Chapter Text
Save our Souls.
It’s the tightening of his jaw and the dry, jagged feeling of his teeth grinding together that bring him back down from the cloud-of-smoke haze he had been living in. His eyes that had been weighing so heavy seem to shoot open and he can almost feel his pupils dilating; as if clicking into place. As if he could hear the changes. He reminds himself that he’s acutely aware of everything these days, noises are more static, lights are more glaring. Everything is just a little more now that she’s not here.
He lays flat on his back, watching dust form in sun streaks through the curtains. Jughead rubs his eyes that seem to have no feeling and he is certain his soul has no feeling as he thinks in short, sharp memories. Sugary blonde. Vanilla kisses.
Soft touches, smiles on lips.
Betty .
He punches the bed, he screws his fists, it drives itself into the bed without any reaction. It’s better this way. Often, his walls can’t take it.
He groans out loud and mentally swears at the stained ceiling.
“I hate you,” he whispers to the void.
“ I tried to love you ,” he says in his mind.
Jughead picks up his phone and looks at it with one eye shut, the light from the screen tearing his other retina apart. Two messages from Sweetpea, some shit about getting his ass back to the Whyte Wyrm before he kills him. Another from Toni, something about missing Jughead and needing to get burgers. None from Betty.
None from Betty.
Jughead laughs humorlessly, wondering what the hell would make him think Betty would message him anyway.
“Seven months,” he says as he throws the thin blanket off his body, the same one that he hasn’t even bothered to put a cover on, placing bare feet on the cold floor.
Seven months, he counts as he walks out of the bedroom. Seven months since his heart turned into cold, grey concrete and his fist drove itself into the wall four times, his knuckles cracked in three different places, his mind split into pieces of which most of it drove away to California and the sun. He did everything in that moment that she hated. Everything he hated in himself came out the moment she left. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe he’s supposed to be better this way, use this time as a coping mechanism but he knows in himself, he’s not coping with anything.
Seven months since he had heard her voice, but he sniggers again.
It may have been seven months, but her voice in his mind is still as clear as it had been seven months ago.
He thinks of the specifics, he likes to remember the exact moment in which his life fell apart.
“I just can’t do this anymore,” she had said as she left him standing on the steps of the trailer.
Jughead smiles to himself as he searches for his menthols. “Yeah,” he agrees out loud. “I can’t either.”
Sometimes the coffee isn’t strong enough when he feels this way.
He was supposed to feel more when she left. Instead, he dripped with secrets. After all, his life was a lie anyway.
Sweetpea slams his fist on the table in front of Jughead and Jughead hides a flinch. Sweetpea was always loud, bold movements and scare tactics that makes Jughead roll his eyes and turn away from the sole person he could probably trust these days. It makes him feel somewhat sick and a whole lot of pathetic. Jughead shoves thoughts of his oldest friend to the back of his mind, he makes a mental note that he should probably call Archie, but what would he have to say when Archie was making a name for himself and all Jughead has is the tainted name of Southside on his shoulders.
“I don’t want to get all deep on you -” Sweetpea starts.
“Then don’t.”
Sweetpea groans and throws a punch at Jughead’s shoulder. “I’m not supposed to be running this shit, it’s supposed to be you ,” Sweetpea says seriously. “Or I’ll have to get Toni on your ass and you know how that goes…”
“Ah,” Jughead says with a wink. “Castration seems to be her flavour of choice these days…”
Sweetpea shudders. “My balls will never be the same.”
Jughead sips at a cherry cola; Cheryl’s Special. “I’m good,” he shrugs but the look on Sweetpea’s face tells him loud and clear that his lies aren’t well received. “Honestly.”
“Well,” Sweetpea replies, stealing Jughead’s same cherry cola. “Honesty is the best policy and all of that dumb shit.”
“I thought we weren’t getting deep…”
Sweetpea grins, showing all of his teeth. “Need my main man back -”
“Not sure how Fangs is going to feel knowing you just shoved him to bottom of the pecking order.”
“You got your snark back, I like that,” Sweetpea chuckles. “So, you’re going to stop being all emo and come back to us?”
Jughead thinks it over, he looks at the smoky room, the smell of spilt beer and joints so ingrained in the walls,he wonders just how many secrets would spill if these walls could talk. “Maybe,” he shrugs.
