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Maybe things have to fall apart before they come together, Archie thinks, while putting together a meal that totally isn’t an anniversary dinner. It isn’t an anniversary dinner because Jughead and Betty aren’t anniversary people, or holiday people, or really special occasion people at all. But Archie likes the idea of an anniversary dinner, likes the idea of commemorating things, commemorating them. So, if he decides to cook everybody’s favorites and make the table all nice and break out the good candles well, maybe he was just in the mood. Plausible deniability and all that. Jug’ll find that funny, at least.
Archie knows how people talk about him in town, especially after all that mess. How the golden boy fell so far. He was fine, after graduation. Yes Monroe went off to school but that’s what he wanted for him. Yes all his friends went off to school, but that’s what he wanted for them. Just because he couldn’t didn’t mean he didn’t want the best for them. The smart ones, the shining stars. Losing Veronica was hard, but he’s still pretty sure it was mostly his fault for not noticing she was a lesbian sooner. It’s not like they didn’t still hang out; but it’s hard not to be sad about these things, even if it doesn’t make sense. And even after that, he held on for a few years til he lost the gym, and then the house, and then that very public freakout where he just started sobbing in the middle of the goddamn grocery store and they called a fucking ambulance.
And then the doctors and then more doctors and then his mother and then talking about burnout and regression and relapses and repressed traumas and “Mrs Andrews are you confident your son can live on his own” and then bringing up school files and then evaluations and more evaluations and even more of them and then, then he got lucky.
Lucky that, even now, everyone is Riverdale is still a little bit afraid of Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones. Lucky that he told Jughead years ago, in middle school even, that the school psych wasn’t confident he could ever make it on his own, that Betty promised once that she’d always looks after him, that they are people who take their promises very seriously. Lucky that they kept in contact all those years. Lucky they didn’t leave him behind. Lucky that they’re more than happy to let Archie stay with him “to get back on his feet” so long as he’s still allowed control of his own life thank you very much. Archie isn’t quite sure how they swung that one in his favor, not to those people talking to him like he wasn’t there. Betty probably had dirt on the doctors, or the social workers, or both, he thinks. He’s pretty sure Betty could ruin most people in Riverdale’s lives with three phone calls. This should be more worrying than it is. Mostly it just makes him feel safe.
The only problem was, it’s one thing to be in love with your two best friends from afar, and a whole nother thing to be in love with them when you live in their guest room. Archie isn’t a subtle man. He is very aware of this. So he did what he’s always done when it was a very bad idea to tell someone he was in love with them; he took care of them. He cleaned the house, he cooked for them, at first as a thank you and then because he realized they don’t always remember to eat, and he gets such a sense of satisfaction when Jughead eats his food and then makes that adorable blissed out face of his. Betty kept telling him he didn’t need to do all this for them, didn’t need to pack them lunches or look after them when they’re sick or be their parody of a 50s housewife and he tried to explain that he wanted to. He really, really did.
Archie doesn’t know who figured it out first, or if maybe they’d always known, on some level, and were waiting for an opening. Archie’d been thinking it at least since that vacation they took with Veronica in high school, the one where she kissed Jughead to even the score, so everyone would have kissed. He hadn’t kissed Jughead, and he really, really wanted to. If the mob shit hadn’t have gotten in the way, who knows. Maybe he’d have gotten up the nerve.
Archie doesn’t know who figured it out first but he does know they planned a hell of a seduction. Elegant in its simplicity. Get him stoned, put on some music, and ask if he was in love with them. He probably wouldn’t have lied, even without the weed, but it made him feel safe, with Jughead holding him and Betty in his lap, that he had to say yes, of course, of course, I think I always have, I love you easy as breathing. And then Betty kissed him and Jughead’s lips were on his neck and everything else is history.
And that was a year ago now, exactly. And Archie doesn’t care if they remember, he really doesn’t. They don’t even know their own anniversary, as weird as he finds that, that’s just how they are. They don’t make a big fuss of things. But Archie’s favorite thing is making a fuss of things, feeding them and taking care of them and making them feel good in any way they’ll let him. He knows this isn’t a temporary arrangement anymore, that maybe it never was. That maybe this was always their endgame, always the natural conclusion of their relationship. Archie hasn’t slept in the guest room in months. Mostly he just keeps his stuff in there, or uses it for a space when he needs to be alone. They’ve stopped talking about him moving out. He accidentally saw a bill for a wedding ring matching theirs when was sorting some paperwork. Jughead will willingly call him his boyfriend. So, Archie thinks, they can handle one little anniversary dinner. And he knows they will, for him. He hears the sound of a key in the lock of the front door, and he smiles to himself, knowing they’re home.