much as he'd like to pretend otherwise.
he can't lie to jughead. not now, not when his classmates tried to kill him mere weeks ago - did kill him - when jughead's lungs stopped working, heart stopped beating, and didn't start again until archie did it for him. not when archie and betty kissed in music rooms and held hands in school hallways while jughead was locked away underground with stitches still fresh along his scalp.
not when archie kissed her again when it was over, when no one was watching anymore.
he feels sick.
"archie?"
he realizes it's drizzling and jughead no longer looks as if he's ready to stand right back up again, ready to haul archie up and back home to file this incident away under the ongoing list of strange yet understandable things archie's done since july 3rd, 2019. his eyes are searching when archie finally meets them, eyebrows still pinched though this time with nothing but worry, and it hits archie at all once what he's about to do.
the air feels thick and his stomach heavy, lead-lined and beginning to simmer with an unease he's gotten accustomed to since he caught sight of jughead's body sprawled at his best friend's feet in the woods.
and yet not at all.
losing jughead to murderous classmates is one thing, something that's unfortunately familiar in some twisted sort of way; the idea of losing his friends to cold-blooded fathers or serial killers or town riots a well worn one, watered down by dream after dream of bloodsoaked bodies and spliced moments of never strong enough, never fast enough, never enough.
losing jughead to archie's own mistakes - no, choices.
it makes him want to crawl out of his own skin.
but it's a long time coming, he supposes. if he's honest with himself.
if he's honest.
"i kissed betty."
there are probably better ways to tell someone their best friend cheated on them. but he needs to say it before he can withdraw to the same dark corner of his mind he's been in since he can't even remember anymore, before his tongue knots too tight to breathe much less speak, before words cave to stomach acid retching in the grass.
he just might anyway, but at least it'll be after he's said it.
he said it.
and jughead's just staring, eyebrows still pinched but quickly loosening as he appears to find whatever he's looking for in archie's expression, and he pulls back an inch - just an inch, but it's enough, the color behind his eyes shuttering dim with the single movement. archie swears he feels the moisture in the air chill to sleet as something in the lines of jughead's face simply closes off completely.
"you kissed betty," he asks, but it's all dull and flat around the edges, settled heavy in the space between them as soon as it's spoken.
there's a pause.
"i'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess you're not talking about our little play-pretend-to-catch-some-murderers scheme." another question that's not really a question, but it's nothing but sharp corners and blunted teeth this time, barbed and grating against archie's eardrums even though they're only just getting started.
archie doesn't say anything because he knows jughead already knows the answer.
"this is why you've been acting weird."
jughead doesn't wait for an answer and instead straightens back to standing, turns away but not entirely, not leaving, he hasn't left, not yet. he's wiping a hand over his mouth and staring at the ground, at his shoes, at archie's, the role of looking anywhere but at the other's face now reversed.
archie still ends up looking away too.
the grass feels warm now, water-weighted and sticking wet to his fingers where he digs them in to keep from tying knots between his knuckles. he's never been one to appreciate the rain, always preferring sunny days and blue skies, but tonight he's glad for it, tilts his head toward the clouds he can't see and lets the lukewarm drops mist over skin that feels too cold and tight over his bones.
he feels as though he's fossilizing. fertilizing, ready to sink into the earth and curl up in his father's casket because it feels easier than facing the end of this school year alone.
"for fuck's sake - say something, archie. why the hell would you do that?"
and it's the thing archie doesn't know the answer to, feels like he never has, because of course it is. because he doesn't know why he kissed betty, why he kissed veronica yesterday, why he kissed geraldine three years ago - he doesn't know, because he never thinks, because he always fucks everything up himself no matter how good or bad they already are on their own.
he chooses to ignore the way jughead's voice breaks over his name.
"i don't know-" he starts, but then jughead's back on his knees beside him, eyes flashing and hands fluttering over his shoulders without actually touching.
"-no, you don't get to say that. you don't get to just kiss my girlfriend, lie about it for weeks, and say you don't know, archie - you just don't."
"well i don't, jughead! why the hell did you ask me to literally weeks before?" he doesn't know why he says it like he has anything to defend, any ground to stand on and point fingers right back at jughead, but he does, and it feels good. distracts from the tremble beginning to sink its teeth into his muscles, his tendons, bowstring taught along his neck and chest until each breath is shallow and quick and planting seeds of something frozen through in the pit of his stomach.
"because you said you would - because it wasn't real," and it drips from his mouth like something poisonous, something bitter, like he thinks archie's an idiot who's mixed the two things up; reality and fiction. like he's not the one writing about serial killers and teen detectives, like it wasn't his writing that got his skull cracked open in a forest in the first place, that got him killed.
a part of archie hates him in that moment.
