Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Then

“We can’t do this.”  Her voice was quiet, and her tone seemed less than convincing.  She wondered for a moment if it was him that she was trying to convince, or herself?

“We really shouldn’t do this.”  His blue-green eyes drifted up to meet hers.

Neither of them sounded very conclusive as they stared into each others eyes, their bodies mere centimeters from one another.

She bit her lip gently, looking the sultry boy in front of her up and down.  God, he’s attractive, she thought to herself, taking the time to really take him in.

His jeans were dark and he wore a deep red shirt with a matching flannel tied around his waste.  His raven hair was flat against the knit crown beanie that he seemed to always wear, a few rebellious strands escaping the beanie in front of his face.  His face… His skin was pale, his eyes hauntingly beautiful as they trailed down her body, leaving a burning trail as he did.

“But…”  He said breathlessly, his eyes meeting hers once again.  “My sister is dead asleep, and my parents won’t be home until tomorrow.”

She bit her lip harder, surely leaving an indent.  She wanted this.  She wanted him.  God, she wanted him so bad.

She needed him.

Time felt as thought it had stopped as she stared at him, unable to gather her thoughts.  She knew they shouldn’t do this.  She knew there would be consequences if anyone found out… and yet, all she could think of was how every bone in her body seemed to ache for him in that very moment.

Without giving herself time to talk herself out of it, she cupped his cheeks in her small hands and smashed their lips together hard.

Fireworks exploded in her body, her eyelids fluttering shut.  He kissed her back immediately, their lips moving in perfect sync.  His hands trailed around her waist, gripping tightly and pulling her chest against his.  Her heart beat hard, and she wondered if he could feel just how fast it seemed to move.

He nipped her bottom lip lightly and a quiet moan escaped her lips, traveling to his mouth.  He growled and eagerly slipped his tongue between her lips.  The kiss deepened as she involuntarily moved her fingers from his cheeks to the back of his neck and then into his hair.  It felt like a reflex.  She pulled the beanie from his head and let it drop behind them, entangling her fragile fingers within his hair and tugging lightly.

He must have enjoyed that, because he suddenly pulled back from her, a mischievous smirk forming across his lips.  She squealed as he lifted her by the waist, and tossed her onto the bed.  He took no time in pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it to the floor of his bedroom.  His eyes met hers again, and he nodded at the white tank top that she’d worn to bed that night.  “Off,” was all he had to say.  She tore her shirt off with an urgency that showed him just how much she wanted this.  A tiny pink bra was all that remained between him and her bare chest.

He crawled on top of her, his fingers playing with the waistband of her pajama shorts as he lowered his lips to her collarbone.

She let out an obscene sound at the feeling of his wet lips against her extremely sensitive skin.  She hadn’t even realized that her hips were moving against him, as if they were begging him to touch her.  If she hadn’t done something to deserve it yet, this was definitely going to land her in hell.

His lips moved down her body, leaving wet kisses all over her.  It was all too much.

She reached her fingers to his jeans, struggling to find the button.  He seemed to find this humorous, and he let out a gruff chuckle against her skin, sending shivers throughout her entire body.

He propped himself onto his knee’s, pulling back from her as he stared down at the body in front of him.  “You’re beautiful, you know that?”  He said, the mischief leaving his face for a moment.

She smiled shyly, becoming all too aware that she was nearly bare chested in front of him.

He pulled her hands to the waistband of his jeans and she hooked her fingers into the belt loops, attempting to pull him back on top of her.  He didn’t comply, instead unbuckling the buttons that she had been struggling with.  Rather than waiting for his cue, she tugged the jeans off of his waist, and he shimmied out of them until they fell to the floor to meet his shirt.

She was met by an extremely attractive man in nothing more than blue and white stripped boxers.  His torso glistened with sweat in the neon light of his alarm clock.  Every part of her body burned for him.

After what felt like a lifetime of just staring at one another’s bodies, he finally leaned over her, his body hovering just close enough that she could feel his chest as breathed it; but it was snatched away from her every time he exhaled.

He nipped her earlobe ever so lightly.  She crooked her hips up, pressing her abdomen against his.  She knelt her head back as she tried to grind against him, begging for him through her actions.

“So…” He whispered, his hot breath hitting the area around her ear.  “I guess we’re doing this.”

She nodded eagerly in response.  “I guess we are.”

Now

Betty slid out of the taxi, stepping onto the curb.  Her wavy blonde hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, and she wore a light purple t-shirt under her light washed distressed short overalls and a pair of white Converse.  Her eyes trailed up the luxurious building, taking in the large concrete columns and the deep oak doorway.

Her floral duffel bag hung across her body, and she had just retrieved her matching suitcase from the trunk of the taxi when she heard a terrifying shriek from behind her.  She spun on her heel in response, only to be greeted by a raven-haired beauty in pearls and a Marc Jacobs dress, sprinting towards her in heels that were not made for sprinting.

“Beeeeeeeee!”  She exclaimed, nearly knocking Betty into oncoming traffic as the girl crashed into her, wrapping her olive toned arms around Betty’s pale body.

“Hi, V.”  Betty managed to say, the grip around her body becoming tighter by the minute.  After at least a full sixty seconds of hugging, Veronica finally released her grip and stepped back an inch or so.

She looked Betty up and down.  “You know, for being in California for the last year, you seem to have gotten paler.”

Betty chuckled at this and shrugged.  “I didn’t spend all of my time at the beach.”

“That’s where you and I are very, very different, my dear bestie.”  Veronica stepped towards the taxi, leaning in and handing a large wad of cash to the man behind the wheel.  Betty couldn’t tell how much she’d handed him, but she knew it was more than she had in her own bank account.  “That’s for getting my BFF here safely, not being creepy, and waiting around while I attacked her.”

The taxi driver looked at the cash with wide eyes, then offered a beaming smile at Veronica before waving and driving off.

Veronica wrapped her arm into Betty’s and began to lead her up the stairs to the Pembrooke.  “You know,”  She said as the door swung open, being held by none other than Veronica’s butler, Smithers.  “I would have been happy to send a driver.”

“Thank you,”  Betty mouthed to Smithers as they stepped inside, before looking back to Veronica.  “I know, and I appreciate the sentiment.  I’m used to taxi’s, though.  I took them everywhere in California.”

“Didn’t Polly have a car?”  Veronica questioned as they crossed the lobby towards the elevator.

“Well, yeah.”  Betty shrugged.  “But she was busy with the twins most of the time.”

She reached forward and pressed the upward facing arrow that was illuminated against the wall.  The elevator doors opened nearly immediately, and she lugged her belongings into the elevator as Veronica pressed the button for the third floor.  The doors closed and the elevator revved to life, jolting upward.

“Okay, well for the next two weeks, you’ll have a driver to take you anywhere you need to go.”  Veronica clapped her hands together excitedly.  “I still can’t believe you’ll be my temporary roommate.”

Betty laughed, nodding her head.  She had spent the last year living in California with her sister, who had given birth to beautiful twin babies last summer.  Considering Polly’s baby daddy wasn’t in the picture, she needed extra help for the first few months.  Betty spent her year getting to know her niece and nephew, but also getting to know her sister as a single mother.  Polly was a stressed out, un-showered hot mess most of the time, but she was an amazing mother.  It made Betty emotional to see the way she sang to the twins at night, or how she would take extra time changing their diapers to tickle them and kiss them, making them feel comfortable.

Being with her sister and her sisters babies was an added plus, but truthfully, Betty had to get out of Riverdale.

“Are you sure your parents are okay with me staying with you guys?  Alice will be back in two weeks, it’s really not that long for me to be alone at the house…”  Betty asked as the elevator jostled to a stop, the doors opening a moment later.

“Betty, absolutely no one has a problem with you being here.”

Well, maybe someone.

“Even Jughead?”  Betty asked, trying to hide the nervousness in her voice.

Veronica laughed as they stepped out of the elevator and headed down the hallway, Betty following closely behind.  “Why would Jughead care?  He doesn’t care about anything.”

“Yeah, true.”  Betty agreed, a quiet sigh escaping her lips.

“I don’t think he knows, to be completely honest.”  Betty’s eyes shot up and she watched as Veronica opened the door to apartment 330, holding it open for Betty.  “FP didn’t want to tell him because he’d probably try to protest.”

“I thought you said he didn’t care.”  Betty drifted into the apartment, taking in her surroundings.  The living room and dining room alone held items worth more than the cost of her home.

“He doesn’t, he just won’t like having to share his private bathroom.  It connects between his bedroom and the guest room, and we rarely have guests.  He’ll have to clean up after himself for once.”  Veronica shrugged as she tossed the keys in her hand into the bowl on the entryway table.  “And he’ll have to be way more careful with his little guests.”

“Guests?”

“Oh my gosh, you haven’t been here for the last year to see Jughead turn into the biggest sleeze.”  Veronica rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest.  “He has a different girl over every weekend, sometimes even on weekdays.”

Betty’s chest tightened as she tried to find the right thing to say.

“It happened like right after you left.  He just started going to parties on the Southside and bringing girls home.  He thinks he’s sly, but he’s not exactly quiet.  I’ve seen like six of them, and even talked to one in the kitchen.  She was… nice.”

Betty’s grip on her suitcase tightened.  “I, uh…. Is it okay if I put my stuff in the room?  I’m totally wiped.”

“You can put your stuff in your room,”  Veronica said matter-of-factly.  “But you’re not going to bed.  Jet lagged or not, we haven’t seen each other in a year and we have to celebrate in true B and V fashion.”

Betty’s eyes widened and she shook her head hastily.  “No, nope.  No way.  Not—.”

“Tequila!”  Veronica giggled, running towards the kitchen.

Betty frowned, remembering the last time they’d had tequila.

“Have you been drinking, Coop?”  He smirked, leaning against the counter in the kitchen.

“Mm…” Betty raised her fingers to her chin, thinking about the question for a moment.  “No.  Definitely not.  Completely sober.”

“I’m gonna call your bluff there.”

“I plead the fifth.”  Betty reached over to the red solo cup that sat on the edge of the counter.  “This is definitely not tequila.”  She said as she took a sip from it.

Jughead rounded the island, standing a few inches from her.  “Is that so?”

“Yep.  It’s water.”

“Smells like tequila.”

“It’s.. scented water.”

Jughead grinned and leaned down towards her, their faces close enough for her to feel his breath.  Her heart rate began to sped up as her eyes widened.  She’d thought about being this close to him many times before, but every ounce of confidence she seemed to have in her head melted away at the sight of his lips parting ever so slowly.

“Is that… so?”  He said slowly, enunciating each word individually.

A shiver ran down her spine.  “Mhm…” was all she could seem to get out.

All too quickly, Jughead leaned in even closer and drug his tongue over her lips.  Betty let out a soft sigh, and he pulled away from her.  How could such a simple act, something that should disgust her, make her want to absolutely jump his bones?

She looked at him, her eyes wide as he seemed to take a moment to think.

“Sure tastes like tequila.”

And then he was gone, leaving Betty in a mess of breathlessness and tequila tasting lips.

“I’m so tired, V.”  Betty complained.

“Too bad, so sad.”  Veronica called from the kitchen as she rummaged through a few cabinets.  A few moments later, she came back with a bottle of tequila that was probably more expensive than her flight.  Holding it up in the air and wiggling her hips a bit, Veronica called out “We are going to get drunk and dance and not care about the fact that our senior year starts in a couple of days!”

Betty sighed, knowing that it was impossible to argue with Veronica.  Once she had her mind made up, that was it.

