May 12th, 2019

When Jughead thinks about those early days, they melt together like ice cream puddling at the bottom of a cone, a muddy brown, intangible mess of flavors.

Sometimes he's not even sure he knows the exactness of it all too well, despite how much everything else in his life has hinged upon getting the details correct.

Trauma, Fangs would say, an armchair psychologist from reading one book on stress, picked up at a razed bookstore, It's trauma, protecting your brain.

Doing a fairly shit job, Jughead thinks, because the things that hurt the most still ache.

Betty.

Archie.

His sister.

His mother.

He thinks one more loss would break in half completely. Already he felt like a phantom, ghosting through life, always ten steps behind saving anyone from this horrible fate.

And he had tried .

Maybe that's why nothing seems able to be pinpointed exactly. Maybe his brain is purposely messing up the details, trying to convince him that it wasn't his fault that everyone he loved was gone and dead.

But look at all those we saved, Fangs would argue, Isn't that something?

Selfishly, he'd trade all of them for even the hint of someone from that list back.

He's what he remembers.

His sister Jellybean and his mother took a vacation in Arizona. They left early before Jelly's school in Toledo finished for the year. They asked him to go, but Jughead - feeling like life here was too complicated lately and needed to get a handle on it - said no.

And maybe if he'd gone, he would have saved them.

Or he'd be dead, but at least he wouldn't be so alone now.

It's funny how you can have an entire hoard of people trusting you, but still feel like the loneliest motherfucker that ever walked this godforsaken planet. By all accounts, anyone would say that he should be glad he has the friends he does, but it's not his best friend or his girlfriend…they're just…placeholders, an ache for people Jughead is trying to desperately remember and at the same time, trying as hard as he can to let go.

He writes about them; every stupid little fact he knows about his sister, Betty, and Archie, because he feels like if he dies, they die too and he can't have that. So he fills notebooks that he lugs around, from the stupidest, smallest piece of information and they make this loss feel not so big sometimes, manageable at the best of it.

But he's getting ahead of himself.

Let's try this again; this is what Jughead remembers.

Early May of that year, the year everything fell apart, Jellybean had just gotten a phone and she was blowing up his messages with stupid pictures. Pictures of her in front of large road-side attractions. Pictures of her in ridiculous sunglasses. Pictures of her at the pool in their hotel. Pictures of her with shaved ice as big as her head.

Jughead replied to them with good-natured comments, playing along, at the time not sorry at all he hadn't joined in. It wasn't his speed. It was too carefree. What a blessing it was that Jellybean was so innocent, still, but sorry, Jughead can't imagine just going somewhere sunny and leaving the Serpents to pick up the pieces. He has a responsibility to them now.

And, after Archie was arrested, and not wanting to make Jelly feel like he didn't care about the tenth smoothie she'd had, he was stretched thin arguing with Keller to let him in the jail and responding to every single 'ping' that came across his phone.

He thinks, somewhere in there, Betty's messages to him got lost.

He had asked her to be his Serpent Queen before it all went down, but even he was a bit confused about what that meant. Still, it just seemed right. It was a step in a significant direction, probably akin to a promise ring or something. And he did mean it. He meant it with every breath he took. He loved Betty Cooper and he knew she loved him back.

But, they'd both agreed their respective best friends needed them.

Betty had shot him a soft smile, "We'll have time, Juggie," She had promised.

Betty Cooper wasn't a liar.

No one could have predicted this .

Jughead didn't hold it against her…most of the time. And, even when he did, he knew it was immature of him.

But fuck…sometimes, he couldn't help it, angry at the world more so than he ever had before.

It was so cruel, he mused, that the universe would give him the answer to everything he'd been looking for just to pluck it from his fingers.

It simply wasn't fair.

Their first few messages had been about Archie and inquiries about updates on his status. Not that Jughead had much to report on. Keller was being a real dick about it all, refusing to let anyone talk to Archie. It was like he actually believed Hiram, which was insane to Jughead. It probably didn't do him favors that Jughead had told Keller as much.

Logically, Keller had to be in Hiram's back pocket, paid off, because why else would Keller think Mr. Americana-Archibald-Andrews would have the guts to kill someone? Not when there was a literal mobster right there, and Jughead was under no illusions about public morality. Hiram Lodge had killed before and would kill again.

