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Jughead’s always hated the winter, but this one feels especially lonely.
The cold breeze is stronger than the year prior, sinking its sharp teeth into the exposed skin of his face and neck whenever he leaves the house. His clothes are worn thin by now too, due to several winters’ worth of wear, and it doesn't take long for the chill to seep into his flesh and bones beneath them. And the bare trees seem more intimidating than usual, their gnarly branches reaching towards him, not yet softened by the plush white of freshly fallen snow.
And he's lonely. Betty hasn't spoken to him in weeks, and the drafts of unsent messages mock him whenever he glances at his phone. Toni’s been refocusing her attention on someone else, her gaze never failing to slide away from Jughead's whenever her favorite redhead happened to walk by. Fangs and Sweet Pea are more inconveniences than friends, and Archie, well Archie’s a story in and of himself.
On one hand, it seems like Archie’s paying more attention to him than ever before, but none of that attention is the good kind. He shoots daggers towards Jughead across the tables at Pop’s, and he crosses to the opposite side of the street everytime he sees him. It’s an intentional sort of avoidance. Archie seeks out Jughead, then runs away before either of them can even say “hello”.
As if he’d bother saying “hello” anyway.
Part of it is Jughead’s fault. He’d moved schools, joined a gang, and devoted every drop of spare time to cleaning up his father’s messes. He’d stopped making time for his friends, but they'd also stopped making time for him. Betty would mutter the occasional classist remark, sparking an argument between them until she’d eventually leave with Veronica’s number already half-dialed. A handful of open-ended fights later and she stopped coming by. Instead, she’d send Archie, whose bitter rants about betrayal and crime always stung more than Betty’s words ever could.
Maybe that's why this winter felt colder than usual.
Part of it isn't Jughead’s fault at all. He knows how the Northside feels about people like him. People who can't afford the same opportunities as them. People who haven't seen their families sober in years. People who turn to the warm embrace of gangs in order to survive. He knows how Hiram has furthered this narrative, pumping propaganda into every article he publishes, tearing Riverdale in two and fueling his very own civil war. It’s a distraction tactic, but his efforts to explain as much only seem to fall on deaf ears, and Alice is happy to perpetuate these ideas in her own journalism.
Maybe it isn't classism at all, though. Archie’s never had an issue with poverty before. He spent his childhood knitting hats for the homeless with his grandmother, always setting aside a special one for Jughead to replace his own thread-bare beanies.
Maybe the problem is Jughead. Maybe it's his newly-painted nails, his shaggy grown out hair, or the thin layer of mascara coating his eyelashes. It’s not an intense look, but it's clearly an unfamiliar one, and Jughead’s had his fair share of judgemental looks cast his way. Or their way. Or her way.
It’s all so novel. Small dustings of pink blush, just enough that the weather could grant him plausible deniability, a few lone scrunchies wrapped around his slender wrists, a skirt stolen from the local thrift shamefully shoved into the back of his closet. Maybe that's why Betty seems to hate him so much.
Maybe that's why Archie is disgusted by him.
In his dreams he imagines being called beautiful. He sits in a booth at Pop’s, his clothing new and noticeably better fitting, his leather jacket cropped and tee shirt tight. Across from him sits a faceless entity, a person not quite distinct enough to be identifiable. They'll order him a milkshake, their hand entangled with his, and once the waiter disappears they'll lean over the pile of menus between them, taking Jughead's face in their wide palm, and they'll tell him he's gorgeous. Sometimes their voice resembles Betty’s, blunt but sweet, no louder than a whisper, and sometimes their voice resembles Toni’s, but lately it’s been settling on an octave much closer to Archie’s.
Archie, strong and tall and handsome, with his calloused hands and crooked smile. Archie holding Jughead’s cheeks in a tender cradle. Archie with a smear of gloss along his temple, vaguely shaped like the curve of Jughead's lips.
He always wakes up once he realizes who the entity could possibly be. He lays alone in bed, the chill of the wind piercing through the trailer’s thin walls, and he tries his hardest not to think about it.
