Chapter Text
“Man, this is weird,” Archie declares looking between the two virtually identical men who sit at opposite ends of the Andrews’ dining table eyeing each other warily.
Trust Archie, Betty thinks fondly, to point out the obvious, even if ‘weird’ is a monumental understatement.
Jughead, the handsome shiny haired version with Tabitha perched at his side, snorts in agreement.
The other Jughead, the one with the greasy hair and the grubby bathrobe curled in on himself besides Ethel Muggs of all people, flinches visibly. Ethel lays a supportive hand on his knee and he flinches even more violently.
“The bunker was the bridge between River dale and River vale ?” handsome Jughead, she really needs a better way to differentiate them, embarks on one of his trademark speculation journeys. “It was where we were able to cross from one universe to another. When the two universes separated,” he raises his fists together and pulls them apart quickly. “Maybe that traffic had somehow linked it to this universe.”
“All we know,” it’s Ethel that speaks. “Is that the tunnel out of our bunker didn’t lead to the hatch anymore, it led into your bunker and here we are”
“Is it dangerous?” Veronica glances around the room. “Having two of them in one universe.”
“There were three of us in Rivervale at one point,” Handsome Jughead points out.
No Betty chides herself; she can’t use that. She can’t split them into Handsome-Jughead and Unhinged-Jughead, although that is definitely how they appear. It’s not fair to the man whose sacrifice kept two entire universes from imploding.
“I wasn’t supposed to go out,” Vale-Jughead says, his expression skittishly seeking Ethel’s for reassurance. “No one was supposed to see me with the other Jughead.”
“So, if it's about other people’s perception then all we need is a good cover story,” Veronica muses, ever the problem solver. “Long lost twin?”
“How many long-lost brothers can I realistically have?” Dale-Jughead retorts. “Besides there are people in town who’ve literally known me since birth.”
“Ok cousin then, or some look-a-like you found online?”
“Cousin,” Betty decides for them, it doesn't really matter, an identical Jughead is not the strangest thing to have happened in this town even if the age of Percival’s magic has been wiped from most people’s memories. “Maybe one of you should get a haircut, it’ll help us tell you apart.”
“Jughead’s not cutting his hair,” Ethel simpers, sweet and sugary with something cold beneath, as she brushes a lock of hair that still manages to be bouncy despite the grease from vale-Jughead's forehead.
“No problem,” Dale jughead concedes eyeing the interaction with obvious distaste. “But I keep the name.”
Ethel shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “ok”
It probably isn’t the moment to wonder why Vale-jughead doesn’t get a say, but Betty thinks it anyway with a prickle of something protective in her mind for this cowed and skittish version of the man she once loved so fiercely. She hasn’t felt fierce in a long time.
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Things return to a version of normal quickly after the battle.
Although after the violent separating of two universes and the defeat of a dimension-hoping wizard, normal is a loose term even for Riverdale.
Betty and Archie continue in contented domesticity, her running the, much quieter now, FBI field office and him running, El Royale, the fire service, and Andrews’ construction.
It’s nice, it’s always nice with Archie.
Veronica is back in her rightful place at the helm of her casino, a contrite Reggie once again at her right hand but not once again in her bed.
Tabitha, angelic powers dormant now, is back running Pop’, her adoring boyfriend typing away in his usual booth, flashing her sweet smiles when she refills his coffee cup or touches his shoulder as she breezes by.
They're a gorgeous couple. Tabitha is not just kind she is beautiful and skinny in the way other girls only pretend they don’t want to be. Jughead, with his short-cropped hair and clear healthy skin, looks all the more attractive for the spark of ambition and creativity in his eyes and the fast confident movement of his hands over the keys.
“Hey Jug,” Betty greets as she slips into his booth.
“Sec,” he murmurs without looking up fingers flying. He’s back to writing now, the weird comic book fixation having dried up along with the bleed of the universes. A new novel pouring from his fingertips and onto the page. He hasn’t looked this inspired, this energised, this healthy, in years.
She’s happy for him, genuinely and without jealousy or regret.
“Sorry,” he apologises when he finally looks up.
“On a roll?” she asks with a warm smile. It’s so easy between them now that she doesn't have to feel guilty, culpable, for the train wreck of his life. Now they’re both happy in other relationships. She loves him of course, he’s Jughead and she made all her best mistakes with him. She’s older now, easing into steady contentment, but she hasn’t forgotten what it was to by wild, impulsive, and unstoppable, and she was all those things with him.
“Yeah, feels good to be doing my thing again, not whatever that douche in Rivervale wanted. I can’t even draw for fucks sake”
Betty laughs, she’d only seen one comic and yes, it was pretty awful. “Was he that bad?”
“Complete jackass Betts, made a deal with the devil and everything.”
“So, on the subject of your many selves, have you checked in with Souphead?” internally she cringes at the name, Reggie Mantle's idea of a joke that got accepted without the other Jughead seeming to have any say in the matter, not that she imagines for a second he’d have spoken up.
Jughead grimaces. “No, honestly Betts he creeps me out. I’d rather try and avoid him entirely.”
