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raymondebidochonlifechoices · 3 years

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A late submission for @riverdalepromptathon: week eleven

>> Sunnyside Trailer Park + waiting

Do It For Riverdale

Cooper can’t come home soon enough, is all Toni can think, as she waits in the Jones’ trailer in the recently re-established Sunnyside Trailer Park, leafing through Betty’s extensive instructions trying to find something that will make Jughead a bit more manageable. He’s currently sitting on the couch, sullenly watching reruns of Driveldale and refusing to talk to her, periodically texting from his phone.

Toni sighs and goes back to the 173-rule book Betty has written for whichever poor soul has to take care of a sick Jughead when she’s out of town for business.

If you ask her, when dealing with Jughead Jones, only three rules are necessary and they’re the exact same ones Billy Peltzer ignored when taking care of Gizmo: no exposure to light, no contact with water, no feeding after midnight. Unfortunately, just like Billy, she has already gone and broken all three rules. It’s the only logical explanation for Jughead turning into a gremlin. She pulled back the curtains this morning to force him out of bed, she insisted he took a shower (because, quite frankly, he stank) and fed him Pop’s after midnight, in the hopes that he’d stop whining if he had his gob stuffed. Forsythe Pendleton III, however, is a master multitasker where food is concerned, so what she got for her troubles was mouthfuls of both complaints and food crumbs.

And, to tell the truth, it’s not as if Jughead’s actually sick. A couple of Tylenols and a good night’s sleep was all it took for him to get over his (very mild) cold but Betty kept harassing her over the phone, and if there’s one thing worse than Jughead Jones throwing a tantrum, that is Betty Cooper getting into a snit. So, Toni acquiesced to babysitting checking in on him for the entirety of the four days Betty was in Pittsburg consulting for the FBI.

Once the Tylenol kicked in on Monday, the first symptoms of Jughead’s Betty Withdrawal Syndrome appeared.

On Tuesday he was full of pent-up energy, spewing theories and working on plots for his third novel, which he explained to Toni. In painstaking detail. Using a murder board. Until the wee hours of the morning.

On Wednesday came stage 2, i.e. irritability and grumbling. Toni had to listen all morning to his diatribe about the FBI taking advantage of Betty and not paying her as much as they should. To be fair, he was probably right on that: Toni has met Glen, Betty’s supervisor, and, honestly, the dude is a complete douche with delusions of grandeur. In the afternoon, she was regaled with a 3-hour-long philippic on how the processing of his mortgage application is delayed because he’s being discriminated as a Southsider. Also probably true, if one considers how fast Archie’s application got accepted despite the fact that Archie has zero income (his separation pay has been frozen for the duration of General Taylor’s trial) and is still paying up the damages caused by accidentally burning down his own house during his annual “Support Riverdale’s Fire Department” Neighbourhood Barbecue. Still, one can listen to Jughead’s rants for so long.

Today is the day of Betty’s return and Jughead has entered the abject misery stage. He’s moody and taciturn, and that would be a welcomed reprieve but for the fact that idleness is not Jughead’s natural state of being and seeing him like this is quite disconcerting even for Toni.

So far, she has tried coaxing him out of his funk with a double malt chocolate milkshake with extra cherries from Pop’s (#17 on Betty’s rule book: “to be divided in two glasses so as to avoid brain freeze”), animal crackers (#23: “always with soda, because he gets thirsty”), the blue-green comforter (#56: “make sure he wears a t-shirt and not a hoodie because he gets too warm”) and Betty’s cable knit blanket (#57: “make sure to cover his shoulders because he gets too cold”) with no success.

He’s currently wrapped in both the comforter and the blanket, not so much a burrito as a mishappen dumpling or fritter. A petulant beignet of discontent? Toni muses. A grouchy pampushka of resignation?

She’s about to try #161 (“blueberry pancakes -cut in small bites, to be served with warm milk with a straw”), when Jughead sits up straight, cocking his head to one side, pretty much like a Pointer that gets its first sniff of truffles. Although Toni can’t hear a thing, she has learnt not to question Bughead’s sixth sense. Crying “Betty!” Jughead leaps up and begins to frantically clean the kitchen table, putting leftovers in Tupperware and empty paper containers in the recycling bin and, then, he opens the fridge to take out a huge bouquet of buttercups. Toni blinks. The sneaky bastard must have got them while she was picking up their order at Pop’s!

It’s at that precise moment that Toni hears the roaring of a car’s engine, quickly followed by the skidding of tires. A door opens and closes and, then, there are feet running on gravel and up the rickety steps of the trailer. The door bangs open to a breathless Betty.

“Juggie!” “Betts!”

The two lovers meet in the middle of the trailer’s living room in a dramatic embrace that puts Rhett and Scarlett to shame. Toni rolls her eyes. They would be cute if they weren’t so insufferable. As if to prove her point, their kiss quickly turns heated, involving more tongue than what Toni’s willing to see. There’s a ripping sound and Toni’s treated to an eyeful of Betty’s tits in her bra, the remains of her shirt hanging loosely from the waistband of her jeans. Betty’s hands are already inside Jughead’s sweatpants, so Toni makes a dash for the door before she gets an eyeful of Jughead’s dick as well.