“Won’t Jughead be annoyed by the noise?”

Veronica scoffed.  “Jughead’s at one of his little parties tonight, and my parents won’t be home until the day after tomorrow.”

When Betty gave her a questioning look, she explained “When we got back from Milan, they took their own trip to New Orleans.  You know, one Lodge vacation, one Jones vacation.”

They both chuckled.  “Balance.”  Betty said.

Betty recognized how odd of a pairing it may have been to outsiders.  Hermione Lodge was a rich entrepreneur from Manhattan with an insane fashion line, and FP Jones was an ex-gang member turned police officer from the wrong side of the tracks.  No one expected them to last when they got married ten years ago, but they defied the odds and had remained happily in love throughout their entire marriage thus far.  Betty thought it was sweet.  Veronica liked FP, but she had always been less than thrilled with having a step brother, especially when that step brother was Jughead Jones.

“Go put your stuff away, and get your perky little ass back out here so we can celebrate!”  Veronica hurried Betty towards the guest room, which sat just between Veronicas and Jugheads.  Betty complied, shuffling into the bedroom.  “Dress code is big t-shirts and tiny shorts!  We’re going full Risky Business tonight!”

Betty laughed and shut the door behind her, throwing her suitcase onto the king sized bed that sat in the center of the lilac colored room.  Across from it was a beautiful, dark oak dresser with an arrangement of fresh roses and dragons breath inside a classic-shaped bouquet vase.  On the far side of the bedroom was a beautiful casement window with a dark lining to match the furniture, and a sheer white curtain tied to the left.

Betty turned her head for a moment, spotting the door that was stationed just to the left of her bed.  It was a tall, white door with a golden door lever.  Who knew a bathroom could feel like a pathway to your past?

She sighed and opened her suitcase, rummaging through it for a t-shirt that fell far enough down that Veronica would deem it acceptable for her dance.

“Uh, Veronica.”  Betty slipped out of her bedroom, still wearing her t-shirt from before.  She had since replaced the overall’s with a pair of tight black cheer shorts that she’d gained from her short time on the Vixens.

“Mm, nope.”  Veronica said as she glanced up at Betty.  “I’m not getting any Tom Cruise vibes from that.”  Veronica was now draped in a light blue t-shirt that fell past her shorts, likely a piece from Archie Andrew’s closet.

“That’s the thing…” Betty sighed.  “I don’t really have any t-shirts like that.”

“What?!  How can you not have an oversized t-shirt?  It’s a staple in any girls closet.  It’s perfect sleepwear.”

“I don’t know,”  Betty shrugged.  “I sleep in tank tops and shorts mostly.”

“Well this just won’t do.”  Veronica seemed to think for a moment before scrunching her face in a dissatisfied nature.  “I suppose… I could grab one of Jughead’s t-shirts from the laundry.  It’s clean, but like, he’s so grungy.”

Betty’s eyebrows rose in shock.  “No, I—.”

“It’s not ideal, but it’ll have to do.”  Veronica said, ignoring Betty’s concern.  She raced off to their laundry room, and came back a few moments later with a folded grey t-shirt.  “Go put this on,” she said as she handed the t-shirt over to Betty.  “And hurry, I want to get my drink on!”

Betty sauntered into the bedroom, holding the shirt in front of her with both hands as if she were afraid of wrinkling it.  Not that it would matter.  All of his clothes are wrinkled, she thought.

It took little time to replace the shirt she’d been wearing, but she wasn’t prepared for the feeling she got as she looked into the mirror above the dresser.

Her shorts were no longer visible under his big t-shirt, which darned a giant S across the front.  The excess fabric from the sleeves drooped below her arms and the neckline was slightly baggy.  The shirt had made her figure completely disappear, leaving nothing but her long legs exposed.

Betty giggled as she watched him search his floor for his t-shirt.

“I swear to god, I threw it over here.  I’m not crazy.”  He glanced at Betty.  “Am I crazy?”

“Mm, no.”  Betty said thoughtfully.  “But you were a little distracted.”

Jughead shot a smirk in her direction and continued his search.  Betty slowly snuck the deep red shirt from behind her back, opting to slip it on over her bare body instead of the clothes that were not scattered around his bedroom.

“How did my bedroom just eat my shirt?!”  He exclaimed, rubbing his forehead in frustration and pushing a few strands of sweat soaked hair out of his face.

“Maybe it’s a lost cause,”  She whispered innocently.

Jughead turned to her, his facial expression turning from that of irritation to mischievous.  A smile grew on Betty’s face as he pounced onto her, his headboard hitting the wall loudly.  They both erupted in laughter before Betty raised her right hand to cover his mouth, using her left to cover her own.  “Shh!”

Jughead smirked, rolling onto his side and propping himself up on his elbow.  “Okay, but in all honesty,” his eyes grazed over her body, taking her in as if she were a glass of cold lemonade on a hot summer day.  “There’s just something about you in my t-shirt that makes me feel like an absolute pervert.”

Betty bit her lip, placing her legs just close enough to his that they touched.  “And why is that?”

“Because all I can think about is the vulgar things I’m going to do to you next time.”

Betty’s entire face went red.  “Next time?”

He wants a next time?

“I mean, I—.”  Jugheads cheeks seemed to go pink, embarrassment flickering through his eyes.  “Uh, I just, I mean, if you— um, if you don’t—.”

“Jughead.”  Betty interrupted him, placing her delicate hand against his cheek to cup it.  “Of course I want to do that again.”

Jughead let out a sigh of relief, placing his hand atop her own.  “Thank god, because I really don’t think I can go back jerking—.”

“Juggie!”  Betty exclaimed, lightly smacking his chest with her free hand.   “You’re disgusting!”

Jughead let a chuckle escape his lips as he shook his head.  “Oh please, it’s not like you don’t.”

“That’s different.”

Jughead let a sweet smile replace his smirk as he leaned in and placed a gentle peck on her nose.  “You’re different, Betty Cooper.”

“Hellooooooo?”  Veronica’s aggrieved voice sounded through the door, shattering through Betty’s thoughts.  “How long does it take you to change into a t-shirt, B?!”

“Sorry!”  Betty offered as she opened the door, an apologetic expression growing on her face.  “My mom called to check-in.  Just had to give her the all-good.”

“Well next time, text her.”  Veronica rolled her eyes and walked back to the couch, grabbing the bottle of tequila from the coffee table.  Betty followed behind, leaving her bedroom door cracked.

“What are we drinking to?”  Betty asked, sitting on the arm of the couch, her lets outstretched in front of her.

Veronica furrowed her brows, contemplating the question as she unscrewed the lid from the bottle and tossed it to the side.  “Oh!”  She exclaimed.  “To the fact that we didn’t see each other for an entire year, and yet here we are, as close as the day you left!  No drama, no awkwardness, no secrets.”

Betty nodded, a tight smile growing across her lips.

“We can’t tell anyone.”  He said directly, gazing around the Blue and Gold where they’d been meeting every day for the last month at lunch.

“I know,”  She agreed.  “V would hate me.”

“Hate you?”  Jughead scoffed.  “She’d bury me alive.”

“I know,”  Betty sighed, her head dropping.  She knew they didn’t have a choice, but god, she wanted to be able to hold his hand in the hallways at school and go out on dates with him, and be able to tell her best friend.  “It just sucks.”

“Hey…” Jughead placed his finger under her chin and lifted her head to look at him.  “For what it’s worth, it’s kind of hot.  You know, a dirty little secret.”

“To B and V!”  Veronica proclaimed, bringing the bottle to her lips and taking a long swig.

Betty took the bottle from Veronica and called out the same proclamation before taking an equally as long drink.

“Gah!”  Betty stuck her tongue out and shook her head as she handed the bottle back to Veronica.  “Couldn’t grab a few limes or a chaser, V?”

Veronica giggled as she took another swig.  “Oh please, Betty.  Those are for pussies.  We are not pussies.”  With that, Veronica handed the bottle back to Betty and reached for the remote, turning the television on and switching to the Spotify playlist that she had carefully curated for their night.

Within fifteen minutes, the girls had downed most of the bottle and were messily dancing in the middle of the living room.

“Tell me why I didn’t think this was a good idea originally,”  Betty blurted over the music that danced through her ears, bidding her to follow its lead.

“Cause you were tired!”  Veronica shouted back before erupting into a fit of laughter.  “Oh my god, could you imagine if we pronounced tired like it was spelled?!”

Betty raised an eyebrow as the song switched from Low Key by Ally Brooke to Havana by Camila Cabello.

“Tie… Red!”

Betty burst into laughter at Veronica’s realization, which caused Veronica to laugh even harder.  They fell to the floor, holding their stomachs as they fought off giggles.

With a few shots down and her best friend by her side, she was ready to forget all about last summer. 

For now.

Betty woke up in a drunken haze, staring around the unfamiliar room.  Despite how long she tried to stare into the darkness, her eyes just couldn’t seem to adjust; but her bladder was full and she would either fight off the demons in the darkness to get to the bathroom, or she’d pee the bed, and she wasn’t about to pee on sheet’s that cost more than her prom dress.

Betty rolled to the side of the bed, throwing her feet over to the side and pushing herself up to stand.

It took a few minutes for the room to stop spinning.

When she finally felt confident in her ability to walk, she stumbled sloppily towards the direction of the bathroom door.  “Ow!”  She exclaimed as her hip caught the edge of the doorknob.  Her fingers floundered around the handle until she finally gripped it, pulling the door open dramatically and letting it slam behind her.

She walked towards the toilet and let the shorts fall from her legs as she sat down on the perfectly white throne, relieving herself from the unholy amount of tequila that she had consumed that night.  She leaned back against the back of the toilet, really soaking in the coolness of the ceramic.  It felt so good against her body.

After a few moments — well, she didn’t actually know how long she’d been there — of sitting there, she finally rose and flushed the toilet.  She scurried out of her shorts, opting to pull up just her light pink undies because why not?

She quickly washed her hands, avoiding her gaze in the mirror.  I don’t want to know how much of a mess I am, she thought.

Her eyes glanced to the door besides the counter, and then back to the door on the other side of the toilet.

Which door did I come through?

Betty thought long and hard about this before coming to the conclusion that it was the one beside the toilet.  She shut the bathroom light off and wobbled through the door she’d chosen, her vision still refusing to adjust.  It took a few moment’s to find the bed, but she finally tripped upon it, letting her entire body fall against the comforter.

It was the sound of a door handle jingling that made Betty’s eyes flutter open tiredly.  The room around her was still dark, signaling to Betty that it wasn’t quite morning yet, or she’d slept for far too long.

Her eyes drifted to the alarm clock besides the bed, the digital 3:47AM illuminated in green.  Why the hell was Veronica trying to come into her room at 3:47AM?

Wait.  Betty’s eyes opened wider as her eyes darted from the alarm clock to the door, and then back to the alarm clock.  I don’t remember there being an alarm clock.

“You don’t think I fucking know that, Pea?”

Oh my god.

The door opened, the slightest sliver of light appearing on the other side of the room as a male body slipped into the bedroom.  The door shut and so did any light in the bedroom.

Oh my god.

“I’m aware it’s dangerous.”  The male spoke lowly, his voice gruff.  He threw something that sounded like keys onto something that was sat beside the door.  “No, I didn’t ask questions, dumbass.  When have we ever asked questions?”

Betty stared at the body that seemed to pace around the room, his body cloaked in shadows.

