Chapter Text
For Jughead, the panic doesn’t set in right away.
He’s dead. That’s fine; any late-night encounter with the Ghoulies meant at least a fifty-fifty chance of being shot or stabbed to death. He knew what he was getting into, volunteering to break into the back room of their headquarters while Sweet Pea and Fangs distracted them upstairs.
Toni had accused him of having a death wish. She wasn’t entirely wrong.
So, again: he’s dead, as the rotund, kind-faced man of indeterminate age sitting behind a handsome mahogany desk informs him. Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, aged twenty-nine years and ninety-two days, son of Gladys and FP Jones II, brother of Forsythia “Jellybean” Jones, dog-father of Hot Dog Jones IV, is dead.
And he’s in the Good Place.
At first, he doesn’t really question it. He’d done plenty of good things in his life – took care of his little sister, for starters. Fed scraps to a couple of stray cats that hung around the trailer park. Untied his dad’s boots when he passed out on the couch at night, so his feet wouldn’t swell. He (almost) always made a genuine effort to bring his sexual partners to climax before he did, and he never left a toilet paper holder empty if there was another roll within reach.
On the other hand, there was the gang. The Serpents. Not the worst gang in the world, but, you know: still a gang. And there was the thing he’d done to Penny Peabody. The thing that still gave him nightmares sometimes. The knife, the blood, the flap of skin…
It must have been for the greater good, he reasons. After all, it had run Penny out of town altogether, and when she disappeared, so did the random, middle-of-the-night demands for Jughead and his friends to pick up and drop off mysterious crates in cavernous warehouses off the highway. Perhaps the ripple effect had been a net positive: a couple fewer drug deals, a couple fewer heroin addicts, a couple fewer overdose deaths in the world.
“Now, Forsythe –”
Jughead jerks a little in his seat; he’d completely zoned out as the man – call me Pop – had explained how he died. He doesn’t need a recap of that, anyway. The last thing he saw on Earth was Malachai coming at him with – get this – a machete.
“I actually go by Jughead,” he interrupts. “If that’s okay.”
Pop frowns slightly, shuffling around a few of the papers on his desk. “Jughead,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “We didn’t see anything about Jughead…well, alright!” His face brightens in an instant. “If it’s what you want, then it’s a-okay, Jughead. That’s how things work here in the Good Place!”
So, yeah: the panic doesn’t set in right away. The panic sets in about five minutes later, when Pop creates a television screen out of thin air, and shows Jughead a video about his life.
A video about his life…and the way he’d dedicated the last ten years of it to helping wayward youths escape the perilous clutches of gang life.
That’s when the panic sets in.
Because he – Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, also known as Jughead – never did any of those things.
And he does not belong in the Good Place.
Pop gives him a tour of the “neighborhood” where he’ll be spending the rest of eternity, but Jughead may as well be at the bottom of the ocean for all that he takes in of his surroundings. He follows Pop around in a fog, the ringing in his ears so loud he almost wonders if others can hear it.
Eventually they come to a house. It’s much bigger than any house Jughead’s ever lived in, and maybe even been in, with white panel siding and a long, stone-paved walkway that slopes up to the red front door. Trees pepper the lawn, and bushes of pink roses line the front of the house beneath the bay window.
“It’s yours,” Pop says.
The shock is enough to startle Jughead out of his own head for the first time since they’d left Pop’s office. “It’s mine?”
“That’s right. Your dream home.”
Jughead’s not sure he ever really had an idea of his dream home – that fell somewhere between the fourth and fifth levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and he was pretty solidly focused on fulfilling the base. Then he remembers that this isn’t his dream home, anyway. It’s the dream home of the one other sonofabench in the world so spectacularly unlucky as to be called Forsythe Pendleton Jones III and die before reaching his thirtieth birthday.
Pop takes his silence for awe, and squeezes his forearm in excitement. “There’s also a very special someone inside who I want to introduce you to. Come on!”
Pop tugs him forward, swings open the door, and that’s when Jughead gets his first look at her. Betty Cooper.
His soulmate.
Absolutely, positively, one-hundred-percent NOT your soulmate, he reminds himself for the umpteenth time, pinching his thigh discreetly as though the pain might help reality sink in.