Sweetpea carries on, words pouring out onto the table in front of them, hands flying, some shit fight story about how much Cheryl pisses him off and how Toni almost beat him into a pulp. At some point, Cheryl catches Jughead’s eye and bites her matching cherry red lip that sends a jolt through Jughead’s spine and pools saliva on his tongue.
Ain’t nothing better than regrets and the opportunity to forget , he thinks. He can smell her skin on him already...
Sweetpea stops and the pause in his non-stop verbal offload catches Jughead’s attention; clicking heels seem like booming clunks when the noise is so familiar to Jughead. “Juggie!” says Veronica. “Come back to the pit to play, huh?”
Veronica’s lips are dark and moving in slow motion as Jughead reaches for his menthols. He gives her a curt nod and a lopsided attempt at a smile as he flicks the lighter and watches the burning red at the tip of his cigarette, he inhales deeply while he watches mauve nails dance up Sweetpea’s arm. “Ronnie.”
She gives him a smile that has him spiralling. Familiar , he thinks. The feeling of familiar gets stuck in his throat. He can taste the familiar on his tongue, and the softness of it’s skin. The filthy, rotting secrets that he and familiar shared on the floor on his trailer or how she called his name as she rode him. Familiar whispered so many promises in his ear over the years and when Betty left, he couldn’t help but think it was because what was familiar to him, well, familiar stole his entire heart and he faked the rest to the blonde haired girl.
Veronica’s eyes are blank, but Jughead’s feel deep and heavy with hands that wanted to reach out to what feels familiar...
Sweetpea continues on his long winded spiels but Jughead watches Veronica tap rhythmically on the table in front of them. It was something that she had done since they were fifteen yet twenty one proves that mostly, they are still the same.
Well , he thinks, some of us .
Some people change, some don’t. Some people are all for personal growth and some people can’t even see the beginning of change.
“Don’t you keep being a stranger,” Sweetpea orders. “We miss you around here and we need you too.”
Jughead’s automatic answers seem to convince Sweetpea and so he lets Jughead go.
Cheryl locks eyes with Jughead and he can taste the venom pooling in the back of his throat already.
He walks outside, swinging the keys to his bike around his finger but hears the door of the Whyte Wyrm slam behind him. “Hey, you!” Veronica calls out.
Jughead groans loudly and turns to look at her. “Princess,” he drawls.
Her scowl makes him smile but she runs up to him anyway. “You’re quiet today,” she says, looking up at him and asking a million questions with her stare. “But you came out of your snake pit, nice to know.”
“You’re full of these snake puns? Learning a lot with Sweetpea, huh?”
She doesn’t like it, she slaps a hand on Jughead’s chest and gives him a shove that doesn’t move him. “I miss you,” she murmurs.
Jughead feels a lump in his throat. How was he supposed to explain to Veronica that she reminds him too much of his best friend who’s not around for him anymore or Betty who left without a second thought. Or the fact that before she decided to dedicate her life to Sweetpea. Jughead had unloaded his entire life onto her one night and then fucked her on the floor of the trailer and though she’s brushed it off as nothing but some sort of weird way of comforting each other, to him, it was a whole lot more than that.
He misses her too. He misses the stolen glances at sixteen, the skin tearing kisses at seventeen, the countless promises that they’d be together at eighteen. The arguments that they were too far gone to be together at nineteen. The constant ‘I-love-you’s’ scattered through the years in dark corners. “Yeah,” he snickers. “Like a bullet to the brain.”
“Give yourself a little more credit, Jug,” she says with a wink. “Don’t be a stranger, Sweetpea was right… or at least, don’t be a stranger to me.”
He stares at her with a desperation. She was so close, he could feel the heat of her skin and the sound ringing in his ears, he was sure was the beating of her heart. He believes she’s reading him too because her eyes darken as she bites her lip. “Do you feel it too?”
Veronica doesn’t answer, but he knows she doesn’t have to. He doesn’t wait. Jughead pats her on the back and starts up the bike. The one person he wants to be a stranger to right now would be her. But she’s the one thing he has left from before he felt like this.
Lost.
The thing that Jughead loves about Cheryl is that she’s smooth and also, she doesn’t want anything from him.
She tastes like cherry cola and her lipstick is sweeter than anything he’s tasted before. When her lips dance on his skin, he feels invincible. “Are you going to keep staring at me? Or are you going to do something about this?” she asks, rubbing her hand on his hardened crotch.