“We’re meeting at the warehouse on Fifth.  Be there by midnight, and not a second later.”  He was quiet for a few moments.  “Yes, Sweet Pea.  Bring the guns.”

Betty let out a quiet gasp.  Guns?  Why did he need guns?  Where was he bringing the guns to?  A warehouse on Fifth?  Wasn’t Fifth on the Southside?

“Just throw them in Toni’s trunk, and we’ll go through them at the warehouse.  And I’m serious, Pea.  Don’t be late.”

With that, he seemed to end his call.  Betty stared in shock, unsure of what she’d just heard.  She wanted nothing more than to bolt for the bathroom door and explain in the morning.  She wanted to hide under the bed or, hell, jump out of the window and hope she lands somewhere soft. 

He let out a long sigh and seemed to raise his hands to his face, rubbing it in frustration.  “Fuck,” he mumbled as he reached for the light switch.

Oh my god.

The light turned on, illuminating the bedroom that was clearly not the guest room.  Instead, Betty was surrounded by a room painted light green, with posters of different authors decorating the walls.  There was a sizable desk sat beside the door, holding a lamp, a laptop, and the keys he’d thrown.  The room wasn’t messy, but it wasn’t clean.  A pile of laundry lay beside a laundry hamper, and a couple of wadded up pieces of paper were scattered among the room.

It looks exactly the same, she thought before her thoughts were abruptly interrupted.

“Betty?”

Chapter Text

Then

“Okay, but in all honesty,”  His eyes trailed down her body, his pupils tracing the spot where the shirt raised slightly over her chest.  His eyes lingered for a moment before finally finding their way back to the emerald eyes that were staring up at him.  “There’s just something about you in my t-shirt that makes me feel like an absolute pervert.”

Betty pulled her plump bottom lip under her teeth, biting down on it just enough to leave a small inflamed indent as she grinned.  Her legs moved against his, a cold sensation moving through his body.  “And why is that?”

“Because all I can think about is the vulgar things I’m going to do to you next time.”

Jughead hid the shock he felt, fearing that he’d been more forward that Betty would be okay with.

A pink tint grew over her face, something Jughead wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been watching her so intently, waiting to see her reaction.  “Next time?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.  “I mean, I—.”  Jughead scrambled, desperately wishing he could take back his words.  He wanted to hit his head against the wall over and over again until he lost all memory of his foolish words.  “Uh, I just, I mean, if you— um, if you don’t—.”

“Jughead.”  His internal condemnation came to a halt at the sound of her soft voice.  Her hand reached up, delicately pressing her palm against his face to cup his cheek.  “Of course I want to do that again.”

All of the worry he’d been feeling cascaded out of his body through a sigh.  He placed his own, much larger hand over her tiny, delicate fingers and leaned into her palm.  He’d never felt comfort like this in his entire life.  He never wanted this feeling to flee.

“Thank god, because I really don’t think I can go back to to jerking—.”

“Juggie!”  Betty smacked his chest, causing him to release a chuckle into the dark space that surrounded them.  “You’re disgusting!”

He shook his head as he stared at her, finding great pleasure in the way her cheeks got brighter and her eyes widened.  He couldn’t help but smirk.  “Oh please, it’s not like you don’t.

“That’s different.”

Jughead felt his own cheeks go red as his mind drifted to an image of Betty Cooper in her bedroom, the blanket covering her moving ever so slightly at her hips as she tilted her head back and sighed.   Did she think about him as her hands wandered down her body, searching for the relief that could only be achieved through the electricity of an orgasm?  Was it his face she pictured as her entire body jolted around until, finally, she fell back against her pillows and tried to catch her breath?

If it wasn’t, it would be.

Jughead leaned in to the blonde haired, green eyes beauty beside him and pecked her nose gently.  “You’re different, Betty Cooper.”

He watched her eyelids flutter closed and she tucked her face against his neck.  She muttered something along the lines of “okie dokie” against his skin, and then she was out.

His eyes watched her, longed for her, for hours that night.

He was drowning, and he didn’t want to be saved.

Now

Jughead pulled the keys out of the ignition of his beat up green truck, taking a moment to breathe before grabbing the door handle and pushing against the rusted metal to free himself.  He held his keychain in one hand, his phone in the other, and kicked the door shut.  The sound of metal hitting metal rang through the dark night, a sound uncommon on this side of Riverdale.

He trudged around the truck until he reached the sidewalk and headed for the stairs of the Pembrooke.  As he pulled the door open and walked in, a sleepy old man with white hair hurried towards him.  “Mr. Jones, I do apologize for not getting the door.”  He said regretfully.

Jughead stared up at the old man, raising a brow.  “It’s okay, Smithers.  I really don’t need you to get the door for me.  I’m a big boy.”

“All a part of my job, Mr. Jones.”  Smithers tone, though tired, remained elegant.

“They got you working the late shift again?”  Jughead glanced down at the watch on his wrist, noting the time.  3:42AM.  Okay, more like overnight.

“The newer gentleman couldn’t make it tonight.  I’m just covering.”  Smithers shrugged lightly, showing as little emotion as possible.  “I was already here, so there was no reason to have anyone drive all the way in.”

“Jeez, Smithers.”  Jughead offered the old man an apologetic glance.  “A double?  You need to get yourself some caffeine.”

Smithers just chuckled quietly, disappearing to where he normally kept watch, and left Jughead to his own devices.

Just as Jughead was stepping off of the elevator, his cell phone began to vibrate aggressively in his hand.  He looked down at the caller ID and narrowed his eyes.

“It’s nearly four in the morning, Sweet Pea.”  He snarled as he answered the phone.  “What the fuck do you need?”

“Hey, boss.”  Sweet Pea’s voice echoed through the speaker.  “I was wondering if you had a minute.”

“I had a minute when I was at the Wyrm literally twenty minutes ago.”  Jughead sighed as he trekked down the hallway, arriving at his door a moment later.  He pushed down on the handle at was relieved to see that his step-sister had left it unlocked.  “If I wake up my sister because of you, you’re the one who will deal with her wrath.  Not me.”

Sweet Pea seemed to laugh nervously at this.  He’d never shied away from a chance to crack a sex-ridden joke towards Jugheads step-sister, Veronica, but he seemed unnaturally quiet.

Probably something to do with the meeting earlier.  Jughead recalled the events that had unfolded earlier at the Wyrm, involving much yelling, a lot of pounding fists against walls, and a job that Jughead never wanted to agree to.

“Well, it’s just—.”

“Spit it out.”  Jughead strode across the living room, his eyes set on his bedroom door.  He’d been tired for hours, and he was more than ready to collapse in his own bed.  He could sleep in and ignore his sister for another full day, and he relished in that.

“Toni and Fangs are worried.  About the job, I mean.  It’s different than most jobs we’ve taken.”

“You don’t think I fucking know that, Pea?”  Jughead reached his door, the keys in his hand causing him to struggle with the doorknob.

“It’s…” Sweet Pea lowered his voice as Jughead pushed his bedroom door open, slipping inside.  “It’s dangerous, Jones.”

Jughead closed the door behind him quickly, just in case his sister might still be awake, and threw his keys onto the desk beside him.  He thought about turning the light on, but the thought diminished from his head as he decided to savor the darkness for a bit longer.  “I’m aware it’s dangerous.”

“Did you ask Tall Boy any questions?  Like, why we’re taking this job?”

Jughead sighed, beginning to trot from one side of his room to the other.  “No, I didn’t ask questions, dumbass.  When have we ever asked questions?”

There was an audible sigh from the other line.  “Where are we meeting?”

“We’re meeting at the warehouse on Fifth.”  Jughead spoke clearly, refusing to let his guard down.  “Be there by midnight, and not a second later.”

“Do you want me to grab the guns?”

“Yes, Sweet Pea.  Bring the guns.”

Hadn’t we discussed literally all of this at the meeting?  Jughead thought to himself with an eye roll.

“How am I going to get them to you?”

“Just throw them in Toni’s trunk, and we’ll go through them at the warehouse.”  He paused for a moment, waiting for a response.  When no such thing came, he simply said “and I’m serious, Pea.  Don’t be late.” and disconnected the call, stuffing the phone into his pocket.

Jughead stared at the ground for a moment, trying to recall what got him into this bullshit in the first place.  He’d never been a “bad kid”, and his dad had been very clear: Stay away from the Serpents.  And yet, here Jughead was, donning a leather Serpent jacket that he typically kept sacked away in his closet, far enough back that no one would see it unless they were looking for it.

The night air was warm, even for summer, as Jughead sat on the front steps of his best friend, Toni’s trailer.  She sat beside him, wrapped in a leather jacket.  It could be one hundred degree’s and she’d still be cold.

Jughead had spent the night hours throwing rocks at the ground and pushing back tears.  They sat in silence for a long time, until Jughead finally spoke up.

“It’s…”. His voice was frail as he tossed another pebble into the dirt below the stairs, watching it bounce away.  “It’s hard.”

“I know.” Toni looked at him, her eyes remorseful.  He hadn’t said much to her since he’d arrived on her doorstep that afternoon, his eyes puffy from crying; but she knew.  “You cared about her.”

“Yeah.”  Jughead’s shoulders slumped and he leaned back against the stairs, gazing up at the star filled sky.

He’d spent many nights with Betty, laying in the back of his pickup truck, far away from humanity, staring at this same sky.

And now he couldn’t.

“When I was with her, I belonged.”  He choked out, shoving the tears back down his throat.

“I know.”  Toni sighed, leaning back against the stairs with him.  “After I came out, I never felt like I fit anywhere, until I joined the Serpents.  Now it’s like I have this family who loves and accepts me for me.”

Jughead wondered what that would be like.  His father, once a Serpent King, had married into a wealthy family and traded in his leather jacket for a police uniform.  He gave the Serpents up completely for a family that was nothing like his own.  Jughead, though young when the two married, had never felt like he had a place in the family.  At gatherings, he always looked like the odd one out with his knit beanie and his messy hair.  He’d be forced to eat caviar, truffles, and veal.  Jughead was not a picky eater by any means, but he questioned how any of this could be considered food.

“I want that.”  He said, looking in Toni’s direction.  “I want to fit somewhere.”

Jughead let out an extended sigh, rubbing his face in hopes that he could rub the irritation away.  It didn’t work.  “Fuck,” he whispered into the darkness before reaching for the light switch and finally switching it on.

He turned to face his bed, entirely ready to jump into the coziness of his comforter and pillows and let go of the previous day, when his heart nearly leaped out of his chest.

Laying on his bed, wearing his grey t-shirt and panties, was a blonde haired, emerald eyed girl who he hadn’t seen in a year.

“Betty?”

Betty nearly dove off of the bed, terror filling her eyes.  Jughead stared at her, his mouth stuck open, as he struggled to find the right words to say.  After a year, she was just there.  In his room.  On his bed.  Wearing his t-shirt.

This had to be a dream.

“I-I, oh my god,”  Betty stumbled over her words, her eyes darting everywhere around the bedroom except to his.  She tried to hurtle towards the bathroom, but her hand must have missed the handle, because she ran face first into the door, knocking herself onto her ass.

This isn’t a dream.

He watched as Betty lifted her hand to her forehead, rubbing the spot she’d hit.  Her eyes squinted a bit and her lips pursed as she let out a quiet “ow”.

Jughead was in completely disbelief.  He was rarely speechless, and yet here he was, unable to find anything to say.  What does one say in this situation?  Hello?  Good to see you?  How’s your sister?  How’s California been since you left me?