He'd asked Betty what her plans were but never heard something back.

In Betty's defense, she had assumed her message - telling Jughead she was at The Pembrook- had gone through. She'd sent it before Veronica started throwing shit; after that, she'd only been worried about her dark-haired friend. She never checked to see if it hadn't gone through.

Jughead just thought she had gone to sleep.

Sleep; ugg.

Jelly was wired on caffeinated soda and pinging him stupid memes that weren't even arguably that funny or were very specific to her vacation so Jughead didn't understand anyway. It was nearly 2 am and Jughead was bone-tired, the sort of tired that only exhausted middle-aged low-level corporate drones got to. The sort of tiredness that was unrelenting.

For just the quickest of seconds, he nodded off at the police station.

"Alright, you're done," Keller said.

Jughead jerked awake, "I'm fine. Let me just talk to him, please!"

"Jughead, if you don't leave, I'll have to charge you with loitering."

"Fine," Jughead snapped, "At least then I'd be in there with him!"

"Now, son, be reasonable. You don't want a petty thing like this on your record, to what? Console your friend? Archie knows you're not abandoning him."

"Does he?" Jughead pressed, "If we haven't been let in, that's rather hard to say!"

Keller sighed, looking at the ceiling, pinching his nose, "Go home."

"No."

"I'll let you see him tomorrow if you go home now and get some shut-eye."

Jughead looked at him distrustfully. People like Keller, cops, could never be trusted.

"You promise?" He sounded like a petulant child, but he didn't care.

"I do. Now git," Keller waved him out of the station lobby, "It's late enough already."

Jughead's phone blinked at 2:38 am.

The night was teasingly warm, hinting better weather was on the way. But he was still glad for his leather jacket, puffed up around his neck, for the walk home.

One thing he didn't notice back then, and he couldn't be sure he wasn't imagining post-events, but would almost swear to…was the air and the trees and the crickets were all so…still. Eeriely so.

But, Jughead was running on two hours of sleep, generously, and at the time, that silence was such a blessing.

The tents the Serpents were holed up in were down by the river. It sucked, and not just because Jedi wouldn't stop quoting the SNL skit ' In a Van Down by the River ', not even when his twin threatened him with violence. The uncertainty of it made the whole camp uneasy, like someone was just pulling and pulling and pulling on the tension, waiting for the string to snap.

So he wasn't surprised to see a few of his kind milling about, drinking from bottlenecks blanketed in crinkly paper bags. One of the elder Serpents raised his eyebrow as Jughead shuffled in so late, but didn't say much. He was untethered to normal expectations now; who gave a fuck if he was out far past his bedtime? He'd grown up all within a single fall season, feeling much closer to 28 than to 18. The older Serpent, someone who probably ran around town with his dad back in the day, held up his bottle, invitingly, but Jughead shook his head.

Even if he wasn't tired, he didn't think drinking would help much right now.

He maneuvered through the makeshift camp to the younger Serpents' sleeping quarters, and that was the nicest way he could describe it. Cheryl, and one of the few kind things she'd ever done, was get them all a bunch of those fancy multi-room tents. Of course, she wasn't generous enough to house them all up at one of her many family properties, and of course, Toni had been plucked away from such plebeian accommodations to sleep with her, but whatever.

It was a roof over their heads.

Plus, he loved Toni like a sister, and he was happy for her genuinely. He'd come around to Cheryl, mostly. She loved Toni. That's all Jughead wanted for her…for any of his Serpents.

Sweet Pea was still up, lounging on one of the ratty folding chairs they'd dug out of a dumpsite, cleaned by the Sweetwater River. He looked up as Jughead's feet crunched over the grass, gazing up from idly scrolling on his phone.

"Data sucks out here, dude," He muttered in greeting, and Jughead could see that slow-loading wheel turning endlessly on his screen.

Jughead gave a weak smile in response. Even though he'd never formally chosen Sweet Pea as his second-in-command, he'd filled that spot naturally. He was a leader that the other Serpents flocked toward but deferred to the greater power of the hierarchy to step down when Jughead joined in.