Toni asked him once if she could braid his hair and she rehearsed her speech for some photography award she’d won. He remembers how soft her hands were in his hair, expertly kneading the strands together as she repeated the same few sentences over and over again. He remembers how he felt she handed him her compact, his eyes tracing over the S-shape of the braid along his neck and right shoulder. He remembers feigning nonchalance as he attempted to memorize the silhouette, loving the way it both softened and elongated his jaw.
Toni had laughed and told him he resembled one of her exes, a pretty butch girl he’s seen around the Southside a couple of times. It was hard for him to laugh back around the tightness in his chest.
Ever since then he's smuggled some hair ties and makeup out of CVS, safely tucked inside his leather jacket throughout his entire walk home. He’s never successfully braided his own hair, but that hasn't stopped him from trying. His last attempt was uneven, but much neater than the few that came before.
None of the Serpents have commented on the changes in his appearance, except for a small wink from Toni, but he knows that's probably out of respect. He’s their leader, after all, and you don't talk shit to your leader’s face.
But he's not the leader of his old friend group, and the three of them would have no reason to spare him of their distaste. So yeah, that might be why they don't like him. Along with the poverty, and the gang, and the general unpleasantness of his awkward personality, of course.
That's why he's shocked to find Archie staring at him from the doorway of The Roast, a small coffee shop on the outskirts of town Jughead only goes to when he wants to be alone. He’s mentioned it to Archie in passing before, but he's never bothered to take him here, and Archie was never a fan of coffee or tea, so his presence here can't be a coincidence.
They lock eyes for an uncomfortable amount of time, neither of them saying a word, until an old man almost opens the door directly into Archie’s back. Then he finally approaches Jughead.
“Is anyone sitting here?” he asks, and the slight shake in his tone reminds Jughead of their first conversation after their road trip that wasn't.
“Doesn't look like it to me.”
Archie slides into the seat across from Jughead. He has a scarf wrapped snugly around his throat, the top of it kissing his chin as he turns his head. He’s facing Jughead, but his eyes aren't meeting him anymore. Instead his gaze sits somewhere along Jughead’s chest, presumably where the thin silver chain he’s wearing is.
“You look nice.” he says, adding on: “It’s different.”
Jughead laughs and closes the lid of his laptop. “That's a hell of an understatement.”
Archie looks up towards his face and extends a hand, the tip of his finger grazing a collection of small curls peeking out from the bottom of his beanie. “Your hair is longer.”
“Astute observation, Holmes.”
Archie bites his lip. “You look kind of like a girl.”
There it is. The comment Jughead's spent weeks waiting for, but his words lack the malice he expected to accompany them. It sounds like a question more than an insult, with Archie’s voice pitching up at the end of “girl”, as if he were uncertain of the implications there.
At first Jughead wants to reply with the vitriol he anticipated, a crude response about his own appearance hidden behind his yellowed teeth, but he swallows it down just as quickly. Archie doesn't deserve that, even if he's been a bit of an asshole lately.
Jughead asks, “Do you like it?” Do you hate it? Do you even care anymore?
And Archie pauses, silent as he scans the entirety of Jughead's face. He’s wearing mascara and the tiniest hint of blush, with leftover lip gloss from last night’s makeup experiment smudged along his lower lip. Archie gestures towards his cheeks.
“I think Veronica likes that color. She says it's ‘subtle’.”
“I’m sure Veronica’s is much more expensive than mine.” Veronica doesn't have to avoid eye contact with the cashier as she strolls past with a Wet ‘n’ Wild eyeliner inside her closed fist.
Archie shrugs. “I still like it on you. Does this make you a girl now?”
“Why would it do that? Painting your face doesn't make you a woman, Archie.” It comes out angrier than he intends. Jughead doesn't apologize.
“Well Veronica has this friend back in New Y-”
“And I'm not Veronica's friend.” Jughead snaps. “What are you even doing here, Archie? I thought Hiram Lodge was your best friend now.”
Archie scowls and leans away from Jughead, pressing his back into the metal seat behind him. “He’s helping me, Jug. You know that.”