That was when he remembered how angry he’d been the last time he’d seen this blonde haired girl, and all of that anger seemed to come back and hit him all at once.

Betty pushed herself off the ground, adjusting the shirt over her underwear to cover as much as possible.  She turned to look at him, her eyes still not meeting his.  “It’s not what it looks like,” she mumbled.

“What… the… fuck?!”  Jughead’s brows furrowed, his face tightening as he stepped back from her.

Betty winced at his powerful voice.  “I was drunk, I-I forgot what door I came in, because I’m—.”  She looked back towards the bathroom, and Jughead understood immediately.

“You’re staying in the fucking guest room.”  He reached up, pulling his beanie from his head and kneading his face with it.  “You’re sharing a bathroom with me?”

“I didn’t know, I swear.”  Betty stepped backwards, her back hitting the bathroom door.

“What the fuck are you even doing here, Cooper?”

“I’m back… from California.”  Her breathing seemed to slow, but Jugheads heart only raced faster.  “I told you it’d only be a year.”

“Only.”  Jughead started to laugh manically, his temper worsening.  “A lot can happen in only a year.”

Bettys breath hitched before standing straight against the door, pointing at the leather jacket he wore.  “You mean like you joining a gang and meeting at warehouses with guns that you’re too young to own?”

His eyes widened at her.  He hadn’t even stopped to consider that she’d heard everything he’d just said to Sweet Pea.  Their location, their timing, their weapons.  If she decided to go to the police, the Serpents would be done for.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,”  Jughead tossed his beanie to the side, his skin suddenly feeling warmer under his jacket.

“That’s a Serpent jacket, Jughead.”  Betty glared.  “I’m not stupid.”

“So what if it is?”  Jughead watched as her eyes moved to stare at the jacket, her willingness to look at him disintegrating with every word.  “It shouldn’t matter to you.”

Her eyes shot back up to him.  They were pained.  “How can it not matter to me, Jug?  This isn’t you.”

“You wouldn’t know.”

“Jughead.”  Bettys voice was quiet as she took a miniature step towards him.  “I know you.”

Jughead shook his head, taking another step back so that the distance between them didn’t change.  “Don’t fucking say that.”

“I—.”

“No!”  Jughead exclaimed, even surprising himself with his volume.  “You never knew me.  You just pretended you did, so you wouldn’t feel like such a whore for having a hookup buddy.”

“Excuse me?”  Betty crossed her arms, shifting the weight of her stance to her left side.  “You know damn right that it was more than that.”

Jughead smirked, shaking his head.  “No, Cooper.  I let you believe it was more, because you were just so good at riding my cock.”

Betty stared at the ground for a long moment, a cluster of emotions flashing through her eyes.

“Fuck you, Jughead Jones.”  She twisted around, shoving the bathroom door open and stomping across to the guest rooms entrance.  The door slammed shut and she was out of view.

Jughead let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and collapsed onto his bed as confusion and pain flooded his brain.

“Betty Cooper, you are a sight for sore eyes.”  Jughead stepped towards the booth, the neon lights of the diner casting a red hue against the light hair belonging to the girl facing away from in, sat quietly in the booth.

She turned around almost immediately, a smile growing on her face as her eyes found their way to his.  She stood up, taking his face in her hands and pressing a deep kiss on his lips.  He didn’t dare pull away, his arms choosing instead to wrap around her waist and kiss her back just as deeply.  The kiss felt, dare he say it, profound.

When she finally pulled away, she led him to the booth where she had a double chocolate milkshake waiting for him, her strawberry one nearly half gone.  “Couldn’t wait for me?”  He snickered, taking a seat across from her.

“What can I say?  These milkshakes are magical.”  Betty giggled, taking another sip from her shake.  Jughead pulled his milkshake towards him, taking the straw between his lips and savoring the exquisite confection.

“It’s okay, I wouldn’t have waited for you either.”  Jughead chuckled as he swallowed.  “Speaking of, I am so sorry I was late.  Ronnie and my parents kept asking questions about where I was going out so late, why I looked ‘nice’— which, I feel like a plain black shirt isn’t that fancy— and if I had a date.  Which, like, obviously I do.  They don’t need to know that, though.”

Betty smiled at his words.

Jughead couldn’t help but smile back.  Her smile was so fucking infectious.

“What did you tell them?”

“That I was going to Pop’s to get a milkshake and work on homework.”

Betty nodded, and took another sip.  “Well, I ordered your favorite.  A double cheeseburger with no onions, and fries.”

Jughead grinned from ear to ear.  He reached his hand across the table, intertwining his fingers between Betty’s.  “You are my dream girl.”

Jughead woke up in a foggy haze, his entire body sticky with sweat.  It took a moment for him to realize that someone had been banging on his door, and then it hit him: he had fallen asleep the same way he’d collapsed on his bed, legs hanging off the side, still dressed in the prior evenings wear.

“Shit,”  He mumbled to himself.  “One second!”  He called out.

He quickly rose, shrugging out of his serpent jacket and shoving it under his comforter.  He pushed his moist hair out of his face, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand before opening the door.

Veronica stood at the door, looking as Park Avenue Princess as ever.  She was dressed to the nines, wearing a dark blue collar dress, her signature pearls that her birth father had given her a few Christmas’ back, and a pair of black round-toe pumps.  He wished for a moment that he lived in a universe where he hadn’t learned about all the different types of shoe-ware, and when to wear them.  Unfortunately, he lived in a universe where Veronica Lodge was his step-sister, and that simply wouldn’t do.

“What?”  He asked, glaring down at her.  Despite their age, he towered over her by a few inches.

She rolled her eyes, placing her arms on her hips.  “Jeez, Jones.  I hope you weren’t trying to smuggle one of your little rendezvous through the guest room just now.  We have a visitor.”

Jughead sighed, coming to the realization that last night actually happened.  “I’m aware.”

Confusion crossed Veronica’s face.  “What?”

Fuck, of course Betty isn’t going to tell her what went down.  “She was getting water in the kitchen when I came in last night.  Speaking of which, why the fuck was she wearing my t-shirt?”

Veronica shrugged, and Jughead knew he had successfully played off their meeting.  “We needed t-shirts, she didn’t have any, you did.  I just hope she didn’t get any diseases from all those girls you bring home.”

“You’re overdramatic.  I haven’t had any over in a couple nights, which is a shame considering we’ve been home alone.”

Veronica narrowed her eyes.  “First of all, ew.  Second of all, don’t pretend you haven’t been whoring around outside of your home.”

Jughead smirked, recalling the brunette girl he’d mouth fucked in a supply closet before the meeting last night.  What was her name again?  Ashley?  No, no.  Crysta.  No… Miya?

“Ew!”  Veronica scrunched her face in disgust.  “You are an actual dumpster.”

“I’ve been called worse.”  Jughead shrugged.  “What do you want?”

“Margarita is taking a trip to the grocery store, and wanted to know if you need anything.  I’m sure you do, because you’re a bottomless pit.”

“Yeah, tell her to grab me some Doritos, some Oreos, a pack of Five Hour Energy, a few Lunchables, and…” Jughead pretended to think for a moment.  “Oh yeah!  Some condoms.”

“I have a hard time believing you wear—you know what?  Never mind.  Nope.  I don’t care.  I am completely and utterly disgusted by you.”  Veronica spun around and began to walk away.  He was sure he’d heard her mumble something along the lines of “curse you mother for marrying into the Jones bloodline”.  With a satisfactory grin, he let the door shut.

Recognizing that he was still a sweaty, viscous mess, he began to strip out of the clothes he’d been wearing until he was fully nude and walked into the bathroom.  He leaned into the shower and turned it on, turning the heat all up.

His eyes caught a small grey lump on the ground, and he realized that it was the shirt Betty had been wearing.  His shirt.  “At least she returned it,” He grumbled as he stepped into the shower.

He nearly moaned at the feeling of scorching water hitting his body, traveling from his chest to his feet.  He could feel the previous night draining from his body, leaving in a whirl down the drain.  When he felt like he’d successfully scorched a full layer of skin, he reached for his body wash.  He squeezed some of the gel into his hand, cleaning his chest first.  He took a deep breathe, the smell of bourbon cedar filling his lungs.

“You smell so good.”  Betty nudged her face into his neck, taking a deep breathe.  The sensation sent shivers down his spine.  “This has got to be new.  You didn’t smell like this before.  It’s definitely new.”  She mumbled against his neck, successfully tickling him.

“It’s new.” Jughead conceded.  “I bought it from that weird bath store in the mall.”

“I love it.”

“You fucking better.  This shit cost a pretty penny.”

Betty giggled, wrapping her arms tighter around his waist and snuggling deeper into him.  “Jughead Jones, I forbid you from ever buying another body wash.”

Jughead rested his palm against the small of her back.  “Your wish is my command, Betty Cooper.”

Jughead sighed, shaking his head as he rinsed the soap from his body and hair.  He reached down and turned the water off, stepping out of the shower.  A plush cotton towel awaited him besides the bathtub, and he quickly wrapped it around his waist before walking back into his bedroom.

He emerged from his bedroom fifteen minutes later, dressed in his typical dark jeans and a green S t-shirt.  His beanie remained in his bedroom as his hair dried.

He walked into the kitchen, pulling a container of coco puffs down from the cabinet.  As he poured his bowl and retrieved the organic milk from the fridge, a tired looking Betty Cooper stepped into the kitchen.

Jughead glanced at her momentarily, then turned his attention back to the milk he was pouring over the chocolatey cereal.  Betty paid no mind to him as she bent across the counter to reach a ripe red apple.  Despite his anger towards her, Jughead never passed up an opportunity to look at a good ass, and he couldn’t help but notice just how good hers looked in the tiny shorts she was dressed in.  It wasn’t like he was surprised by how good she looked.  He’d seen her naked multiple times before; but there had always been something about the rush of chasing after something he couldn’t have that really did it for him.

Betty caught him staring, immediately fixing her posture.  Her cheeks were red and her eyes darted from his to the cereal beside him.  “Don’t act like you haven’t seen it before,” she said lowly.

“I’m not,”  Jughead smirked.  “How could I forget?”

“I’d assume all the drugs you do now that you’re in a gang may have fogged your memory.”

Jughead froze as he returned the milk to the fridge.

Sure, he had run drugs before.  He’d dealt them a number of times, when it was absolutely necessary.  He’d even smuggled some over the Canadian boarder sometime during the winter — but he had never done drugs.  It was the one thing he’d always promised himself as he was being initiated into the Serpents.  “Lucky for me,”  Jughead stood straight, shooting an icy look in the direction of Betty.  “I’ve never touched a single drug in my life.”

Betty sneered at him as she bit into her apple.  “After what I heard last night, there’s no way I believe you.”

Jughead sighed, leaning his body against the counter.  “You can’t say a word about what you overheard.”

“And why not?  You’re in a fucking gang, doing illegal things that likely involve someone getting hurt.”

“Once again, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”  Jughead’s eyes searched the area around the kitchen, making sure Veronica was nowhere within earshot.  “Don’t run your mouth about something you have no clue about.”

“You mean to tell me that you don’t want me to inform your police officer father that you’re apart of a gang?”

“Jesus, Betty!  Just—.”  Jughead stopped himself, allowing his body to cool down for a moment before he continued.  He knew that fighting with her would only make things worse.  “I know I’m the last person you want to protect right now, but for the safety of my family—for Ronnie, even—, I need you to keep your mouth shut.  Please.”

