#burst abloom

(Thread title taken from lyrics to “June Hymn” by The Decemberists which is basically mandatory listening for anybody who claims to like anything folk adjacent.) 

Starter for @perfectioncursed. 

Jughead needed this summer like he’d never needed one before. Even when he had been younger, counting down the days until school was out with a devotion akin to prayer, he hadn’t felt the need for sunshine and open spaces as primally as he did now. 

And finally it was here. 

He needed something to distract him from what happened to Archie, his father, Betty’s father, what these last few months had been. These were his thoughts as he woke early, light slanting through the blinds of the trailer, on the first day of summer break. He dressed quickly--same old beat-up S t-shirt, a pair of swim trunks, and jeans that had seen better days--stuffed some things from the fridge into his rucksack, and, still wiping the sleep from his eyes, got on his bike. He navigated the stretch of pavement between his house and Betty’s as if in his sleep (which, maybe, given the hour, was just as well); Riverdale was as quiet as a church at 8 AM on a Tuesday morning.

He cut the engine of his bike a half of a block away from Betty’s house, coasting the rest of the distance. He hopped off and prod at the kickstand with the toe of his boot, leaving it a house down so, if her mother happened to look out the window, she wouldn’t notice. Finally, he made his way to Betty’s window at the side of the house and picked up a couple pieces of mulch, chucking them at the windowpane before wising up and firing off a text message.