October 2, 2009

Jughead Jones wakes up on his eighth birthday excited. Last year he had gotten chocolate chip pancakes and his mom sent him to school with cupcakes for the class. When he had gotten home he had walked into a room with balloons and three wrapped presents. Betty and Archie had given him their gifts at school that day and that took him up to a grand total of five which wasn't too bad for seven year old Jughead.

An eight year old Jughead was quietly hoping for the same even though his parents had seemed so angry lately. He doesn't know why, he just knows his mom is sad and his dad isn't around like used to be. They yell more and he often takes a two year old Jellybean outside to play in the yard and no matter how much she tries, he almost always stops her from eating the grass.

The living room is quiet when walks out in his pajamas, his mom is holding Jellybean as she tries to wake his dad up from the couch. His mom looks sad as she gives up and walks past him and down the hallway. He doesn't know what's wrong but he knows this year isn't going to be the same.

He doesn't even see his mom again before he leaves to ride his bike to school. When he gets there he sees Archie and Betty waiting for him at the bike rack, both holding bags and Betty has a box he knows has a cupcake in it. She brings him a special one every year, has since kindergarten.

"Happy Birthday, Juggie!" they both yell at him once he gets a little bit closer. He smiles at them as he parks his bike, taking the gifts they hand him.

"Thanks," he tells them as they walk towards their classroom. If they notice he's not happier, they don't say anything. In the classroom, once they reach his desk, Betty sets the box she had been carrying down.

"It's chocolate this year, Polly helped this time so it looks better than last years," Betty tells him.

"Thanks, Betty," he says to her, this time with a more genuine smile.

"Open your presents, Jug!" Archie exclaims. Archie's never been good at waiting for anything and he's already handing Jughead one of the presents before he can even move to grab it. He reaches inside the bag and pulls out something bright and plastic.

"It's a Transformer," Archie says excitedly, "so now we can play together when you come over and you get to keep this one at your house."

"Thank you," he tells Archie, messing with the arms and moving the legs back and forth. "This is great, Archie."

He grabs the second bag and has to empty it out on his desk, there wasn't just one thing to grab. What falls out is a stack of nice notebooks and lots of pencils, even some colored pens.

"Remember when we had to write those stories for class?" Betty asks him. "Yours was really good, Jug, so I thought you could write more with these." She looks a little nervous but he loves it, he really does. There's no paper he can just write on at home that isn't for school, his mom says it's wasteful.

"Betty, this is awesome, thank you," he says to her, looking at her with eyes that are finally happy once that day.

She reaches into the bag she had given him and pulls out another little box and hands it to him. "Don't forget this, it's a slinky, I know how you and Archie ruined your last one seeing if it would make it to my window from his."

He smiles at her, he had really loved that slinky. Even if Vegas had tried to chew it a few times. Before he can say anything else, the teacher calls for their attention so they both rush to their seats and he thinks this birthday could be worse so he'll take what he can get.

When he gets home that day, after eating the cupcake at lunch and carefully tying the gift bags from Archie and Betty to the handlebars of his bike, at first he thinks no one is home. Walking further into the living room he sees his dad is still asleep on the couch. He doesn't hear Jellybean or his mom and when he can't find them, he figures they must have went to the store.

This year there were no chocolate chip pancakes, no presents from his parents, and no balloons. He doesn't know when his mom and Jellybean come home, he doesn't see them before he goes to bed and his dad didn't wake up until dinner time and all he did was order a pizza for them to share. No one mentions his birthday and he thinks it might be a good idea to never mention it again.

October 3, 2009

"I forgot to ask yesterday but did you get the same pancakes as last year, you said they were really good, remember?" Betty wants to know that morning before school starts.

He frowns at her and shrugs. "I decided I hate chocolate chip pancakes."

She looks confused but doesn't ask further and just says, "Okay. Hey, if you want, I'll hate them with you."

"Why would you do that?"

"Why not? Besides, it's not like it's chocolate milk, now that would be unforgivable," she tells him while walking to the door of their class.

"That would be crazy, Betty. No one hates chocolate milk."

"Exactly."

October 2, 2017

As he's looking into Betty's sad eyes, his anger dissipates as he remembers a little girl who promised to always hate chocolate chip pancakes with him just because he said he hated them. Her eyes are turning red and starting to water and she goes to leave and he can't help the feeling of regret that washes over him.

"Betts, hey, Betty, come on," he starts but she's got a decent head start by walking out of the room faster than his brain caught up.

God, he's an asshole. If she never spoke to him again, he'd deserve it. Betty has been there for for all of his birthdays and she's the only thing he truly enjoys about them so the fact that he lashed out at her in his own insecurity and loss of temper is going to go down as one of his dumbest days so far.

The day had started so well, too. Betty brought him his annual cupcake, this year's was something she called a pumpkin spice latte cupcake and she lamented that she was one pair of leggings away from completing her white girl archetype but that the cake was good so she'll have to live with it. He didn't get what any of that meant but she was right. That cupcake was good.