“What are you doing that’s putting your family in danger?”  Betty’s face had softened a bit, but her eyes remained narrowed.

“I can’t go into details.”  Jughead sighed.  “Look, Betts…”

Betty’s eyes widened at the use of her nickname, the one he’d given her.

“I’ll do anything you want, just please.  Don’t tell anyone about what you heard.”

Betty stared into Jughead’s eyes for a long time.  She was contemplating.  Jughead remembered how every time she was trying to make a choice, her lips would purse and her right foot would tap against the ground.

When she had finally come to a decision, she crossed her arms and sighed.  “Fine.”

“Thank you, Betty.  I—.”

“I’m not doing this for you.  I’m doing this for my best friend, and if I feel at any moment like she is in danger because of you, I’m going straight to your father and Sheriff Keller.”

Jughead nodded quickly, reaching his hand out to shake hers.  She declined it with a disgusted look.

“Deal.”  Jughead said instead.

Betty took one last bite from her apple before tossing the core into the trashcan and retreating back into her bedroom.

Chapter Text

Betty didn’t expect his forgiveness.  She knew, when her mother first told her that she wouldn’t be home for a couple weeks after Betty and that she’d asked the Lodges to put Betty up during that time, that she would be met by bitterness from one Jughead Jones.  She understood and accepted that this would be her punishment for the way that she’d betrayed him.

What she didn’t expect was for Jughead to completely dismiss the relationship, however unofficial it may have been, that they had shared.  While short on paper, their relationship had been explosive, passionate, but most of all, it had made Betty feel secure.  Safe.

Bettys shoulders slouched, her fingers intertwining at her stomach.  Her nails danced around her palms as she stared at the cream colored wallpaper that adorned the living room of the Lodge condo.  Her mind kept retreating to the same thought, the same picture of what she’d witnessed that night.

“I’m not sure what the wallpaper did to deserve those daggers you’re shooting with your eyes,”  Betty nearly jumped out of her skin.  Her eyes flitted to the figure in front of her, a dark haired boy with mysterious eyes and a knit beanie that he never left home withoout.  His face held the tiniest of smirks.  “But whatever it is, I’m sure it didn’t mean to.”

Bettys lips twisted up in a dishonest smile.  “I guess I was just lost in thought.”

Jughead stepped towards her, closing their distance.  He stopped just a foot in front of her, leaning against the elegant couch that sat in the center of the room, crossing his legs at his ankles.  “Penny for your thoughts?”

Betty shook her head, the blonde ponytail she wore bouncing from side to side.  “It’s not important.”

It was a lie.  Betty knew that her thoughts, the dark place they were taking her to and the reddening crescent shapes on her palms, were more important than she could even begin to explain.  So instead, she shoved her hands behind her back and gave Jughead another one of those fake smiles.

“If the walls could speak, they would agree that you’re a bad liar.”  Jughead narrowed his eyes.  Not to glare at her or make her feel uncomfortable, but as if he were searching her for the answers she refused to give up.

“What makes you think I’m lying?”

“When we were eight years old, I broke one of Hermione’s vases.  I was scared shitless that my dad was going to whoop my ass.  You helped me clean it up, and when they got home, you went right to them and started apologizing profusely, saying that you’d been playing tag with Veronica and that you bumped into the table the vase was on.  They forgave you immediately and Hermione shrugged it off like it hadn’t cost more than a used car.”  Betty laughed quietly at the memory.  She remembered how scared little Jughead was.

“They believed me, so obviously I’m not a bad liar.”

Jughead chuckled.  “I watched you from the kitchen when you told them.  You smiled at them, this big toothy grin that didn’t leave until they walked away.  You smiled the same way in seventh grade when Mr. Svenson caught the three of us in the hallway during class, and you told him that you were a hall monitor and you’d caught Ronnie and I out of class, so you were taking us to the principles office.”

Bettys smile shifted, the memories of her childhood dancing through her mind, daring to push away the darker thoughts she’d been having.

“You smile like that every time you lie, and maybe no one else catches that…”  Jughead took another step towards Betty, their bodies now only inches apart.  He reached his hand up, cupping her cheek softly as she blushed.  “But I notice.  I’ve always noticed.  So let me ask you again… penny for your thoughts?”

Betty stared up into the icy eyes in front of her, and a wave of trust washed over her.  She didn’t fully understand it herself, but she knew she could trust Jughead.

And so, as the waves consumed her, she told Jughead the story of how she’d witnessed her father hit her mother in the living room just hours earlier, causing blood to stream from Alice’s lips.  He yelled profanities about Polly and how she’d never amount to anything, just like her mother.

When it was all said and done and tears swelled up in Bettys eyes, daring to push through to the surface, Jughead held her against him and stroked her hair, apologizing for the horrendous things she’d had to witness;  and for the first time that night, she felt safe.

Their relationship had been grounded in the safety they felt in each other.  It wasn’t the same safety she felt when she was with her neighbor and longtime friend, Archie.  That was a different type of safety, a brotherly safety, as if Archie would beat up anyone for bullying her.  Jughead was completely different.  When she was near him, she felt safe from all of the monsters, the demons, the terror.  She felt like he was an invisible shield, blocking all of the bad from her as he held her in his arms, no matter how rarely it happened, because after all, it was a secret.  Each meeting was sweeter than the last, more intimate than the last.  They had shared their secrets, their desires, their hearts.  Betty learned all about Jugheads love of writing, something she’d noticed but never thought much about, and how much he loved reading and watching classic movies.  He told her about his mother, how she hadn’t called since his dad got married, and how he hadn’t seen his baby sister since she was just that, a baby.  Bettys heart ached for him when the pain flashed through his eyes at the mention of Jellybean, but his eyes were cold when he spoke of Gladys Jones.

They shared all of their secrets, until they didn’t.

Until Betty kept a secret from him.

So, despite wishful thinking and hope for a kinder attitude, Betty understood his bitterness.

“Cheryl Blossom is hosting a rager tonight to celebrate school starting.”

It had been six days since Betty had arrived at Veronica’s.  Six days since she’d discovered Jugheads gang affiliation, and five days since she’d agreed to keep her mouth shut about it.  To keep Veronica safe, she had said.  And while that was part of it, she knew the full truth.  She knew that it was her way of making amends with him.

It had been five days of her listening for the sound of the front door from her bedroom, listening as Jughead stomped in before midnight each night.  Five days of wondering just when he was meeting with these other Serpents at the warehouse, because it surely hadn’t happened yet.

It had been five days of cold shoulders, blatant ignoring, and irritable glances; and yet, he said nothing.  He didn’t dare be rude to her, because she was holding on to his secret.  Did he think she would hold it over him?  Probably.  Would she, though?  Absolutely not.  She wasn’t holding on to this classified material so that she could use it if he decided to snap at her, because she knew she deserved that.  She planned to keep his secret safe, until she couldn’t.

The question that nagged at her throughout those five days: When would that be?

“Who could possibly be excited about school starting?”  Jughead emerged from the kitchen, dressed in a pair of black and green pajama pants and a plain black t-shirt.  His hair was beanie-less and tousled, apparent signs of him waking up within the last half hour.  Betty shot the clock on the wall a quick glance.  It was half past noon; she and Veronica had been awake since nine.  How does he sleep so late?

“Cheryl Blossom, obviously.”  Veronica licked her index finger and flipped the page of her Vogue magazine, not bothering to shoot her step brother a single glance.  “It means she’s back in power.”

“I take it she hasn’t changed since I’ve been gone,”  Betty smirked, her eyes darting to Veronica for a moment before returning to the book in her lap.  In Cold Blood.

As if they had planned it, both Veronica and Jughead responded “no.”  It seemed simple in retrospect, but it was the first time in five days that Jughead had acknowledged Betty in the slightest.

“Anyways, I told her we’d be there.”  Another page flipped.

“V.”  Bettys eyes flashed to Veronica, narrowing as she stared at her.  “I do not want to start my first day of senior year with a hangover.”

“Oh, please.”  Veronica smiled, her eyes still glued to the magazine.  “We won’t stay past midnight.”

This time, Veronica did raise her eyes, but only to meet those of her step-brothers.  “Since these type of parties aren’t exactly your thing, could you make sure to leave Tylenol and water by our beds?”

Jughead scoffed.  “You know, I’d just love to help you guys avoid your inevitable misery stemming from a night of doing wildly illegal things, but I can’t.  I have plans.”

Bettys ears perked up.

“I’m going to this so called rager.”

“You loathe Cheryl Blossom.”  Veronica narrowed her eyes at him.

“Correct, Einstein.”  Jughead shrugged.  “But it’s open invite, and free alcohol is free alcohol.”

“I swear to god, if you defile any of the girls we go to school with—.”

“See you at the party, sister.”  Jughead shot Betty a quick glance.  She tried to read his eyes, to read his expression, but it was useless.  His face was stone.  “And sisters friend.”

“FP is a great step father and all, but I’m not completely against the idea of a divorce at this point.”  Veronica expressed after Jughead had trudged back to his room, her eyes falling back to the spread she’d been admiring.

“Veronica!”  Betty argued, her eyes rolling hard.

She could hardly hear herself think over the thudding of the EDM music blaring through the speakers of Thornhill.  She wasn’t sure there was even a beat at this point, just an obnoxious amount of bass.

Betty and Veronica had arrived to the party just over half an hour ago, both dressed in Lacey’s outfits that Veronica had charged to her mothers account..  Veronica wore a deep purple bodycon dress with a halter neck that accentuated her tanned shoulders and a pair of strappy heels; Betty wore a strapless sequined rose pink dress that she had begged Veronica not to get her, because she never dressed up that fancy, paired with gladiator heels that matched the dress perfectly.  Betty kept her hair down, letting it fall into subtle waves shaping her face instead.  As they were leaving the Pembrooke, she couldn’t help but feel like the two of them were way too done up.  It wasn’t until they reached Cheryl’s hauntingly gothic mansion that she remembered that Cheryl tended to have dress codes for her parties.

Since their arrival, Veronica had found her way into the arms of her one and only beau, Archie Andrews, and had struck up conversation with him and Reggie.  Betty was merely a spectator in their conversation about a Vixen that Reggie was trying to get with, electing to sip from her red solo cup and people watch.

A few feet away, a group of girls were jumping up and down to the music, the liquid in their cups sloshing all around.  On the other side of the room, a drunk couple Betty recognized as Moose and Midge were heavily making out against the wall.  Walking towards her, Betty saw—

“Kevin!”  Betty squealed as her eyes landed on the brown eyed boy who had made his way to her.  She immediately broke from whatever conversation Veronica was having, her arms wrapping around him and bringing him in for a tight hug.

“Oh my god,”  Kevin scoffed playfully as he pulled away from Betty, eyeing her up and down.  “California did my girl good.”

Betty giggled and shoved his arm lightly.  Kevin had been one of her best friends throughout all of elementary, middle, and high school.  He was a close second in ranks to Veronica.

“As happy as I am that you’re back, why am I only just now finding out that you’re back?”

“No one really knew but Veronica,”  Betty motioned her head back to Veronica.

“Slightly offended, but I get it.”  Kevin smiled down at Betty.  “So, tell me everything.”

Betty rolled her eyes, taking a sip from her drink.  “There’s really not a lot to tell.  My sister had her babies, the twins are adorable, I hated leaving them.  That was literally my entire trip.”

“You spent a year in California.  Sunny, southern California where the beaches are miles long and it almost never rains.”  Kevin threw his arms up in the air dramatically.  “I mean, c’mon Betty!  You had beaches!”

