Taking my message from the veins | Jarchie ✓

One.

"Jug? Jughead!" Betty called to him as if he was a million miles away, even though he was sitting right next to her. He snapped back to reality. "You were zoned out again, Jug. Are you alright." Asked the blonde haired girl.

"I'm fine..." He lied.

"No, you're not. You've got something on your mind, something that's distracting you from everything. Something is bothering you and your not telling me what it is!"

"There's nothing wrong with me, Betty! And even if there was, maybe I just don't feel ready to tell you or anyone else yet, did you ever think about that?!" He snapped. He hated arguing with her, he really did. But at this point it seemed to happen almost every single day. Something would always go wrong, and one would always blame the other. But then they'd always kiss and make up and pretend that nothing had happened. No matter how thankful Jughead was that everything always seemed to turn out alright, it felt wrong to him. He felt as though he was lying to himself.

Betty huffed to herself, moving closer to Jughead and changing her tone of voice to a soft comforting volume. "Is it about Archie?" She asked.

Jughead didn't reply, he just hung his head low as if he was ashamed of even thinking about Archie. It was mainly because he knew that Betty wouldn't take it well.

"I thought so..." She muttered. "Listen, Juggie... You're going to have to let it go. We all make friends, and we all stop speaking to some of them eventually. And besides, if he was a true friend he'd be happy for you and me. He wouldn't avoid you every time he saw us together, he'd actually come up and talk to you like you were an actual human being with feelings!" She paused for a moment to let Jughead think about what she'd told him. "Let him go, Jughead. Let him go."

Jughead nodded slowly. "Maybe you're right..."

"I'm always right." She smiled, pulling Jughead into a kiss, only this kiss didn't feel like a real kiss. It felt forced. "Promise me you'll forget about him?"

"I promise..."

"Are you going to stay over tonight?"

"Nah, not tonight," Jughead said, already starting to get up from his seat. "My dad wants me to be home, he said he wanted to talk or something."

"Do you know what he wants to talk about?"

"Not yet... But I guess I'll find out soon."

"Alright, be safe out there for me."

"I will." He gave Betty a hug and a kiss on the cheek goodbye and started to make his way to the door. "Bye, Betty."

"Bye, Romeo."

Jughead stepped out of the door, letting the cold winter air hit his face with an icy chill. He started to walk down the dark and twisty road that lead him to what he was forced to call home. Although to him it was the least home-like place in the whole of Riverdale.

He had lied twice that night. Firstly about needing to be home for tonight, his dad didn't actually want to talk about anything, when did that ever happen? He had just needed to get out of that conversation with Betty. And secondly, about his promise to forget about Archie. He wasn't going to be forgetting about that red-haired boy that easily. Besides, he was on Jughead's mind for more than one reason, in fact, he was on his mind for so many reasons that Jughead could fill a whole list of them. The main reason though was the way he felt about Archie. Of course, he had always liked him as a friend, but recently Jughead had been considering whether or not he liked him as something more than a friend. Although at this point it wasn't even a question anymore, he definitely liked Archie as something more. It was obvious, at least to him anyway. Lucky for Jughead, hiding his feelings was his speciality, or at least from most people. Betty seemed to see right through him, but thankfully she only seemed to get half of the story.

Finally, he reached the dimly lit trailer. Knowing that his dad would most likely not be home he didn't bother to knock, and instead just walked through the unlocked door and made his way to his room. He sat down on his bed, giving himself a moment to calm down. Thinking about Archie and Betty had left him feeling angry and confused, causing him to have to have a banging headache.

Once he had cleared his head completely, he was free to think about whatever he wanted. So he chose to think about Archie. Not in the usual way, in a way that meant that Archie was the only thing that filled his mind, nothing else would be distracting him. Of course, his body started acting the way it normally did. His heart started beating faster, his cheeks started to develop a warm blush, and then he felt it. The electrical pulses that ran from his heart through the rest of his body. He looked down at his hands to see that his veins were glowing, only in his hands though the rest of his body didn't react this way, although he had no idea why. But what he knew for certain was that this always happened every single time he cleared his mind of everything but Archie Andrews.

This had been happening for a few months now, so he had grown used to it. He knew that he had to tell someone eventually, probably Archie since it was his doing anyway, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. What would he think about him after seeing his hands light up like a weird christmas tree? He'd probably think he was a freak of nature, which would make Archie avoid him even more than before. He may never see him again. In fact, he may wouldn't be able to see anyone ever again, they'd probably take him away and lock him up in some top secret facility where they kept all the other freaks and weirdos.

Jughead wanted so badly to find an answer, but his questioning was cut short due to an annoying buzzing noise that came from his phone. He looked back down at his hands one more time before he bothered to check his phone, and just as he expected the notification had distracted him too much, which caused the glowing to cease much to his disappointment. He rolled his eyes in frustration and turned on the phone screen.

There was a new text. It read: Can we talk? In person?

The text was from Archie.