His traditional Bijou trek had gone off with a problem, he had Betty with him and he thought that maybe if he got to put his arms around Betty and kiss her in a dark theater, maybe this whole birthday thing might get better for him. If only he had known then what he knows now.

He hesitates as they get closer to Archie's front door. "Tell me there isn't a party going on in there, tell me I'm seeing things."

Betty looks at him with apprehension and says, "I know you hate your birthday, Jug, but I thought it might be nice to celebrate with just a couple of people this year. Archie, Veronica, and Kevin, if you include you and me that's not even enough to make a sports team!"

"Sports? That's...really not selling it, Betty. You know how I feel about my birthday," he huffs, annoyed.

"I do know, I promise it's just the five of us, watching a movie or playing a game or something, it's supposed to be fun, Juggie."

"I don't do fun with other people," he states flatly at her. "Look, I don't hate Veronica or Kevin, you know that, but I did not want to spend tonight with them."

Betty looks anguished and he can see her inner Cooper trying to come up with a compromise. "Okay, what if you try it for a little while and if you're still irritated, we'll leave. We can go to the old treehouse and hang out, just you and me."

"You get forty-five minutes, Betty." He knows he sounds like an ungrateful jerk. He's acting like one for sure, but there's this overwhelming pressure when no one asks what you want. Do you want to live in a drive in or a school because your dad is too drunk to function? Do you want to live with Archie because your parents aren't capable of parenting? His mom didn't ask if he wanted to leave and the world can make you so angry when it's making all of your choices for you.

"Forty-five minutes and if you hate it, we'll leave, I promise."

They had entered Archie's house to the enthusiasm of Veronica and Kevin. Archie looks a little more reserved but he's smiling at him and wishing him a happy birthday with the rest of them.

He can see the rest of the cupcakes from that morning in the kitchen along with a whole cake, candles unlit and stuck into it. The whole thing started easily enough, he remembers, sitting around like they do at lunch, eating and talking about nothing so he's not surprised when the doorbell rings.

Less than a minute later Cheryl Blossom had eviled her way into Archie's house along with the football team, her very own brand of minions, and alcohol. He knows he took off less than a minute later, hiding in the garage with Vegas, miserable. Betty found him probably twenty minutes later and she was carrying the cake he had seen with the candles lit.

He winces at the memory of what happened after that.

"Happy Birthday, Jug," she tells him with a sad smile, holding the cake up so he can blow out the candles. He does so solely to keep them from being a fire hazard and after he sits back down with a grunt.

"Betty, I just wanted to be with you today. Why was that not enough for you?"

"Enough? What do you mean by that?" she asks him, bewildered. She sits on the table facing the chair he's sitting in, setting the cake next to her. "I just thought it might be fun to do something normal for once."

He wants to tell her he loves the sweater she's wearing, knowing she picked it out with him in mind makes him happier than any gift he'd ever gotten. He wants to tell her how much he cares about her, he thinks it's love and maybe he's not totally sure what that feels like but if the way he feels about Betty isn't love, he's worried he won't survive it when it is love. He wants to tell her he just wants be alone with her. That alone with her beats any time of any kind with anyone else.

If only he had said any of those things. If only he had said almost anything but what he did.

"Is this where it begins then? Your need to turn me into Archie? So you can be normal and do normal things? I am not normal, Betty. You know that," he barks at her, making her stand up. He stands up as well and she's looking up at him, confused and hurt. "If you're trying to turn me into Archie because he didn't want you, I'm not interested, Betty. Slumming it with me isn't going to make Archie realize what he gave up."

He can tell he just went too far. His brain was screaming at him to shut up but he just couldn't stop and now he thinks he's lost her before he really had her.

He calls for her as he sees the back of a blonde ponytail walking quickly away. He sinks back into the chair and even Vegas snubs him when he tries to pet him. It's no less than what he deserves.

"YOU!" he hears Veronica yell as her heels click quickly on the floor towards him, "What did you do to Betty?" She's pointing at him with an angry glare. "What on earth were you thinking?"

"Not now, Veronica, okay?" he pleads with her.

"This is how you want this to go? For you to let her walk away because you pick one day a year to keep a stick up your ass?" she's railing at him.

That rubs him the wrong way. "Veronica, you really don't know what you're talking about, okay?"

"Let me guess, you have bad birthdays or you hate it for another reason, am I right?" Veronica snipes at him, crossing her arms and glaring at him. "Surprise, Jughead, we all have something we don't want to deal with. It's life! And your friends, your girlfriend, just wanted to do something nice for you. The fact that you made that a crime for some reason is bullshit."

"Veronica-"

"No, Jughead, listen to me, I know your life is hard. But no one here is living in perfection, alright? Archie's mom is in Chicago and he hasn't seen her in months. Kevin is gay in a small town with his dad being the sheriff and his mom is overseas. My family lost most of its money, which maybe isn't a big deal to you, but it's a hard adjustment for us, okay? My entire life changed in a very short amount time. And my dad? He's in jail. Actual jail, Jughead," she interrupts. "Betty? Her sister is missing. Her family is lying to her on a daily basis and she has to pretend everything is fine. And now her boyfriend was just an asshole to her because he can't suck it up for one night when she tries to do something nice for him."

