in which Archie starts having self deprecating thoughts and picks Veronica up at the ass crack of dawn to take her to the happiest place he remembers from his childhood and Veronica is pretty sure it’s the sweetest thing any boy has ever done even though it means she loses a few hours of sleep
Archie wakes up at four o clock in the morning. The first thing he notices is the fatigue that sits in every single bone in his body. Then, the light from the street lamp outside, filtering in through his window and illuminating his bedroom with an eerie, twilit glow. He presses a pillow over his head and tries to force himself to go back to sleep, but his mind is spinning again, and he knows it’s a lost cause.
Thoughts about the Black Hood – Svenson, he reminds himself – were like a perpetual frequency in his head. No matter what he’s doing, they’re hovering in the back of his mind, and if he doesn’t have something else to demand his attention at any given moment, they overwhelm him. He’s been spending a lot of time by himself since that night on the bridge when Sheriff Keller shot Svenson, because he can’t control the way his face betrays what he’s thinking about, even in public; furrowed brows and lip gnawing and scowls that would solicit questions he can’t answer.
The only thing that effectively draws his incapacitating thoughts away from the now-dead serial killer is Veronica.
She makes him feel excited and alive rather than sullen and ill-tempered. She makes him feel like he really is a sixteen year old boy in love, rather than some old man bent double and defeated under decades worth of heartache, onerous and resting heavy on his shoulders, world without end. He loves everything about her, even loves how her very presence is enough to disrupt his balance, how it makes him say and do things without thinking, even if he does feel embarrassed about those things later.
He wants her to know him in his entirety, wants to lay his soul bare for her to see, but there’s a part of him - a part that he doesn’t want to acknowledge - that feels he doesn’t deserve her. There’s a part of him that feels that if he was worthy of love, he wouldn’t have been left by the other girls he’s had feelings for. His mom wouldn’t have left, either. And it’s that part that hinders him from telling her everything, as much as he wants to, because then she’d see what everyone else had seen; that he’s unlovable, and she’d be gone. Permanently. And the idea that she might believe the negative things about him that he’d been decrying in his head for months is so deeply unappealing he can barely bring himself to think about it.
But he still wants her to know everything. He had no idea that falling in love would make him so selfish – that he would consider hiding parts of himself from her just so he wouldn’t lose her. He sits up straight and gets out of bed. He gets dressed, grabs random food items from the kitchen, and calls Veronica on the drive to the Pembroke, because, while patience is a virtue, it’s never been one he’s possessed in abundance.
Archie immediately feels at peace, feels all his muscles release the tension they’d been harboring as he watches Veronica swing open the passenger side door of his dad’s truck and all but collapse into the front seat. Her hair is tied up and she looks nettled. She pulls down the sun visor and narrows her eyes at her reflection before looking over at Archie.
“Good morning,” he says, slightly amused.
“Morning?” She groans, leaning over to look at the clock on the radio. Her forearm rests on his leg as she inspects it. “I thought it was some God forsaken hour of the night when you called me. The sun’s barely up.” She leans back and looks at him again. He’s slightly illuminated in the early morning light and his hands rest on the steering wheel. He’s staring at her. “So,” she says. “What’s wrong? Did you find out you have a month to live? Make a bet with someone? Deal with the devil?”
Archie laughs at that, making Veronica smile for the first time today. “Nothing’s wrong,” he says. He’s amazed at how quickly she can pull him out of even the darkest of moods, and his apprehension leaves him in waves.
Veronica looks at him inquisitively. “So what motivated you to call me and have me sneak past my parents’ room to come meet you out here at five o clock in the morning?”
Archie smiles like he’s got a big secret. “I’m taking you somewhere. It’s a surprise.”
Veronica laughs once. “Are you going to be this cryptic the whole time?” She asks.
“No, just until we’re out of Riverdale,” he grins. “Buckle up.”
The drive ends up taking nearly an hour and a half because Archie keeps making wrong turns, but they reach their destination eventually. The sun is fully up now; it’s a bright, clear day, and even though it doesn’t feel very hot right now, the sun shines down on them with an intensity that confirms that come afternoon it will be blistering.
Veronica looks around at the scene. There’s a small hill covered in browning grass and spotted with trees bursting red and gold and burnished orange. It overlooks a deep valley exploding with those same colors. It’s pretty. Really pretty, actually.
“Alright,” Veronica leans against the truck and crosses her arms and looks at Archie. “Now I need answers. What is this place?”
Archie smiles, looking sort of like he’s just arrived home after a long trip. “Before my mom and dad separated,” he says, “we used to come here every winter to go sledding.” He laughs, staring up at the trees. “I don’t know why – I mean, calling this thing a hill is being generous. It’s barely a knoll, right?” He looks at Veronica to find that she’s smiling too. “But I loved it when I was a little kid. I used to think this was, like, Mount Everest or something, and I was so brave for sledding down it by myself. Whenever I think about my happiest memories, they all sort of start and end here. So that’s why I brought you here.” He shrugs. “I wanted you to see it. It didn’t feel right, you not having seen it. I wanted you to know about it. I want you to know…” He’s rambling and he knows it, but before he can dig his own grave, Veronica reaches for him. Her curiosity is replaced by something else, something tender and intimate, and it fills Archie with the same sense of calm he felt when she climbed into the truck this morning. He can feel himself shattering under her gaze and he clears his throat and holds up a folded blanket and a brown paper bag. “Want to climb to the top and eat this very average picnic meal with me?”
Veronica laughs, a sudden wave of euphoria. It’s almost tangible, like Archie could bottle the happiness and save it forever. She takes his hand and walks up the slope with him, to the top of the hill, and the view is even more incredible from up here. She tries to imagine what the valley will look like in a few weeks, when the branches turn to ice and the Earth is shimmering with the snow. She tries to imagine all the times the Andrews family has been here, imagines Archie as a kid, with flushed cheeks and mittens and a scarf, his joy audible and his voice bouncing off of tree trunks as he sleds down the hill.
She looks at him, smiling, and when he leans forward and kisses her she feels like she’s floating, like he can untether her from all the things holding her to the earth, but contrastingly, she makes him feel grounded – makes him feel sane, and safe. And when she pulls back and looks at him, he feels something down to his bones.
But they ache like sore muscles when she’s looking at him like that.
And he knows, as he stares back down at her, that his days of making happy memories here aren’t over. He feels like he could tell her anything and everything, and it would all be okay. And he will. But for now, he just pulls her closer and breathes in the scent of pine needles and fallen leaves and the girl he loves.
A/N: I take requests for Varchie fics, shoot me an ask if you have one you want written!
ellievsbear
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
stormborns
germansingergirl
pixelskylines
gummygunk
