oneshots and other shit

6: it might make it easier, but it won't make it true (jughead/archie)

lol i forgot to post this

"just get in the bed."

it's four in the morning. it always is.

archie's eyes roll back into their sockets.

jughead can feel the cold in the middle of the room. in odd socks, boxers, and what might just be archie's t-shirt. because jughead knows he doesn't own any clothes this bright.

no doesn't reach his lips before archie is on his feet. moving, gracefully, like a swan skirting a lake. jughead is just another pebble at the bottom. the dirt that fell in, trapped under ice frozen over. he thinks thats what living with archie feels like. like it's not quite a place he's allowed to be.

but archie andrews is the word 'yes' to the ultimate degree.

and jughead's been having nightmares again. like a routine.

"come on." archie insists, pressed too close to him in the darkness.

jughead closes his eyes, and wishes he could sleep standing up and just fade away.

but then archie's arms are around him and he's fifty feet off the ground and everything is terrifying.

archie andrews with his arms around his waist gives every single one of jughead's nightmares a run for its money. yet, he stills. they still as one.

jughead lets himself be warm. lets archie move him like a doll.

he is only faint footsteps and shallow breaths as archie eases him down into bed with a hand on his back. he thinks of archie's hands with such urgency it would seem they were to be taken from him - a hole to be ripped in the fabric of their very being.

as his head hits the pillow, he realises he is not scared. at all.

this isn't fear. this is something more.

this is archie andrews on his side, in bed next to him, face the perfect picture of concern - just enough to send jughead to mush inside. this is archie andrews asking him;

"is this okay?"

jughead doesn't know what to say. so he doesn't say anything at all.

archie stares at the ceiling like he doesn't know what to do with himself.

for moments stacked high to the ceiling, they just be.

jughead thinks about his nightmares. about every dark shadow around every hidden corner. he thinks he's almost set traps for himself in his mind; to keep him from treading down certain pathways its seems. but he's hit this romance one head on.

and archie andrews is in bed next to him. but jughead doesn't want to move for the love of anything.

and love is a foreign dead thing, but one he'll hold in his hands to the very end of time. for jughead believes in love in the same way that he believes in hope; at first so very little at all, and then, with everything he has.

the clock turns five.

jughead doesn't know if archie's still awake; part of him doesn't even want him to be. yet still, he speaks aloud, as if they'll never run out of time.

"i think... cheryl blossom thinks we're dating."

archie jerks in the bed next to him.

it throws jug, honestly.