He knows she likes the way his hand sounds against her ass, so he slaps it, over and over and jiggles it a bit, making her smile against his collarbone, that in itself makes him grip harder and need her a little more than before.
He makes a noise that makes his cheeks flush and it makes her snigger with a look in her eye that proves that she’s just as desperate as he is. He has no shame about it; Cheryl has an ass that makes him want to leave marks on it.
She undoes his belt buckle quickly and her lips fall open a little that gives off the air of hunger. She pulls down his jeans while he’s still standing and runs her teeth over his dick with his boxers still on. He bucks a against her mouth without intention.
Jughead loves the fact that Cheryl wears a shit load of lace. The red lace that runs between her thighs and the bralette that frames her tits so well looks good when Cheryl is on her knees. But Jughead now has a hunger of his own and memories that need drowning so he pulls down his boxers himself with an urgency that makes Cheryl grin against Jughead’s thigh. He pulls himself out. Cheryl takes him all in.
The thing with Cheryl is that she doesn’t like kissing. Jughead’s mouth is all over her body but she turns away from most kisses that makes him both frustrated and slam into her harder. His mouth is all over her shoulders as he slips into her from the back and her long, red hair looks so good wrapped around his fist….
He holds onto both sides of her ass as he cums, shaking, nails digging into her and his head thrown back so hard, he’s almost blinded and just about lost every trace of his bad thoughts in her. She keeps grinding back on him to the point where he has to push away from her. “Thank you,” she murmurs as she lays with lace around her ankles and a ripped bra on that she starts ripping all the way off. He watches her fingers as they dance across her chest and it’s enough to make him want to go again, but at the same time, he likes laying in almost-forgotten bliss and ignorance with Cheryl Blossom in his arms and the poisonous, strawberry scent of her hair burning in his nose.
“How long can I stay for?” he asks.
Cheryl’s look of shock amuses him. “How long are you planning on staying?” she asks. “I don’t want people knowing you’re here.”
“I don’t want people to know I’m here, don’t worry,” he chuckles.
She flutters fingers along his abdomen. “Then what the hell are you asking me, Jones?”
He sighs. If only he could tell her that he just doesn’t want to go home. “Nothing,” he says, ghosting his own fingers on her skin.
Maybe he’d hit up Toni. Maybe it’s a movie and burgers kind of night instead. He feels proud of himself, he’s managed to shove memories to the back. Even if only for one day.
Cheryl’s body feels so good when he’s trying to forget. The worst part was that it was so obvious in the way that Cheryl plays with his hair and runs her lips on his chest that she was trying to forget something too… Jughead was used to the feeling, but he wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. So he pulls her closer, runs his fingers in the band of her panties and lets her talk with cherry cola in her mouth. He appreciates her more than he’d ever be able to tell her. "I miss you," from Veronica echoes through his head as Cheryl distracts him. He misses himself. He misses Veronica. "I miss you," she repeats in his mind. They both just miss what could have been and what isn't anymore.
Veronica stands in front of him as he lays on the bed. “Get up,” orders. “Sweetpea wants you… god you make me sick, when was the last time you slept in a made bed?” she asks, pulling at the blanket. “The last time I came and made it for you?
Jughead ignores the order. Veronica Lodge standing in his filthy trailer in Louboutins wasn’t something that happened often anymore but he was going to enjoy it while it lasted. The shoes alone would probably cost more than everything in the trailer, of that, he was sure.
Jughead’s mind was a smoke induced high, wispy and scattered. But she was very much real, in his zone, in his space and it made him feel level for the first time in a long time. Her eyes flick from Jughead in his boxers to the ashtray on the bedside table that she was obviously disgusted by and that gave him some satisfaction. “I’ll be there when I’m ready,” he tells her.
Veronica scoffs and reaches down to the bed, grabbing at his ankle and tugging. “I’ve been sent as an order and now, I am ordering you to get your lazy ass out of bed and come with me.”
Jughead rubs his eyes and tries to wish her out of the trailer but he rolls over anyway and gets out of the bed, stretching out his limbs, still wishing her away, “Tell Sweetpea I’m busy.”
“As if he’d believe that,” she starts. “I want you to come too.”
“Why?”