"of course i said i would, jug - you were - you fucking died three days before asking me."
he hopes it shows on his face, whatever this thrashing, ugly thing gathering in his chest is. "of course i said yes; i would've-"
he would've done anything jughead asked. he did.
"i didn't ask you to-" but jughead stops, expression folding for the briefest of seconds before he's shaking his head, meeting archie's gaze with a renewed flare of something low and simmering. "no, screw you - this entire situation was bizarre and confusing, but it wasn't that confusing; you knew what you were doing."
"i know, jug," he says, even though he doesn't. even though the entirety of this last year - the last three, if he's being honest - has felt like someone else's dream, someone else's body, afterimages of his own life tattooed to the backs of his eyelids every waking and sleeping moment but not by him. by anybody but him, but that's not fair and he does know that. knows the do's and don'ts of the situation were clear, spoken and unspoken. knows he's eighteen now and has been more than responsible enough for his own actions far before that.
he really does think he might be going crazy.
"and i'm sorry. and i know it's not worth anything and you don't owe me… any forgiveness. because i still did it, i know that, but i am - i'm so sorry."
jughead looks away.
archie doesn't. he studies the line of jughead's gaze instead, downcast but not timid by any means, the slope of his eyelids, the moles dotting his cheek, hair peeking out from his sogged beanie with more reach than he remembers.
"what about betty?" his voice is steely.
archie thinks of betty's lips, warm and new and intent against his, thinks what about betty and answers warm and new, and strangely difficult to recall with any sort of clarity. he remembers her lips, the garage, and veronica's what felt like only moments later, the dull sting of his punching bag against bare knuckles. he remembers her watching him from her window.
she looked sad.
"she kissed you back, didn't she."
no, he wants to say, even though he's pretty sure it'd be a lie and he's really trying not to lie right now, but it'd be so much easier than seeing the dawning vacancy slowly but surely overtaking jughead's features.
"she loves you," he says instead, because he believes that to be true without a doubt. knows it to be.
jughead's jaw just clenches.
"do you love her?" and he just sounds confused now, tension suddenly gone and replaced with a raw vulnerability that archie has no idea what to do with, momentarily struck dumb by the whiplash of it, the pins and needles in his fingertips spreading up past his elbows.
"what?"
"you heard me, archie, just-" and he looks pained, gaze flicking back and forth between archie's eyes.
archie doesn't know how to answer.
"i-i don't... i don't know what i feel anymore, jug. i don't know if i ever have. all i know is we were kissing for weeks and it was fake and i knew it was fake but then it wasn't anymore. and now kissing veronica feels fake because i haven't told her, and every time i kiss anybody now, i just - i feel-"
nauseous.
he feels sick, like something poisonous. just lies and half truths and excuses, lingering on his skin like a toxic residue until it's all he can taste on the raindrops, on the summer breeze, stark and stifling now in contrast to his skin. it ripples uncomfortably over his frame, alien, like someone else's, and he wills it to just stop, but he's known for a while now that his body is adamant in doing the exact opposite of what he wants, always has been.
at least, three years is starting to feel a lot like always.
"you just what, archie?"
he just shakes his head, eyes squeezing shut against the sudden sting.
when they open, jughead's still there, eye level and watching, expression too neutral for archie to bother trying to read.
"i'm just sorry," he whispers, watches back through the drops in his eyelashes. "you deserve better than this."
jughead doesn't look very convinced. of which point, archie doesn't know.
maybe both.
it's a long moment that feels as though it could be hours for all archie knows before jughead finally stands in a single swift movement, presence still shuttered and stiff and angled away, but when archie looks up, there's a hand outstretched in his direction.
"... come on."
/\
archie knows he said jughead doesn't owe him any forgiveness but he quickly realizes he needs it as much as he needs air to breathe and he hates himself for it.
the ride back home is spent hunched over and stiff as a corpse against the car door. jughead had texted something to someone on his phone and promptly said he was driving, fishing the keys out of archie's pocket himself and waiting in stilted silence until archie climbed into the passenger seat after him. both clothes and upholstery are waterstained by the time they reach elm street, each twist and turn in the road slow and stretched long despite the impatient curve to jughead's spine, neither a/c nor heat on, though the windows had been rolled up against the steady sheets of drizzle over glass.
archie can't stop shivering even though he's not cold.
he doesn't even know what time it is.
