Mine (a Riverdale fanfiction)

All His Many Words

Just when Jughead was beginning to feel optimistic, when Betty's determination and enthusiasm had fed the dying flames of his own need for justice ... Penny Peabody came back to town, telling all the Serpents how Jughead had sliced the Serpent tattoo off her arm. She was a lawyer, and a good one. She promised to stall the evictions indefinitely if she was let back into the Serpents—and if Jughead was removed.

FP was in an impossible place, and, yet again, Jughead had put him there.

Jughead was sent home while the rest of the Serpents deliberated. When his father came back, it was clear the conversation hadn't gone well—the Serpents had decided to put it to a vote. Jughead vs. Penny. The loser was cast out of the Serpents for good.

His father—his own father—accused him of being the source of all the Serpents' problems, because of the article he had written on General Pickens. Could FP not see, could none of them see, that the Serpents had been getting slowly squeezed out of Riverdale long before Jughead had written that article? It was an excuse, an emblem, being used to justify actions that were already well underway.

But FP didn't see it that way. He pointed his finger at Jughead and said, "You ... will be the death of us."

And while he was wrong, and Jughead knew he was wrong—there were ways that he was right, too. And Jughead didn't know how to live with that.

He couldn't imagine anything he wanted to do less than go to Veronica Lodge's confirmation today. Not that he blamed Veronica for the current situation in Riverdale—but he'd bet his favorite hat that her parents had quite a bit to do with what was happening to the Serpents.

Only Betty's text reminding him that since everyone would be there, it would be a good place to get info on the statue's missing head convinced him to put on a suit and go.

Sitting there in the church next to Betty, he wanted to reach for her hand, just to feel her touch and know that she was there. But he couldn't, and the reasons he couldn't were his own fault. And the reasons he couldn't be with the Serpents were his own fault, too.

It was a lot easier when the silence and stillness of the church service gave way to the pounding music and loud laughter of the party afterward. At least it was easier to slip away and be by himself when no one could see him leave.

He should have known Betty would find him, though. She came up the stairs to where he stood alone, brooding unashamedly, saying lightly, "Hey. It's not like Jughead Jones to neglect a free buffet. You okay?"

He hadn't intended to tell her—but this was Betty. Betty whom he still loved, and to whom he always wanted to tell everything. "No. It's the Serpents. They're meeting to decide if I'm getting kicked out or not."

"What? Why are they doing that?"

"I broke a code. I messed up bad." It was the first time he had admitted that, even to himself. "Really bad." And once he had told her that, he found he wanted to tell her the rest, too. No, that he needed to tell her the rest. "There's this person who suckered me into delivering drugs."

Betty looked at him in shock, and he couldn't hold her gaze. She'd be ashamed of him; she should be ashamed of him.

"And my dad, too," he admitted in a small voice. "He got roped in. So a couple of Serpents and I, we ... found her, grabbed her ..." The words were coming more slowly now. He didn't want to see this image of himself reflected in Betty's eyes. "And I cut her."

"Cut her?"

"The worst part is, none of it even matters. 'Cause she's back. It's like, every decision I've made since we broke up, including our break-up, just makes things worse and worse."