5 Years On | Bughead

Five

"Jug?" Betty said after a bit.

"Yeah?" he was a little nervous about what she might ask him and started to shake a little. But to his relief, she went somewhere else.

"When I was in college – back when I was still drinking – I knew a guy named Bruce . . ."

As the horror of her story unfolded, Jughead reached out for her. When the tears came he pulled her close to his chest. When it was finished, he wrapped his legs around her too, and they clung to each other in a ball, and he just rocked her, soothed her.

He stared over at the toilet, remembering her care that previous night, when he was basically passed out drunk. He felt like such an asshole. He almost winced as he held her tighter and whispered into her hair, "I'm so sorry, Betty."

"I was so scared," she sobbed. "So scared you were going to die."

"I know," he whispered. "I know."

He started to cry a little himself. "I'll never do that to you again."

At that she stiffened a little and pulled back. She wiped her eyes. God, she looked miserable. What had he done?

"Don't make that promise to me, Jug. I'm not in your life anymore, remember? If you decide to stop, you need to do it for yourself."

She extracted herself from him and headed back to the bedroom. With one brief glance back at him, she closed the door.

She let herself cry a little more after collapsing against the closed door. Little did she know that Jughead was right behind it, with a palm on it, trying to comfort her, if only in his mind.

"Oh, Jug," she said and one point and his heart just broke. He couldn't help but cry a little too.

When she moved away from the door, he went to the kitchen and pulled out all the bottles of booze he had on hand. He started dumping them down the sink. Now his tears were coming in earnest. He had to keep wiping them away between bottles, rubbing at his nose and sniffing.

How many times had he seen his father do exactly this?

It never worked. Was he really an alcoholic now just like his old man? Was he that far gone already? He didn't know. He was going to go on the assumption that he wasn't as bad as his dad and that he'd be able resist the urge to restock. He had to. For her. Even if they were never going to be together again.

Because it wasn't about that. It was becoming clear to him that she really did still care about him – and she was one of the only people that still cared about him. He wished he had known that during these past five years. It might have made things easier. He might have been able to get through if he'd known he had someone . . .

Gurgle. Gurgle.

He let out a sigh and did a final wipe of his eyes. It was all gone – except for his emergency stash under the trailer. He'd have to take care of that.

"Jug?"

He almost jumped out of his skin. Betty took in all the empty booze bottles. "What are you doing?"

"Being my dad," he quipped.

Her brows furrowed.

"In order to not be my dad."

"I don't get it."

"Here, help me," he said and waved her outside the trailer. He moved the little cross-hatched fence aside and crawled through the opening towards his emergency stash of booze and cigarettes. "C'mon."

She followed him in on her hands and knees. It's not like she hadn't followed him into worse places. Thankfully the stash was small and it looked like they would be able to carry it all out in one trip between the two of them.

"What about the cigarettes, Jug?"

"You mean my angry cigarettes?"

"Yeah."

He looked at them carefully. He didn't know. Would he still need them if he stopped drinking?

They were both on their hands and knees, shoulder to shoulder – and there was some mud. The next thing they knew, Betty slipped and Jughead ended up right on top of her. He could feel her heart racing through her chest. His was too. He had just held her and comforted her, but this was . . . different.

His hot breath was on her face and her lips were so close . . .

She started to move a bit, probably to get out from underneath him, but the feel of her body moving beneath his – for the first time in so long – brought back memories of tender caresses and passionate moments between them. He wanted her to stay there underneath him. His body did too. He rolled away before it became too obvious.

"Sorry," he said awkwardly.

"It's okay," she said just as awkwardly.

And then, practicalities. They got all the booze out from underneath the trailer, but left the cigarettes behind.

After all the rest of the booze was dumped down the drain, Jughead said, "I can't believe I did that to you last night, Betty. I feel so bad. I wanted to let you know that I am going to quit drinking"

"Jug –"

He put up a hand. "But I'm not doing it for you, so don't worry. Well, I am . . . but I'm not."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm doing it for myself. And it truly is for me. I don't want to be the type of person who would ever hurt you like that." He looked down and away. "So, trust me, I'm not really doing it for you. We're not even together."

That last one came out a little bitter, but there it was.