they sit by the curb, archie with baited breath waiting, knees practically itching with the impulse to bounce, to move, to break the silence but he doesn't dare, too busy bracing himself for the final shoe to drop - for jughead to finally snap and shout and leave for good, but he merely stares nextdoor, gaze tracing the tulip red entrance, the watered flowerbeds and their newborn blossoms.
then jughead opens his door and steps out into the night, closing it quick and quiet behind him.
it doesn't feel safe yet to do anything but follow, so he does, up the sidewalk and to his own front door. he half expects to see his mom waiting on the other side, faded circles under her eyes and worry around her mouth, but the house is silent and dark save the sound of their own footsteps. it's almost familiar, the song and dance over floorboards, avoiding the creaky ones and trying not to trip over each other's feet, reminiscent of nights spent sneaking out windows and coming back through back doors to avoid detection.
a hand settles atop his shoulder and guides him to the stairs, this time without any jolting or vice-grips and panic, but he can't stop the minute flinch at the contact.
jughead simply ignores it and presses on behind him.
neither of them are quite soaked but both are thoroughly damp, trailing wet footprints but not puddles, and it takes a minute of archie standing like a stranger in his own bedroom to realize jughead is pulling out clothes from his closet with painfully practiced hands. however, he's met with a stack of them shoved into his chest and a pointed look out the door when he goes to help.
"take a shower," is all he says.
archie does.
the water's hot enough to be hard to breathe but archie doesn't turn it down, soaks up the steam until his lungs ache in his chest and he feels dizzy from the force of it, until thick breaths become near-gasps for air and he has to brace himself on bathroom tile and shower curtains. open palms curl to whiteknuckled fists, the floor tilting under his feet, body stooped but not kneeling, and he swallows down the taste of stomach acid creeping up on his tongue.
he's being overdramatic.
he's being stupid.
he lets the water in his eyes swim with the spray anyway.
a part of him swirls down the drain along with everything else when he's done, a permeated sense of numb echoing down to his toes but building a high pitched crescendo back up to his ears by the time he's wrangled the green tee and plaid bottoms jughead picked out for him over wooden limbs. he tastes toothpaste, feels the bristles on his gums, spits out into the sink on autopilot and closes the cabinet with twitching hands.
the mirrors look as foggy as archie feels, too clouded to see into and stained with old streaks of stray fingertips.
he doesn't remember the trip back to his room but jughead's still there when he arrives, perched on the edge of his bed and clicking away on archie's laptop at the foot of it, and archie doesn't know why that surprises him.
or maybe he does.
jughead glances up, eyes and lips and body too still to decipher, too blank, but his gaze drops to archie's fresh wardrobe just as archie realizes jughead's now wearing new clothes himself.
a gray tee and black sweatpants he immediately recognizes as his own.
"... jug, what-"
"shut up, archie."
he does.
jughead scoots closer to the wall and archie takes the vacated spot as the invitation it is, moving quickly, knees feeling far too loose to stand on but he makes it anyway, folds his legs beneath him with wobbled movements and shallow breaths. his body feels too big, too small, too much for his mind to keep track of, but it at least does as it's told; settles close to jughead but not too close.
the screen is already showcasing an aged television, 2d baseball video game graphics and all, and archie recognizes the princess bride almost immediately too. it always felt a little slow-paced and boring for his taste as a child, but he does remember being drawn to inigo. and the sword fighting.
mostly just because jughead insisted on watching it too many times to count.
when he leans forward to hit the spacebar before archie can do something stupid like ruin this unspoken pendulum still swinging heavy in the space between them, his arms now bare but still just as careless without his jacket, archie finally catches sight of the dark pink imprint of his own grip around jughead's wrist.
he reaches without thinking.
he always does.
jughead's skin is soft and warm and frozen in place upon contant, but it yields easily enough when archie pulls it closer, frowns down at the mark he made with a pang of regret in his gut that still tastes like rain.
"sorry," he says, for the nth time that night, and he means it just as much as he did the first time.
a chanced glance up reveals pools of impassivity that refuse to meet his own, though if they did archie thinks they'd find a mix of confusion and concern and a just little bit of pain, if his poker face was anything like jughead used to say it was when they were still playing fake poker with gummy fishes.
instead he takes the discreet opportunity to study, to take in the pallor to jughead's skin, the tired lines in his face, the faded splice of flesh still patching itself back together with newborn stitches near his temple that glint off the lamplight at the right angle. he suddenly wants to switch it off. to plunge them into more familiar waters, all streetlight and shadow, nothing but laptop screens to illuminate their faces into the a.m. hours and beyond.
instead, an image ripples from the same dark corner of his mind he's been in since he can't even remember, not unlike the space beneath bedsprings where all the clutter goes, all the secrets you hope your parents won't find, all the things you like to pretend don't exist, and it's all shades of navy and red. it smells of dirt and blood and death and veronica's perfume, feels like sweat and blood in his fingerprints, tastes like dried-out lips breathing quick and deep and for two people at once. just a ripple, an echo, pins and needles poking and prodding but never so much they can't be ignored.
