#goodnessfilled

“Carlisle and the rest took him after the--” She pursed her lips, not wanting to acknowledge it for what it truly was: a fight. “Altercation.” She was sure he was experiencing far too much for his brain to handle right now, while all the same, she imagined him beginning to process just how well he could, well, process everything around him.

“I know you’re probably.. going through a lot right now. In your head. Your senses. I know how your throat must be feeling--” Burning. Agonizing burning. Far worse than any normal human dehydration. “But, I can help you. I helped Emmett. You don’t have to go through this alone. It gets easier.”

The usually pessimistic, nihilistic Rosalie had taken an out of character road of optimism. For Archie’s sake, of course. There was no reason to add to his distress. “Do you remember anything? From before? I mean, did you.. hear the fight?” Finally, she said it.

Every time she sees Archie Andrews lately, he’s been beat to hell and dragged back to Riverdale. Every time, it’s because of some big thing, he’s saving someone else, he’s saving himself. This time it’s at ridiculous scales, with the son being made to answer for the crimes of the father, she hears it from Nana Rose when she’s done dropping them all off in HOSPITAL BEDS, and she wonders if he’s been made to hear it, the idea of the man that he idolizes turning his back on a woman in need. If nothing else, that’s what worries her more than the physical scars from yet another fight, because lord knows, he’s had enough of the emotional knocks to find an end.

Someone tells her that Archie and Veronica are back together again, and maybe that’s good. Maybe she’ll help, and for a few days she struggles on if she should go visit him or not to just CHECK IN ON HIM, she thinks, because that’ll be the right thing to do. It wins out, and she even has cherry scones, thanks to Cheryl and her predilection for knowing when she knows an ice breaker because it’s hard to have these kinds of conversations with boys that already feel like they’ve got such a tenuous hold on things.

His place is quiet when she goes, it’s his mom who answers (redheaded, just like him, she wants to laugh but doesn’t). Leaves the food with him as her feet trudge up the creaking step, this structure feels like home and neglect at the same damn time, and she knows that this, better than anything, this is what shows his WORKING CLASS ROOTS in a way that feels comforting. The door, she knocks first before she comes in, that extra second, she’s learned since Southside High and finding Jughead and Betty in the near moments before, she knows Archie, more than any of them, uses sex like a drug to numb himself. Smiling instead when she sees him. “Whoa -- those healed way better than I thought. Brought you some food. Thought you’d like the company, and the class notes.” missing again, she thinks, how will he ever catch up?

It really wasn’t her day ( or week or year ). An exasperated huff comes from the redhead as she hits down on the steering wheel of her car. The engine had sputtered to a stop in the middle of a random street in Beacon Hills.  ❝  just perfect  ❞  As if Lydia didn’t have enough to worry about. She tried the key in the ignition but the vehicle only sounded a low pitched hum . Cell phone is pulled out from the purse on the passenger seat, but it’s dead. Maybe the hours of research on Celtic mythology and the legend of Banshee’s should have been done on her laptop and not the search engine on her phone. 

Lydia takes a moment to run pale digits over closed eyes before she stubbornly pops the hood and steps out of the vehicle. How hard could fixing a car be? .She is just tucking the sleeves up on the pale green dress when she spots him. A flash of red hair just like her own. He is unmistakably ARCHIE ANDREWS. But he is older and more mature. A strong jawline that was never there when he was a kid. 

Anon said: