Chapter Text
NOW. AFTER. DEAD
The fire was too hot, too hot to stand and yet they stood there still, watching their clothes burn and perhaps trying to burn their skin off too. Veronica sort of wanted to melt away, they'd all melt and mix and swirl together, trickling down to the stream.
Not so different from how it's been for a while now.
Each time the flame flares up, suddenly taller than her, she thinks hellfire hellfire we're burning for what we've done, they don't care if it was right they just care that it's wrong. Then the fire shrinks again and she wonders if the moon is watching over them, perhaps the sun will not be so kind.
The moon understands them, she knows from the soft way it drenches over Betty's skin. From the way moonlight makes Archie's tears look like ice, cooling him from the burning sin.
She wants to dance in the moonbeams, grab their hands and run from hellfire until they find the water. She's going to drown in it all.
"Toss it Archie, you have to." Betty's voice is strong enough to be heard over the fire. "Archie, are you listening?"
"But he needs it, he can't- he needs it." Archie doesn't look up, makes sure he doesn't stop staring at it. His fingernails dig into the gray knit as if he's trying to meld himself into the fabric so he'll never have to let go. Unless he throws himself in too.
"He doesn't need it anymore." Veronica tries not to let her voice lilt and sway like music.
"Now." Betty orders again, cutting through the heat.
He lets go. Almost not hard enough. Almost misses entirely. But not quite.
The fire rises up fiercely then, a wave of burning licking at her cheeks as she looks at it ignite. A hole in the centre of the hat bleeding out flames.
She's struck then by what they've done. What she's done.
Smile on me moon, smile on us, we'll smile at you every night if you smile just this once.
But even the moon and stars can't take it back.
*****
THEN. BEFORE. ALIVE
His hand clasped around Archie's neck, cutting him off, slowly stopping him breathing. Archie didn't fight back anymore, he just cried. Choked out sobs and eyes drowning, mourning his own death.
He looked at her, trying to communicate something, probably telling her to get out. He looked at Betty too but her eyes were squeezed shut, her entire body trembling. Then he searched for Jughead who was just frozen. A statue carved with a permanent look of terror, marble eyes glistening.
"Arch..." Jughead had whispered once.
"SHUT UP OR I'LL PUT A BULLET THROUGH YOUR FUCKING HEAD!" Hiram yelled and she had almost vomited.
Her dad wasn't about brute force or loud noises but this time had felt... different. Wrong. Like everything really was crumbling away and nobody was coming to save them. It made her sick
"Daddy stop it." She had pleaded over and over.
"Why should I do that?" He hadn't looked away from Archie, too transfixed by watching the life leave his eyes.
"They'll know. Everyone will know what you did. People can't just ignore four kids being strangled to death. Not if it's Betty, Archie and Jughead. They'll find you this time." Everyone will look for them she had thought. They wouldn't just forget. They'd know it was her father. Right?
"Four? You think I'd hurt you too, Mija?" He had smiled, she remembers, smiled like he had when he watched her play Maria in West Side Story at her old school. He was always there, front row. She hates that he was there, that she had loved and loved her father for so long. That he loved her too.
"Just let go of him, daddy. Your finger prints are all over him. Just let go." Archie's eyes had started to flutter shut at that point and she couldn't take it. "LET GO!"
He had. Suddenly unclasped as Archie fell to the floor, crumpled up and gasping for breath, hands still tied. Betty and Jughead looked like they wanted to reach out, hold him, anything, but their hands were tied too. Along with their feet.
"You're right." He laughed.
She had let out a deep breath until... a flash of silver. His gun pointed at them, moved along the line and she wanted to jump forward but he'd kill them all. She knows it. He would have done it. That'd be five dead instead of two.
"What if I shot you in the head, Archie, it might just bounce right off. You're stupid. You know. Stupid. Do you hear me?" Archie just lay there. "SIT UP WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!"
"I- I can't," his voice was barely there "my hands are all-" tied up he was probably going to say but Hiram had grabbed him by his hair and pulled him up before he could finish.
She couldn't bare to look at Archie, the sight too terrible, the pain too unbearable.
Her dad didn't like how nosy Betty and Jughead were, didn't like how they got in his way. They were inconvenient, that's why he was going to kill them.
But he hates Archie. Hates everything about him. He enjoyed torturing him, humiliating him, killing him.
Something was off this time. Becoming more and more strange every minute. Her father wasn't cruel, he was evil but not cruel. Half of the fathers in Riverdale were evil anyway so it hadn't seemed that collosal. Her father wasn't cruel. Something had snapped in him. That's why she hadn't known this would happen. He wasn't cruel.
"There. Now can you hear me?" Archie hadn't replied. Mistake. Hiram slapped him across the face, a harsh noise and a choked half sob hit everyone's ears. "I said can you hear me?"
"Yes." She heard him mumble.