“I miss your company,” Veronica shrugs.
Jughead rolls his eyes. “You miss it in theory, but only when associated with Archie.”
“We’ve had good times without Archie,” she says slowly.
Jughead can’t think about that. Or the way she made him feel. This is what happens when I’m weak, he thinks. When I have no self control.
Jughead tries to keep the voice at the back of his head that reminds him that his lack of self control towards Veronica has been haunting him since he was sixteen.
He walks past Veronica who just continues to click after him as he goes into the kitchen, flicking on the jug for a strong coffee. “Coffee?” he asks.
“Fuck the formalities, Jughead…” she replies sighing. “You can’t just keep living in this trailer, for starters, it’s messy -”
“An organised mess -”
“Don’t lie,” she says in a breath. “And it’s not good for you…” she says a little more quietly.
Jughead’s jaw tenses and can barely manage a swallow. He closes his eyes for only a split second before saying; “What’s not good for me?”
“Trust me,” Veronica says, trying to meet his eyes but he avoids them only after noticing the serious look in them. “At some point, everyone must move on.”
He turns on the balls of his feet and leans back on the kitchen counter. The jug had stopped boiling already and the steam rises and gives Jughead something to concentrate on. “I’m trying.”
“Betty left you, Jughead,” Veronica says with a face that shows nothing. Nothing. Nothing but the deep purple on her lips is apparent. Jughead wonders where her soul is; it isn’t there, not in the way she spits out Betty’s name as though it’s nothing, or lays the truth out in front of them both. She left me, he thinks. She’s not coming back. But he knows that deep down in the pit of it, Betty left because of his secrets and that secret stands before him now. But Veronica never came back either.
He stands in front of Veronica. Bare chested, exposed, and a hell of a lot of vulnerable. He hates it. He wonders if he hates Veronica. But he knows he doesn’t, she laid out the truth. The same one she was so obviously capable of accepting. “You don’t know how it feels, Princess,” he spits, “To lose things. Veronica Lodge always gets what she wants, right?” he tries to dull down the malice in his words.
He wants to hurt her for hurting him.
Veronica rolls her eyes and shrugs off her jacket, the one she was so lovingly offered by Sweetpea. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose things?”
Jughead can feel the heat building in his cheeks, and the all too familiar twitch in his fists. “I-”
“Don’t you want to know how I felt when Archie left me? Or do you think you’re the only person on earth who’s loved someone just to have them walk out? Because if you do, sweetie, you have another thing coming.”
“Veronica -”
“No!” she snaps, cutting him off. He jerks back a step with her words. “Feels like your world is falling down around you, right?” she says, walking closer to Jughead. He can smell shifting jasmine and leather approaching him, the way her eyes widen make her seem a whole lot more fiery and less of her sweet-kind-of-coy that she wears often. “High School Sweethearts seems pathetic, doesn’t it? When you’re sixteen and can’t see past the bad end of twenty. How can someone who promised you love just leave, right?”
Jughead feels his words sitting on the back of his tongue. He hates that she has a point, but how can he hate her when she’s put it into words. She took them out of his mouth, she’s thrown them right back at him. “Right,” he announces.
“Right?” she says with a laugh that hurts him in every way possible. “I’m always right.”
Jughead puts on an amused smile and tries to get rid of the stinging in his eyes. But he sees past his own building tears to the ones that are in Veronica’s eyes, bursting, streaming and smudging perfectly placed mascara. “Veronica,” he says, weakly lifting his right arm that doesn’t seem to want to move. “Are you okay?” he asks.
She sniffs loudly as Jughead places a hand on her shoulder. “I always have to be okay, Jughead. But he left and you left me too, you know? And how the hell could you have done that to me?”
“What about Sweetpea?” Jughead says, searching for words, scrambling at anything that he could say to stop this. But Veronica leans into his touch and places her forehead on his chest. “I didn’t leave, it just wasn’t right.”
His mind flickers as he finally speaks his mind. Betty and Archie were gone, but they still couldn’t be together. Riverdale made sure to let the guilt and deceit creep into their love.