Betty makes a non-committal noise in her throat, wondering for a second what freaks Jughead out the most. The mirror image of his own face or the walking embodiment of where he’d been headed before Tabitha with all her heavenly goodness, picked him up, dusted him off, and set him back on the right path.
“I just feel bad for him,” Betty admits. “I can’t imagine how it feels to suddenly be in another universe, to have no one”
“He has Ethel,” Jughead says with baffled disdain, she remembers how uncomfortable Ethel’s obvious crush always made him and wonders how Vale-jughead, she won’t call him Souphead even in her own mind, ended up in a relationship with her.
“Yeah,” she agrees weakly. “I should check in then I guess.”
Jughead’s mouth pulls downward, “I wouldn’t, honestly Betts. I think you’re the last person who should be checking in.”
She blinks in surprise. “Why?”
Jughead looks uncomfortable, cringing with secondhand embarrassment. “Come on Betty, he clearly still has feelings for you, or his version, and Ethel tore him a new one about the phone call. You going over would probably just stir shit up.”
“Oh,” something stabs lightly at her chest. “Right ok.”
Two days later she hears that Ethel is starting work that day in the Riverdale Public Library and heads just across the tracks to where the couple’s small ground floor flat sits behind a dry cleaner at the northmost edge of the southside.
Jughead opens the door, wearing the same hideous grubby robe he’d been wearing when he and Ethel first emerged from the bunker. He gives her a bemused look before glancing furtively up and down the street and ushering her inside.
“Hey,” she greets brightly, discomfited by his furtive gaze and the way he shifts his weight nervously from foot to foot. “I just thought I’d pop over and see how you’re settling in.”
“Er,” he glances at the door as if he’s either wishing she’d leave back through it or worried someone else will come in. “Ok.”
“And to thank you,” Betty presses on with her best Cooper smile, a self-defense mechanism against the crippling awkwardness of the situation. “Despite all the damage it caused, you did save my life, and Archie’s” she amends quickly, given Jughead’s warning about the other’s feelings about her, the last thing she wants is to give this tragic shambling version of her first love false hope.
“Yeah,” he rubs his neck and plays down the magnitude of what he did. “Of course.”
Warmth swells in her chest, he’s a mess but at his core, he’s still the selfless romantic fool she once loved. Her smile is close-lipped and affectionate. “Of course,” she echos softly, holding his gaze for a moment too long.
He jerks away and shuffles back looking spooked. She’s seen this man, withdrawn, she’s seen him heartbroken, she’s seen him afraid, but she’s never seen him this jumpy.
“I brought cookies,” she tells him, trying to put him at ease. “Double chocolate.”
He tips forward slightly on his toes, peering into her bag, tempted, just like every version of him in every universe would be, by the promise of treats within.
She places the Tupperware on the table, intending to leave it and go, then, on impulse, changes her mind and peels back the lid. “Make us some tea then,” she orders softly.
He shuffles off and she listens to the sound of him puttering about the small kitchen for what seems like an inordinately long time to make two cups of tea.
“Sorry,” he mutters when he emerges two cups of black tea in one hand, a carton of milk in the other and a bag of sugar clamped awkwardly against his side with his elbow. “I put the milk and sugar in, then I didn’t know if you still took those so I had to start again.”
“I stopped taking sugar, but I'd have managed Jug, you didn’t have to start again, really”
He shrugs and sits opposite her. “Ethel doesn’t like it when I mess up her tea.”
“Oh,” she doesn’t know how to respond to that and they fall into painfully awkward silence as they sip their team and he devours two cookies before she’s halfway through her first. Same old Jug, she thinks the thought bring with it a wave of determination, of purpose.
She will help him, him and Ethel she supposes reluctantly, to get back on their feet in this alien universe.
Step one, she decides, is getting him out of that hideous robe.
“Hey Jug,” she starts and he looks up crumbs on his mouth. “Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll head over to Pop’s for a shake.”
His expression tenses immediately. “Er, no I,” he pauses to swallow. “I'm not supposed to go out. I should stay here where no one will see me.”
“We have a cover story Jug,” she tries to make her smile reassuring and reaches across the table for his hand. “You have to go out sometime, right?”
He jerks his hand out of reach, eyes rabbitty. “Ethel will be home soon,” he says with finality. “She likes me to be here.”
“Jug-”
“I can’t Betts,” he pulls the robe around him like a shield and she decides to make a tactical retreat.
“Ok, another time”
He lets out a shuddering breath and, as she stands to leave, holds out the half-filled box of uneaten cookies.
“You keep them,” she says softly. “They’re for you.”
He glances at the door again and pushes the box at her. “Better not,” his face contorts into what she thinks is supposed to be a smile. “Watching my figure.”
Betty slowly takes the box from his hands, feeling the frown between her brows. Of all the evidence that something is very wrong in this Jughead’s world, handing back an unfinished batch of her double chocolate cookies is the most compelling.
When she places the cookies on the counter at home Archie side-eyes them curiously. “Didn’t Souphead want them?”
“No, he’s on a diet apparently.”
Archie makes a face and turns away unconcerned. “That's super weird.”
Yes , she thinks, it is.
It’s beyond weird, it’s a puzzle, a mystery, and she’s going to get to the bottom of it.