#bughead angst

jughead doesn’t usually watch the news, but in the middle of turning on the tv and taking some medicine to ease the killing hangover he had, he didn’t have time to change it before the news story caught his eye.

fbi trainee saved after weeks of captivity.

holy shit, he thinks to himself as he turns up the volume and leans forwards a little on the couch. the newsreader’s face is grim as she looks at him through the tv, sipping his coffee. as the story has already caught his eye he doesn’t turn it off. not even an agent being captured but a trainee? he’d expect they would be stepping away from the job by then.

“after just over two weeks of being held captive by the serial killer some are now nicknaming ‘the trash bag killer’, the agent is now safely recovering in hospital with no fatal injuries,” the newsreader continues as jughead leans back with another sip of coffee. “ms. betty cooper, a woman barely in her twenties, yet subject to such violence and terror...”

he chokes on his coffee. he sits and splutters on the bitter drink halfway down his throat and lets the mug sit back down on the coffee table, causing more to slop onto the surface. coffee is down his shirt and his chest hurts from coughing but he still turns up the tv to pay more attention.

“ms. cooper was found late sunday evening shaking and with some injuries, though luckily she was found before anything permanent could happen to her. she is recovering with friends and family and should be okay.”

jughead had to turn the tv off when pictures of the crime scene started flashing on the screen, suddenly feeling violently sick.

the apartment was too silent as his head fell into his hands as he tried to process what he had just heard. betty had been held captive? god knows what could have even happened to her. was she hurt badly? was she starved? was she tortured? the thought was enough for his breakfast to make it’s way up his throat and jughead barely made it to the kitchen sink before the contents of his stomach were emptied into the sink.

he debated on grabbing his phone and calling her, but he couldn’t do that. she had just been through probably the most traumatic experience of her life (although she had been through a lot of those) and he doubted she wanted her ex high school boyfriend calling her.

as he still felt nauseous jughead settled with sitting on the kitchen floor as he still tried to process the fact that betty had been kidnapped and held by some psycho. before he knew it there were tears in his eyes and he squeezed them shut as his head fell against his knees, memories of betty, his betty, that he had pushed to the back of his mind for years suddenly swarmed around his mind.

when he saw her again in person he really didn’t know what to expect. how much could that event had changed her? he knew that she was resilient but christ she had been through so much. he was nervous the whole journey to riverdale, sick to his stomach even.

but when he saw her she seemed exactly like the same person he’d been with seven years ago. she was smiling and laughing and looked like she was enjoying herself. maybe he had been wrong. there had to be more than one betty cooper out there, right? maybe this betty wasn’t the one.

he met her eyes with an awkward hello before he sat next to her in the booth, trying not to look at her too much. conversation flowed and after mention of archie’s enrolment in the army and his book, betty brought up that she was training with the fbi.

and he felt sick again. it had happened to her.

he decided to go against telling her that he knew, he decided with a glance at her again. she seemed happy to not be thinking about it and he didn’t want to upset her.

"Go away, Jones," Veronica says, pushing on his chest as he tries to sidestep her, tries to get past her to the person he wants to see, needs to see. "She doesn't need this right now."

He feels himself being pulled, needing to be closer to her, something deep in the very marrow of his bones, something from long before Jessica had dropped a bomb on him, and he had seen Betty fleeing into Veronica's house, tears spilling down her cheeks.

But Veronica, surprisingly strong, blocks his path. "I said leave, Jughead. You are the last person she needs to see right now. You need to leave her to heal."

He feels himself deflate, feels pricked like a balloon at the thought that Betty needs to heal from him.

And they'd been so close. So close to being back, close to something good. He'd gotten to hold her again, kiss her, feel her asleep and breathing against him. It had been so good, and he was so happy.

And then Jessica had collapsed into him, right in front of Betty, with Veronica standing behind her and she had told him the news.

"I'm pregnant, Jones. It's yours."

The words are harsh. They're abrupt and he can do nothing but watch Betty's face over Jessica's head as she slowly takes in the news, and what it means.