He didn't have to do that, but he had.

They may not see eye-to-eye on everything, but Jughead respected him. He liked to think Sweet Pea felt similarly.

Even now, he knew Sweet Pea was still up, watching over everything just in case. The way his eyes flickered at every sound coming from the riverbanks, the way his fingers were tensed in preparation for a fight, the way he held his jaw, as though expecting the worst to pounce out of the bushes…

"Go to bed, Sweet Pea," Jughead yawned, "Others are on watch."

"Can't sleep," Sweet Pea muttered, "Something has me wired, man."

The general unease was felt in Jughead's bones too. From a teenager being arrested, to a once-respected community father being revealed as a serial killer, well, things were sure strange lately. Jughead communicated as much, waving his hand semi-dismissively, not to be rude, but he was sure exhaustion was chasing Sweet Pea just as much as it was coming up on him.

"Times have been shit-,"

"Naw," Sweet Pea snorted, "I laughed when I heard Andrews got arrested and I don't care about Cooper's dad. No, it's something else." He chewed on his lip, staring out at the trees with a laser focus, like something was going to come crashing through them any second now. He seemed far away, his consciousness dragged by an unyielding pressure.

"Right," Jughead said flatly, "Because you're psychic, huh?" He knew what Sweet Pea joked about, even if Jughead didn't believe it. 'A little stitious', Fangs always teased. Someone who believed in fate and meaning and all the stuff that Jughead had decided was just life being a dick, no deeper meaning to be divined.

"I dunno, Jug," Sweet Pea gnawed on the side of his lip, "It's eating me up inside. The wind. The whispers in the trees."

"O…kay." Jughead was far too tired for any of this. Damnit, couldn't life just slow down one inch? If Sweet Pea wanted to sit out here and sing 'kumbaya' with nargles or whatever, fucking let him. He was an adult in every sense too, able to make his own choices. "I'm going to bed."

Sweet Pea flung his hand out in a dismissal, unwilling to tear his gaze away from the inky night.

"Promise me you'll sleep soon." Jughead lingered, too good to just let his sleep schedule be screwed due to some oogie-boogie feelings.

"Yeah, yeah, just another hour…" Sweet Pea replied hazily.

Jughead dove into his sleeping bag. He had managed to fight to the death for a smaller tent. Well, not fight to the death. He'd been gifted it, as their Serpent King. It may be tiny, but at least he wasn't packed like sardines in the ones the rest of his friends were. Right now, he was letting Jedi crash in here too; he'd gotten into a fistfight with Vade, and they needed to be separated. They fought like they were going to strangle one another sometimes, and FP was nearly sure they might accidentally if either of the twins got riled up. Jughead hadn't been thrilled about sharing his sleeping space with him, but FP had given a haggard sigh and asked him, nicely, if he'd let it go for just a night or two.

"I promise, man, I don't snore or anything!" Jedi had insisted, pressing an ice pack to his cheek.

Jedi was already inside, sprawled on the other side of the tent, a beer can dripping from his hand. Jughead gave a disgusted scowl and picked it up, flicking out the rest of it outside the tent.

Jedi was right; he sure slept like the dead. A trail of drool dripped out of his lips and onto the floor, but that was something he could clean up tomorrow.

"At least someone can pass out," Jughead muttered, curling himself in his sleeping bag. It felt scarily like his time when he'd been homeless, living at the Drive-In. But, well, at least then he had a wooden structure over the top of him.

Sometimes, what he wouldn't give to be blissfully alone there again.

Even just a week later, he'd be eating his wishes, feeling like an idiot for even thinking it.

He didn't think sleep would greet him, but his exhaustion wore out.

Before he went to bed, he glanced at his phone one last time to see if Betty had replied.

No signal blinked back at him.

"Fucking spotty signal," Jughead hissed in frustration, screwing his eyes shut, and didn't think anything of it at all.

XXX

Jughead woke to the smell of smoke and screaming.

He fought his sleeping bag, tangled in the puffed padding, kicking on the floor of his tent like a man caught up in a straightjacket.

There was a weird sound above him. A gurgling, maybe, or growling.