He awkwardly places his chin on Veronica’s head, holding her close. This felt a lot safer than he initially thought it would. It was like he was holding onto something that was slightly more home than he was used to. The smell was not as strong as he thought it would be, it didn’t sting his nostrils and make him move away like Cheryl did. She felt like that familiarity that he had been longing for. Maybe it was some weird connection to Archie, he missed his best friend. Maybe it was the memory of Veronica and Betty sharing shakes and laughing in the middle of summer that drew him closer. He pulls on Veronica’s jacket, bringing her in close and he can feel the warmth of her breath on his chest as she sobs. He lets her shudder. Lets her tears seep on to his chest, run down him. He holds on. He needs this too.
He needs to feel something again.
Veronica’s nails drag on his skin a little as she cries. Jughead knows that she hasn’t been able to do this, let loose, cry; get it out. Be herself. He knows it in his heart, in his soul, in the back of his mind. He knows because he hasn’t been able to either. “Sometimes it’s just so fucked up how Archie just left… I tried to be with someone who was good for me but I just couldn’t... I did that to him, you know?” she whispers. “Archie wasn’t supposed to be like that, you know that, Jug. You know him better than anyone.”
Jughead closes his eyes as he lets Veronica’s words linger in the air a little longer. “Maybe you and I are just a little too dark, Princess,” Jughead adds. “We’re the kind that are a little too hard to love…”
She laughs against him and he laughs back, pushing her away a little to look at her. He lifts his hands and rubs black from her bottom eyelids. He feels it; the way she’s exposed, the way her cheeks instantly harden as he touched her face. She doesn’t spill tears. He can tell. Because he face is hard and her back is straight again. “We’re fucked up, is that what you’re trying to say?” she says with a small smile.
Jughead frowns, standing in front of her. “Kind of,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to act in front of me though,” he tells her seriously. “We’ve known each other almost ten years, Ronnie. If you want to cry, cry.”
She shakes her head, is barely noticeable, but it’s there. “How is the man who’s going through a mental break down telling me I’m allowed to cry?”
“Well, we all have souls and that, right?”
Veronica’s face falters. “Souls? I don’t think so,” she mutters. “If we were just a little bit more good, if we were just a little less broken, if we were a little easier to love, they wouldn’t have left us.”
Jughead mulls over her words, so many points, so much hurt. She’s small in front of him when she speaks in such volumes that her words grind on his skin. “But the good like to fix things, isn’t that their biggest quality?”
Veronica smiles gently before placing a hand on his chest, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “You need a soul to fix. No use if we have no soul…”
“Do you ever think maybe, if we didn’t…” he stumbles on words. “If we didn’t…”
“Fall in love?”
The static in the room shifts as his throat chokes a little and his fingers flinch. Every barrier and cross roads that they stand at was because of the love they never speak of. “Betty knew, Archie could tell. Why did it never work? Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if we just… if we went for it.”
Veronica turns to walk away. “We’re too much the same. We both needed someone different.”
Jughead stands in the kitchen as Veronica opens the trailer door and steps out. “Hey!” he calls out before thinking, cursing himself internally. “Maybe we just need someone to save our souls…”
Veronica throws a hand in the air as she starts down the steps. “We’ll get there, Jughead.”
Jughead watches her as she walks along the dirt, lingering jasmine still in the air. “Wait for me!
She stops, confusion etched on her face. “For what?”
“I’m coming!” he reaches for a pair of jeans and flannel on the kitchen table before throwing Southside on his shoulders. His thoughts were racing, but if he has to cling on tightly to the one person he might have left, he was going to do it.
Veronica throws her car keys in the air before catching them. “You’re coming? What happened to brooding in your damp trailer?” she teases.
Jughead lightly shoves her shoulder before putting a joint between his lips. “Save our souls…” he shrugs. “Maybe you’ve talked a bit of healing into me, Princess,” he says with a wink.
“Well then, Prince of Southside, what shall we do?” she asks. “Where should we go?”
He jumps in the passengers side of Veronica’s car. “Anywhere,” he says quickly. “Anywhere with you.”
He said they had known each other almost ten years. He knows this isn’t true. Jughead’s soul had known Veronica’s over lifetimes.
Jughead grinds a cigarette butt into the ashtray at the exact same time as Toni does. He grinds his teeth, she rolls her eyes. "Stop staring," she whispers to him nowhere near his ear. "You're making it obvious."
Jughead nudges his best friend's shoulder and grits his teeth, Toni's obvious and obnoxious satisfaction in Jughead's discomfort fuelling her, he knows Toni too well. "I'm not staring," he says slowly, groaning at his own child-like attitude. "I just know she doesn't..." he trails off.
