One Year Ago
"It hurts so much." Archie cried out when he woke up one morning. He tried to get up out of bed like he normally did, but fell straight to the floor as a stream of pain shot of up his left leg. Tears flowed down his face as he laid there, not daring to look at his leg underneath his sweatpants.
It was fine yesterday. He played an amazing game, scoring the winning touchdown and sending his team to the championships while impressing the scout he's been trying to get to watch him for ages now. Yesterday was a dream come true. He could admit that he did land on his leg a bit weird once or twice during the game, but it was no pain he couldn't handle. The pain he was feeling now though, was on a whole different level.
His dad came rushing into his bedroom at the sound of his yelling, eyes furrowing at the sight of him wailing on the floor.
"What's wrong?" He asked worriedly, bending down to his level and grabbing his hand.
"It hurts, it hurts!", was all Archie could say while pointing to his left leg in pain. Fred sat on the floor and began pulling up the leg of his sweatpants, revealing the swollen appendage. The area was as red as his hair and the only thing Fred could do was gasp. He's seen tons of injuries. It was the sort of thing that came with working in construction and having a son that plays football. However, he hadn't seen anything as swollen as this before. Despite his better sense to take him to the hospital, he simply got up and returned with an ice pack.
Archie must've spent all day like that, sitting on the floor with an ice pack trying his best to numb the horrific pain he felt in his leg. To tell you the truth, it didn't do much. It stopped the immediate pain, yes, but it didn't do much to stop the problem. By the end of the night he could still barely walk. He even had to miss school the next day and he didn't say a word about it to anyone. Especially not Jughead. Jughead didn't need to worry about his, he reasoned.
By next week, he was walking fine and playing football again. It was almost as if nothing happened, but that pain still lingered in the back of his mind, and the bump was still there to prove it.
By next month, he had had gotten used to the pain and the swelling and icing became routine.
Getting hurt was normal, he reasoned. He was an athlete after all.
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A look at Archie's past. It gets worse. It always gets worse kiddies.
Merry Christmas 💕
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Circumlocution ≫ Jarchie
FanfictionT R I G G E R ▶︎ W A R N I N G S "Jughead, you can't drive like this, what if you get hurt?" "You weren't so concerned about me getting hurt when you hurt me yourself." He spits, attempting to walk away faster, only to fall on the ground in the pa...