Outside she’s greeted by the sight of Charles Cooper leaning on Betty’s Camaro tiredly rubbing his face.

“Hey, Charles!” Toni waves going down the few steps. “I didn’t know you were working with Betty on this assignment.”

“Hey, Toni.” Charles greets her back. “Jughead asked me to help.”

“Oh.” That’s strange, she thinks. Jughead’s very vocal about Betty’s sleuthing abilities.

“Well, uhm … not with the case per se …” offers Charles reluctantly. “More like, uhm, keeping an eye on Betty. You know, make sure she eats and rests properly …” He trails off.

“Oh my God!”, Toni realizes, “You are the one Jughead has been texting all day long!”

His grunt is affirmation enough for Toni.

Now that he knows that she knows, Charles is a lot more forthcoming.

“Every fucking half-hour, Toni!” he wails. “I mean who does that?!” Charles runs his hands through his hair. “And then there’s Betty! Do you know what she talked about for the entirety of our drive back to Riverdale?”

Toni has a pretty good idea.

“Jughead!” Charles actually tags at his hair this time. “For six hours! Can you believe it?”

Toni can.

“Did you know that Betty forgets to eat when she’s in research mode?” Charles is on a roll now. “Did you know that if you put food on a plate and give it to her, she’ll nibble on it but won’t eat all of it?”

Toni does.

“Did you know that you have to feed her in portions, to make sure she eats it all? That, apparently -no listen to this!” Toni bites her lips in an attempt to school her face into something resembling rapt attention rather than a case of the giggles.

“Did you know that there is an optimum way to portion her food??!” Charles voice has gone up an octave. He reaches into his back pocket and produces a moleskin notebook and frantically searches for a page –“the optimum number of bites is” -his eyes bulge- “3-3-2-4-1!”

“Oh! You got FUCKED!” Toni crows.

Charles rears back. “I beg your pardon?!”

Toni points to the notebook. “That’s Forsythe’s Unsolicited Companion to Keeping Elizabeth Diverted” she winks. “Aka F.U.C.K.E.D.”

Charles blinks.

“This,” she fishes her own notebook, “is Betty’s Ultimate Micromanaging Manual of Elaborate Rules.” Charles silently mouths the words. “B.U.M.M.E.R.?” he tries. Toni smirks.

“Welcome to the team!” she slaps his shoulder. “I’ll add you to the group chat.”

“There’s a group chat?” Charles’ voice, Toni notices, is now a bit faint. He’s probably tired, poor lad.

“Do you need a lift anywhere?” she offers. “I’m heading back home. Where are you staying?”

“I’m staying with Betty and Jug …“ Charles starts but trails off as increasingly loud moans fill the night. They both turn to look at the trailer, only to see a hand sliding down a foggy window, the Sunnyside version of Titanic’s iconic scene. How does one steam up a whole room? Toni vaguely wonders.

She decides to put Charles out of his misery.

“That’s my bike over there” she says. “Hop on. You can crash at my place and tomorrow morning, while Betty and Jughead are doing the Whyrm’s inventory, we’ll meet at Pop’s with the rest of the gang and we’ll tell you all about the Bughead babysitting system.”

“Betty and Jughead are inventorying the bar tomorrow?” Charles can’t make heads or tails of this night.

“Well, they don’t know it yet”, Toni offers walking towards her bike. “But they’ll be completely mortified for their behaviour tomorrow -they always are- and I’m planning on milking as many favours as I can!”

Charles contemplates her in silence. “Is that why you’re doing this?” He really wants to understand why anybody would repeatedly subject themselves to this madness. “For the favours?”

“Well,” Toni explains, “it’s certainly a perk but no. We do this, because they’re our friends and we care for them.” She gets one leg over the Enduro. “And also, for Riverdale.”

Charles blinks. “For Riverdale” he parrots. It’s not so much a question as a statement signaling complete incomprehension.

“Look, when Jughead and Betty were apart for those 7 years, the Ghoulies went wild with the drug dealing and the township was dissolved. Now everything’s back on track. Jughead exposed Hiram’s illegal mining, Betty blackmailed the governor into reinstating Riverdale, everything’s going well.”

Charles just stares.

“Besides, it’s not as if they really can’t take care of themselves” Toni says. “It’s just that they’re miserable without each other and prone to making bad decisions. We just help avert that.”

Charles still looks unconvinced.

Toni waggles her eyebrows and pats the Enduro’s seat. “For Riverdale!” she says.

The moans from the trailer have grown louder and now separate phrases are discernible. Phrases such as “Harder, Jug!” and “Yeah, that’s how you like it!”

