Nameless ≫ Jarchie

_48_

"Firefighter?"

"No."

"Police officer?"

"No."

"Artist?"

"Are you even good at art?"

"No."

"Then no."

"Singer?"

"No."

"You are right, I would not want to steal your spotlight."

"Funny," Archie snorted. "Let's hear you sing then."

"No way. I am actually awful at it, unlike you," Jughead admitted.

"I'm not good at it, I don't know why you keep insisting that I am."

"Because if you really thought you were bad, you would not sing to me," the boy pointed out.

"I only sing to you because you ask me to like every other night and I can't say no to you."

"It is still singing," Jughead sighed before shaking his head and getting back to the task at hand. He had a notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other. The two were sat in at a cafe table in their bookstore, trying to come up with career options for the boy that wouldn't require much of a formal college education. It reminder Jughead of his name searching days, except this time he had someone to help him.

Inside it was warm, the smell of coffee swimming through the air as snow fell in sheets outside. Jughead had never been much of a coffee drinker, but he'd been up late for the past few days and decided it would be worth a shot. So far, he wasn't feeling a burst of energy like he thought he would.

"Juggy, stop stressing out over this. David and Sabrina don't expect you to figure it out yet," Archie said softly, grabbing the boy's hand from across the table.

"Yeah but I cannot live with them for the rest of my life. I need to do something. I have to make this decision eventually," he frowned, staring at their hands and giving a squeeze.

"Well then why don't you tell me what you actually want to do instead of making up options as an alternative, because that's exactly what you're doing by making a list," Archie laughed lightly.

"I want to go to college but it is not an option," Jughead mumbled.

"Why not? What's stopping you?"

"Oh I do not know Archie, maybe the fact that I have done nothing with my life for the past five years. That would make for a great college application," he rolled his eyes.

"Alright mister, tone down the sass."

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, "It is February and applications were due a while back. I can't apply for any schools worth applying to even if I had met the deadline. The best I can get into at this rate without an SAT is the community college but I am too smart to be taking basic level classes. They have an honors program but I do not have the credentials to apply for that so basically, no college."

"You can always apply next year," Archie suggested.

"Yes, but what am I supposed to do for a year? You are going to be gone and everyone else is going to be at work or at school."

"You say I'm going to be gone as if I'm going all the way across the country," he snorted.

Jughead took his hand out of Archie's and reached for his cup of coffee. "I would not know, you never included me in your college process."

"I didn't want to make you upset," Archie frowned.

The truth was, Archie hid all of his college stress from the boy because he knew that his boyfriend actually wanted his college stress. It felt wrong to complain to the boy, about anything really. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to fill him in.

"I could have helped you, you know. I mean, I do not know much about applications but—"

"I know you could've. You would've been a great help." Archie assured him.

"Are you going to tell me which colleges you applied to? What even is your dream school? What do you want to be when you grow up? How come we never talk about these things? We never talk about the future," Jughead began thoughtfully. There was no contempt in his voice, just genuine curiously and concern until he finished with one last question. "Is there an us in your future?"

"Can we talk about this later?"

"You always want to talk about it later and later never happens. You push off the future even further into the future, but what are you going to do when the future becomes your present? What are you going to do when you cannot push it back anymore?" He mumbled, taking his eyes off of Archie and averting them to the ground.

"Why is there a problem whenever I don't want to talk about something?" Archie sighed. He answered like he always answered, because it wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation.

"I am not going to repeat myself anymore after this. This is the last time I will question your future or our future, but let me just say something. I put my all into us everyday. I have given you every part of me and I trust you with every fiber of my being but sometimes I do not think you do the same. We tell each other 'I love you' everyday and we have had sex a lot, which is mostly initiated by you, since our first time, but you still can not communicate with me. If there is something I am doing wrong I wish you would just tell me, but you do not. I cannot figure you out if you do not let me. I think you do is purposely. Either way, I will leave it be for now on. You do not have to worry about that anymore."

"Juggy, don't be mad," Archie whined, grabbing for his hand again. Jughead moved his hand away and looked at the redhead blankly. There had been no anger or hurt in his voice. It was more like pity and finality.

"Not mad," Jughead shrugged, going back to the list he had in his hand.

"You could always be a stripper," Archie said, laughing lightly. He was trying to change the subject and, although it clearly wasn't working, Jughead went along with it.

"Right. And I think I would not even have to feel guilty about it," he hummed.

"What do you mean?"

"By this time next year, I think my boyfriend would have broken up with me already." Jughead shrugged nonchalantly, writing the word 'stripper' on his list and circling it violently.

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Hey y'all. Update on my life: my best friends birthday was yesterday and I kinda feel like so out of place rn or like a bad friend even though I didn't do anything wrong. It's really a long story but ugh. It's whatever... she has two other best friends who planned this surprise for her and I helped plan the second one for her but it's clear her family likes them too more and my best friend kept posting about all the stuff her other friends did for her, recording the videos they took of her, but she didn't do any of that for my stuff and idk if that's because I failed at like my job or if it's nothing?? I overthink too much and I'd honestly rather not focus on it.

In other news I've hung out with R like every day after school this week if you even remember who that is and like... I probably shouldn't since I have work to do but I literally never have fun anymore so. I feel like I talk about my life too much on here so I'm not really going to go into this further unless you ask LMFAO

And I'm still gonna fail my AP exam. I got 15/40 questions right on a practice test... I'm screwed