#jugheadthings

[caughtinfire-blog1]

Back to school

Starter for @smallestjones.

Even though he had known this was going to happen for weeks before she showed up on the doorstep, nothing could have prepared Jughead for having Jellybean back in Riverdale. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other for more than a day or so—five years, in fact—and now, suddenly, she was back in his hometown, suitcase in hand, fifteen years old and starting at his high school the next morning.

Given the last few months had been filled with murder and scandal, Jughead was glad that that was all water under the bridge...at least for now, in time for his sister’s arrival. He’d spent the better part of the days before she got to the trailer cleaning it from top to bottom. His dad had installed a screen that partitioned part of the living area off and he and Jughead had wedged a twin bed and lamp in so that Jellybean could have one of the two bedrooms to herself. He’d gone to the high school and picked up her schedule, scraped together to buy a new helmet that would fit her, and cleared out space in the wardrobe for her things.

And now she was here. Jughead couldn’t help but be amazed at how old she seemed; for some reason, she was perpetually ten years old in his head. She talked about Toledo and her life there in the same way as the girls in his class and suddenly, Jughead realized that he was going to have a whole different kind of thing to have to protect her from. That night, after dinner, he finished the dishes and knocked on the door to what had once been his bedroom, deciding that the night before the first day of school was as good a time as any to have a talk with his baby sister.

[caughtinfire-blog1]

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. 

Wake up and look out your window.