He's sure, absolutely positive that this will stay with him forever. To watch the light dim in Betty's eyes, to watch her fight back tears, try to paste the stone faced Cooper mask on, to see her turn around and just catch a glimpse of tears spilling as Veronica slides an arm around her and leads her away.

And now, to be turned away, and to be told that she is finally asleep, exhausted after breaking for hours in her best friend's arms, and to know that he did this to her. That those words that he had once imagined coming from someone else had cut he and Betty apart forever, and to know that finally, entropy had taken its natural course.

He’d loved Betty for so long.  Before he’d truly believed in the word love, he was pretty sure he had still loved Betty.  He would recall faint childhood memories and realize that the common denominator and all of his best memories was none-other than Betty Cooper.  For a while, those memories haunted him.  He could no longer look back at the formative years of his youth without a painful tightness in his chest, and all he wanted was to find Morpheus and take the little blue pill.

But they had started to fade, and while they were still painful to think of, Jughead no longer felt the need to double over in pain.  Eventually he wasn’t thinking of her more than a couple times a month.

But here he was, sitting in the driver's seat of his truck, fingers clenching the wheel as if he were afraid to drive away.  He sees her again, in the flesh and not through his sister's occasional Instagram stories where he swears he sees a peek of blonde hair in the corner of the screen, and suddenly his mind is flooding with memories, and flashbacks are being triggered by something as mundane as a staircase.

She hadn’t meant anything by it.

She hadn’t meant anything by it.

like what you're reading? click here to read this chapter!

WIP Wednesday kind of?

I’m not really a writer but I had this thought and I wrote it down 🤷‍♀️:

Betty had to do it she had to confront Jughead, not just Jughead she had to confront Veronica as well and tell her about her betrayal. She didn’t know why she did it it was stupid and ugly and she regretted it so much. She felt a deep pain in her gut of what she’s done, she knew there was probably no forgiveness she knew she would have to beg she wished she hadn’t done it but it was done.

She called Jughead and asked him to meet her in the bunker.

“What’s up Betty? You sounded pretty nervous over the phone is everything ok?” He asked he looked at her with concerned and caring eyes, he was loving she loved that about him.

Betty gave him a weak smile and took his hands in hers. “Let’s sit and talk”

“An I in trouble” Jughead asked jokingly but then his smile faded once he saw the troubling look on her face.

“I don’t ever want you to think you aren’t the best thing that has ever happened to me” Betty said with teary eyes.

“I’m just going to come out and say it Jug I kissed Archie”

I have another one I got before this that I was going to post first but I made myself cry with this one so I had to post

I got mad emotional over the WesleyxFred/Illyria storyline from Angel the series for a minute and we have this now~ 

Bughead + clothes || TW: CHARACTER DEATH

The feeling of the knife in his gut, twisting before it was pulled away made his world stop. He took a shaky step back, watching the imp fly into a wall as Della marched into the room behind him. 

He fell back into Della’s arms, slamming them both into the floor as she cradled his head.

“Jughead,” the blue-haired demon breathed, her arm wrapped around his shoulders as she looked down at him with concern in her eyes. She took his hand in one of hers, pursing her lips before she spoke again.

They both knew he didn’t have the time for any attempt at finding some way to save him. 

The demon surprised him when she spoke again. “Would you like me to lie to you?”

After he had screamed at her so loudly that Archie had pulled him out of what used to be Betty’s lab the last time she had transformed herself from the ugly demon into his Betty Cooper, Della had promised to refrain from pretending to be her.

Clothes and all.

Jughead felt his eyes mist up as he nodded.

Della smiled sweetly as her icy blue eyes shifted to a familiar green; the strange blue scaling along her hairline faded away, appearing more blonde with each passing second.

It had been an unlikely alliance after what Della did to the only woman he had ever loved, but the demon had been a formidable ally against the end of the world, alongside Archie and the rest of his team.

