(this was submitted to me anonymously; I did NOT make it and cannot take credit for it, but was granted permission to post here.)
Those Certain Detestable Acts.
Riverdale came from Greendale. That’s something everyone learns in seventh grade civics. After the Trials in 1692, the Order of Innocents—the Brotherhood of Hunters—settled across the Sweetwater to keep watch on the town of Greendale. There they stayed, centuries before Riverdale was ever founded, to wait for the witches to re-emerge. It’s an old legend, now. A story.
Betty decided not to tell anyone about her upcoming coffee with Jughead - not that there was a lot of time in which she could have told anyone even if she wanted to. She kept quiet as Midge wiggled her eyebrows at her at the bar. She didn’t text Kevin. She passed on her weekly phone call with her mom, promising to ring another night instead.
She’d been starting to feel like her life was under a bit of a microscope – more than usual at least. She didn’t want to spend the night musing over what might be about to happen, what he might say – any explanations, or not, that she might hear. She knew that, despite his best intentions and his unwavering support, Kevin would want to go into every detail about her interaction with Jughead and what he thought it meant. Right now, she couldn’t do that.
She was took exhausted to analyse anything anymore. She’d spent years of her life wondering and now she had a small chance to find out something– so she was keeping it to herself. There was also the weird sense of loyalty she felt to Jughead, despite everything. He’d been the one to approach her this time, which he’d clearly not found easy, so she didn’t want to broadcast it out to anyone.
He leans towards her. The space between them is rife with a strange desperation. A push and a pull. He thinks he’s been travelling all his life to reach this destination, this tiny space between their lips and heartbeats.
I love you, he thinks, I love you and I don’t even know what it means.
Her warm breath fans out over his face, her eyes fixed on the movement of his mouth. She’s waiting, waiting, waiting. She’s terrified. He’s falling and he’ll take her with him and he knows she’s afraid of how steep that fall may be. There’s one last plea in her eyes, when they meet his. They can still turn back, she’s saying, there’s no returning from where he’s leading her.
For Jughead, the end of the world feels nearly like everything else in his life. Disappointing. For someone who has invested so much in words, the apocalypse is devoid of all the glorious doom promised by the poets. It is simply the loss of sound. He has always been a quiet soul and the words that die on everyone else’s lips still find their way on paper in his hands. The quieter it has gotten, the more verbose his characters.
When Betty figures it out—because Betty always figures it out, that beautiful brain of hers—but before they fix it all, before things go back to normal (whatever normal is in this town of maple syrup, murders, and mysteries), they sit together at the table in the bunker, the typewriter between them.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been down here, how many iterations of their lives he’s penned. It could be minutes. It could be millenia. What he knows is that he’d heard a grinding noise, and then suddenly light was pouring down through the bunker’s hatch, and Ethel was gasping in shock.
Now Ethel is outside, breathing in the air, where he too should ostensibly be—now that he no longer needs to be propping up reality with his fingers clacking endlessly against the typewriter’s keys.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her.
She tilts her head; a question. He shakes his head.
“I just wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to live a happy, normal life. I thought I could give you what you always wanted, that it would make things…better, somehow.”
Her eyebrows pull together. “What do you mean?”
He looks down at the stacks of finished pages that overwhelm the table, reaches out to neaten the corners of one pile just to have something to do with his hands. His hands are idle, and he feels unsettled by it.
“I wanted to give you the life you deserved. I thought you and Archie would be—happy. That he’d be good to you…for you.”
His eyes finally rise to meet hers, and the look on her face is thoughtful. It is not angry, or disappointed. It is simply inquisitive. It is purely Betty. It emboldens him to continue.
“I kept trying and trying, but it just…it kept falling apart. I couldn’t make you both happy.”
Betty’s lips rub together and she nods, slowly. Her hands come to rest atop the table, clasped together before her.
“I understand,” she tells him. “I think there’s probably a reason for that.”
He shakes his head: for what? She continues.
“There’s a reason I was never happy like that…being with Archie.”
Jughead’s hand stills atop the pages, and his palm comes to lie flat across the text. His words get lost in his chest.
Betty clears her throat. “Well,” she says, and there is something there, in the air in the space over the table between them, something Jughead cannot see, but something that reaches its fingers into his chest and strokes against his heart where it beats steady against his ribcage. “How has it been spending time with Ethel?” she asks.