"Doesn't what?" Toni asks, raising an eyebrow. "Doesn't like the Whyte Wyrm?" she teases, "Because it sure looks like she's having a good time... she looks hot in black, don't you agree?"
Jughead's jaw tenses as he watches Veronica place a hand on Sweetpea's and the way she throws her head back when Fangs speaks while leaning on a pool cue. Jughead swigs back his cheap bourbon and grimaces as he hands it back to Toni. She smiles at him and drinks the last of his drink. "I haven't noticed," he grumbles back to his best friend.
Toni chuckles and tip toes to try and ruffle Jughead's hair. "If you haven't noticed then why do you keep staring at her?"
He leans on the counter, putting his head in his hands and closes his eyes. "Because she's Veronica Lodge," he replies. "It's a cardinal sin to not pay attention to her, you know that."
"Keep torturing yourself," Toni says with a shrug of her shoulders. "You seem to be good at it."
Jughead groans into his hands as he listens to Veronica's laugh rise above the music. Yeah , he thinks. I'm fucking amazing at it.
He's laying in bed when she calls him. He wants to throw his phone at the door and she'd be able to hear it hit wood on the other end. But his blood is pulsing and his veins are contracting and his hand is glued to the phone he wants to launch across the room. He answers it.
"Why did you leave?" she asks a little breathlessly. The only thing keeping the anger from his pulse is the cocky feeling he gets from Veronica's annoyance in him. "You didn't tell me you were going."
Jughead smirks in the dark and the light from his phone is bright, his eyes are screwed shut. "Didn't realise you'd be so upset -"
"-I'm not upset -"
"You sound it."
She sighs with frustration and it makes the phone crackle. "I wanted to see you."
Jughead pinpoints frustration in her tone and it makes his chest tighten. "And I you, but we can’t keep doing this, can we?" he asks her, drawing out his words. Listening for any sign from her end of the phone.
He can hear the bed creak, her breath stop. The soft sounds of her lips moving and he knows they're wet, full. Fucking perfect. "I know..." she murmurs.
He sniggers. "You want to kill me, Princess?" he repeats.
He shifts on his bed, his breathing becoming heavier just from the sheer fact that she was on the other end. And he would be lying if he didn't get some sort of satisfaction out of knowing that she was just as fucked up and kind of desperate as he is. "Badly," she whispers, "I'm wearing lace, you like lace..." she says and he can almost hear the lace ripping and her nails snagging while she parts it.
Jughead can't take a proper breath, his chest is heaving and it's caving in. He wonders just how far she'd go to be the one to make his veins contract again. He can almost taste her on his tongue as he imagines her legs spreading... "I want you here with me," he begs her. "Fuck, I want you here with me..."
His free fist clenches as he buries his head back into the pillow, he can feel that frustration perfectly in the right hand side of his jaw where it's throbbing and making his temples feel like they're going to fucking burst. "I want you here, too, Jug," Veronica murmurs in his ear. "I want you in me," she drips. "I'm running my hand down my body..."
Jughead's airways catch and his trachea closes in. His jaw is about to shatter as he starts to palm himself over his boxershorts. "Don't torture me, V," he says softly. "Please don't..."
He hears her chuckle lightly on the other side, making his annoyance grow because how the fuck can she be light hearted laughs when the roof was falling in on him? She whimpers and he can feel her licking her lips. "I'm wet for you," she tells him.
His teeth make an ugly sound through the phone. "When can I see you?" he asks her, wanting an exact day, time and location. Not wanting to wait anymore. "So I don't have to just listen to that pretty mouth over the phone."
Her breathing is cut off and there's a rustle in the background. "I'll let you know," she says clearly.
He can hear Sweetpea's steps loud and clear, even from all the way over there.
He comes strongly. His hand balances him against the shower door. He feels cheap. He feels mad. He came over Cheryl's ass as he was gripping onto one side of it with his left had, digging his nails into her flesh. He smacked the right side red as water ran down her. She doesn't like kissing, which is just as well, because when he got too close to Cheryl, sometimes he could see something in her that he didn't want to. She leaves him in the shower somewhere between her spit, the smell of roses and that sick feeling he has in his guts.
