T H E B O Y & T H E S E R P A N T
JUGHEAD & ROSARIO
❝ My heart fly to your service, there resides/To make me slave to it ❞
☺ ☹ ☺
Rosario shook his head, forcing himself to forget the words exchanged between both he and Kevin. It didn't matter, at least, Rosario told himself it didn't matter, but when he entered the screening room where Jughead waited, phone held in a tight grasp, Rosario knew it mattered. "Kevin just texted me," Jughead explained as Rosario sat beside him. "About?" Rosario hummed, forcing his voice to steady itself as he spoke.
"About what happened just now. Outside. About Jason Blossom."
Rosario stiffened. "So?" asked Rosario, attempting to remain indifferent. Rosario extended a carton of fries toward the other, who returned a dark glare. "What?" Rosario asked, his stare flickered downward to the tray. "Is there a hair on it?"
Jughead scoffed as he stood up, whirling to face Rosario. "Stop acting like you're always so clueless," Jughead said—his cheeks darkening a deep, crimson red of anger. "A kid is dead, Rosario! A kid whose body you found!"
"So, what?" demanded Rosario, the nonchalance held in his voice fading. He held the food tray tighter—the plastic sinking deep into his flesh, but he didn't care. He needed to be distracted, he needed to feel something other than this ache. He needed to feel something that distracted him from what he saw.
Henrik.
"It's just a body—" he hesitates, as if unprepared for the words he his next to say. Jughead watches. His heart matching the rapid pace of Rosario's own. Rosario knows he cannot allow the silence to stretch much longer; he knows he can't allow the face of a cynical man, absent of love, start to appear as if he cares. Somehow, though, Jughead always found away to make it known Rosario cares all too fucking much. But, with the image of Henrik raw, he knew he couldn't care. "It doesn't matter."
Jughead raised his hands in frantic, fierce gestures as he said, "It matters to Cheryl Blossom. It matters to his family—his friends. It matters to the entire town of Riverdale!"
"Oh, please," chuckled Rosario, the sound bittersweet. "You only care for your novel. You can stop playing the high road."
Jughead jerked back, as if slapped by his words. "Wow. Is that all you really think of me?" Rosario forced himself to look away from Jughead. No. He wanted to say. He needed to say it, but his tongue was captured in the claws of the cat. His throat was clenched in the hands of his secrets. He couldn't speak—but, that's where the problem lied, wasn't it? Because it wasn't a matter of couldn't, but a matter of wouldn't that he continued to delude himself with the lie that it was a couldn't.
Jughead sighed heavily, drawing Rosario's attention away from his own mind when he spoke. "Tell me it's more," said Jughead— no, not said, pleaded. "Tell me you are just putting up some walls, or some stupid shit because there is more to the story. Rose—"
"If you are looking for some— some hurt soul beneath this exterior, some sort of human," Rosario forced himself to laugh. Short. Bitter. Cruel. "Than you're barking up the wrong tree because I'm not the lost cause you're hoping to find, Jughead."
Jughead dragged a hand down his face as he shook his head disapprovingly—as though forcing himself not to believe Rosario's words. "No," Jughead said to himself more than to Rosario. "Where is the guy who I saw earlier?" asked Jughead. "The guy who made me help him with his Spanish homework even though he was fluent? The guy who made up an excuse to see me? The guy who said he'd change at Pops—the guy who said he wanted to be better?" Rosario tore his stare away from Jughead, unable to meet the other eyes.
"I don't know."
. . .
Rosario's fist pounded against the door—his hand aching at the impact, but Rosario could hardly feel the tearing of skin on his knuckles, or the chill burn. He was too numb to care. He was too numb to feel. "Keller"—Rosario called out in a drunken cry—"Keller, get your scrawny ass out here so I can kill you!" Rosario leant his weight against the door, sinking in his own weight. "Keller," he attempted again, the bottle of Gin he held cradled against his chest as he gnawed on the straw he placed in the bottle. "Keller—"
The door swung open.
Rosario's weight caved as the door opened, nearly collapsing onto the porch had it not been for Kevin who reacted quickly. Sweeping downward, Kevin caught the Lodge son, and with ease, raised him from the ground. "Rosario, what the hell are you doing?" Kevin demanded, his arm held securely around the others waist to keep the ladder from falling. Rosario squirmed in the Keller's grasp, the bottle of Gin between their chest nearly spilling. "Let go of me," Rosario said—his string of slurs near inaudible, "so I can kick your ass."
Kevin jerked back as the Lodge spoke—the stench of alcohol stronger than the cologne he wore. "Jesus, Rosario, you reek." he complained as he drew both deeper within the home, his foot raised to kick the door closed. "If my Dad was home he'd kill you!"
"Good," Rosario said, taking the former by surprise. "Maybe then I'd have some fucking peace." Kevin leant back with surprise, as though the words had struck him. He doesn't mean it, Kevin insisted. He's drunk, but despite the lie Keller attempted to fool himself with, he knew it was the thought of a sober man. "You're just upset," Kevin attempted to reason, "you don't mean it—" Rosario sunk into the brunettes hold—the Gin he held, slipped from grasp. Kevin winced as the bottle fell to their feet, the bottle of Gin never spilling. He drank it all. Kevin acknowledged. His grasp tightened around Rosario's waist, unsure what to do—unsure what he could do.
"Do— Do you want me to call Veronica?" Kevin stammered, desperate for a solution. "Or, Jughead—"
"It's all your fault," Rosario claimed, "I hope you're fucking happy!" Kevin winced with a knowing guilt. He knew what he had done when he typed those words—he knew what he had done when he sent those words. But that isn't why he felt the pang of guilt. It was wanting this to happen, and not caring that it had, that lead him to feel this guilt.
"Rosario—"
"Uh oh."
Rosario winced at the voice. The voice not drawn by Kevin, or his own damned thoughts but the voice drawn from a memory. A ghost, brought back to life by the very sight of Jason Blossom.
Henrik.
— — —
Daniel Radcliffe | Henrik