Chapter Text
i found a lover
to carry more than just my secrets
to carry love, to carry children
of our own
- ed sheeran, "perfect"
March 2031.
It starts when Veronica calls at three in the morning. Even from the other side of the bed, head pressed firmly into his pillow, Jughead can hear Veronica’s high, excited voice coming through the speaker of Betty’s phone. Soon enough, Betty’s propping a pillow behind her and sitting up a bit, still sleepy-eyed but squealing right back, her smile a spot of brightness in the otherwise dark room.
At the sound of her happy voice, Nacho flings himself up onto the bed, pawing at the blankets excitedly. Their cane corso puppy is still bleary-eyed with sleep, but is nonetheless eager to play if it’s even a slim possibility. Betty smiles at him and rubs his head, tilting the phone away from her mouth slightly to tell Jughead, “Veronica and Cheryl are engaged!”
He goes totally still. Betty must assume he’s half-asleep, because she laughs fondly and tells Veronica, “Jug says congrats.”
Jughead hauls Nacho closer to him, and the dog flops over for a belly rub. It’s good that Betty’s speaking for him, because if he had to speak for himself, congrats would not be his word of choice. At this point, the only thing he has to say to Veronica - or to Cheryl, whoever did the proposing - is fuck you.
After she hangs up, Betty snuggles back down under the blankets, takes over rubbing Nacho’s belly, and begins the narrate the details of Veronica and Cheryl’s engagement. Jughead pays enough attention to catch key words - horses, midnight, Tiffany’s - but the thoughts flying through his mind demand most of his concentration.
He’s been trying to get Betty to marry him for three years. He first told her that he wanted to marry her when they were only weeks into the new, adult iteration of their relationship, and he’s said it countless times since: marry me. In the beginning, she would get adorably bashful (“Jug, stop”), later on she would tease him with emphatic answers (“Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!”), and more recently she’s been looking at him with soft, earnest eyes (“Of course I want to marry you, Juggie”).
He proposed to her shortly after they moved to Boston, a proposal that was entirely real, one of his knees on the ground and a painfully sentimental speech spilling out his mouth, but that lacked a ring. Betty had knelt down in front of him and linked her hands at the back of his neck, her fingers slipping into the hair at the base of his skull in the way he always found so soothing, and told him, with tears in her eyes, that she loved him, that she’d love him forever, but that she just didn’t feel right about getting divorced and engaged in the same year.
“When you ask me again,” she’d said, in the softest voice, full of tenderness, “I’ll say yes.”
So they settled in Boston, and Betty worked crazy hours and got great bylines, and Jughead took a part-time gig at a tutoring centre and dedicated his mornings to writing his second novel, which was published last year. It was around that time that he started looking at rings and found himself involved in lengthy text conversations with Veronica about diamond cuts and band metals; it was around that time that Betty floated the idea of having a baby, the sparkle of hope in her eyes belying her casual tone. He found himself reading numerous long-form articles about De Beers and the diamond industry, and, to his great disbelief, found himself in an honest-to-god fight with Veronica when he suggested looking into “artisan-created” stones. It was during the three days he wasn’t speaking to Veronica that Betty, who was helping a colleague with an investigative piece, texted him to come to the Animal Rescue League.
When he arrived, she was already holding Nacho, his small squishy face pressed to her cheek, and that sight melted away all of Jughead’s crankiness - he was powerless to say anything but yes.
Since then, he’s made up with Veronica, purchased a ring, and hidden it. Nacho’s been a royal terror and has finally learned some good behaviour in puppy classes. Betty's showed him a series of photos of toddlers curled up with their canine best friends and then said, steadily, “I feel like I’m ready. How do you feel?” They’d had a conversation so honest he ended up with his face pressed to her chest, tears in his eyes, his fingers digging into her torso with the force of his hug, and she’d gone off her birth control.
And tomorrow - tonight, given that they’re in the small hours of a brand new day - he was going to propose. He was going to meet her after the interview she’s doing at the MFA, pretending his presence was a spur-of-the-moment decision, take her to Mike’s Pastry for cannoli, even though he personally prefers their competitor, Modern, and then suggest a walk in the Common, where they’d gone in the evening on the day he’d moved to the city and walked and talked with their hands clasped, the future spread out before them. He was going to have his favourite student, Rosie, and her dad bring Nacho to the park, and he planned to have them put a sign around Nacho’s neck that said will you marry my dad?, which is the sort of sappy bullshit he never imagined he’d do - but he can envision the look on Betty’s face exactly, her half-smile and her happy tears, so he bought the fucking sign for the dog from a crafty online shop.
