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the air hangs heavy and hot in the little yellow house. there’s an absence like no other, an ache that archie never imagined feeling. he can taste the metallic taste of blood on his lips from biting down with his teeth, the skin on his knuckles is ripped and his legs and his chest and his core and his arms are sore. and nothing is right, everything is hazy and wrong and he thinks he’s going to puke. mom has already moved on, everybody else has already moved on. there are bigger things to worry about now. everybody is telling him to take his time, that it’s a shocking, unimaginable loss, but that doesn’t mean that they’re there, and that, really, doesn’t mean that they understand.
it’s september now and june baptized him in rivers of sunlight, until july rolled around and drug him by the murky tide, and then august held him under and ate him alive. he is fred and mary’s son, but he is also riverdale’s son, constantly trying to escape, but being dragged back, constantly trying to save it and coming to realize that his hands are clumsy and they may look like his fathers hands, but they aren’t his fathers hands.
( this town doesn’t grow on you. it grows inside of you, in your soft belly, an old oak with too many roots tangled up in your guts. )
archie has not always been a house on fire of a boy, but he has always been full of light.
it was once the beaming, dappled sunlight and the canary’s singing sort of light, the sunset from the treehouse and the breeze on bandaged bloody knees. now, it’s more like hellfire, blazing lava bubbling in his chest, lightning bolts shooting through his limbs and out of his mouth and into the faces of other boys with an uppercut kind of light.
the boy doesn’t believe in god, but if he did, god is the sound of dad’s rusted pickup shuddering awake & carrying itself down the road towards the site in the morning dew, the ignition churning at the crack of dawn and his fathers low hum and high whistle, the old western music he used to play on the radio, mixed between selections of springsteen and the clash. archie’s breath hitches and he feels himself rumbling, shaking, choking a sob with messed up hair and dirty clothes sprawled across the teakwood floor, the teal walls that he helped mom and dad paint, covering up the drawings with marker on the wall of dinosaurs and lions and superheroes.
archie can’t do this alone.
his hands are shaking, but he rummages for his football duffel bag and shoves whatever he can find into it: all of the clothes from the floor, some extra pajamas, he swipes all of the golden orange bottles of all of the new pills he’s taking off of his nightstand and throws them in the bag. he throws on his letterman’s jacket and slips on his shoes, a pair of dirty, old, red chuck taylors, not even bothering to tie them, zipping the bag and making his way downstairs. he finds his mother, glasses perched on her nose, hunched over the kitchen island, and vegas laying at her feet. he crouches to pet the dog. “hey, boy… hey…” he coos, grey hairs poking though vegas’ chin and eyebrows. archie’s stomach twists at the thought that vegas is getting older, just another anchor he will have to let go of eventually.
“hey, baby… whats wrong?” his mother’s voice is soft and smooth and sounds like those lacy table doilies, or an old floral embroidered handkerchief. she sounds too concerned, too worried. she doesn’t trust him anymore, or she can see his sunken, perpetually red eyes, and tear-stained cheeks.
“i’m gonna take the train to stonewall, stay with jug… if thas’ okay. i dunno how long… but no more than a few days…” he kicks at the floor, still scraped from dog paws and his old forklift toys.
“thats… okay, i can’t stop you, but honey, are you sure?... veronica is here, betty is here, reggie is here, i’m here… why can’t you wait until he comes back on break? what about munroe and the center?”
“i’ll talk to munroe. him and reggie can handle it, i think. it won’t be long, but i really just need to get out of here, get away from this place.” he wasn’t lying, it was stifling. he still hadn’t even called and asked if it was alright for him to go over there…
“okay, if you insist. i love you, okay? call me when you get there.” she stands up and pulls him into a tight hug, stroking his sore muscles like she didn’t know if she would ever see him again.
he hands the conductor his ticket, clutching the handle of his bag slung over his shoulder. he avoids eye contact, finding a window seat and sliding in, exhaling out. his breath condenses on the window due to the night’s chill as he pulls his cracked phone from his pocket, navigates to the contacts and finds his best friend.
[ hey. hope its alr im on the train over there rn. needed to get out. be there in the morning. ]
he stuffs the phone back into the pocket of his letterman jacket, pulling it tighter around himself. he smoothes out his snarled, too-long hair, and as the train set off, he stares out the window and watches the lights of riverdale speed-smear past him. ( jesus christ. what the hell was he thinking? he figures he wasn’t. ) he holds his breath and counts in his head, flashes of memories in a booth at pops, but then there was a bang and blood blood blood red red red and his green eyes. a court room in the sweltering july heat, veronicas soft hand, a nod from jughead. the cold concrete of a prison cell, the thrill of escape, the thrill of running away. the sting of claws, the feeling of being the prey rather than the predator. a phone call. shaking hands. the weight of dad’s casket. the keys to his old ford truck. ( i am my father’s son. )