Charles hurries over to Toni’s bike and holds on tight for the short ride to the Topaz-Fogarty-Keller household trying to forget what he just heard.

For Riverdale, he decides.

#riverdalepromptathonweek11 #Bughead fanfiction #by yours truly #for better or for worse Charles is not a serial killer in this one

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nightskyye · 3 years

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Untitled

A/N: This can be read on it's own, or as a part 2 to this fic. They have no connection besides being in the same universe and bughead giving each other notebooks. Post 5x10 btw. For @riverdalepromptathon week 11. Prompts: White, waiting.

The white page stared back at him, blank and never changing. It drew him in, had him sitting by the typewriter for hours upon hours. Jughead remembered when he used laptops, it seemed so long ago. And even though it was easier to send to Sam that way, the ideas came slowly (if at all). They trickled in slower than the time went by, until Jughead felt like ripping his hair to shreds. The files would always be empty, blank and untitled. They would make him stare and stare until he went mad.

He sighed, trudging out of the bunker. Squinting at the sudden exposure of light, he slammed the hatch shut and made his way to Pop’s. Pop’s was a safe haven, it always has been. Because no matter who you were and what you’d done, the Chock 'lit Shoppe was always open. And Jughead had found that all his best ideas came in one of it’s booths, with a burger, a few fries and a milkshake. It’s where The Outcast had been born, it’s where he learnt to write and found his voice.

The bell above the door rang lightly as he stepped into the shop. The air was warm, tinged with the scent of fresh burgers and coffee. He looked around hoping his usual booth was empty. It wasn’t, but he wasn’t particularly disappointed by that fact.

Jughead marched up to the booth, hoping he appeared more confident than he actually was. Betty sat unknowing, lost to the world. He peered over her shoulder, only to find her gruesome case files again. A frown made it’s way to his face as he plopped into the seat opposite her.

He tapped her hand, ‘I thought you were taking a break?’ His words pulled her back to reality, and she blinked at him in confusion.

‘Oh- I was, but I found another lead and-,’ she stopped upon seeing the look on his face. ‘Don’t look at me like that, you haven’t been out of that bunker in three days,’ she scoffed, crossing her arms.

And, yes she was right. But there was a big difference between staying cooped up underground, and repeatedly going over murder cases. Jughead sighed, ‘not that I got anything done.’

Her face softened, ‘writers block?’ Her hands played with his fingers unconsciously, she didn’t notice. But all he wanted to do was lace their hands together, and feel the warmth that radiated from her. He nodded, looking at his shoes, ‘I just keep waiting for the ideas to come, and they never do,’ he rasped.

Betty frowned, her brows curved only slightly. He felt the urge to run a hand along her cheek just so she’d smile.

‘Well, you can’t give up.’

He whipped his head up, that was the last thing he’d expected her to say. To say that his relationship with Betty was confusing at the moment, was an understatement. They were friends, that much he knew. Everything else was just a big blur.

She stood up abruptly, her files splayed across the floor. From the counter Tabitha huffed about scaring away customers. He dropped to the ground helping Betty recover all the files, that other people should be spared from seeing. She hugged them against her chest tightly, and grasped his hand with her other hand. And towed him out of the diner, he followed without a second thought.

Sweetwater River was the same as before, nothing much had changed. Besides the bridge, which had broken down and still hadn’t been fixed. He doubted it ever would. Jughead sat next to Betty by the river bank, swinging his legs back and forth. Her hair seemed ablaze under the setting sun, wisps of hair tickled his face. The sky was painted orange and yellow, it had been quite a while since he last saw a scenic view like this.

Jughead licked his lips finally daring to ask the question that plagued his mind, ‘did you bring me here to watch the sunset?’

Betty smiled, ‘kind of.’ She inhaled deeply, ‘isn’t it pretty?’ Her gaze lingered on him, before turning back to the sun. And even though that’s were her eyes were, she herself seemed faraway.

He didn’t say anything and just nodded, still confused about her intentions. Instead he fixed his gaze on her. This wasn’t the Betty he’d seen just a few weeks ago. She’d been doom and gloom back then, looking like she’d pass out at any moment. She looked better now that Polly had been found and was safe. The bags under her eyes had vanished, and she looked much happier.

‘I know first hand that near death experiences can-’ she paused looking at the sky thoughtfully, ‘suck the joy out of life.’ He turned to her, taking her hand without really thinking it over. She dug through her ivory white bag, and emerged with a blank notebook.

‘Here, write down anything that comes to mind,’ she whispered, ‘don’t think too much about it.’ Betty looked so earnest, so genuine. Her eyes shimmered, as he took the notebook.

Jughead flipped through it, unsure weather it would help. ‘It works trust me,’ she assured him. And he found himself wanting to believe her.

So he did, he believed her like she’d believed that he was alive. And the next time he sat down in front of his laptop, the file was no longer named untitled.

#riverdalepromptathonweek11 #riverdale #bughead #bughead fanfiction #my fanfic

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