Thesomething in the air cracks, but it does not break. The crack allows him to breathe again, to lean in and laugh.
“Oh god,” he tells her, “she’s driving me insane.”
Now that Riverdale made time-travelling canon, here are some timey-wimey (in the broadest sense) Bughead fics. Please, feel free to add more, as the old brain is bound to be forgetful!
While Time Serves by@thepointoftheneedle (technically not so much timey-wimey but there are some exceptional things about time here … also, I bawled like a baby while reading it and it is Beautiful, so there!)
Newly vivid in his memory, Betty was in front of him, her hair only half tied back behind her head, a messy fray of loose curls casting over her shoulder. She wasn’t even wearing proper shoes, she had come all the way to see him still wearing her house slippers. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days.
Even before she spoke the words, her eyes had been clouded over with despair. Her throat caught on the words, and with them, the tears that had been threatening to fall from her eyes cascaded down her face. While his heart closed off from her, she watched. She bit her lip to keep it from quivering.
“Jug,” she said, reaching for his arm. He shook it off. “Jug, my parents have refused to provide a dowry. I would be just a burden to you.” Later, he would remember this only as one of her many excuses. Her deciding proof that he wasn’t a good enough match for her.
Now, he could see that she had been a young woman forced to choose between her family and love. Between stability and the potential for poverty. He could recognize now how the choice had torn her apart.
My lovely bestie from Twitter @vamp20001976 I would love to introduce you to my tumblr family who I call my Buggies They’re awesome and wonderful and amazing and beautiful and creative! Please follow and enjoy their amazing content! ❤️
I hope I didn’t forget anyone! There’s soooo many of you! I love these people so much and I think you’ll get to know them and love them too! Plus their writing is Phenomenal !
The first thing Jughead noticed upon making it back into Betty’s mindscape was that the stairwell leading out of the hallway was blocked - sealed shut by a pile of rocks and debris.
“What the hell happened in here, Betts?” he wondered aloud as he turned to head into the hallway leading to her memories. For as far as he could see on either end, there were endless amounts of doors. And any one of them could be where Betty was trapped.
“This is gonna take a minute.”
He walked down the hallway and realized immediately that the doors were not solid like they had been before - they were all transparent and flickering, almost as if they were holograms. He approached the first one, holding his breath as he reached for the handle. The door solidified the moment his hand made contact and he let out a relieved breath.
Jughead nervously paced the floor of his living room while Tabitha slept in the other room, berating himself for being so insensitive. He couldn’t believe he’d say something like that right in front of Betty, knowing how much she hated herself for what happened between them.
He didn’t want to hurt her over something that happen when they were kids. He was well passed the petty stage of their break-up, having already come to terms with the fact that he’d played a large role in their demise, as well.
He’d been staring at his phonefor the last few hours, the message that had been left on readmocking him. He had been debating on whether or not to bombard her with texts until she replied or bite the bullet and go over to Archie’s place to apologize in person.
Jughead was jerked out of his thoughts as someone started pounding on his door. What the hell?
Favorite Snippet of Dialogue in which “I love you” occurs (or something like it)
Send in a title of a Fic of mine and I’ll tell you what song it reminds me of (perhaps what it connotes, what the story is named after, what I listened to during the writing of it etc.)
Out of my top three fics with the most kudos, which is my favorite?
Out of the three fics with the lowest kudos, which is my favorite?
If you’ve written any AU’s, which is your favorite?
Betty shook herself from her thoughts and turned her head to the left to see Jughead, bathed in the red and blue lights of the squad cars, approaching her with a furrowed brow. He pulled her into a hug when she didn’t answer, his arms surrounding her in warmth. She let his scent envelop her, calming her scattered thoughts and fully bringing reality back into focus.
“Yeah, just… I don’t… I’m sorry, Juggie…” she whispered, hugging him to her even tighter.
“Hey whoa, Betts,” Jughead lifted her chin so she would meet his eyes, “what could you possibly be sorry for?”
