The Day the Earth Stood Still - Riverdale, Jughead (m)

[flailingartist]

I have no words...

 

...

 

Just kidding! I have lots of words and even more fangirl noises! 

Okay! 

1. The sneeze.... holy carp! ? The poor dear is still so snuffly. The same time as he is already off balance from the window seat and instantly sneezes. I mentally pictured him having to hop to right himself.

2. He stiiiiiillllll doesn't have any willingness to slow down or actually be sick. And he still won't let Betty worry about him. Stubborn dork.

3. The fact that he had the wherewithal to find a ladder and sneak in with alerting the cooper-troopers (Hal and Alice) even healthy was amazing.

4. The reminder that he knows Betty better than he knows Archie. He was able to figure out what happened to her almost immediately and his deductions were spot on. 

5. In spite of Jughead's best efforts to distract Betty from worrying about his health, she is carefully mentally noting his condition and is borderline biting her tongue in half trying not to make him more uncomfortable.

6. Even though this seems like the end is tied up, in the most beautiful bow ever, I am not above begging on my knees for more. Please if you have more in you, even if they just fall asleep while watching a movie, the amount of gratitude I would feel would probably crush me like the h/c addicted blueberry that I am.

This is a truly amazing story from an equally amazing author and I am so happy you posted it! Thaaaaaaaank yooooooooou! 

[angora48]

Here's Part 8, the end of the story.  Thanks so much for reading/commenting!  I can work on that "deleted" breakfast scene and post it sometime next week.

 

 

He kissed her.

She wasn’t thinking about that yet – no time, not yet – but that’s what happened.  One moment, she was spiraling, and then he was talking, soothing, bringing her down to earth, and then there was that moment.  That silence, that decision, that “now or never,” and he leaned in and he held her face in his hands and he kissed her.

And it was like a jumpstart for her brain.  All of the sudden, for whatever reason, she could think again and there were those words barreling through her head:  the car.  The car where Polly was supposed to meet Jason, proof that their plan to run away together wasn’t just a delusion, proof against the illness their parents said she had.  Find the car, get proof.  Get on the right track.  Show them.  Get Polly out.  Get Polly somewhere safe.

He hadn’t even known about the car.  There hadn’t been time – she hadn’t told him before… God knew what he thought when their lips parted and all she said was, “The car.”  He played it off like a joke, of course (“Wow,” he said, an ironic smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “that’s what you’re thinking about in the middle of our moment?”), because that’s what he did, but there was no telling what he really thought.  No time for that, either.  But he understood – at least, when she finally had time to process all this, she would think that he probably did.  Because the words tumbled out of her as she tried to hurriedly half-explain, and he went with it.  Investigation first; everything else can wait.

And they’d been running ever since.  Tearing off, following the hints Polly had given, finding the car, finding Jason’s jacket and the drugs and the rest of it – even then, when they were standing still, their minds were racing, or at least hers was.  She was aware of him beside her, wiping his runny nose, pulling his jacket more tightly around him as the rain spattered down on them, and somewhere in the back of her head, she found herself wishing for his sake that she’d thought to bring an umbrella.  But those were just snippets, slipping in between the throttling Amtrak of her thoughts.  Polly was right.  Right about everything – god, Mom and Dad, what did you do?  What was Jason involved in?  Who killed him for it?  Where do we go from here?

Then running again, hurrying out to the school, where they could find Sheriff Keller, so they could show him, so they could prove what they knew.  She felt him lagging behind her a little as they were nearing the school, starting to cough, and it interrupted the rush of her thoughts just enough to slow her up.  “Are you-?” she started.  “Doh, I’be good,” he replied, coughing hard into the back of his hand, panting to catch his breath.  He sniffled.  “Let’s go.”

At school, in the hallway, both of them dripping rain on the tile floor, showing Sheriff Keller the pictures.  And the sheriff couldn’t not believe them because they had proof – for the first time in this whole thing, no one could say they were just teenagers getting ahead of themselves, overactive imaginations sticking their noses into something they didn’t understand.  Sheriff Keller would be out there by now, combing the crime scene with another officer.  It would lead to something, it just had to.

And in between, that moment in the school, on their way out, when she caught the sound of Archie’s voice on the loudspeakers.  And somewhere, in amidst the jumble of everything else that was happening, it struck her:  she’d forgotten about the variety show.  Not too long ago, Archie Andrews having stage fright would’ve been the defining crisis of her day and she would’ve bent over backwards to do whatever she could to help.  But now?  It had floated by, and she’d barely noticed.  And it was sad, kind of.  Not regretful, no lovelorn, thank god, but just… it was like, for a second, she was suddenly above herself, looking down, seeing where she was compared to where she’d been, and she discovered she hadn’t even realized where she going.  And it was a sort of goodbye, a farewell to that part of her that she hadn’t known she was leaving behind her.

But she still wasn’t thinking about the kiss yet.  Not about what it meant, how long he’d been thinking about doing it, if he’d been thinking about doing it, how she felt about it, what she wanted to do about it, what would happen to them going forward.  There was no time to think about how, either way, the friendship that she’d been surviving on in recent weeks was on the line.  She certainly wasn’t thinking about what her mother would say about “that family” or “Southside trash,” or any of it.  She wasn’t even thinking about that fact that he had a cold and they’d just exchanged saliva (although really, after spending the night together in that motel, the ship had probably already sailed on that front.)

She wasn’t thinking about any of that.  Everything else was still rushing by too fast – even when they were on the last bus out of Riverdale, heading back towards Ellerwood, and he nodded off, his breaths slow and congested as he slept with his forehead resting against the window, she still didn’t think about it.   Her head was jammed with thoughts of Polly, getting back to the convent, getting Polly out, the nuns could do what they liked – call her mother – she didn’t care, as long as Polly was out.  The whole ride, her mind was whirring through the steps, what they had to do, what their next plan of action would be.  They wouldn’t wait until morning, she knew that much; she wasn’t leaving Polly there one night longer.  Then what?  The motel again, she supposed.  They wouldn’t be able to get back to Riverdale until the next day, and he was going to need somewhere dry with a bed or he was gonna get pneumonia.  Motel, then plan of attack, all three of them, on their way back to Riverdale in the morning.

So no, she wasn’t thinking about the kiss.  Something like that needed time, proper attention she couldn’t give it right now.  But she would.  Later, when there was time to breathe, she would think about all it.

Right now, all she knew was that, as they kept running (away from the bus station now, along the side of the dark road, down to where the convent was waiting for them,) she was holding his hand.  She wasn’t sure who’d reached for whose first, or even when it had happened.  All she knew was, she wasn’t letting go.

[CPG]

Ahhhhh!!!!!! That was such a fantastic ending, even though of course I'm sad it's over. Thank you so much for writing that, I loved every single second of it, and there will definitely be rereads in my future. Can't wait for the deleted scene and I hope to see other stories from you some day!

[angora48]

It took me longer than I expected to finish the breakfast scene, but I finally had time to get it written.  I posted it in its own thread, here, so this one just sticks with the story as-is.  Plus, if I ever find any other Riverdale one-shots rattling around in my brain, I can post them in that thread, too.

[rockbell]

I realize I'm a bit late but I just binged all of Riverdale in the past month and I just love love LOVE this fic!!

[Seeker]

Me, too! It was fantastic