They had only had one day- one beautiful day together before she had been taken from him over the course of several hours of soul burning agony, leaving behind Della, the cold, unfeeling demon that had reluctantly joined their fight against the coming end of days. Immediately following her traumatizing death, Jughead had fallen, focusing only on training himself to be better, sharper, faster while the demon walked around in her body -albeit an aesthetically distorted version- as if she were allowed the shell of the kindest soul he had ever come to know.

His breath returned to him as the strange, sturdy battle armour the demon that now occupied her body usually wore faded away to the soft pink sweater Betty had died in. “Betty,” he gasped, openly letting his tears fall as she cupped his face in her hands.

“I’m here.”

He took a shaky breath at the sound of her voice. “I love you,” he whispered.

His eyes suddenly felt very heavy.

“I love you, too,” Betty whispered, leaning forward to kiss his forehead. 

Jughead gripped the sleeve of her sweater, ignoring the blood smearing along everything he touched, instead getting lost in the feeling of the familiar cotton below his fingertips.

Betty reached out to grip his chin, forcing his gaze to hers. She looked like an angel kneeling above him. “You’re a good man.” Betty’s eyes watered and he couldn’t hold back his surprise.

Jughead smiled, reaching up to cup her chin. “Will you miss me?”

She nodded, leaning forward to kiss his forehead. As her forehead rested against his, a tear dripped down onto his cheek. “I will fight for you,” she promised.

He smiled, rubbing his thumb along her cheek.

“Rest now,” Betty whispered as his eyes slipped shut.

When We Were Young 

What if FP Jones ended up going to college and Alice Smith stayed on the Southside? A Midnight Club AU by @peaceblessingspeyton

I made a little edit for @peaceblessingspeyton‘s current fic, which is centered in a universe where Alice stayed in the Southside and FP went off to college. It’s a wonderfully deep look into how different Jughead and Betty’s lives would be if their parents lives took opposite turns. @peaceblessingspeyton takes us on a journey between three different time lines. One goes back to when Alice and FP were teenagers, another takes place while Jughead and Betty are teens and falling in love (a classic opposites attract kind of vibe), and a current grown up Jughead and Betty, coming to paths again after everything that happened back in high school. I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happens next, and often have tears in my eyes. And I am delighted to see it all play out. It’s full of angst, which is my #1 love, and just super sweet at times. You see the struggles they both face and you just want to wrap them both up and tell them it’ll be okay. She develops the characters so well that it’s easy for me to understand why some of the more difficult scenes happen. I personally am not someone who enjoys purely fluffy fics where no one has any flaws and everyone’s a saint. People aren’t like that, we all feel the weight of the world and it affects us all, makes us all do things we regret, even right as it’s happening. If you’re someone who is into angst, and likes deeper, more complex flawed characters then I highly recommend this masterpiece.

134: ‘You drive me fucking crazy.’

———

The Choice

Betty had a dilemma, of course, including boys.

Archie Andrews: football player; gorgeous jock; extremely fit; bit of a player but pretty naïve; wouldn’t know if he was being cheated on or double crossed; positive guy; status; comfort over excitement.

Or Jughead Jones: makes her blood rush.

This wasn’t high school anymore. Betty was looking for something more…realistic, more long-term, practical. And that just wasn’t Jughead.

The given deadline was the 25th September, 10am. That was the day she said she would reveal her choice.

She doubted whether Jughead Jones would wait for her, though. Archie Andrews definitely, but the Jones boy was a bit more hidden regarding his thoughts and intentions.

And so that’s why when she heard the tapping at her window, she practically jumped out of her bed. She rushed to the window, lifting it up, “What the hell are you doing here?”

He grinned mischievously, “Good evening, m’lady.”

“Nope, not-“

“Not yet,” he pulled himself up into her room.

“How did you even…?” She peered over the window ledge, watching the ladder fall to the side, hitting a tree in the process.

“Well, there goes my exit. Not that I intended on there being one.”

She rolled her eyes, before hearing a knock at the door, “Betty?”

Leaving her bedroom, she hurried towards the front door of the apartment, turning around to wave Jughead off. “Go back in there,” she whispered.

Hands up in defence, walking back, “Damn, two booty calls in one night?”