Jughead lets the water cleanse him, it runs over and stings his eyes. He gets out, but the cool air on his skin hurts more than the hot water or the way Cheryl's nails dug into his shoulder tips.
The text message from Veronica says; " baby, I miss you."
His jeans feel weird on his wet body, his shirt clings to his torso. He hates the feeling he gets when he's not with Veronica. But that's what we signed up for, isn't it? He thinks, when she decided that a life with Sweetpea would be a better one than with me. Suddenly the guilt of Cheryl's swollen lips around him didn't make him feel as fucking bad.
Jughead and Toni are laying in her bed, watching shitty movies and eating crappy food. She shoves a burger in his face and he takes a bite. "At least you're eating," she sings. Her voice is too bright, too light and it makes him shudder.
"Why do you say that?" he asks.
Toni sighs. "You've not been yourself."
He knows this, but he doesn't know what to say. He shrugs it off, grabbing fries from in between them. "I've been good," he tells her. "Don't worry about it."
Jughead can tell that Toni's not convinced. But he knows her well enough to know that she won't press it. So they keep eating in ignorant bliss and Jughead's almost scratching at his fucking skin. Three more days. That's all he has to wait out. Three days until he can see her. Three days until he can taste her.
Three days until he'll be buried so deep in Veronica, he won't know where she starts and he ends.
Three days until he can remind himself exactly what he's missing out on. He'll torture himself because he's fucking amazing at it.
There wasn't much to say when Veronica arrived. Jughead hates that nowadays, everything is a little strained and awkward. And he hates the fact that every single little look that Veronica gives him, he tries to find a second meaning behind them. Sometimes he thinks he can see sorrow, but then he deciphers it to simply mean that maybe she pities him. She left him after all. He forces himself to never forget that.
It's like his hands fit perfectly in the dips of her hips. His thumbs grate along the band of her jeans and when she's on her tip toes, she's kind of the perfect height. He doesn't hesitate when he gets to the buttons of her jeans and he rips them open in one movement, his cocky smirk lays roughly on her mouth. He puts his index fingers inside her jeans, hooking them onto the lace of her panties and he kisses down her jaw, along her shoulder and back, leaving his tongue sitting on the thin skin of her neck. She smiles sweetly, sucks in air through her teeth and rubs her hand up and down the bulge in Jughead's on jeans making him moan. The light conversation about Veronica's parents they had over coffee exits the room. Jughead can feel that the only thing left is the fact that she had decided that being together was too hard and this was supposed to end months ago but it didn’t. And that fact is heavy and thick on them right now.
Jughead has little-to-no self preservation at this stage, when he should leave her, he finds it hard when his fingers are dancing on the gap of skin under her crop, brushing his thumb back and forth on her skin, so she closes her eyes and he kisses the lids shut. But his teeth are starving and he bites down on her neck.
"Hey!" Veronica says, whacking Jughead's chest, pushing him away but it's almost dirty lies, her weak battle. Because she turns around, unbuttons her jeans and pushes her ass into Jughead.
His whole hands journey up Veronica's back, under her crop, skin on the edges of his cuticles snagging on the lace of her bra. He moans out loud as he unsnaps her bra, lifts it over her head, "Fuck, Princess," he murmurs in her ear, words dripping black on her neck. "Do you know what you do to me?"
Jughead closes his eyes against the back of her neck as he takes both of her hands in his, slamming them against the dirty wall that has Southside painted on it but Jughead ignores it as his cock strains against his denim and he can't take a life saving breath anyways. He slams his hips into her bare ass, he kisses his way past the dip in the small of Veronica's back, slips his tongue into her soft folds as he gets further, each crook of Veronica's knees and ankles before lifting her feet, taking off her jeans and panties and feeling completely fucking starved.
She tries to turn around again but he grabs her neck, pushes her flush against the wall and kicks her feet gently, keeping her wide, watching her back move as she breathes against the wall. "I missed you," she hisses with a passion that he can only match.
"Keep open, baby," he commands, his fingers run down her back again, he hears Veronica suck in sharp air through her teeth as his fingers slip in from behind, slapping his palm against her ass. Her eyes screw shut, her mouth falls open but he steadies her with his left hand on her shoulder, pushing her against the wall again. "Do you like that?"
Veronica groans and pushes her ass back onto his hand, making her pussy pull his hands deeper. "Fuck."
