Disclaimer: not my characters

He doesn't think he'll ever have things under control. Between not having a permanent place to stay (Mr. Andrews is great, but it's more charity than he feels comfortable with for a longterm situation), problems with his family (as in he doesn't know if he'll ever see his mother and/or sister again, and his alcoholic dad was probably involved in a murder with his gang), and managing high school, it's a little much for a kid, even a tough kid like him, to take. He's not stupid, he knows he's so much of an emotional mess that everything he says now just comes across as false bravado or sardonic humor (which probably isn't helping his situation either, if the idiot football jocks with their heads up their asses have anything to say about it), but it postpones the inevitable breakdown. So he doesn't take Betty for granted, because she keeps him grounded and she gives him a reason to smile and though she might leave any minute, she never has yet, and that's something to think about.

He's always been a little bit in love with her, ever since they were kids hanging out in an old tree house all summer with their best friend Archie Andrews and a bag of frozen popsicle tubes. His mom used to hate those things, especially when he'd come home sticky and hyper, but it didn't matter back then, because every day was a new adventure. The treehouse was a pirate ship (Archie's idea - a little bland but a game they played quite a few times), a crime scene (Jughead's idea - enthusiastically received by Betty, less so by Archie initially, but turned into another of their favorites), an airplane (Betty's idea, and also the one that landed her in the hospital with a broken arm for attempting to go skydiving), and many more landmarks. Life was good, life was stable, and life was happy.

They started to grow up, then, and though he still hung out with her and Archie most days, he would start to feel like a third wheel as her crush on his best friend grew a little desperate. He wasn't going to say anything, though, as they were still the Three Musketeers. Maybe not so much the Three Musketeers anymore, maybe more of a Harry/Ron/Hermione friendship (to use Archie's favorite book; typical of him to be so involved in older mainstream pop culture) if Hermione were in love with Harry, the hero, instead and vice versa. Jughead never asked Archie why he didn't like Betty and Archie never suspected that Jughead was actually in love with her. It was a strange love triangle, but it worked for them then. They went through middle school inseparable.

Entering high school was a big step for everyone. Archie joined the football team and his dad bought him a guitar. Betty stopped wearing play clothes and sneakers and turned to pastel cardigans and flats, tried out for the cheerleading squad and was rejected, and became friends with Kevin Keller, the sheriff's son. Jughead's parents starting fighting more, his dad started drinking more, and he started to journal his life in a sort of sad manifesto. The three of them still hung out, but not as much. They still had movie nights every Saturday, though, taking turns choosing the movie and Betty providing the best snacks. Things continued and things changed, but at the end of the day, they were the same kids with the same hearts. Betty still liked Archie, Archie still liked all the other girls, and Jughead still harbored his hidden feelings for Betty, aware that if he were to reveal them, their group dynamic would be changed beyond comparison.

Until the dynamic did change, that summer, when Betty left for an internship and Archie began cancelling plans without explaining why and Jughead's mom and Jellybean left. And then their friendship was completely over, Jason Blossom was murdered, and they entered sophomore year.

Sophomore year did not start in a promising manner. Normally, the three of them would walk to school together after Mr. Andrews took a picture, but this year, Betty and Archie walked together and Jughead went alone, ditching at lunch to head to Pop's. He'd started work on a novel, taking his observations from a year of dedicated people-watching and his memories from the crime and turning them into the next In Cold Blood (hopefully, at least. He didn't have enough of an ego to think he was as good as Capote at 16). He was also somewhat homeless, going from living with his alcoholic father, to living in the projection room of the drive in, to crashing in an abandoned closet in the school and stealing cans from the kitchen. It was a little sad, but overall not his lowest moment yet, so he struggled through each day, playing Frank Hardy to his Nancy Drew who wasn't really his, but played she was occasionally (he'd finally kissed her, after putting it off for about ten years), and struggled through each night, having the strangest dreams in a supply closet that smelled of Pine-Sol and mice droppings.

Eventually he moved in with the Andrews and started to smile more, actually eating three square meals a day, somehow landed on Mrs. Cooper's good side, and things continued. He doesn't know how to define his life now; he doesn't have control, but it doesn't really matter as much right now. He has a bed and he can use a washing machine and he has a beautiful, perfect girlfriend who somehow picked him over her boy-next-door (at this point in time, at least), and he's going to seize what he can, even if it will slip through his fingers a day later. He's not in control, he's not perfect, but he supposes it's okay that he sucks as a person, because he's still a kid and there's time to figure out this mess.

"In the midst of chaos, there is always opportunity" - Sun Tzu.

He guesses that's his mantra now; he certainly could have picked something worse.