Pairing: Jughead Jones x Reader
Description: Their investigation on Jason has to take a break while they try to save the Drive-In.
Warnings: None I can think of.
Word count: 5384
Jughead's point of view
Jughead is woken up by loud noises at the Drive-In. He goes down, still in his boxers, ready to strike in case it's a burglar, but it was just the manager. Seeing him makes Jug feel at ease again, relaxing his muscles, although the fact that the man is putting things in boxes can be a little concerning. "Hey, Jake. What's up?", he asks, puzzled. "Here's your payment, Jughead." The man hands him a thick envelope. "This is a lot more than I earn." He tries to hand him back the envelope, for he might have given him the wrong one. "Oh, you don't know yet. They're shutting down the Drive-In.", Jake says, while throwing his belongings into the cardboard box in a somewhat rough manner. Jughead stays silent with a dumbfounded expression. "It's the month's salary, next week's advance and a little extra for all these years of good work.", Jake explains the amount of money and goes back to packing. "Why?", he simply asks, still thinking it could be a complete joke. "It was bought off.", the man says sadly. Just like for Juggie, that place means a lot to him. "You should read this." Jug takes the letter in his hands with the explanation from the Mayor. He can see the man reminiscing about his youth, talking about how he used to take his dates there, or that he worked at the projection booth douring high school, having managed the Twilight for most of his adult life, just as in many occasions they'd talk about all those things. But it was all going down now.
Jake loads his car with the last of the boxes full of memorabilia and personal objects. He closes the trunk door and shakes Jug's hand, who is now fully dressed, including his beanie. "Take care of yourself, kid.", he says with a lot of weight on his words. Jughead is left standing there, looking at everything like it's both the first and the last time he'll ever do, until the car is no longer visible. He remembers when he started working there and Jake found him sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor, head on his backpack. He was scared to death of being thrown out and fired over it, but the man simply walked out and came back half an hour later with a rollaway bed, a pillow and some blankets he assembled in the projection room without a word. With all that in his mind, he doesn't even have time to think about what Betty found out regarding Archie and what she might do with such information.
He returns to his room and sits down on the bed, staring at the letter for a while, not being able to read past 'It will be demolished'.". His home away from home, the place in which he has had a few happy childhood memories is being torn down. Jughead looks at the envelope containing his last payment and then at the projection room he's been living in for the past 2 years, wondering what the hell he'll do next. He just grabs a jacket and leaves, walking for miles without paying attention to anything. The words from that piece of paper stand out in his mind: anonymous buyer, shut down, scheduled demolition... He adds a few on his own, like jobless and homeless. When this upset boy finally stops to look around, he recognizes the front door he's standing on: Y/N's. "When did she became the person I go to when I'm in need?" he asks himself and turns back. "Jughead!", she shouts. He's already walking away, not wanting to trouble that outstanding girl with that, when he feels her hand holding his. (She's not gonna let him go.) He's actually incredibly thankful she did that. Truth is he doesn't want to be alone in that moment. He's just not good at asking for help.
They walk in still holding hands. "Do you wanna talk about what happened?", she asks, letting go of his hand. "If you don't mind, that's the last thing I wanna talk about.", he answers, missing the warmth of her touch. "I have pizza. Pizza makes anything better.", she says, taking out the box from the fridge and putting it on the pizza pan to heat it up. "Agreed.", he tells her, but what really makes him feel better is seeing her. "Your parents aren't home yet?", he inquires, looking around, noticing pictures of her as a kid on the walls. "No. There was an emergency somewhere, with some patient.", she tells him with little interest. "And they just leave you?" He wonders if that sounded rude. "I'm used to it. To be honest, I enjoy it.", she tells him and he relates to her fondness for being alone, although right now he prefers being with her. "It's my mom that doesn't like it. My dad is the love of her life – she can't stay away from him. But she'd like to be home more often.", Y/N explains and he wonders if his dad was the love of his mom's life; if so, how he stopped being.