"I-"

"I wasn't done," she yells at him. "Your life isn't easy, I get that. But at some point you are just going to have to live with the fact that you weren't the only one who got an invitation to the pity party of life. I know you don't want to hear it but until NASA tells me different, the world? It doesn't revolve around you."

The guilt he's feeling feels like it's suffocating him. "I know that, Veronica. I messed up. I shouldn't have said what I did."

She's looking at him with disdain. "If you only knew what Betty said to me about you the other day, you'd be asking for people to punch you and thanking them for it."

If Veronica's goal in life is to make him feel terrible, goal met. Goal surpassed. He is angry with himself and worried he's lost Betty and he feels frozen and doesn't know what to do.

Veronica points at him again. "You're gonna fix this."

He takes a deep breath, stands up, picks up the cake that was left on the table and leaves the garage.

He thinks that he got up the ladder of their old treehouse with a cake in one of his hand by sheer willpower alone. When he finally manages to get up to the tiny little porch that was a lot bigger to him when he was ten, he lets out a sigh of relief when he sets the cake down.

He can see Betty through the small doorway, sitting on the floor with her head on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs and hands clenched. His stomach sinks and he moves awkwardly to go sit next to her.

"This is a lot smaller than I remember it being even a year ago," he tries to joke with her. All she does is shrug with a sniff.

He scoots closer to her side wrapping an arm around her, pulling her closer and putting his face into her hair. "Betty, come on, look at me."

She doesn't move and he puts his other hand on the side of her face, holding her still as he murmurs into her ear, "I'm sorry, Betts, I'm so sorry, I don't know why I said any of that."

"'Cause you're a jerk," she states and he hugs her tighter.

"Yeah, I know. You were just trying to do something nice for me and I threw it in your face."

She finally looks over at him with wet eyes. "I know you hate your birthday, Jug. I wasn't trying to disregard your feelings, I promise, I just thought it would be nice to spend the day with people you like, doing things you like to do."

"I know that now. But the only person I wanted to spend the day with is right here. Being alone with you is like a birthday gift every day, you know? I don't need more than that," he tells her, brushing some leftover tears off of her cheek.

"Practice that on the way up here, did you?"

"Only a little bit, I swear."

She looks sad and remorseful as she says, "I don't know who invited Cheryl."

They look at one another for a moment then both come to the same conclusion. "Kevin."

"You just know he put it on the internet somewhere," Betty states. "How many social media sites does he have again?"

"Uh, all of them?" Jughead offers, adjusting to sit more comfortably, as he pulls her up and over to sit on his lap. "Come here."

"Juggie, when I said normal, I just meant where we're not investigating arson or drugs or missing people. I like you the way you are," she murmurs to him as she puts her head on his shoulder.

"I overreacted, Betty. I think I'm just waiting for you to realize you could do so much better than me," he tells her softly, running his hand down the back of her hair.

"Not possible."

He smiles at that. "You know, I did manage to make it up here with the cake you made me."

She looks up at him, almost impressed. "You carried a cake up that ladder and didn't drop it?"

"I did. Do you want to share some with me?"

"Sure. Did you bring forks or anything?" she asks him, moving off his lap so he can grab the cake from outside.

He groans at that. "No, but some things, like finger painting, are best done with the hands, right?"

"If you say so."

"I do say. And it's my birthday so I'm right until midnight. Tomorrow we'll resume the status quo of you being always right. Sound good?"

She laughs at him and sticks her fingers into the frosting. "The frosting is the best part, Jug. Really the best part of cake is the fact that it's a socially acceptable way to shove a ton of frosting in your face."

As she's picking at the cake, he sees the bright red marks on her palms. His heart drops and he grabs her hands with the both of his and says, "Oh, Betty, I'm sorry I caused this." He kisses her knuckles and she leans forward to press her lips to his then lays her head on his shoulder again.

"I was thinking-"

"Dangerous," Betty interrupts.

"Funny. As I was saying, I was thinking that I need a date to the dance and wondering if you knew anyone who wanted to go with me?" he asks.

"Well, I did hear Archie is recently single. I bet he'd go with you."

He can't help the laugh that bubbles out of him and as soon as he opened his mouth to respond to her, she shoves a bit of cake in his face. "I'm definitely not taking you now."

"That's fine, I bet Veronica will take me."

He considers that, wiping cake off of his face. "She really would, wouldn't she? Is it wrong that I'm a little scared and intrigued by that?" He's sufficiently distracted her enough that she doesn't notice he's shoving his own piece of cake into her face as retaliation. He's smearing the frosting further up her cheek when he stops to kiss her one more time and say, "Fine, I suppose we'll just have to go together then, won't we?"