Tulips
Requests: Hi i really love your x readers and i’d like to request one myself if that’s ok :) so i was thinking a jughead x reader and the reader’s father dies and she’s not her usual self and jughead notices and asks if somethings wrong and the reader just can’t hold it in anymore and breaks down and juggy comforts her? Sorry if it’s a weird request or anything and thanks already! :)
Pairing: Jughead x Reader
Description: Jughead struggles to comfort you after your father dies.
Warnings: death of a parent
A/N: getting back into the swing of things, trying to update as much as possible, so enjoy!
You and your dad planted a tulip garden together.
You were five years old and completely smitten with flowers. You flew through every book your parents bought you about flowers, reading page after page of information on plants. Your favorite, though, was the tulip. Knowing this, you dad decided to buy a pack of seeds. He came into your house one day holding it, rattling it, but he refused to tell you what was inside. He covered up the packaging so you wouldn’t know what type of plant you were growing.
Weeks later, you noticed some sprouts. Having lots of obscure knowledge about plants, you figured it was a tulip sprout. You soon learned your suspicions were correct when the flowers began to bloom.
Ten years later, your father died.
It was sudden and unexpected. On his drive home one rainy night, you dad’s windows got a little too foggy, preventing him from seeing the car headed straight towards him.
His funeral was quiet and small, seeing as your mother decided to only invite family.
You laid a single white tulip by his tombstone.
All of your friends knew what happened. Hell, all of Riverdale probably knew. But everyone was shocked to see you walk into school the next week, acting perfectly normal. You decided to act like everything was fine. Your best friend, Jughead, wasn’t buying it.
“It’s okay to still be hurting, (Y/N),” he told you one day at lunch. You rolled your eyes as you picked at your food.
“Jughead, really, I’m okay,” you assured him. He raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
“Your father died,” he blatantly stated. “You can’t be fine.”
“Thanks for that,” you sighed sarcastically. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Jughead retracted. You stood up from the table and picked up your lunch tray.
“I don’t care what you meant, Jug,” you spat. “Don’t say shit like that to me. I’m fine.” With that, you stormed off, leaving an upset and confused Jughead behind.
“She’s not usually that snappy,” Betty sat down almost immediately after you left.
“It’s because she’s not usually grieving the death of her father,” Jughead deadpanned. Betty lightly smacked him on the arm.
“You shouldn’t say those kinds of things,” she reprimanded him. He quietly scoffed, but he knew she was right.
“I’m sorry, I just… I’m worried about her.”
“We all are, Jughead,” Betty placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “We just have to be gentle with (Y/N). You, out of all people, should know that she bottles things up.”
“I know, I know, I don’t understand why suddenly I can’t help her. I guess I’m just frustrated that she won’t talk to me, you know? I’m usually the first person she comes to if she needs to talk about something.”
“Maybe she will, Jug,” she offered. “I think you’ll still be the first person she goes to. Just give it a bit more time.”
When Betty told Jughead that you’d need a bit more time, he expected it to take about a week before you talked to him.
You came to the drive-in that night.
“(Y/N)?” he questioned as he opened the door. You stood in front of him, a blank look on your face.
“Is it a bad time?” you asked, wrapping your arms around yourself in a feeble attempt to shield yourself from the cold winds. “I can come back another time if you want.”
“No!” Jughead quickly exclaimed before you could turn away. “No, you can come in.” You pursed your lips as you nodded and slowly ventured into the screening room. As soon as you were inside, Jughead closed the door behind you and removed his jacket, wrapping it around your shivering frame.
“I’m sorry it’s late,” you began to apologize, “but I know you wanted me to talk about this and-”
“Don’t feel obligated to tell me anything,” he interrupted you. “If you’re not ready, that’s fine. I just want you to know that you can come to me whenever you need.”
“But I do need to, Jug,” you sniffled, biting your trembling lip. “I just… you know how I always bottle things up. And I didn’t want to do that, I didn’t want to shut down, but I couldn’t talk about it, it was too painful.”
“(Y/N), I’m here for you. I’m always here.”
“I know,” tears began to slip out of your eyes, and you knew you couldn’t hold it in any longer, “I know.”
Rather than offering any other comforting words, Jughead wrapped his arms around you as you broke down. Your tears stained his shirt when you buried your face into his chest.
“He’s gone,” you cried into his shirt, “he’s gone, and I don’t know what to do.”
“You grieve,” Jughead murmured. “He was a good man, (Y/N), and he was your father, so you mourn as long as you need to. And when you’re done grieving, you begin to heal.”
“But if I want to heal, I have to move on and moving on means forgetting.”
“You don’t have to forget him,” he comforted you. “You don’t have to move on; you just have to move forward.”
You slowed your breathing and detached yourself from his body, putting some distance between the two of you so that you could look up at his face.
“Jughead,” you whispered, delicately placing your hand on his cheek before enveloping him in a hug, “thank you.”
You woke up the next morning to find something taped onto your window. You had no idea what it was until you walked up close enough to read what was on it.
It was a package of tulip seeds. Although it had no note written on it, you knew exactly who it was from.
A few weeks later, there were tulips growing on your father’s grave.