Betty laughed at his banter and shook her head.  “My sister actually lived by the beach, so I did spend some time reading by the water.”

This time, Kevin rolled his eyes.  “That’s a very Betty Cooper thing to do, you know.”

“Oh, I know.”  Betty smiled brightly.  “How have you been?  Last I remember…” Betty motioned for the couple making out against the wall.

Kevin put his arms up in protest.  “Yeah, no.  Moose told Midge about being bisexual and liking me, and she was super supportive of being a throuple.  I don’t think she realized that, as much as I love her, she’s not exactly my type.”

“Jeez.”  Bettys eyes widened.  “I can’t believe I wasn’t there for that.”

Kevin nodded.

“What else did I miss?”

“Well,”  Kevin stated, a light blush growing across his cheeks.  “I actually met a guy, but I don’t think he’s looking for anything serious.”

“And you are?”  Betty asked, raising a brow.

“No.  Yes.  I mean, I don’t know.  I like him a lot.  I wouldn’t mind going steady.”

“You’re so vintage sometimes, it hurts.”  Betty giggled.  “Have you tried asking him how he feels?”

Kevin shrugged, pushing his hands into his pockets shyly.  “He just doesn’t seem like the serious type.  Our meetups are quick and hot, and then he’s gone.  He doesn’t even have a phone, he just tells me where to meet him next before he leaves.”

“What happens if one of you can’t make it?”

“I guess we’ll find out when it happens.”  Kevin sighed.  “I’m actually supposed to meet him here tonight.  Mind if I…?”

Betty nodded quickly.  “Go find your man, Kev.”

Kevin bid her a quick wave goodbye and disappeared into the ever-growing crowd, his body swallowed into the sea of brightly colored fabric and messy hair.

She turned around, expecting to find Veronica talking about the same thing as before, only to be met with an empty space against the wall where they’d been standing.  Betty rolled her eyes.  Great.  Alone at a Blossom party, just what I wanted.

She wandered around the party for a while, downing her first beer and accidentally falling into a shot trap being put on by the Bulldogs in the kitchen.  After three shots of vodka and a jello shot that was in no way Cheryl Blossom approved, Betty finally found her way out of the kitchen.  She ambled around the house a bit more, offering polite waves and great to see you’s to those who stopped her, until she found herself stepping onto the back deck.  She was surprised by the lack of bodies around the back yard and pool, and took this as a chance to escape the noise for a while.

The lights at the bottom of the pool caused the water to sparkle gently against the dark night, the concrete surrounding it barely illuminated.  She wandered the edges of the pool, her eyes focusing heavily on the tiles below her feet as she walked.  The alcohol was starting to hit her, and her head felt slightly woozy as she circled the pool.

She began counting the tiles, but seemed to lose track after twelve and would start again, over and over again.  “Ten… eleven… twelve… god damnit.  One…”

“One… two… three.  Open your eyes!”

Jughead uncovered his eyes, his pupils growing in amazement as they found the item in Bettys hand.  A signed first edition VHS of Rebel Without a Cause.  Betty had been scrolling through eBay one afternoon when she found it for a hell of a deal.  She knew in that moment that she had to buy it.

“Oh my god, Betts!”  Jughead pulled the tape out of her hands, examining with his eyes as if to make sure it was real, and not a figment of his imagination.

Betty giggled as she stared at his child-like expression.  She’d never seen him so excited before.  “I’m glad you like it.”

“Like it?”  Jugheads gaze met hers.  “Betty, I love it.  This is the coolest thing anyone has ever given me.”

“Your dad gave you a sister, and a step-sister.”  Betty smirked.

“I rest my case.”  Jughead chuckled, but his brows suddenly furrowed in confusion.  “What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion.”  Betty shook her head.  “I just saw it and thought you should have it.”

“Jesus, Betts.”  Jughead set the tape down beside him, scooting closer to Betty so that their legs touched.  His eyes sparkled, and Betty decided in that moment that she’d always try to make him look as happy as he did then.  “How did I get to lucky?”

Betty groaned, shaking the memory from her hazy mind as she took another step.  “Stupid Jughead,” she slurred.

If she hadn’t been staring at the tile, she may not have even noticed the loud crack as her right heel broke from under her.  Bettys entire body swayed towards the pool.  In an attempt to catch her balance, she tried to lift the broken heel, but it was lodged tightly between two tiles.  Her ankle twisted in a disturbing way.  Before she knew it, her entire body was breaking through the surface of the pool and sinking towards the bottom.

Drunk, confused, and scared, she immediately started splashing her arms around the water recklessly, desperation to get above water being replaced by panic that she wouldn’t be able to.  Her arms thrashed, her body fighting to keep every last ounce of air inside.  Years of swimming lessons left her in that moment; the only thing Betty could think about was surviving.  She reached for the top of the water as if there was something waiting for her to grab hold of and pull her towards the surface.

Her body was growing tired, her vision darkening.  In a final attempt to save herself, her lips parted and she let out a blood curdling scream.  Bubbles filled the water around her, the sound of her terror barely reaching the surface.  The chlorinated water began gushing into her lungs, the remaining air supply leaving her body.

I don’t want to die, was her final thought as the darkness consumed her.

The cold air didn't normally bother Jughead.  He enjoyed the cold, actually.  He reveled in it.  Tonight, however, he found himself particularly annoyed when a cold breeze flitted across his skin.  Maybe it was because at this point in a hookup, he'd be getting to activities that really warmed him up.  He'd been making out with this girl for fifteen minutes already, and he hadn't even gotten hard.  All she seemed to do was talk, and then talk some more.  Even through their messy make out session, she was pulling away to say something else.

“My parents aren’t home.”

“Good for them.”  Jughead rolled his eyes and dipped his head down to her neck, letting his lips graze her skin.   Her body shuddered against his, and he thought he’d finally shut her up.

“Maybe we could go there.  It’s more comfortable than…”  Her hand slapped the brick wall that dressed the side of the Blossom mansion.  “…this.”

Spoke to soon.

Jughead pulled away from the girl, only now noticing that she had black hair and caramel eyes.  His hands remained firmly planted on her waist, the feeling of cheap silk scratching at his finger tips.  “I think this is fine.”  He deadpanned.

“It’s just that this isn’t exactly romantic.”

Jughead couldn’t contain the sarcastic chuckle that fell from his lips.  “Nothing about this is romantic.  We’re tipsy and hooking up in the back yard of Thornhill during a Blossom party.”

“Wait, this is a hookup?”  The girls eyes widened in shock, as if she hadn’t been stuffing her tongue down Jugheads throat in desperation a mere ten minutes ago.

Jugheads hands dropped from her side and his brow raised in confusion.  “What exactly did you think this was?”

“I don’t know, I thought you liked me or something.”

Jughead raised his hand to his face and wiped his forehead, sighing.  “We literally met tonight.  This isn’t love at first sight.”

Her eyes dropped and her fingers played with the fabric at the bottom of her dress.  “I just thought…” She trailed off as the sound of a water splashing filled the air around them.

Jugheads head snapped to look towards the pool that sat just around the corner from where he and the nameless girl stood.  A flurry of blonde hair, pale skin, and pink sequins flailed about just below the surface of the water.

He’d recognize that hair anywhere.  “Betty.”  He muttered as his eyes grew wide.

“That’s not my—.”  He pushed himself away from the girl and darted for the pool, his legs moving faster than he could think.

Jughead shrugged out of his green flannel and tugged the black t-shirt over his head.  He didn’t care where they landed.  He didn’t care about anything else in that moment, except her.

He cursed into the night air.  His legs weren’t moving fast enough as he darted across the lawn.  “I’m coming, Betty!”  He yelled out, but her being able to hear him from under the water was wishful thinking at best.

His next action wasn’t one that needed any thought at all.  Betty was drowning.  He had to save her. 

As he reached the pools edge, he dived into the water, the icy liquid causing his breathe to hold for a moment.  His eyes searched the water for her.  Seeing her body no longer struggling, simply floating through the water as if she were a delicate flower in a pond, was all he needed for his body to fight the frigid temperature.  He thrashed towards her, wrapping one arm around her waist and using the other to swim towards the surface.

It felt like it took hours for them to reach the top.  Her body, just as any other body, was inherently heavier as they broke through the surface, his lungs begging for oxygen as he single-handedly paddled towards the shallow end of the pool where the steps sat.

He refused to think, only act.  If he were thinking, he’d be wondering why he felt that he had to save Betty.  He’d ask himself why he couldn’t let someone else do it, or even just pull her from the pool and ask someone else for help giving her CPR.

Instead, he acted.  He carried her in his arms out of the pool, their bodies dripping, his heaving chest pressed against her side.  He found a spot farther out in the lawn and laid her down on her back gently, dropping to his knee’s beside her.  Silently begging her to be okay.  Begging her to wake up.

He pressed the palms of his hand between her breasts.  Any other day, any other time, he would have felt cocky or made a sick comment.  Not now, though.  He wasn’t thinking.

He was acting.

He pushed her chest down one time, two times, then stopped for half a second, and resumed.  One, two.  One, two.  One, two.  Nothing.

“C’mon, Betts.”  He pleaded.  His eyes drifted to her lips.  The color of her pink lipstick was non-existent at this point, replaced by the paled pink of her natural lips.  Without a second thought, he placed a hand on the backside of her head and the other below her chin, parting her lips slightly.  He leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers.  He sent two deep breaths into her airways, then returned to her chest, the thumping of his hands against her the only pleading he could manage anymore.

She coughed.

Jugheads eyes darted to her own and he continued to pump his hands against her chest.

She coughed again.  And again.  Suddenly, a mess of water and saliva broke through her lips and she sat up aggressively, her hands clutching the fabric that clung wetly against her chest.

“I don’t know about this, Juggie.”  Betty couldn’t take her eyes off the cool water of Sweetwater Swimming Hole, but Jughead couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of her.  She wore a pair of denim shorts that he knew she’d worn to tease him, and sheer white t-shirt that she had tucked into the shorts.  Her hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, and her face was completely natural — his favorite.  “It’s going to be freezing.”

“I’ll be right there the entire time.”  Jughead reassured, interlocking his fingers in hers and squeezing her hand gently.  “You have nothing to be afraid of.”

“I don’t think you can protect me from frost bite.”  She said sarcastically.

Jughead scoffed.  “It’s like ninety degrees today, babe.”

Betty stayed silent, but he saw the way her lips twitched up into a smile.  It had been the first time he’d called her babe, but he’d barely noticed by the way it rolled off his tongue so nonchalant.

He saw his chance and took it, reaching to wrap his arms around her waist.   She didn’t realize what was happening until he’d lifted her off the ground completely.  She kicked her legs around, begging him not to, but within moments they were both splashing into the cold water.  She gasped as she emerged at the surface, immediately firing back at Jughead for his action by splashing him harshly.

He splashed back.

This went on for longer than he’d care to admit, but for a moment they were just themselves:  A couple of teenagers infatuated with each other, living as if they had no secrets.  What Jughead would give for that to be his real life.

The sun had begun to set when they finally emerged from the water.  Betty shivered harshly and her teeth rattled as she looked up into Jugheads eyes.  Her clothes, like his own, were drenched.  The white t-shirt clung tightly to her body, revealing to Jughead that she was, in fact, not wearing a bra.  What a tease, he thought as he smirked at her.

“I hate you for this, you know.”  She said matter-of-factly as she stepped closer to him, closing the space between them.  She wrapped her arms around his neck, and their eyes met.