It’s hard. Really hard. Because Betty isn’t just beautiful, with piercing green eyes and high cheekbones and full lips he can’t stop himself from staring at. She’s also smart, and kind, and a little sassy. She likes to read. She enjoys old movies and true crime documentaries. She shares his distaste for mayonnaise and anything with the slightest hint of truffles.
If he doesn’t completely screw this all up…he’s going to spend the rest of his afterlife with her. (And unless he’s missed something big in the whirlwind of information he’s absorbed in the last few hours – that means eternity.)
But she’s not his soulmate.
Which, frankly, is more than a little disappointing, because he feels at ease with her in a way he’d felt with very few people in life – and never so quickly.
“What’d you think of the neighborhood?” she asks. They’re seated on the living room sofa, caught in that awkward space between newness and familiarity: feet solid on the ground, torsos twisted towards one another, a cushion of space between them.
Jughead struggles to recall even a single detail of the little town square that Pop had led him through on the way to their house. He thinks there were cobblestones…maybe. “It’s cute,” he says.
Betty wrinkles her nose and smiles at the same time, an expression he finds unbearably adorable. “Yeah, it’s cute. A little weird that there were multiple quiche shops. I didn’t even know those were a thing.”
“You don’t like quiche?”
“Not that much.”
“No one likes quiche that much.” He shrugs. “Well, what do you like?”
Betty tugs her lower lip between her teeth, mulling it over. “Milkshakes? I could go for a milkshake.”
“Great.” Jughead slaps his hands on his thighs. “So where do we get milkshakes? Pop made it sound like we can basically have whatever we want, whenever we want it.”
“Oh. I know this.” She sounds excited as she clasps her hands together in her lap, tilting her chin up. “Kevin?”
A man appears behind the sofa. Jughead jumps in shock, pulse pounding. (It’s really weird, he thinks, that he still has a pulse. Maybe it makes the adjustment period easier?)
The man is medium-height, clean cut, with neatly combed brown hair and kind eyes. His outfit hurts Jughead’s eyes if he looks at it too long: a bright yellow vest over a checkered blue shirt, with a deep pink bow tie secured at the base of his throat. It’s…definitely a look.
“Hi. I’m Kevin. What can I do for you today?”
Betty beams at Jughead before turning back to Kevin. “We’d like two milkshakes, please.”
A pair of perfectly poured milkshakes – glass cups filled to the brim, topped with whipped cream and a cherry – appear in Kevin’s outstretched hands. Betty and Jughead clink them together before they each take a sip.
Jughead nearly spits the first mouthful out onto the floor. Betty looks similarly disgusted.
“Does this have truffle oil in it?” he demands.
With a tilt of his head, Kevin smiles. “It’s all the rage on Earth right now.”
Jughead really doesn’t remember that being the case, and he’s only been dead for a day, give or take – but then again, Riverdale wasn’t exactly the kind of town that kept up with the latest culinary trends.
Kevin whisks away the offending truffle shakes, replacing them instantly (chocolate for Jughead, strawberry for Betty) before he disappears with as much fanfare as when he arrived, which is to say, none. They sip their milkshakes in pleasant silence for a few minutes.
“This is some house,” Jughead remarks. The living room is tastefully decorated in mostly neutral shades. A large book featuring photos of what appears to be other tastefully neutral living rooms sits on the coffee table. So far, Jughead’s getting a very vanilla vibe from this other Forsythe.
Betty deflates slightly at his words. “Oh. Yeah. It’s – it’s actually a near-replica of my childhood home.”
He quirks an eyebrow in surprise. “That’s quite a coincidence,” he says without thinking.
“Why?”
“Uh…just, you know, Pop said it’s my dream house. It’s funny that it turned out to be your house.”
“Huh. That is funny.” Her forehead creases with a slight frown as she looks around the room, but by the time she turns her gaze back to him, her mouth is curled into a bashful smile. “I guess that’s because I’m your dream girl.”
Jughead coughs violently, choking on his last sip of milkshake. “Ah. Yep. Indeed.”
“Jughead.” Betty sounds suddenly serious, though her cheeks have flushed a charming shade of pink. “Can I ask you something?”
Clearing his throat, he pounds his fist lightly against his chest. “Go for it.”
She sucks in a breath before she says, “Can I kiss you?”
“Yes.” The word is out of his mouth before he can even think about it. As she slides towards him on the sofa, lips just barely parted, her knee bumping his thigh, his heart begins to pound wildly in his chest.