Jedi was trying to rip the sleeping bag open, a franticness that put the fear of god right into Jughead.

"What's going on out there, man?" From the way the light was filtering into the camp, it was very early morning. He couldn't have gotten more than three or four hours of sleep, but the camp was in a panic. Therefore, he was wide awake.

Was Keller doing a sweep? Had Mayor McCoy insisted they clear out and had called someone to forcibly shove them away? Was Hiram doing something dastardly?

Jedi didn't answer, just gave a strange groan.

His jaw came freakishly close to Jughead's arm.

"Woah, man, what the fuck?" He asked, swatting Jedi away, "Are you drunk?" He demanded, "Course you are," He muttered, recalling the beer in his hands. Probably the last of many he'd partaken in last night. He always got wasted when he was fighting with Vade. They were so explosive, it pissed Jughead off sometimes.

Jedi snapped his mouth just a hair's breadth away from Jughead, and sirens went off in his mind. Something was seriously wrong with his friend.

"Back the fuck up, I'm serious!" Jughead commanded, and when he managed to free himself, trying to figure out why it smelled like burning flesh, he got a good look in Jedi's eyes.

They were glassy and empty.

Not in the way someone was when they were high on Jingle Jangle, but in the way someone was when all thoughts had left the building. Totally vacant, no lights on up there.

That's not Jedi anymore…

The thought was crazy. Of course, it was. Whatever he was on was gnarly, but it was still the goofy Serpent he knew, right?

So, if so, why had that thought felt like such a certainty barreling through him?

Freaked out, Jughead stumbled through the opening of his tent and into absolute chaos.

The source of the burning smell was that, literally, the camp was on fire.

The tall grasses around the banks were lit up like sparklers; cattywampus, reeds, and tall foliage swaying on fire. It had spread to the tents where his dad and his friends had been sleeping, the flames eating away at the plastic, the once colorful view now obscured by thick, black plumes.

People around Jughead were screaming. A Serpent barreled past Jughead, knocking his shoulder as they fled in terror.

But not everyone was running; no, that was what was strange. Some of the Serpents seemed to be shuffling, oddly, in the same gaited way that Jedi had been.

"Jughead! Help! Help!" Someone wailed to his left and Jughead spun around to see Buzz dragging himself on the ground, crawling pitifully, tears streaming down his face. Jughead leaped into action, trying to help him up, but Buzz motioned to his legs. Someone had torn the jeans clean apart, and taken a bite out of his flesh.

"What the fuck…" Jughead echoed, eyes wide, "Are you…joking?"

Man, it must be a bad batch of Jingle Jangle. Whatever those ghoulies put in it, Jughead was going to kill every single one of them. It wasn't bad enough that they were displaced from their home, but they had to kick their enemies while they were down by eviscerating them too? Jesus!

He pulled Buzz to a standing pose, though Buzz could hardly hold himself up. Just as they were hobbling away, Jedi broke loose of the tent behind Jughead, grasping onto Buzz's shoulders.

"No! Bad Jedi!" Jughead said, tugging the other direction, "Let him go!"

He didn't know why he was still talking like Jedi had any sense of comprehension in him; it was clear whatever drugs he was on were melting his brain like mad.

"Don't let him get me, don't let him get me-," Buzz was wheezing so hard Jughead thought he was going to pass out, "Help me, man, help me!"

Jughead kicked at Jedi, but Jedi possessed an above-average strength. Not just that Jedi was a secret body-builder or something, but strength unusual for someone so doped up. Now that he had his dirty, bloodied hands on Buzz, he bit onto his shoulder hard.

Buzz let out an inhuman scream as Jughead stared, uncomprehendingly.

An arrow whizzed past, right into Jedi's head.

The dim light flickered out in his expression and he toppled backward, staring up at the blue, clear sky.

Jughead spun to see Toni and Cheryl, Cheryl taking careful aim.

"What are you doing?" Jughead ran in front of her.

"Good god, hoodlum, do you want to be speared through the eyes?" Cheryl demanded.

"What are you doing?" Jughead demanded in a harsher tone, "You killed Jedi!"

"He was already dead, sweetie," Cheryl replied in that condescending way Jughead despised, "That wasn't him."

