(no subject)

[songwrite]

WHO: Archie & Betty
WHERE: Archie's place
WHEN: After this
WHAT: Riverdale Season 2 is a nightmare party and probably so is explaining it!
WARNINGS: Spoilers, talk of serial killers?



[Archie spends the time it takes Betty to get to his apartment hurriedly cleaning it up, throwing dirty laundry haphazardly back into his and Reggie's closets and trying to cram every unwashed dish into the dishwasher at once so he can start it running. Not that Betty's going to care, it's Betty, but he's got enough nervous energy bottled up in him over the way she'd sounded on the phone that it's a better use of his time than just sitting on the couch and going out of his mind waiting.

But even despite all that, he's so giddy that she has returned that he can't help but hover near the door when the apartment is about as clean as it's going to get. She came back. He doesn't actually have to figure out what his life would even be like without Betty Cooper in it somewhere.]

Comments

[perfectible]

[ The last place she wants to be is in the apartment with Mickey, someone who's pretty messed up and has guns in their apartment. She's had her fill of guns, of violence. And despite the fact she's dreading telling Archie all that's happened, she knows she has to.

She manages not to cry on the cab ride over, which is some kind of miracle. It seems like it's more difficult not to cry here, where she knows she's not being watched by the Black Hood, where she doesn't have to pretend to be stoic or tough.

But she makes it to Archie and Reggie's place without much fuss, her make up is, well, she opted not to wear any and she's wearing the clothes she arrived in, sans the Black Hood's hood that she tossed into her purse. Knocking on the door gently, her hand trembles and she has to tuck them both into her coat pocket to hide that fact even if she knows the moment she sees Archie, that will be a fruitless effort.]

[songwrite]

[Archie pulls the door open quickly, looking Betty over, worry stiffening the lines of his shoulders and the tilt of his mouth. She doesn't look different, or older or anything, just... tireder. More scared.

Without thinking, he pulls her into a hug. The first one since that disastrous halloween party, probably, when he was super high and she totally hated it.

He's not going to think about that right now.]

I'm glad you're here again.

[perfectible]

[ Whatever waning strength she had is gone now, now that she sees him, now that he pulls her into his arms. She's so tired, so very tired. And she's done horrible things to hurt the people she loves. To save them. And she worries Archie will be next. That whenever she goes home, her last vestige of sanity will be cut away by the maniac with a hood.

She buries her face against his chest and starts to cry, silent tears slipping down her cheeks and her body trembling.] Me too.