He can’t. It’s not just that she’s not his soulmate – he’s also not hers.
“Wait.” He places his hand on her wrist. “Why?”
Betty freezes, her face just a few inches from his, close enough he can feel the light puff of her breath against his skin. “Why?” she repeats.
Jughead swallows, mouth dry. “Yeah.”
“Because…we’re soulmates.” She shrugs. “And I want to.”
She closes her eyes and starts to lean in again, but Jughead summons all of his will power and forces himself to shift away. “I – I want to. I do. But I think maybe…let’s get to know one another a little better.” He takes her hand. “Shouldn’t the first one be special? Like…it should be a moment. Our moment.”
Betty looks thoughtful, if not a tad disappointed. “Yeah, maybe,” she concedes, though she doesn’t sound completely convinced.
Jughead leaps up from the couch, dropping her hand to rub his palms together. “Since you already know the house – why don’t you give me a tour?”
By day four, Jughead knows only two terrible things for certain:
One, he’s in the wrong Place.
Two, he’s fallen head over heels for Betty Cooper.
Because as it turns out, she really might be his dream girl. Not his soulmate – the fates would never intentionally doom a girl like her to spend forever with a guy like him, even if that’s where they’ve ended up – but his ideal partner? Absolutely. She is funny and warm and curious and sharp. When he says something she disagrees with, she presses him on it, picks it apart, like she wants to understand the way his brain works. She cooks like a pro, and not only that, she enjoys it.
She checks every last box, including ones he didn’t know he had. She’s even down to try every single weird burger topping combo he can think to ask Kevin for.
Worst of all, she seems to like him too. She laughs at his dumb jokes. She laces their fingers together when they walk through town. She snuggles against his side when they watch movies together in the evenings, tucking a blanket over both of their laps, resting her head against his shoulder with a small, contented sigh.
All because she thinks he’s someone he’s not.
The nights are the hardest part. According to Pop, there’s no technical need for them to sleep anymore, but many residents do it anyway just to maintain a familiar routine, for the first few years anyway. Despite Jughead’s initial protests, they sleep in the master bedroom together – because the other two bedrooms are decorated to look just as they did when Betty and her older sister, Polly, were in high school. Betty had paled when she’d pushed the door open and seen them – too fresh a reminder of her life back on Earth, he supposes – and Jughead would have felt like a total perv sleeping in the bedroom of a sixteen-year-old girl.
Their bed is king-sized, and Jughead falls asleep fairly easily the first night, knowing that Betty is more than an arm’s length away, a figurative ocean of mattress space between them. It’s a bit of a surprise when he wakes up the next morning to a mouthful of blonde hair, and a soft, warm, enticing body pressed against his own. But it feels nice. It feels even nicer when she wakes a few minutes later, her face lighting up when she blinks her eyes open and sees him right there beside her.
They start falling asleep that way, too; Betty shifts her pillows over to the middle of the bed, and he doesn’t have the heart to push her away. He likes laying here with her in the dark, where it’s just the two of them, and he doesn’t have to pretend that he loves Ethel’s experimental vegan quiche, or the fact that it’s always exactly 79 degrees and sunny outside. (The perfect weather for human existence, according to Pop, who had said it so jovially that Jughead had removed his sherpa jacket rather than tell the guy it was kind of making him uncomfortably warm.)
When it’s just him and Betty, he can almost forget that he’s pretending at all.
One night, just as he’s about to nod off, her voice draws him back. “Jughead?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
He smiles. She always does this – asks if she can ask him a question, which is itself a question, posed without permission.
“Course.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“No,” he admits, with no hesitation.
When she’s silent, he asks, “Have you?”
Though it’s too dark to see her, he feels the dip of the mattress as she changes positions, shifting onto her back. “I thought so,” she says. “A couple of years ago. It was long over by the time I…you know. Got here.” Betty pauses. “Maybe I was wrong, though. If you’re my soulmate…maybe I never would have really fallen in love.”
She says it as though it’s almost too awful a thought to bear. Maybe it is. He feels her move again, turning to face him this time.
“Do you think we would’ve met if we hadn’t…if we hadn’t come here so soon?”
The honest answer is no. The honest answer is maybe, maybe, but only if Betty had for some reason traveled to upstate New York on some sort of volunteer work mission, because there was no way Jughead’s trajectory at the time was ever going to take him outside the twenty-mile radius around Riverdale’s south side.