"You…you…" He struggled for words. For a writer, he was not usually so illiterate, but the tiredness and the exhaustion that still clung to him, mixed with the absolute confusion, felt like someone had turned his brain to mush.

"Buzz!" Toni gasped, flocking to her friend's side, "Oh…oh….shh…" She leaned down, soothing the dark-haired boy with quiet hums.

"Help…me…" He gurgled, his fingers pressing against his neck. It had been torn away, a jagged line of flesh hanging limply.

Cheryl stalked over to Jedi and fished the arrow out of the former Serpent's head.

Then, before Jughead could so much as move, she trained the arrow to Buzz's head and let her fingers go.

Jughead felt his former dinner rise up his throat.

"He wasn't going to survive for very long," Cheryl said, almost emotionlessly.

"What the fuck is happening?" Jughead asked in a watery, pained tone, wiping bile from his chin.

"The end of the fucking world, obviously!" Fangs yelled, using his crutches to beat back one of…those. Cheryl dispatched it quickly, to the relief of Fangs, who looked like he was having a tough time with his broken leg.

"Fangs!" Toni said, relief slouching her shoulders as she ran to him, pressing her nose deeply into his shoulder, "You're alive, you're alive-,"

"Only barely. Man!" He shook his head, "It's crazy!"

"It's the Ghoulies," Jughead spat, "And some fucked-up drug."

"You haven't heard?" Cheryl asked, almost amused, "Oh, Jughead, it's everywhere. It's an epidemic."

Jughead blinked at her, shaking his head, "Wha…what?" He sputtered, "No, no-,"

"Where's Sweet Pea?" Toni asked Fangs, craning her neck around.

Fangs looked green, only pointing to a tent on fire.

"He went to bed late…I couldn't get there, it was already up in smoke…" His voice broke, "I tried, Toni, I tried," He whispered, his words falling into sobs as he showed her a blistered burn all up his arm, "God; the screams…the smell…"

"He was…I just talked to him last night…" Jughead whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Jughead! Jug!"

Jughead whipped his head around to see his Dad.

"Dad!" He yelled, jumping over bodies to reach his father, pushing himself into the warmth of his embrace, "Everyone's dying…we're on fire here…Jedi's dead and so is Buzz and-," He babbled, words falling out in a hurried stream, and he realized he was shaking so hard it was hard to talk.

"I don't know what's going on, but we gotta get out of here!" FP said firmly, "Blossom, keep shooting! Headshots only; it seems to be what's slowing them down."

"On it, sir," Cheryl said, taking the arrow from Buzz's skull. The sound it made when it came out made Jughead sick to his stomach once again.

"What is 'them'?" Jughead whispered.

"Awe, I don't know, but it's nothing good," FP said, "C'mon; grab anyone still alive, we gotta retreat!"

"To where?" Fangs asked, helping someone else stand.

"How about the high school?" Lann asked, covering his mouth with a shirt and coughing deeply, "Southside High? It's not far!"

"Yes; there," FP seemed relieved to have someone else suggest somewhere, "Retreat! To Southside High! Grab anyone you can!"

It was a mad dash. Jughead had never been so exhausted as right now, but he had to keep pushing. Pushing himself, pushing others forward, pushing people up, and pushing that fear out of the back of his mind that Betty was trapped somewhere in this too, or already dead.

Of course, you're going to go looking for her, Jughead told himself, But you gotta help the Serpents first. Then Betty; no if, ands, or buts.

What good was the Serpent King and Queen, he thought wryly, if there would be no Serpents left?

Besides, he reminded himself, he loved Betty because of her fire and spit.

She wouldn't go down without a fight, and honestly, he was sure she wouldn't 'go down' at all.

Somewhere, she was probably waiting it out, waiting for him.

I'm coming, Betty.

He tried to ignore how many people he knew were dead on the ground, limbs torn off in medieval ways that made him want to scream. So many left; so many staring forever at the sky, faces morphed in pure terror.

He couldn't imagine what their last moments must have felt like.

The screams followed their convoy all the way to the high school.

"It's the end of the world," Fangs repeated again, deliriously, "End of fucking times."

Yeah...sure as shit was.