Alphabet ≫ Jarchie

Exemplar

Exemplar— a person or thing serving as a typical example or excellent model.

☁︎☀︎☁︎

Jughead took weekends off to spend time with his family and friends. His day job was a chore at times. It was full of setbacks and failures. Most days he found himself wondering if it was even worth it. Then his blood would start to boil, his eyes would settle into an unnaturally cold glare and he'd remember exactly why he kept trying.

Archie Andrews.

The inescapable disappointment of never being good enough to take Archie down was enough motivation to keep all of his antics up. There was always a city to destroy, an inconvenience to create, and a way to drive the redhead crazy— during business hours of course.

On weekends, Jughead didn't concern himself with the super villain life style. He instead let a smile cross his face when he visited his sister, or let a chuckle or two escape from his lips when he called his parents. He let himself draw a few frames for that epic graphic novel he'd been working on for a while or go out with his friends to the movies. His balance between work and play not only made it easy to hide his secret identity, but it also kept him from falling off the deep end.

Jughead was halfway through season 5 of Friends on a Saturday night when a knock sounded at his door. It was close to midnight and while usually he'd be out and about, he felt like a night in. With a yawn he stood up and shuffled over to the door of his condo. It was a quaint little thing, big enough to live in comfortably and small enough to avoid raising suspicion.

He didn't bother asking who it was before swinging open the door and letting his eyes adjust to the light.

"J-Jughead?"

Archie.

He was unrecognizable. Void of his super suit, his regular clothes had been torn to sheds. His hair was all over the place as if it'd been through a hurricane. He looked in Jughead's direction, his pupils blown out and his body shaking. He had a dazed, faraway look in his eye that made Jughead furrow his eyebrows. Archie reached his right arm out to steady himself on the doorframe. There were bruises on every inch of him and blood trickling from a gash near his elbow. His other arm stayed firmly pressed on his abdomen as his knees wobbled and he began to sway.

"I didn't have anywhere else to g-go," Archie mumbled. He attempted to take another step and fell right into Jughead's chest.

His vision went dark.

***

Archie blinked his eyes open, unaware and confused.

"So no one told you life was gonna be this way..."

Archie jumped at the sound of clapping and allowed himself to adjust. He snapped his head toward the IV in his arm and groaned as all his pain came flooding back to him.

"Oh, you're up." Archie recognized the voice. He didn't understand why his first instinct was to come here of all places. Jughead hated his guts, and with good reason. Sometimes, he genuinely thought that Jughead deserved to be the hero and not the other way around.

Jughead sat up from his position at the end of the bed and glossed over him like a scientist observing research. He reached his arm forward to take a look at Archie's wound but pulled it back with a shake of his head. He shouldn't. "Why aren't you healing?" He asked after a minute.

"The drugs," Archie answered. His gaze couldn't help but settle on the man he used to know so well. He raised the arm attached to the IV and cocked his head to the side, earning a sigh from Jughead.