That’s the honest answer – but it’s not the answer she wants. It’s not, he thinks, the one she deserves.
“I think so, yeah,” he says. “I think…that’s the point of soulmates, right? You find each other. Eventually.”
Betty makes a quiet sound, one of agreement, or at least acceptance. Her fingers brush against his wrist, fumbling down to curl around his hand; they’re gone before he can slip his own fingers through hers.
“Goodnight, Jughead.”
He closes his eyes and bends one knee. His foot brushes against her ankle, and he keeps it there, the small point of contact a comfort.
“Goodnight, Betts.”
Then comes day five.
It starts like any other. They awake to sunlight streaming through the windows, and gentle birdsong in their ears. The bedside clock reads 9:00 am, which is a little bit later than Betty’s ideal wakeup time, and a little bit earlier than Jughead’s – but between the two of them, a near-perfect compromise.
They stumble into the kitchen together, and Betty makes blueberry pancakes for breakfast. (Jughead has already pointed out – several times – that they could just ask Kevin to whip some up from the ether. But she insists that she enjoys the process.)
It’s a beautiful day outside, just like every other day has been, but they agree that it would be nice to spend a day relaxing after all the exploration they’ve done around the neighborhood. Betty makes a pitcher of lemonade and joins him in the backyard, where they sit on a pair of loungers beside the swimming pool and each crack open a book.
The morning passes uneventfully. Every now and then, Betty will make a noise of surprise or concern in response to something she’s read. Every time she does, a warm flush of affection pulses in Jughead’s chest. He’s grateful for the sunglasses on his face, as they mask the fact that he’s looking at her about as often as he’s looking at the book in his lap.
Eventually, his stomach grumbles. (Another weird thing about the Good Place: he still feels hunger. But maybe it’s a necessary sacrifice, to maintain the pleasure of eating food?)
Betty peers at him over her novel. “You want lunch?”
She plays along with his suggestion that they ask Kevin for BLTs, rather than making them herself, but gives him a stern I-told-you-so glare when mayonnaise oozes out the side with his first bite.
Kevin replaces them quickly with mayo-free versions. As they eat, seated close together on the barstools, Betty keeps stealing glances at Jughead.
“What?” he grumbles, blushing as a few crumbs fall from his mouth.
She purses her lips, and then reaches out with one hand, brushing her thumb against the corner of his lips. “You still have a little mayo…there.”
Presumably, she’s wiped it away. But her hand lingers on his cheek. Jughead’s breathing goes shallow, his chest tight. Her eyes keep darting to his lips, and her fingers move just a fraction, cupping his jaw, warm against his skin.
He’s put it off for as long as he can. But this? This is – undeniably – a Moment.
Her lips are a hair’s breadth away when the doorbell rings.
They both freeze; Betty bursts into laughter. “Seriously?”
He smiles, and covers her hand with his palm, pressing it firmly against his cheek before he slides off of his stool. “To be continued,” he promises.
On the other side of the door is an unexpected trio of visitors: Pop, and two other residents who Jughead vaguely remembers seeing around the neighborhood. One is a redheaded man in athletic wear. The other is a woman with shiny dark hair, in a short purple dress and heels, with a string of pearls around her neck. He recognizes their hairdos, but not really their faces, since they always seem to have them smushed together anytime he passes them in town. Right now, they look about as confused as his probably does.
“Jughead. Hello. It’s good to see you.” Pop appears nervous, wringing his hands together. It sets Jughead instantly on edge. What could possibly be wrong? They’re in the Good Place – the place where everything is perfect.
Well. Everything except for him.
“Hey, Pop. Hey…guys.” He nods at the man and woman. “What’s up?”
“Can we come in? There’s something I’d like to speak with you all about.”
“Of course.” Jughead steps aside to let them file in through the door. By now, Betty has joined them; she rests her hand gently against the small of his back.
“I’m Betty,” she says.
“You have a lovely home, Betty. I’m Veronica Lodge,” says the woman politely. “And this is my soulmate, Archie Andrews.”
Before Archie can chime in with his own pleasantries, Pop clears his throat. All eyes in the room snap towards him.
“About that.”
Pop attempts a genial smile.
He fails.
“It appears there’s been a mistake.”
tbc