“I didn’t call you. Or him. Either of you for that matter.”

He chuckled before closing her door quietly.

She opened the one in front of her to reveal a tired-looking puppy-eyed Archie.

“Arch, what are you-“

Inviting himself in, he interrupted and paced around the living room, “I’m sorry, Betty. I know you said you’d tell me tomorrow, I just, I can’t sleep thinking…I can’t sleep. And I know you probably have already made up your mind, but if that isn’t me, then is there anything I can do to change your mind? Because if there is, I would do it. I promise that. And that Jug-had? Is that his name? Whatever it is, he doesn’t seem reliable. He may be…good-looking or whatever, but Betty…”

He held the open-mouthed girl’s hands in his own, “Betty, I love you. I have been wanting to say it for a while, and I just, I can’t hold it in anymore. I love you, Betty.”

Lowering his voice to a desperate, pleading tone, “Please, choose wisely, Betty. He’s not practical, I can offer you so much more. We can have a future together. Whatever you want, I’ll do it, I’ll give it, I’ll be it.”

Deep down she knew, how ever much he tried, there was one thing they could never have.

Passion.

She released a smile, “Thank you, Archie. Those are very…heartfelt words, and I will take them into consideration. Thank you for being patient with me too. I’ll see you later-“

A loud voice interrupted her polite response, “Jug-had? What the fuck is that? Have you ever heard of such a ridiculous name? I think the fuck not. Archibald? That’s weird as fuck.”

Archie swallowed as he saw the dark-haired man exit her bedroom, with no shirt on. He looked at Betty, then at Jughead, then back to Betty.

Betty found her mouth hanging open, once again, eyes full of pleading as Archie let go of her hands.

“Arch, it isn’t what it looks like, I promise. He just came-“

“And landed in your bed?”

She could see Jughead ruffle his hair, looking pretty smug.

“No, Arch, you have to believe me-“

“Betty, just…just answer me this, were you going to choose me?”

Betty wanted to speak, she really did. Just to say anything. But yet, once again, she found herself speechless.

He scoffed before walking out, “Call me when you make up your mind, for good. Time’s running out.”

Betty sighed before turning to face Jughead, “What the fuck, Jughead? I told you to go-“

“Go hide? Why were you embarrassed of me being here? Unless you were trying to hide your decision from Archie?”

She laughed dryly, “Oh my God, Jughead. You’re insane. You’re actually ridiculous. Has it ever occurred to you that I didn’t want Arch to jump to conclusions and assume my decision was made? Has it ever even occurred to you, that you aren’t the right choice?”

He swallowed at the way her voice carried the nickname ‘Arch’.

Of course that occurred to him. All the damn time. And of course he would put up an egotistical front, to hide the self-deprecating truth.

And of course she would choose ‘Arch’.

“Betts-“

“No, Jughead. Can you please just…go home. Go get some rest.”

He didn’t have anywhere to go.

“Please,” her eyes pleaded.

Not wanting to argue, he walked out. But not for good. Not this time.

***

Betty woke up with the warm sunlight hitting her face.

Checking her phone, a particular message stood out: “Delivery?” With an attached photo. Not bothering to check it, she found herself getting out of bed, to sleepily walk towards the front door.

6am.

Way too early to be up.

Pulling it open, she saw a dozing Jughead, gripping a bouquet of roses, snoring lightly.

Chuckling to herself, she pulled his arm, walking the half-asleep young man inside her apartment.

“You drive me fucking crazy, you know that?”

“In bed too,” he mumbled.

Biting down her smile, she pulled her arms away when he sat on the bed, lying back. She was going to go get some water, when his strong arm wrapped around her, and pulled her down with him.

She giggled lightly as he nuzzled his face into her hair.

“This is against the rules.”

“I’m against the rules.” He muttered, sleepily.

“You have a point there.”

“Archie may be the practical choice, but Betts, I’m the exciting one. The one that drives you fucking crazy.”

She looked over at him, as he fell into a deep sleep, their legs entangled.

He was right.

Archie was an exceptional option.