But now -
“Are you falling asleep on me?” Betty asks, snapping him out of his reverie. Her tone is teasing, but the crease between her brows is one that borders on concern.
He reaches over Nacho, who can barely keep his eyes open, and rubs his thumb over her skin to smooth it out again. “No, wide awake. It sounds like Ronnie’s really happy.”
“Yeah,” she says warmly. “Cheryl really pulled out all the stops, and she’s pretending it was all unnecessary, but…”
“She’s loving it,” he says, completing her sentence. It makes sense that Cheryl proposed - Veronica would’ve talked to him first, he thinks, to avoid this exact situation. There’s no way in hell he can propose to Betty tonight; Ronnie and Cheryl’s relationship has been every bit as much of a rollercoaster as theirs, and he and Betty can’t steal their thunder. Veronica might understand, but Cheryl Blossom isn’t the forgiving type.
He wonders how much time Emily Post says should pass between best friends getting engaged to their long-term partners. With his luck, it’s probably years.
Betty, he realizes, is giving him bedroom eyes from the other side of Nacho’s snoring body, her teeth digging lightly into her bottom lip. “Wide awake, huh?” she says.
All his annoyance slips to the back of his mind as he watches the middle of her lip lighten from the pressure of her teeth. “Definitely not asleep,” he says lightly.
“I’m pretty awake, too.” She looks down at Nacho and then up at him pointedly.
With an overdramatic sigh, Jughead throws back the blankets and gets out of bed, taking the puppy with him. He carries Nacho to the living room and puts him down on the bizarrely expensive, cushiony bed Betty’d said he needed; he has to crouch down at pat Nacho for a couple minutes before the dog finally settles in to sleep.
When he returns to the bedroom, Betty’s shoulders, which peek out above the blankets, are bare, though she was wearing a t-shirt when he left. She gives her eyebrows a little wiggle and he practically dives under the blankets to join her, hands sliding greedily all over her bare skin. A moment later his boxers are off, and he’s slipping a hand between them to make sure she’s ready for him, and then her legs are wrapped around him as he thrusts into her. Betty’s hips lift to meet his and her head tips back into the pillow, giving him room to work as he sucks a mark onto the column of her neck.
“Harder,” she breathes, and the notes of need in her voice tear a groan from his throat. She keeps whispering to him, yes, Juggie, god, yes, words punctuated by sharp little gasps, and that’s all it takes to push him over the edge. He pulls out just before he comes and spills all over her stomach.
He hands her the box of tissues on the bedside table so she can clean up, and once she’s wiped off her stomach, she gets up to go throw the wad of tissues into the trashcan. She tosses her discarded underwear into the laundry basket, grabs a fresh pair of panties out of the dresser, and steps into them before she pulls her t-shirt back over her head. He watches her move about with eyes that are beginning to ache for sleep, and when she comes back to the bed he extends an arm toward her, ready to fall back into slumber with her nestled against him, but she sits on the mattress instead of lying down.
“Why did you do that?” she asks softly. Her hair is a mess around her shoulder, and although the room is dark, he can see something bright in her eyes that resembles hurt.
Jughead sighs, running his hand down her arm. “Habit, I guess. Let’s sleep, baby.”
“Habit?” she repeats skeptically; as he suspected, she’s not going to let him out of this conversation that easily.
“It’s the middle of the night, Betts. I wasn’t really thinking.”
“Jug - ” He can hear her suck in a breath, and her next words are careful. “If you’re having second thoughts, you can tell me.”
“Hey.” He sits up and cups her cheek in one of his hands. “I’m not. I want to knock you up, I promise.”
She doesn’t smile like he’d hoped she would. “Then why did you pull out?”
He sighs. Betty doesn’t know that when he said okay; let’s have a baby, his commitment to the idea was partially informed by the fact that he planned to propose about a month later. He didn’t feel the need to tell her - his carefully-planned proposal was a surprise, and it’s not like informing her would have any effect on her fertility. But he had taken into consideration the fact that even if she got pregnant right away, they’d be engaged by the time she realized.
She hadn’t quite understood, the one time he’d mentioned that it might be nice to be married before they started a family. She’d reminded him of his teenaged grumblings about marriage being a capitalist institution, she’d said that a signed piece of paper changed absolutely nothing about their feelings for one another, and on an intellectual level he agrees with her, completely. But on an emotional level, the stupid societal institution has come to mean something to him. It isn’t the same for her: she’s been married before, and though she grew up in a family with its fair share of dysfunction, it was a family that had decidedly wanted her existence. He wants to send that kind of message to his own kid: Your mom and I planned to be together forever. Your mom and I planned for you. Your mom and I wanted you; you are wanted.
