Archie couldn’t begin to understand how his night of hanging out with Jug had become slow-dancing with Cheryl Blossom, his head filled with her perfume and the Pussycat’s covering a Boyz II Men song, but the dreadful feeling of not being at all in control of where this night was taking him only seemed to grow with each passing minute. It was like he’d been strapped into a rollercoaster and only now, as he caught a glimpse of Betty’s eyes shooting daggers at him as she slow danced with Dilton Doily (in what he suspected might be an attempt to shut him up) was he beginning to realise that perhaps he might like to get off the ride.
As they rotated slowly, Cheryl’s voice in his ear leading him on another meandering line of conversation about an afterparty at Thornhill, and Archie’s eyeline drifted past the refreshment tables once again it occurred to him that there was no sign of Jughead hovering nearby. His forehead furrowed at the anomaly, his eyes scouring the shadows and corners searching for where Jughead might have disappeared to but it seemed no matter which corner his eyes turned to there was no sign of his brooding friend.
“Archie? Hello, are you in there? It is beyond rude not to pay attention when someone is talking to you—”
His head jerked back to Cheryl, blinking rapidly as he watched Reggie’s hulking shoulders slip hastily through a side door over her shoulder and he shook his head, smiling belatedly as he replied, “Sorry, I just thought I saw—”
A sinking feeling in his stomach that he couldn’t quite explain only seemed to grow as he watched another member of the football team slip hastily through that same side corridor, the nervous voice inside him that demanded he go find where Jughead had gone growing louder and louder with each passing moment until he broke out of the slow swaying, stepping out of the grasp of her arms with an impending sense of doom as he insisted, “I’m sorry, Cheryl — there’s something that I gotta—”
Her protest was lost in the rushing of blood in his ears as he turned on his heel, cutting through the crowd at an uneasy walk that grew faster as he saw another Bulldog slip through that same door with a matter of apparent urgency. The music bubbled in his ears as he weaved through the crowd, reaching the sidedoor as it began to swung closed and pushing his way through it into the hallway beyond.
A smarter boy might have assessed the situation: he might have stopped and looked to find Jughead in the midsts of the chaos of swinging fists and called in a chaperone. He might have even attempted to break up the fight. Archie was not that smarter boy, but he was a brave one.
Without a second thought he threw himself on the broad back of Moose Mason, pulling hard on his suit jacket to drag him away from the body that had ended up prone on the ground amidst the frenzied masses of angry jocks. (Jug always did know how to rile them up.) His roar of, “Get off him!” only seeming to incense them further as amidst a howling of, “Look, your boyfriend’s here to save you, Jones,” and a wildly thrown punch they seemed to acknowledge there was now a new target.
He stumbled through the gap he’d made in their circle and only seemed to realise this was a mistake when he found himself surrounded, standing half over Jughead like a white knight who’d made a grievous error in calculation as he gamely snarled, “Pick on someone who’ll fight back,” as he swung a fist at the first taker and found three more in return. The first hit to the back of the head came like a freight-train, spots dancing behind his eyes as it occurred to him that maybe this wasn’t just another stupid fight, the ringing in his ears came second as another blow bounced off the side of his head and he doubled up as his ribs groaned against another blow. His fists swung back like he was a prize fighter, streaming blood from his lips and indignant fury from his eyes, and not just a teenager trying to protect his best friend.
It didn’t really matter by the time he was on the ground.
(At least they would leave Jughead alone.)
He could hear the crack of bone, the shatter of his fingers beneath the tread of someone’s shoe, the splatter of blood, the ringing in his ears and the whine of his breath between the rhythmic slam of dress shoes and beaten up vans into his body; again and again and again as if they’d lost themselves somewhere in the rhythm too. He thought maybe he could hear a Cyndi Lauper song muffled by the gym doors above the rasping of his own breath, but when a errant boot-tip caught him in the face and his head snapped back against the linoleum, it all went quiet.
Everything happened so fast that Jughead wouldn’t have been sure if time had elapsed between Reggie clobbering him and him hitting the ground if it wasn’t for the additional body next to him. At first he figured that the Bulldogs had finally began to cannibalize themselves in a pure display of peak stupidity until he glimpsed a bright blue bow tie peeking out from under the boy next to him. What were the chances that Jason Blossom and his best friend, Archie Andrews, chose to wear the same thing?
“Archie.” Jughead scrambled over to grab onto Archie’s jacket and roll him over in what was possibly the most idiotic thing he’d ever done but panic had latched onto his dazed state like a wine stain, aggressively spreading and ruining his fabric of calm and sensible solutions. A spill of crimson poured out from Archie’s forehead and pooled onto the concrete, eliciting a gasp from Jughead as his hands flapped uselessly around the wound. Jughead’s mind instantly went to fruit gusher which only made matters worse as his scattered brain fast-forward through the possibilities of how he wound up there to the only conclusion: the Bulldogs.
Incensed, Jughead whipped his head up to find the parking lot empty of Bulldogs and a few cars that had taken up spaces before. Of course they’d leave. Of course they’d do this on the very night that he’d chosen to attend a school function. He should’ve known better to expect them to evolve out of being tired, high school cliches. He should’ve known that he’d somehow ruin everything.
“Archie, Archie, wake up, man.” He shook his friend gently and then harder when he didn’t respond. Hysteria clawed its way into his chest with ruthless ambition to break his ribs and crush his heart at once. Jughead has only attended a handful of gym classes but he could remember Coach Kleats’ voice as clear as day detailing the severity of a head injury. “Archie, wake up. Come on!”
Jughead looked up to find Betty hesitantly lingering in the door way, eyes blown saucer-wide. He didn’t know what his face looked like but whatever it was doing must’ve petrified her.
“Call the ambulance!” His voice cracked miserably in a way it hadn’t since he last found his father face down in his own vomit. Jughead softened his voice when he saw her wince, “Hurry, please. It’s Archie and he’s really hurt.”
