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sticks this here immediately.

[personal profile] performativity 2017-05-29 09:17 pm (UTC)(link)


performativity: (14.)

[personal profile] performativity 2017-07-03 04:57 am (UTC)(link)
[ Fred says it first, in the hospital after surgery: We're going to need to go stay with your mother. And Archie knows it makes sense. His dad needs to be taken care of, and Archie can't do it all on his own. But the idea of leaving makes his heat seize up. He hyperventilates in the hallway, panicky about how final the idea of Chicago feels to him. But what can he say? Archie is selfish at the best of times, but he has his father's blood staining his cast and the cuff of his letterman jacket. It's a very effective deterrent. The plaster doesn't get changed out until he's in Chicago in an unfamiliar doctor's office with his mother waiting outside the door for him. It all feels wrong.

The blood had been there when he'd said goodbye to Veronica. He still thinks about her, and maybe that's a good sign. Archie's flighty, and he knows that about himself, but his thoughts over the summer circle back to Veronica after he trips over missing Jughead and Betty.

His mother tries to make a case for the kind of life Archie could have if he stayed with her. No one says that explicitly, and it might take Archie a week to cotton on to what's happening, but he figures it out. And he gets so angry over it that he has to go on a long, twisting run rather than risk an argument. His father's face is pinched and grey with pain most days, and a fight would make it worse. Archie's answer come when Fred's buying himself a plane ticket home, and Archie asks for one too.

Neither of them want him to go. Archie's upset about that too. The anxiety over it carries him through the last month of his time with his mother, and all the way through the journey home. Dread's starting to creep in. Archie hasn't kept in close enough contact. He doesn't know what he's missed, and he worries about what he's coming home to. But Fred collects him from the airport and things are almost back to normal.

Neither of them mention getting take out from Pops.

There's a surprise for you upstairs, Fred tells him, and Archie had expected a guitar, maybe. Something his father couldn't really afford to smooth over the wretched summer they'd had. He hadn't expected Veronica, and he didn't have the heart to wake her. He toes off his Converse and crawls in beside her, nudging her gently to make room.

They aren't together. Archie knows that. But he missed her, and he thinks this is alright. He's shared beds with Jughead and with Betty both. They can do this. ]
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[personal profile] performativity 2017-07-04 05:22 am (UTC)(link)
[ The relief of being home is a little overwhelming. Archie thinks about how easy it would have been to have gotten stuck in Chicago and never come back. But he's here, in his room, in his bed, with Veronica and her book and his dad on his feet, and Archie thinks he can give himself at least a night to savor all of it. Tomorrow he'd have to start tracking down the person who hurt his dad. It had waited all summer, and it couldn't wait that much longer.

Sleep isn't really on the table. At best he dozes, never quite dropping off to sleep. He's hyperaware of their bodies side by side on his wash-worn coverlet. When she turns into him, it's with her book to block him off from her. It's just as well. Archie's hands seem to have forgotten he's not supposed to automatically reach for her. He drops his hand back to the blanket to trace a seam restlessly as she touches him, smiling crinkling under the trip of her fingers. ]


I really missed you, Ronnie.

[ It would probably be a lie to say he'd like to have told her every day. His time had been eaten up and his focus scattered. And it was probably better he hadn't been texting her constantly. She deserved a summer without the kind of distraction Archie knew he could be. He hopes she managed to have a good one, even if he hadn't been a part of it. ]

Hi.

[ A little nervously, like Archie's just realized he's stranded in some strange space where they're a little more than friends but not quite tipped back into territory where he could kiss her. He wants to kiss her badly, but that's not a particularly new impulse. He ignores it in favor of knocking his knuckles against her book, taking in her face like he's looking for any hint of a change in her. ]

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[personal profile] neighbor 2017-05-30 03:40 am (UTC)(link)



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[personal profile] neighbor 2017-05-30 08:19 am (UTC)(link)
[ Betty's never really been much at ease in Cheryl's company. Even now that everyone is ostensibly getting along again, even now that they've made the discovery of a family connection, Betty sometimes thinks that there might just be too much personal history there to ever truly overcome. But they're both trying, they really are... And Betty knows that a large part of that is also for Veronica's sake.

She can't really explain why it perturbs her so much that the two of them have become such good friends, since it's not like it really takes anything away from her own friendship with the other girl. Although she suspects that if Cheryl had her way, then it would be V&C, not B&V. But it's still Betty that Veronica calls for support at the end of a hard day; that she sneaks out of the Pembrooke to go out with on midnight drives together; that she shares countless milkshakes with at Pop's. So she has no real excusable reason for the immense feeling of relief that floods over her when the bottle passes by Cheryl and lands on her instead.

The closet isn't cramped by any means but she finds herself standing barely a foot away from Veronica, which she initially justifies as simply wanting to be able to actually see her friend in the dim lighting. But now, she thinks she might understand -- quite intimately -- what must have compelled Archie to want to kiss the other girl under such similar circumstances. Veronica's gaze doesn't waver and Betty swallows thickly around the growing lump in her own throat. ]


It's not like we haven't kissed before. [ She finally blurts out. ]
neighbor: (pic#11049014)

[personal profile] neighbor 2017-07-03 09:54 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Things with Jughead are admittedly not the greatest right now. To some extent she understands why he's doing what he is -- ingratiating himself with the Serpents, accepting a place among them as family. It affords him the kind of protection that he sorely needs with his dad behind bars and his mom hundreds of miles away and seemingly uninterested in helping her son. Even though she still strongly believes that he would be better off in the long run if he'd let go of his pride for a moment and allow her, allow Archie, to continue to help as they've been doing so loyally all along, she tries not to begrudge his decision so much when she can't even begin to imagine how difficult everything's been on him this last year.