“Jug,” Betty says, bringing him back to reality for the second time in so many hours, her brows knit more firmly this time. She’s got the steeled expression she wears when she’s prepared for something to make her sad. “Honey, talk to me.”
He leans over and gives her a kiss. He can feel her sink into it, and he puts a hand to the back of her neck. He might be a wordsmith in his professional life, but he can say so much to her in a kiss, and she always understands. When she melts into him like she is right now, it’s as though whatever solace his mouth gives to her is returned to him, twofold.
He breaks away from her just enough to say, “Marry me.”
Betty’s lips curve into a smile as her eyes flutter open. “Yes,” she says simply.
“I mean it, Betts.” He gets up, not even bothering to put his boxers back on, and rifles around in his side of the closet for a moment. He goes back to her with the box in hand, cracking it open as he sits. “Marry me.”
Both of her hands are pressed to her chest, her mouth open in surprise. She stares at the ring for several seconds before she looks at his face. “Juggie,” she whispers, a thousand questions in her eyes.
“I was going to do it tomorrow night - or tonight, now. I had this whole plan.”
“Oh, Jug,” she murmurs, blinking hard to keep from crying. “I love it; it’s so beautiful.” She looks back at the ring, an aquamarine stone with a halo of diamonds. Its colour had reminded him of her eyes in certain lights.
“I was going to get you Mike’s cannoli,” he says.
Her bottom lip trembles with the threat of tears even as she smiles. “V and Cheryl,” she says quietly, understanding.
“Yeah,” he says on a heavy sigh. “Ronnie knew that I was planning to do it soon, but I asked her not to tell Cheryl, and since I’m pretty sure Cheryl’s not quite so petty as to try to beat me to the punch out of spite, I’m assuming she kept her promise.”
Betty shakes her head a little. “I love you,” she says.
“I love you too,” he says, and offers her a rueful smile. “But you’re not saying yes to me, are you?”
On her knees, she shifts closer to him, touching his cheeks, his shoulders, his chest. “Of course I am,” she says, and then responds to his smile with a wry one of her own. “Just not a… wear-the-ring, social-media-official kind of yes.”
“Want to wear it tonight?” he asks. “Just tonight?”
She hesitates, looking at the ring, then at him, then back at the ring once more. “Okay,” she finally says, a hint of giddiness in her voice.
He takes the ring out of the box and she holds her left hand out to him. He slides it onto her finger, and he’s barely got it past her knuckle when she leans in and kisses him, hard.
After they pull apart, she adjusts the ring on her finger and holds her hand out to inspect it. “Perfect fit,” she says, smiling at him.
Jughead reaches out and tucks her hair behind one of her ears. “That’s what you are to me,” he says.
Betty grins. “Cheeseball,” she says, nothing but fondness in her voice. She moves even closer, straddling his lap, her arms winding around him.
“Why did you put clothes on again?” he asks, moving his mouth over the line of her jaw. He tips her backward, pressing her into the mattress and settling between her legs.
“You can take them off.” She touches his chest with her newly bejewelled hand, the thin metal band cool against his skin. He makes quick work of getting her naked.
She sighs as he kisses the valley between her breasts, her back arching slightly. “Get me pregnant, Juggie,” she says, her voice an impatient murmur.
Her ring glints in the moonlight as he lifts her hands and pins them above her head. He gives it his very best try.
As usual, Betty rises before him on Saturday and takes Nacho for a walk. The enticing smell of the coffee she brews once she’s returned rouses Jughead, and he plods to the kitchen in his bare feet to find her sitting at their small table wearing leggings and a hoodie, a mug cradled in her hands.
“Good morning, sunshine,” she says.
He makes an indistinct noise, dropping a kiss atop her head before he pours himself a cup of coffee.
“I don’t think Veronica’s gone to sleep yet,” Betty says. “She texted me at five asking me to be her maid of honour, and then again at seven asking me to ignore the text because a formal request would be coming in the mail.”
He turns away from the coffeemaker and puts a hand to his chest, feigning offense. “You? She asked you, and not me?”
She grins. “Oh, honey, don’t worry. You’ve still got a shot at being a bridesmaid.”
“Thank god. I live to throw bachelorette parties.” He joins her at the table and Nacho comes over, setting his front paws up on Jughead’s thigh, looking for love.