"i'm sorry i wasn't there," he says, even though he wants to say i'm sorry veronica and i were having sex in the woods while your own classmates were bludgeoning you to death with a rock, but that would require more honesty than he's willing to give today, or ever, to anyone; knows he'd choke on the words before they even make it to his mouth if they didn't simply eat him alive from the inside out first.
he feels more than sees jughead's attention finally shift, find whatever he's looking for and reach up to the scar almost self-consciously.
he shrugs. "it's not like you knew i was about to confront psychotic high schoolers about their murder and mayhem."
the synch across his ribs squeezes, tightens, chafes sandpaper skin until his own scars twinge and twist in response, tie up knots behind his teeth until he has to swallow them back down. "... i'm glad you're okay," he says, not a whisper but quiet nonetheless, as if he fears the very air will shatter. maybe it will, this close to that pendulum between them.
"i know."
like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"... i don't know what i would've done if-"
"i know."
softer, this time.
"... you're not… mad?"
the pendulum's razor sharp this close, all tight corners and serrated edges but archie finds he doesn't really care if he cuts himself on it. he'd do anything just to breathe normally again, for jughead not to look at him like he's a stranger in his own bedroom.
"of course i'm mad. just not about that," he answers, voice flat but not without care, somehow smoothed out around the syllables, like he knows archie's walking a knife's edge, like it matters to him that it doesn't draw blood. "i'm pissed, and i… i don't know why you always do this, archie."
he doesn't explain what this means, but archie's pretty sure he knows.
"but i know i can't lose you."
and somehow it's those words that nick him. that sink in deep enough to well crimson, to shake loose something bitter as it is sweet, fingers trembling where they still hold onto jughead's wrist as the meaning of them land and rattle between his ribs.
"maybe i could before, but..."
it's somehow worse, said out loud, like he only keeps archie close because he has to.
but archie says 'i can't lose you either' and it doesn't feel like a last resort when he says it, but it doesn't feel like the truth either. how can it, when he risked doing so not weeks before, when he kissed betty when no one was even watching and lies and half truths were no longer necessary, when he chose afterwork rides home with his teacher over a roadtrip with jughead?
"... don't sweat it." another shrug, less halfhearted than the others but somehow more vacant than even back at the cemetery, and jughead glances over but not at archie. hasn't for what feels like hours, but it's not like archie's exactly known for knowing what is and what isn't anymore, especially when three years is starting to feel like always. "it's not the first time you've chosen a girl over me."
and it suddenly stings.
like lemon over blisters, his eyes sting.
he thinks he jolts like he's been struck, but he can't feel his hands and feet anymore. the something bitter loses it's sweet and all archie can taste is grins over milkshakes at pop's gone stale with afternoon fries, like morning breath after a night spent several bottles down and hunched over toilet bowls, like poison and stomach acid and dirt and blood from where he bites down on his tongue to keep it all from spilling out of his mouth.
he feels sick, body no longer his own, if it ever even was, crawling out his own skin just to bury itself in his bedroom floor. to hide in the ceiling and walls and floor all at once as his heart's percussion reaches levels too loud and fast to really hear.
he deserves it - he knows he does.
it doesn't make it hurt any less, splitting himself open on the slowly but surely yawning space between them.
but it's a long time coming, he supposes. if he's honest with himself.
he wants to say i'm sorry; to repeat it again and again until he's black and blue in the face, until every last breath is spent on those two words and nothing more, until his lips are too dried-out and bleeding to do anything other than keep saying it ever again until it's real, but he doesn't.
he knows it's not worth any more than it was the first time.
somehow he thinks jughead hears him anyway.
when he finally leans forward and hits play, archie almost misses the quiet 'i know' spoken to the empty space between them.
so i take off my face
'cause it reminds me how it all went wrong
and i pull out my tongue
'cause it reminds me how it all went wrong
but i leave in my heart
A/N: i feel like i started off kinda strong in the first half n then slowly fizzled out so i'm kinda :/ but dialogue heavy stuff isn't rly my strongest suit so idkTM. maybe i'll post a chapter 2 someday but i like it standalone too. sorry this is such a trainwreck but i guess archie's psyche is too so maybe it'll do
as always, please feel free leave a comment if you're feelin generous!