But it's hard not to let the negative thoughts creep in when he's had to make some sacrifices which have invariably placed a strain on their relationship, no matter how much he's promised her that nothing has changed about the way he feels about her. Maybe it's not his fault at the end of the day but then maybe it's not hers either if she finds herself longing for something more than he can apparently give her right now. She's a person, after all -- not just a dispenser of comfort and consolation when it's still convenient for Jughead to act like her boyfriend.

To Betty's credit, the thought of using Veronica to try and somehow make Jughead jealous never once crosses her mind. That being said, the thought of using Veronica to make herself feel better is a little less avoidable given the circumstances but then it isn't like she explicitly concocted this whole scenario for her own benefit. It's a game that they had both, for better or worse, allowed themselves to get dragged into playing.

But deep down she knows that isn't entirely true. Kevin has made more than a few veiled insinuations about the exact nature of B&V since the day that Veronica had first come sailing into their lives. Most of it had just been harmless teasing, never given a second consideration, but a few of his more recent comments in particular had struck her harder than she had wanted to admit at the time, drawing to the surface -- even if just for a fleeting moment -- the idea that her closeness with the other girl might fall somewhere left of 'normal.'

And it's true that she finds Veronica to be attractive. Anyone with eyes could plainly see as much. Even now, Betty's stomach flip-flops and her pulse leaps with the close proximity they share and the anticipation of what might be coming next. ]


Isn't it always? [ Betty's response sounds measured this time and her voice has lowered rather than pitched higher with nervousness as it's normally prone to doing. It's not that she isn't scared. She's terrified, honestly, but she's also quite suddenly filled with a certain feeling of inevitability. ] You and me?

[ Her hands gently settle on either side of Veronica's waist as if to underscore their connectedness. ]

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barges in i want mob boss stuff

[personal profile] performativity 2017-12-13 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)


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[personal profile] performativity 2017-12-20 06:26 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Something's up with Ronnie, Archie had said, stretched out on his bed, Jughead's legs over Archie's as he clacked away at his laptop. There hadn't been anything else to follow that statement. Archie just knew something was off, but he couldn't tell what. Jughead's answering hum had been thoughtful but ultimately noncommittal. Compared to trying to wrestle an entire gang away from more damaging criminal enterprises, vague weirdness with Veronica probably didn't rate. So the topic just hovers at the edge of his consciousness, where Archie picks at it but ultimately lets it alone.

Veronica's helping run her parents company. Pushing too hard feels the same way running out on the ice after Cheryl had: dangerous, everything a breath away from shattering under his feet. Selfishly, Archie doesn't want to do anything to fuel that possibility.

But even after all his careful avoidance, the issue still feels primed to come to a head. Veronica's asked him over when her parents are away more than once, but it's different this time. As he walks into the study and takes her in, he's aware of how weighted the moment feels. Veronica looks so serious that Archie knows immediately she didn't bring him here for their usual tryst. ]


What's up, Ronnie?

[ Instead of taking the seat on the other side of the board, Archie walks to her instead to kiss the top of her head. ]

You want to take that up to your room?

[ Take the drink, leave the chessboard. Stave off whatever's about to happen in doing so. ]
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canon au / canon speculative stuff maybe.

[personal profile] performativity 2017-12-13 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
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[personal profile] performativity 2017-12-20 03:52 pm (UTC)(link)
[ As usual, Archie can't figure out exactly what Cheryl's motivation had been. But she'd plunked down and gleefully dragged out Archie's secret for Veronica's benefit. It serves him right for not telling Veronica in the first place but he'd thought—

Well, he doesn't really know what his plan had been. Veronica turning up on his doorstep had felt like a dream. Archie hadn't even figured out what had happened in the car with Betty himself at that point. He didn't have the first clue about how to start admitting what happened to Veronica. He'd thought, maybe just give them Christmas Day before he tried to admit what happened to her. Wedging it in under the mistletoe had felt impossible.

And if he's honest, he'd chickened out. He'd tried but every time he'd opened his mouth, he'd gotten cold feet. Now the truth's out, in the worst way possible. Veronica doesn't have to tell him anything. She's curled in on herself, silently rebuffing any attempts at physical contact. She'd barely looked at him before now. Archie's still at a loss, but he knows that I don't know isn't going to cut it any more than I tried will. But he doesn't have anything else. It's the truth, as much as the recitation of events Cheryl had laid for them had been. ]


It wasn't like that, Veronica. It wasn't.

[ Cheryl had made it sound salacious, almost. It hadn't felt that way when they'd been enclosed in the car together. Betty had been spinning out and Archie had wrenched her back on track. And then— ]

I wanted to tell you. I tried so many times but I just couldn't... [ Archie hesitates, watching her face, before finishing lamely, ] I didn't know how.
defrosting: (i ran my hand o'er.)

[personal profile] defrosting 2018-01-20 03:50 pm (UTC)(link)
[ cont. from here ]

Oh, Veronica, don't fret.
My affair with your little Archie was all business and I have already forgotten the encounter.

This is something else entirely.
defrosting: (but you don't dare.)

[personal profile] defrosting 2018-01-24 04:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Since you're overemotional and seem to be into that whole "sharing" thing, I figured you might be the best person to approach.
You just have to promise not to tell anyone about this conversation.
Not even Straight A Barbie.
defrosting: (you say love is hell.)

[personal profile] defrosting 2018-01-24 07:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Fine.
I was thinking, the other day, of what my life was like before and after the whole Jason thing happened.
And ignoring the obvious, which consists of everything I ever knew being a horrible lie and the one person who ever truly understood me was cruelly taken away from me.
Besides that, there was another major difference between then and now.

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