“Speaking of - well, bachelors - Archie called while I was on my walk. He sounded a little freaked out. He doesn’t know how you’re supposed to react when your ex-girlfriends get engaged.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I didn’t know, either. It’s not like I dated half the girls at Riverdale High.”
Jughead lifts one eyebrow and she gives him a sheepish smile. “Damn, Betts, that’s tough love. If I have to listen to Archie singing some melancholy song on the radio for the next six months, I’m blaming you.”
“Yeah, yeah, story of my life,” she says dismissively. “I said you’d call him later.”
He shakes his head and teases, “Making me undo your damage.”
“Why do you think I keep you around?” She quirks an eyebrow at him, eyes twinkling with mischief, and then drops her gaze to her hands, removing them from around her mug. She takes the ring off and holds it out to him. “This should go back in its box,” she says, an apologetic expression on his face.
He looks at the ring but makes no move to accept it. “You sure?”
She nods. “Just for a while.” She reaches out with her free hand to folds her fingers around his. “But you know my answer’s yes. I want to be your wife.”
Her eyes are full of sincerity, of love, of something gently wistful. Jughead nods, using their joined hands to tug her closer, and she lifts herself out of her chair slightly to lean across the table and kiss him. With reluctance, he allows her to place the ring in the centre of his palm.
“I’ve got to shower and get ready,” she says, crossing the kitchen and placing her mug in the sink. “You boys be good,” she adds, and Jughead wants to volley back a reply, to settle into their usual banter, but this morning, ring in hand and his mug only half-empty, he can only offer her a fleeting smile.
After Betty leaves, Jughead goes into their second bedroom, his home office, and retrieves his phone from its charger. It turns out he has a text from Veronica awaiting his attention, too. It says hey, know you were planning on popping the question soon. we didnt take your moment did we?
It’s hard to stay annoyed in the face of a text like that; it’s hard to stay annoyed with Veronica, who is his best friend in a way that’s different, not a familiar face from childhood like Archie or Betty, but someone who’s learned to like him along the way.
it’s ok ronnie, he replies. I’m really happy for you.
Her response is immediate: fuck, jug. i’m sorry.
it’s ok, he says again, and mostly means it. not even you can control cheryl blossom.
still…
He sighs. Her feeling guilty won’t change anything, and he doesn’t want to a put a damper on her happy day. it’s really ok. you’ll make it up to me by getting a really good wedding cake.
i promise, she writes, followed by a string of six hearts.
Jughead closes out of his messaging app and goes into his favourite contacts, hitting Archie’s name with his thumb. The call is picked up after only two rings.
“Dude,” Archie says. “This is so weird. Please tell me the right words to say to them.”
Jughead drops into his desk chair and lifts his feet up onto the desk; he wonders if, in another universe, where he was able to go through with his proposal, Archie his having a similar conversation with Veronica about the weirdness of his ex and his best friend marrying. “‘Congrats’ is always a safe bet,” he says wryly.
“That seems too casual,” Archie says fretfully, and it becomes clear to Jughead that Archie is experiencing one of the overly-thoughtful moments he'll have sometimes, as if to make up for all the situations in which he doesn’t think.
Affection tugs his lips into a smile, and he suggests, “Best wishes?”
He meets Betty at the MFA after her interview, like he’d always intended to. He’d called Joel, Rosie’s dad, and cancelled the proposal arrangements, so Nacho is at home, probably trying to eat some part of their sofa, but there’s no reason he can’t turn the rest of his plans into a date night.
Betty’s got her winter coat belted at the waist and she’s wearing what he jokingly calls her Serious Business Shoes, the black pumps she always puts on when she’s trying to give off her most professional air, which make her legs look especially lengthy and incredible. Her face lights up in a smile when she spots him, and he thinks, for the millionth time, holy shit, that’s my girl. It’s been years since he wondered if she was too good for him, years since he felt insecure - she’s his, he’s hers, they’re it - but nonetheless, he wishes they could just fucking make it official already.
“What are you doing here?” she asks brightly, wrapping her arms around him and planting a kiss on his lips.
He squeezes her in a hug so tight it lifts her momentarily off her feet, making her laugh. “Taking you for cannoli.” He fits his arm around her waist, guiding her toward the building’s exit. “But at Modern, since I don’t have to woo you.”
She slides him one of those looks of hers, one that says, fondly, asshole, but she’s wearing that small, heartfelt smile she gets in affecting moments. “No,” she says in the sweet voice that can demolish his emotional walls in less than a second. “You don’t.”
tbc.