"What did I call you? What are you?" Clearly he enjoyed dragging it out.
"Stupid. I'm stupid." Archie spoke more clearly at that point and she had hated that more than when his voice was barely heard.
Hiram had looked delighted at that. He laughed again.
"What do you think Miss Cooper, Mr Jones? A group of teens with bullet holes in their foreheads?" He didn't let them answer; he had turned towards Betty. "What would your mother write in the newspapers?"
Betty trembled harder, refusing to look at him.
"Maybe they'd think it was a suicide pact. You were just too special to handle the real world." He held the gun in the air and shot a bullet at the ceiling, the sound pierced her eardrums. "Who's going to find out the truth if the great teen detectives, Betty and Jughead are dead?"
That had scared her deeply. The thought that even after they had all died, her dad might get away with everything. That people would just move on and think they had killed themselves. He wouldn't kill her. That was worse.
"Stop it." She had said again and stepped forward. Mistake.
He turned to her, the gun pressed against Jughead's forehead now.
"If you move another inch I'll shoot. No hesitation. Starting off easy." Jughead stayed frozen, the only way she had known he was conscious was from the sweat dripping down his face.
Easy, like it was easy to lose any of them. Like she didn't love them all. Oh. She had known it then.
"I don't believe you." She had told him but shivered with how much she was lying.
"I'm not bluffing," there was a pause and he smirked, "take it from your mother." He had spit the word like it was dirty. Your mother. That was the turning point.
"What do you mean?" Her entire body had vibrated with fear and anger.
He laughed like she was an idiot.
"Where's mom?" She asked, the taste of acid at the back of her throat. "I thought she was in-"
"Oh, mija. So naive. You really thought I'd let your mother just stay in jail after she tried to have me killed?" He smiled wider than ever.
"Where is she?" She asked even though she thought she knew.
"In the bedroom." He gestured slightly with the gun, pointing down the hall.
"MOM!" She called out but she knew her mother wouldn't hear. "MOM!"
"Let me save you the shouting, Veronica, she's dead." He sounded irritated. Hearing her call out for her mother was annoying. Hearing her cry and scream made him roll his eyes.
She dropped to her knees, not able to stand anymore. A ringing in her ears signalling something was over. There's the bell, she vaguely remembers thinking.
"Are you surrendering?" His voice came from above, amused.
She eyed the end of the carpet in front of her.
"Yes." She thought it would make Jughead scoff but nobody made a noise. She had hoped it wasn't because they weren't surprised at her. She knows now.
"Nice to see my daughter still has some Lodge in her. Your mother was never cut out for this life. Just take my advice and you'll be ok." He said it like he was doing her a favour, like it was her mother's fault.
"I have some advice for you, daddy." She said in the sweetest voice she could manage while her blood was boiling.
"What's that mija?" He asked, still facing her.
"Don't stand on a rug after you tell someone you've killed their fucking mother."
She doesn't know how she had done it. A mixture of looking down the hall at the bedroom door and then looking at her friends, tied up and crying. Weeping.
She put all her strength into it.
She yanked the rug out from under him.
His legs flew forward and she saw his eyes widen before...
Thump.
Then a cracking noise. Then...
Silence.
She didn't look at him, refused to look at him. All she could do was think quick quick quick before he gets up hurry hurry hurry, Veronica.
She somehow made it over to Betty, her fingers fumbled at the ropes until she was free. She wanted to fall into Betty's lap, let her stroke her hair but she couldn't, not yet.
Betty grabbed at Jughead and Veronica went to Archie. Betty was quick to untie Jughead and they collapsed into eachother, held together tighter than the ropes could. Veronica's hands shook with something but she kept going until Archie was safe.
His face was wet with tears and he looked exhausted, terrified, broken. Still he had grabbed her, pulled her up moving away from him. Stumbling backwards.
"Archie, calm down, it's ok, we're ok." She wasn't sure it was true but she had to be brave, or else they'd never be ok.
"We need to get out. He'll get us, he's going to- Ronnie we need to go." He'd tried to pull her but he was so weak then, so tired, he couldn't do it. "Jug, Betty c'mon." He pleaded to them instead.
They had looked up from where they were entwined together, suddenly shocked by him. They got up, slowly, so slowly as if Archie had been a deer fawn lost in the woods and they were scared to startle him.
"Archie I think-" Betty had needed to pause for a breath, "I think he's-"
She couldn't finish.
"What if he's not?" Archie asked them all, looked at them as though he thought they had all the answers. He often looked like that, never believing himself.
"Arch-" Betty had started, soft and pitiful.
"He's right." Jughead had cut in. "Veronica, where would he keep the guns?"
Suddenly the focus was back on her.
"The safe under the bed." She answered as if on autopilot.
"Jughead, what are you doing?" Betty was cautious.