He responded by wrapping his arms around her waist, pressing their bodies together tightly.  “I didn’t realize you liked being pressed so close to people you hate.”

Betty rolled her eyes, walking her fingers up the nape of his neck.  “Now warm me up.”

Her eyes were wide and full of question, the enlarged pupils practically blacking out her emerald eyes.  He watched her closely as she tried to relearn how to breathe.  After what seemed like ages, her head turned slowly and their eyes met.

Jugheads face softened as he stared into her eyes, memories of her flashing through his brain.  Pictures of VHS tapes, S t-shirts, and Chinese food danced in front of his eyes.  He remembered the first time he’d touched her, the first time their lips had met, the first time he’d felt all of her.  The sounds of her voice, panting and breathy as she said his name echoed through his ears.  Her gentle tone as she’d comfort him in his bedroom, long after his sister had gone to sleep.  The way it felt to curl into her in a way that wasn’t sexual, but was the most intimate thing he’d ever felt.  Everything came flooding back as if they’d never been apart.

The gates had been opened.

So he acted.

His hands reached up to cup her cheeks, brushing the wet strands of hair away from her face, and he leaned in.  Their lips met in a way that could only be explained by the works of Nora Roberts herself.  As if the world around them ceased to exist, all Jughead knew in that moment was Betty, and his lips moved in a way that translated that to her.

Her fingers wrapped around his forearm and she pressed into the kiss.  That was all the answer he needed.  His fingers snaked down to her neck, holding her in place as he deepened their kiss.  They were a mess of wet clothes and wild hair in the middle of Thornhill’s backyard, their lips clinging to one another desperately, making up for foolishly lost time.

“Jug…”  Her voice was quiet as their lips pulled apart.  He rested his forehead against her own, a smile growing across his lips.

“Thank you for being okay.”  He whispered, his fingers lingering on her neck.

Betty let out a breathy giggle.  “Thank me?  Thank you.  You saved me.”

Jughead stared into her eyes, and he wondered how he’d gone six days feeling angry towards the angel that sat in front of him, dressed in a damp dress and wings that he swore he could see.  Six days that he could never get back.

They were both snapped back to reality when he heard a voice from across the lawn, calling out to him.

“There you are, Jones.”

Jughead leaned back from Betty, his eyes landing on a tall, brawny man with ruffled brown hair and a cut off vest.  He was coming right towards the two of them.

“What could you possibly want, Sweet Pea?”  Jugheads voice was laced with annoyance.

Sweet Pea stopped short of them, his eyes peering at Betty with a bit of a smirk before they met Jugheads again.  “It’s 11:30, boss.”

“Okay, and why—.”  Jugheads eyes grew in horror.  He’d forgotten about everything that came before Betty.  He’d planned the hookup with the love-at-first-sight girl to make the time pass and lessen his anxiety before they left for the job.  The same job Betty had overheard Jughead discussing with Sweet Pea.  “Fuck!”

Jughead scrambled to his feet, searching the lawn for his t-shirt and flannel.  “Where the fuck is everyone else?”

“Toni and Fangs are in the car.  T parked down the road a bit.”  Sweet Pea said.

“Did she get everything?”

Sweet Peas eyes widened and his eyes darted to Betty again.  Jughead waved him off, shaking his head.  “She knows, okay?”

“You told a Northsider?”

“I didn’t tell anyone.”  Jughead shot back, his face hardening.  “She just… overheard.  It was a simple mistake, and she agreed to keep quiet.”

He turned to look back at Betty, his expression apologetic.  He didn’t want to leave her here.  Not like this.  Not after what had just happened.

Sweet Pea sighed, grabbing a piece of fabric from behind him and tossed it to Jughead.  Jughead recognized it as his t-shirt, and quickly pulled it on over his shoulders, but he turned back to Betty before acknowledging Sweet Pea again.

“I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”  He said quietly.  “I’ll be home in no time and we can talk then.”

He was surprised when Betty rose to her feet, her expression hardening as she stared into his eyes.  “No.”

“No?”  He questioned.

“No.  I’m going with you, Jughead Jones.”

Chapter Text

“No.  I’m going with you, Jughead Jones.”

The words escaped her lips before she even had time to think; they felt instinctual as they rolled off her tongue.  A bolt of fear flashed through her eyes, but she quickly shook it away and hoped that he couldn’t see past her poker face.  She knew that what she was asking was not just crazy — it was dangerous.  She was practically walking into the lions den and screaming come and get me.

Jughead’s eyes widened as he stared down at her.  She shifted her weight, wincing as she leaned heavily on her right ankle.  Oh, right.  She’d nearly forgotten about her little fall, and the horror of almost drowning.  She’d forgotten everything for a bit, except for him.

She woke up this morning, accepting that Jughead was angry with her and would be for the foreseeable future.

Then he went and saved her like he was her Prince Charming or something.

She didn’t know what had changed between then and now.  Out of nowhere, he had kissed her like he needed her.  Like he was terrified of losing her.

Jughead’s head hung low.  A sliver of moonlight peaked into the otherwise pitch black room, revealing the way his eyes glistened ever so slightly.  She would be terrified to find anyone else sitting in her bedroom alone, in the dark, at 1:30 in the morning, but not with him.  With him, she felt a tinge of pain.  He looked fragile, as if he would crumble to pieces if she hugged him.

“Juggie—”  She locked her bedroom door behind her and strode to where he sat on her bed.  She took a seat right beside him, taking his hand in hers.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”  His voice was quiet and strained, as if he was having trouble speaking.  “I don’t — I’m sorry, I know this is probably weird.”

“No.”  She said calmly, staring at him with concern.  “It’s not weird at all.  I’m sorry I didn’t get home sooner— I don’t know how long you’ve been here— but my mom took me to the city today, and we got stuck in traffic.”

Jughead shook his head.  “I haven’t been here long.”

“Why didn’t you call?  Or text?”

Jughead took a deep breathe.  “I broke my phone.”

Betty rose an eyebrow in confusion.  His words seemed simple enough, but she could tell that there was something he wasn’t saying.  “Jughead, what happened?”

The silence that grew between them lasted a long time, only to be accentuated by the sound of crickets outside and a dog barking into the night a few houses down.  Betty’s eyes didn’t leave the silhouette of Jughead.  She watched as his chest rose and fell, the breathe sometimes getting caught in his throat and causing him to huff a little louder.  The glistening in his eyes seemed to get worse, and she knew there were tears building up.  After at least ten minutes of this, he finally cleared his throat.

“I called my mom today.”

Betty bit her lip, but didn’t say anything.  She knew his mother was a sore subject.  She’d left their family when Jughead was four years old, taking his new born sister with her.  She hadn’t even gone as far as to leave a note explaining why she was leaving.  She just… did.

FP was quick to move on once he met Hermione, but Jughead had never fully gotten over the abandonment.

“We were talking about her trip to the mountains a few weeks ago, and I told her about going to the Bahama’s for spring break.”  Jughead gulped and rested his forehead against the palm of his hand.  “She did a complete 180.  She started yelling at me about how ungrateful I am for not sharing the ‘wealth’, whatever the fuck that means, and how she had been right to leave us.  Then…”  He choked weakly, a quiet sob escaping his lips.  Betty squeezed his free hand, her attention on him completely.  “Then she… she told me to stop calling, that she doesn’t want JB to talk to me anymore, because she doesn’t want her to think that she’ll get to be a spoiled rich brat like me.”

As if he’d just released whatever was keeping his tears at bay, water began to fall from his eyes and he sobbed into his hand, his entire body trembling.  Betty immediately wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, pulling him against her.  Her fingers brushed against his hair gently, and for a while they sat just like that.

She knew there was a million things she could say, a million cliches about it being okay; but that wasn’t what he needed to hear.  He came here to be comforted.  He came to her to be comforted, and she’d be damned if she didn’t do her best.

Finally, she spoke up.  “I’m so sorry.”  Her voice was barely a whisper, barely existing as she released the words into the void that surrounded them.

Jughead shifted his body, his eyes meeting hers finally.  They were swollen and red.  He’d been crying for much longer than she’d thought.  Her chest tightened as he took both of her hands in his own.

“Please…”  His eyes fell to their hands.  “Please don’t leave me.”

Betty opened her mouth to tell him that she would never do that, but she was interrupted by his warm lips, coated in tears, pressing against hers.  He kissed her hard, his lips desperate as they moved against hers.  He was terrified that she would leave just like his mother did, and he communicated that in the most gut wrenching way as he kissed her like he needed her.

She needed him too.

Betty stepped towards him, her ankle pulsating with pain as she did.  She gazed into his eyes, pleading silently with him.  Let me protect you the way you protected me.

“No.”  He finally spoke, shaking his head.  “That’s out of the question.  You’re not going.”

“Why?”  Betty asked, frustration growing in her throat.

“Well, for starters,”  His voice was sharp as his eyes darted to her feet.  “You’re literally limping.  You’re soaked.  You almost drowned.”

Betty parted her lips to protest, but he shut her down quickly.

“Do you get that, Betty?  You were blacked out when I got to you.”  Jughead’s voice dropped to a whisper as his eyes met hers again.  “I thought that I had lost you for good.  I didn’t know if you were going to pull through.”

She recognized the pain in his eyes.

Betty had no idea how long she’d been in the pool by the time Jughead had reached her.  Hell, she didn’t even know how he found her in the first place, but if he hadn’t, she knows she wouldn’t have survived.  The backyard was just as empty, minus the two Serpents before her, as it was when she’d wandered out.  If it hadn’t been for Jughead, the next person to find her would be seeing their first dead body.

Jughead had saved her, he’d been there for her; but he was refusing her the option to do the same for him.

“But even without all of that, you’re not a Serpent.”  Jughead’s voice has raised again, and his expression turned to stone.  “This is official Serpent business.  I can’t just let outsiders wander in and out as they please.”

“What if you get hurt?”  Betty finally asked.

“I’ll be fine.”  Betty watched the way his lips twitched slightly, a tell tale sign that he didn’t fully believe his own words.

“I can stay in the car.”  She pleaded.  “I can be quiet.  No one has to know that I’ll be there.”

Betty was never the type to beg, but God willing, she would beg him right then and there.  Let me go.

“No!”  Jughead exclaimed, his fists tightening.  “You’d be putting everyone at risk: yourself, my crew, me.  Why the fuck would you think that I’d be okay with this?!”

Betty was startled by his outburst, falling back a couple steps and wincing when her weight shifted onto her hurt ankle.  She blinked rapidly as tears built up in her eyes, daring to expose the pain he’d caused.  All she wanted to do was return the favor, help him with something serious because he’d quite literally saved her life.  An eye for an eye, one might say.

“I-I…” Betty breathed, her voice faint.  “I didn’t think—”

“That’s just it,” He interrupted.  “You didn’t think.  You never fucking think.”

Betty’s eyes narrowed.  A single tear betrayed her, trailing down her cheek and clinging to her jaw.  Her features hardened as she stared into the icy eyes of Jughead Jones.  She parted her lips, ready to yell at him or tell him off or threaten to expose his stupid little secret; but she couldn’t.

Of course she couldn’t, because he’d kissed her and made her feel all these sickeningly wonderful feelings, molding her into putty in his hands.  I bet that’s exactly what he wanted.

Without another word, she huffed and walked past him, her shoulder shoving his in the process.  She waited until she was sure that the two Serpents had vacated the lawn to pull her hand up to her shoulder, rubbing it with a wince.