“Oh, is he now? Because last time I checked he was trying to turn you into the next Tony Soprano.”
“At least I'm not running a gang. You know that your friends threatened me last time I was in the Southside?”
Jughead stands up, sliding his laptop into his bag as he does. “Was that before or after you pulled a gun on them?”
He shakes his head. “I don't know why you came here, but I came here to write in peace. If all you want to do is yell at me, then I'm just gonna go home.” He shrugs his satchel over his shoulder, pushes his seat in, and steps to the side of the table.
“Good-bye, Archie.”
“Wait, Jug-” Archie places his hand on Jughead’s forearm. He’s not grabbing Jughead, and there's nothing actually stopping him from leaving, but something about Archie’s gentle touch compels him to stay. It’s the tenderness of his hand, just barely circled around Jughead's arm, holding him like he does in his dreams.
“I miss you.”
Jughead frowns. “Is that it?”
“I don't know what else you want me to say.” There's a sheen over his eyes and his brows are knitted together. Jughead doesn't like seeing this expression on him.
“Why are you here, Archie? What do you want from me?”
“I don't know. I just want to be your friend again, Jug, and I don't know how we ruined that.”
“How you ruined that.”
Archie blinks, and Jughead watches as a lone tear slithers down Archie’s face, outlining the curvature of his cheeks and jaw before falling to the floor beneath them.
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
He wants to ask Archie a million questions about Hiram and Betty and the Northside. He wants to ask him why they dislike him and when it all began, and if they ever truly became friends again after the Fourth of July. He wants to ask if Archie actually likes his new look, or if he's just trying to be nice. He wants to ask Archie how he's been, if he still plays guitar, if his burger order has changed at all. He doesn't ask any of those things, though. He can't.
“When did you start doing,” Archie mimes putting on lipstick.
Jughead raises an eyebrow. “My makeup?”
“Uh, yeah. That.”
“A while ago.”
“A while ago,” Archie repeats, under his breath more than out loud. “It looks nice. Pretty.”
Pretty.
“Yeah, thanks. That's usually the goal with makeup.”
“Do you miss Betty?” Archie asks.
“Does she miss me?”
“I miss you.” Archie says, his voice laced with sincerity. That gets Jughead to take another seat.
He tries to play it off as no big deal, maintaining that same sarcastic tone as always, but there's a pit forming at the center of his chest.
“I think you're getting old, bud, you've said that already.”
“I mean it, Jug. I miss you.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. The four fold lines are deep and the edges are crumpled, a sign of age. He moves slowly as he hands it to Jughead.
“You drew this, when we were kids. I don't know if you remember. We were in your treehouse and you loved this comic about knights and you drew us as knights in a big tree castle.” He points to the scribble of silver just beside Archie’s smiling face. “You always gave me the biggest sword.”
Jughead remembers.
“You kept that?”
Archie flushes pink. “I thought it was a nice memory.”
“I really miss you, Jughead. I miss how things were, before Jason died and the Blackhood came and you joined the Serpents.”
“Yeah, well things change. It’s just part of growing up.”
“I don't want us to change.” “Us” carries a lot of implications. “Girl” carries a lot of implications.
“We already did.”
Jughead folds his hands in his lap, his knuckles brushing the frayed edges of his bag as he moves. A few more tears have escaped Archie’s eyes, leaving his cheeks smooth and glossy in the same way Jughead’s lips are. Moments like this remind him just how young they both are, barely sixteen and forced to be living martyrs, giving up their joy and souls and futures for their respective sides of this war. It's exhausting.
Jughead sighs. “Do you still have your old WII?”
“In my bedroom. My copy of Mario Kart is scratched though.”
“I have one. We can pick it up before we go.”
Archie’s expression eases. “I’d like that.” He reaches his open hand out to Jughead, palm facing the sky.
“Holding hands? What are we, children?” Jughead says, but he takes his hand anyway, lacing their fingers together.
They step away from the table together, Archie leading off.
It’s not a solution to anything, nor is it going to change much between the two sides of town, but it is a start.
At least Jughead’s hand felt much warmer than it has all season.