Jughead slams her again, his fingers digging into Veronica's collarbone. "I want an answer, baby."
"Yes!" she whimpers, rolling her body onto his hand, "Harder, Jughead, fuck..."
Saliva pools on Jughead's tongue, venom builds in his jaw. His hand feels like it's building cramp when he watches Veronica ride his hand, fingers dripping and her nails scratching old paint off the mantle of the window of the trailer. She bounces harder on his hand but he groans out loud, discomfort in his denim and he lets her go, shrugging the snake off his back and unbuckling his jeans. They all drop to the floor behind him and Veronica pushes back on him, dripping, desperate and weak.
He grabs back onto her shoulder and Veronica looks back at Jughead who strokes himself with his right hand and keeps her against the wall with his left. His brain rings loudly as throws his head back, watching Veronica's hair lay on her back. He licks his lips, he's sated yet his throat is parched, desperate, fucked up. He prays for every single part of Veronica in front of him, blessed from God. He’s from the depths of his own Hell. He runs his length up and down her pussy, soaking himself a little more and he finds it hard to push past the lump in his trachea.
He slides in and it's tight, warm and he feels like he's finally home again. His mind buzzes with familiar and the way Veronica rocks on him, the sticky sound of her skin against his thighs is something Jughead will never get sick of. The sound of paint crackling under Veronica's fingernails rings louder than any other sound in the room, making him aware that she's only hanging on by her fucking nails as she watches him from over her shoulder pump into her.
She reaches back to Jughead's ass, keeping him closer and his fingers surf up her skin, rough thumbs scratching at the nape of her neck as his fingers get lost in her hair and then he wraps his hand in her, pulling her hair back so she can look her in the eye.
She bites onto her lip as he pulls harder, eye to eye, legs shaking with his weight on her back as it shines with sweat, brightened sun on her brown skin, reflection of his soul on her naked body.
Jughead keeps pulling on her but she moves her head, letting herself free, she pushes back on him to let him out and she spins on her heels, facing him, watching his hard cock twitch and Jughead swallow down spit and venom. "I want to see you when you come," she tells him.
He groans again, hunger and starvation in his dream-lost eyes but he slips his cock into her again. He hitches her up, gripping onto her ass as he balances her against the wall when every thrust she feels a little empty when he takes himself from her.
Jughead bites down on her collarbone, he pulls her thin skin off her neck, leaving bruised, angry marks on caramel. His nails dig into the skin of Veronica's ass and she still holds on from behind to the cracking mantle. She feels like heaven, like silk, satin, running ocean, pouring metal.
He believes she's hell, burning hot, charred fucking skin, clogged fucking arteries.
Jughead drops his head onto Veronica's shoulder, keeping his eyes shut because he feels his breaths are lost, he hears her smacking the wall, breaking it down as he pushes himself, thrusting his hips, digging into her thighs so loudly, with purpose. He's twitching to get deeper in her.
He feels nails cutting on his back as she holds on, skin peeling on his shoulder blades and hot air prickles his red, raw track marks made by his worst addiction.
Veronica slaps Jughead's back, making him flinch. Making him want her so much more. It starts in the tips of his fingers, and the veins that are purple of his strained hands. His bones are chattering inside of him, Veronica was pulsing around him and he feels her in the marrow of his bones, and when he kisses her, he tastes every single thought in their minds. Love, he tastes, love, love, love.
He's blinded and feels like he's underwater as he comes, spilling into her as Veronica rides him against the wall. He lets loose with her on his tongue, kissing her tenderly.
He rides the wave until there's nothing left in him and she's dripping him down her leg. She hums against him, humming his name on his lips.
She ties up her hair, she smooths out her lipstick. She does up each button of her jeans deliberately and Jughead sits at the kitchen table with nothing but his jeans on and a cigarette between his fingers. He shakes a little as he watches her body stretch in front of him, the tense glitch in his jaw and the pounding in his temples doesn’t leave as he watches Veronica do up her bra. "I love you," he mumbles. "Do you know that?"
Veronica does the strap of her heel up and closes her eyes before speaking; "I do."
"Then why do we keep doing this?" he asks.
“Because Jughead, you told me that we’re hard to love. But for what it’s worth, it’s always been easy loving you.”
He lets their love ballad remain on replay, the unknown parts of their love is the haunting melody.