“I don’t know, Jug. I think I’m just frustrated. I don’t want this to be the rest of our lives, you know? Always one step behind them with no clues to go on, constantly looking over our shoulders and being paranoid that someone is watching us. I miss our little boy so much and we’re still no closer to having him back home and–” she choked, tears spilling from her eyes.
“Baby, stop- breathe. I promised you we’d catch them, and we will. We aren’t completely without leads; we just have to hold on a little longer, okay? Can you do that for me, Betts?” Jughead asked, searching her eyes as he caressed her cheek.
“Yeah…” Betty replied. She pressed her forehead to Jughead’s chest, the feel of his hands rubbing her back soothing her. “Yeah, I can do that, Jug. I’m just so exhausted… And between watching Ethel flay Mr. Svenson in living color and the suffocating feeling I’ve had over me these last few years, I just lose my head sometimes, ya know?”
“We all go a little mad sometimes, Betts,” he quoted softly, brushing his hand through her hair.
“Really, Juggie? Hitchcock references at a time like this?” Betty scoffed, pulling back to swat his arm lightly as he chuckled under his breath. He buried his face in her hair and took a deep breath, centering himself.
“You know me, Betts. Pop culture references are how I deal with traumatic events.”
Betty stood off to the side of the porch, shivering as she watched the crime scene techs and federal agents flooding the old farmhouse.
The images of Svenson’s murder were still playing behind her eyelids every time she closed them and she just wanted to get as far from this place as possible, never to see it again.
She honestly hoped someone would just do the world a favor and burn it to ash. Too much misery and horror happened at this place, monstrosities that would stick with her forever.
The whole scene reminded her too much of the day the feds had swarmed her house in Greendale - the one place that was supposed to be her safe haven - because those psychos defiled it.
She let out a staggering breath, closing her eyes tightly and silently praying that this would all be over when she opened them again.
Unfortunately, she knew that was wishful thinking on her part. There was only one way to finish this and she knew she had to be ready to see this through to the end, no matter what. She had lived in fear long enough, running wasn’t going to be an option anymore.
“You okay, Betts?”
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Coming Soon To AO3
Y'all, it only took me a year and three months to get this chapter completed and in the finishing stages but it’s finally almost done and will be posted within the week! I hate that it took so long but I lost my mojo for a bit (getting cancer can do that to you) but I’m glad that the conclusion is finally happening. I hope you guys enjoy it!
Jughead’s head was already pounding as he made his way through the packed club to Betty’s regular section.
After their discussion earlier in the week, Jughead realized just how much the distance between him and Betty was starting to take a toll on both of them. Her suspicions coupled with his guilt caused him to skip his most recent feeding session so he was a bit on edge, which did not help matters much.
He’d even spent the last few days dodging Sweet Pea’s calls, not wanting to deal with his bullshit on top of everything else.
As he sat in his usual spot, Jughead looked around the club that was packed to the gills with humans and vamps, all dressed up for the annual Halloween bash. He tried to get her attention a few times, hoping to find a moment to sneak Betty off to explain his strange behavior but every time he tried, she’d say she had to run drinks and tell him they could talk on her break.
So, he waited, watching her flutter around the room in the naughty nurse’s outfit that all the waitresses seemed to be wearing tonight. The moment he saw her in it, he almost ripped the article off her body and taken her right there in their living room.
He smiled as he watched her walking up to the bar in her bright red heels, chatting with another waitress while waiting for her drinks. He was just about to call her over again when he felt it, a groan escaping his lips.
the show might end but fandom and fic is forever ❤️
To all my fellow bugheads:
I will always love the people whom I have met and bonded with in this fandom.
So, as long as the people demand it, I shall write bughead fics.
And as long as they are written, I shall read, comment, give kudos, and repost other bughead writer’s fics.
Cause let’s be real, in our fandom, our fanfiction writers have shown to be more creative and give us more cohesive stories than the actual writer’s did.
A few hours later, they were sitting for dinner when Joaquin started making idol small talk.
“So, Betty. I didn’t know you were a Serpent. I definitely would remember seeing you around.”
“Oh, I’m not. What would make you say that I am?”
“With that giant snake on your thigh, I just figured that must be the case,“ Joaquin said, taking a bite of his pizza.
“Oh. Right. Nope. Not a Serpent. I woke up on my eighteenth birthday with this giant green monstrosity and I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.”