"Archie's right, what if he isn't- he'll kill us if he isn't. He won't hesitate next time. I dont want us to just leave now and have that hanging over us, that he could get us anytime." He'd always been good at persuading people, she never thought he'd be using that skill for this.
"And we're ok having this hang over us?" Betty asked, genuinely, looking for a real answer. Like she had already decided but was checking with them.
"I think I can live with it." He'd been certain.
"Yeah." Was all Archie could manage before he sunk down onto the sofa.
And then Jughead turned to her. "Veronica?"
"The code is my birthday." Is all she said. She didn't need to tell him the date, he already knew. "First door on the left." Where my mom is, she'd almost said.
When Jughead came back he looked sadder than before, not quite making eye contact with her. She knew why but she didn't want to.
"Was she really in there?" She had asked him, begging with her eyes for him to lie. He wouldn't. Instead he just nodded.
Betty tried to conceal it but she let out a little gasp, then reached for Veronica's hand to squeeze it. She was numb but not too numb to hold Betty Cooper's hand.
"Do it." She told Jughead.
He stood above the body. Betty stood behind him, not looking but clutching onto him and Veronica still. Archie couldn't look either, he sat on the sofa staring at the fire place, not blinking even if it stung.
But Veronica wanted to see, needed to see. It made her itch that she wanted that, what sort of person wants that. Someone to die. But they all wanted it, they all needed it. That makes it better.
"Jug, you still think you can do it?" Betty whispered into his back.
"Yeah, yeah just I need a second." His voice shook but his hand held the gun steadily.
Jughead looked over at Archie then, maybe saw the red mark on his face, the fingerprints on his throat or maybe just saw the way Archie was trembling. Trembling like he would never stop.
That was enough.
Jughead's turning point. A similar bell rang in his ears. They're pretty similar Veronica had thought.
BANG.
The noise wasn't a surprise but the spray of blood was. The absence of any emotion was a surprise too. She had felt nothing. Just tired. Like it was chore, like the blood covering her was a necessity.
"Oh my god." Betty whispered over and over.
"Now we have to go." Jughead said.
She didn't think about the body. She thought about Betty's hand and Jughead's wide eyes and Archie. Archie.
"I think we can stay a while, I'm not sure if we're all ready to leave just yet." Veronica made sure they saw her look over to Archie. They got it.
"Is it safe?" Jughead asked.
"We'll be ok for a bit. If Hiram was going to kill us he would've made sure of it." Betty said coldly, probably had thoughts in her head of their bodies left alone all night... all week.
They knew she was right. Even if she hadn't been they would've stayed anyway. Sat down next to Archie and held him as the sirens got closer.
But the sirens hadn't come, they'd sat around him with only their own breathing to listen to.
They couldn't stay forever though.
"Do we need to hide?" Betty asked after a while.
"It was self defence, he was going to kill us. We had to." Veronica had finally said out loud what she'd been repeating in her head.
"You think we can trust the police? You think the justice system will be kind to us?" Jughead scoffed.
"It won't. I didn't do anything and that didn't matter. A rich man died, they'll want to blame that on somebody." Archie finally spoke, his voice sounded wrong. Veronica tried not to think of the awful time when Archie had been arrested.
"I can see the newspaper headlines now." Jughead tried to joke but it fell flat. They all knew what sort of things the media would say, a group of teens killing one of their parents? Worse things had been sensationalised.
"What are we going to do?" Veronica asked, her head too full of buzzing to think.
"Ok, I've got a plan." Betty stood up suddenly.
"Already?" Jughead raised his eyebrow, still managing to admire her despite it all. Veronica did too. It was wrong but they'd already fucked up, what's more going to do?
"Look, he's still got a gun in his hand, same type as the one we used, and there's already-" Betty paused for a moment, wincing apologetically at Veronica before carrying on, "a victim with his finger prints on. It would be pretty easy for them to believe he killed her and then himself."
They all looked at eachother and that was when it clicked. They could actually get away with this. Pretty easily too. They'd killed him and nobody knew.
No justice for Hiram Lodge. Nothing.
Jughead smiled.
"I'll get rid of my gun, then we burn our clothes, wash off in the swimming hole and get the hell out of here." He said and all they could do was nod.
"We can go to Lodge Lodge, it's far enough away and it won't be suspicious if we're there. I can post something online to make it seem like we're there now, I'm sure Cheryl will take note. That's our alibi." Veronica suggested. It was an alibi yes, but she had also wanted to go back to the place they had been closest to stepping over the line. If there hadn't been all that underlying tension of secret kisses and her dad then maybe...
Archie was looking at them like Jughead had been looking at Betty earlier.
They all stood at that point, looked at Hiram.
"You think we can really pull this off?" Betty asked.
"No one mourns the wicked, right?" Archie speaks up again and Jughead smirks.
"Right."
"I certainly won't." Veronica grins too.