Betty had caught Kevin on the way out and convinced him to give her a ride home — or, back to the Lodge’s at least.  He’d been curious about why she looked like an actual tornado threw up all over her, but she played it off as drunken pool games with some of the jocks.  This was a good enough answer for Kevin, partially due to the fake smile she’d plastered on, and the car ride back to the Pembrooke was peaceful, the silence being filled only with simple conversation about the party and school starting the next day.

She bid her long time friend farewell and headed inside.  She was thankful that the newer, less invasive doorman was working tonight, and she was able to make it back upstairs and to her room with nothing more than a questioning glance and a nod.

Hermione and FP were gone yet again, this time for some seminar that Hermione had dragged her husband to upstate.  They swore they’d be back by Monday night, and had wished all of the kids good luck.  Betty was thankful for this as she made her way across the dark home until she came to her room.  She pushed the door open and let it slam behind her.

She was angry.  She was angry that Jughead had yelled at her for wanting to help.  She was angry that he’d kissed her and made her feel like the year they’d spent apart suddenly didn’t matter.  She was angry that it did matter, that he was clearly still holding on to the anger he’d felt when she left.  What other plausible reason could there be for his outburst?

She was hurt.  She was hurt by the way he yelled at her, his eyes cold and dark.  She was hurt that his words sounded less like words, and felt more like daggers.  She was hurt because she’d actually believed for a second that he’d put his faith in her and believe that she wasn’t just some dumb blonde who would ruin everything if she tagged along.

She was angry, and she was hurt; but most of all, she was disgusted.  She could feel the knots in her hair, and the way her mascara ran down her face.  Her dress felt slimy, and all she wanted was to get out of it.

She stripped from the outfit in the middle of her room, leaving the articles of clothing in a soggy pile on the ground.  She stepped into the bathroom and turned the water on as hot as she could before stepping in and letting the steam burn away the memories of tonight.

Betty didn’t sleep that night.  She lay in her bed, the pillowy comforter engulfing her body as she stared up at the ceiling.  She listened for the door, waiting to know that Jughead had made it home safely.

The sound of the front door opening just past two caused Betty to stir in her bed, her eyes snapping to her own bedroom door.

“Betty?”

Betty should have known it was Veronica, by the sound of her heels clicking against their hard wood floors.  She sighed and rolled over, her body facing the side of the room opposite of her door.

A moment later, her bedroom door opened cautiously and she could feel Veronica’s eyes on her back.  “You asleep, B?”  Her voice was soft with a hint of exhaustion.

Betty didn’t respond.  A few moments of silence passed before she heard Veronica let out a quiet sigh.  The door clicked and as soon as Betty could hear Veronica walk into her own bedroom, she raised from her bed and strode to the door, locking it.

It was nearly five when the front door creaked open again.  The sky was a deep grey through the curtains, a sure sign that the sun would be rising in an hour or so.  Betty’s eyes were tired, but her mind wandered too quickly for her to seize any rest.

“I’m fucking damaged.”  Betty clenched her fists tightly, her fingernails daring to puncture the crescent shaped scars in her palms yet again.  Her entire body felt like stone; everything she saw was tinted red.

“Betty—”

“Don’t Betty me!”  She shook her head and turned around.  All she could feel was anger.  Anger towards her father for his abuse, anger towards her mother for the way she put up with it, anger towards Veronica for not being home when she so desperately needed her best friend, anger towards herself for being desperate in the first place, and angry at him.  Who did he think he was, acting like she belonged to him?  Acting like he could fix her?  No one could; especially not the boy who only saw her as a hook up.  “Just leave me alone.”

“Betty— Jesus, Betts.”  Jughead stepped in front of her, his large hands wrapping around her much smaller, much more fragile fists.  She hadn’t realized she was shaking, but she could feel the tremble against his warm skin.  “Betty, you’re bleeding.”

Betty’s eyes darted to her fingers.  He was right.  As she extended her fingers, the tips and fingernails were coated in a wet coppery substance, and the half-moons on her palms were red and inflamed, the skin broken.

Again.

“Fucking hell, Betty.”  Jughead immediately ran his fingers over her palms, as if he didn’t believe that what he was seeing was real.  That Betty really was damaged.  He examined them for a moment, but then his eyes rose to meet hers.  They were much sadder than before, and his lips tilted into a frown.  “How long?”

Betty blinked twice.  “What?”

“How long have you been doing this to yourself?”

Betty shrugged, as if this were a casual conversation.  As if he hadn’t just discovered her biggest secret.  “I don’t know.  A while.”

“I— Why didn’t you tell me?”  Jughead stuttered, and she could see the appearance of tears in his eyes.

“Why would you care?”  Betty’s voice was sharp and accusing.  In any other situation, she’d feel bad for her misplaced anger, but right now all she felt was resentment and rage.

“How could I not?”  Jughead stared into her narrowed eyes, his own expression questioning her words.  “What… What do you think this is, Betty?”

“A hook up.  Friends with benefits.”  Betty glared.  “A booty call, even.”

“Oh wow.”  Jughead shook his head, and Betty swore he looked hurt.  “That—That isn’t what I think of you.  Not even close.”

Betty stayed silent.  Her eyes searched his face, the softness of his peer causing the anger to subside inside of her.  Slowly, but surely, she began to calm down.  But as the anger dwindled away, so did the numbness in her palms.  She suddenly became very aware of the stinging sensation in her hands and pulled them to her body with a wince, Jughead’s hands dropping to his side.

“I-I need to clean up.”  Betty turned to walk towards the bathroom, but a strong hand wrapped around her fingers and she was pulled back quickly.

Jughead kept his eyes on her bloody palms before slowly whispering, “Let me help you.”

Betty felt the familiar sting in her palms as footsteps echoed across the living room.  They stopped for a moment, and she could have sworn that she saw a shadow of boots under her door, but then they were walking again.  She listened as the door to Jughead’s room opened and closed quickly.

She wanted to approach him, but she didn’t know how to.  She’d gotten home after one, and crawled into bed not long before Veronica arrived.  She’d been laying in bed, sleep refusing her, as she thought about all the awful things he could be doing — that could be happening to him.  She’d thought about how cold he’d seemed, and how he’d accused her of never thinking.  Of course she thought things through.  She always thought things through.  She wasn’t the type to do things recklessly, she never had been.  She had Alice Cooper to thank for that.  Her mother had engrained a careful energy into her head long before Betty could remember.

So how the hell could Jughead assume that she wasn’t thinking this through?

It wasn’t until she felt the liquid beneath her finger tips that she realized that she was bleeding.  Great, just what she needed before her first day back to school in a year.  She sighed as she rose from her bed, annoyed with the lack of sleep she’d gotten, and made her way towards the bathroom.

She slipped in slowly, staring at herself in the mirror for a moment.  Her pastel pink tank top and grey sweatpants told the story of girl undamaged.  Her hair fell in waves to her shoulders, and for a minute, even Betty was convinced that she was fine.

Then she looked at her palms.

She reached for the faucet and turned it on, careful not to spread blood.  The water stung, but she allowed the pain until the water ran clear.  She had barely started to rummage through the cabinet when the opposite bathroom door swung open.

She nearly jumped out of her skin, but then her eyes landed on Jughead.

And then they landed on the dried blood on his neck and hands.

“Fuck — Sorry, I didn’t hear you in here, I—”  Jughead rambled, but Betty was quick to interrupt him.

“Is it your blood?”

Jughead took a moment to register her question.  His eyes fell to his hands, and he began to trip over his own words.  “I-it’s, it’s…”

With a sigh, he gave in.  “No.”

Betty’s eyes widened.  She’d expected him to say yes.  She hadn’t expected him to come back dressed in someone else’s blood.  She was shocked, but she couldn’t peel her eyes from him.  He was a picture of utter exhaustion.  His eyes were bloodshot and the bags under them were prominent.

“It’s not — it’s not what it looks like.”  He met her eyes again, breaking the silence.

“What happened?”  Betty’s voice came out weaker than she’d expected.  The anger she swore she’d feel the moment she saw him was non-existent, being replaced by fear of the unknown.

She watched as his pupils darted around her face for a moment, as if they were somehow buying him time.  After what seemed like far too long, he let out a low groan and shook his head.  “Nothing happened.”

“Jug—”

“What do you want me to say, Betty?”  His tone was defensive, and Betty was suddenly reminded of their talk earlier.  “I went for drinks at the Wyrm when we were done, and Sweet Pea dropped a few bottles.  I got cut by one.  It’s not a big deal.”

Betty rose her eyebrow.  “You’re telling me a little glass caused that much blood?”  She shook her head.  He was lying.  She knew he was lying, by the way his voice laced itself with mild annoyance and his lips twitched as he spoke.  “I’m not buying it.”

Jughead scoffed.  “Good for you.”

Betty stared at him for a long moment in disbelief.  Hours earlier, they’d made out in the backyard of Cheryl Blossom’s mansion after he’d dived into the pool to save her.  Now, it was as if it had never happened; as if they were back to thirty six hours ago when Jughead was actively ignoring her and avoiding most conversations she was involved in.

“You know, sometimes I can’t believe you Jones.”  Betty sighed in defeat, grabbing the bandaids from the cupboard that she’d found as he startled her, and marched back into her bedroom, letting the door shut behind her.

She slowly began to peel the bandaids back and stick them onto her palm.  It wasn’t until she heard the sound of the shower starting that she allowed herself to lay back under the comforter and grab hold of the tiniest bit of sleep.

“God, can today drag any worse?”  Veronica complained from her seat opposite of Betty.  She held an apple between her manicured black fingernails, staring at it as if taking a bite were the greatest debate of this century.  “It’s barely lunch and I’ve already been assigned two readings, one book report, and three projects.”

Betty, who personally loved school work and how she felt when she finished an assignment, giggled at her friends comment.  “That’s senior year for you.”

“You know, the movies portray it much differently.”  Kevin was sat just to the side of Betty, nursing a bottle of lemon lime soda.

“I should be spending my days deciding what dress I’m going to wear for my college interviews.”  Veronica gasped, setting her apple down on her tray dramatically (and loudly).  “Or should I go with a skirt/blouse combo?”

“You’ll have to find the perfect pearl necklace!”  Betty mocked with fake enthusiasm.

“Exactly!”  Veronica sighed sorely.  “I can’t plan for college and do all of this work.”

Betty and Kevin shared a glance and a laugh, which Veronica quickly joined in on.  Most of their lunch hour consisted of this: making jokes, complaining about school, and eating their god-awful school lunches.  

Beneath her bright smile and loud laughs though, Betty was exhausted.  She’d caught about half an hour of sleep before she was ultimately woken up by her blaring phone alarm, and then she was off to get ready for school.  In retrospect, she could have slept in another half hour considering her late night shower, but instead she spent that time thinking about Jughead.

She couldn’t wrap her mind around the blood.  He’d come home with blood on his body, and no visible wounds — yet he told her it was from broken glass.  She hadn’t believed him then, and through all the scenarios she’d come up with in her head that could make his story even partially true, she didn’t believe him now either.

She wanted the truth, but a part of her was scared of the truth.  She had watched the way he stuttered, the way his eyes searched her face as if he was contemplating telling her, ultimately coming to the decision that he couldn’t trust her.  After she promised to keep his secret, even when she had absolutely no reason too, he didn’t trust her.  Betty would never admit it, but that was what hurt her the most: his lack of trust in her.

“So B,”

Betty’s eyes shot up from the slice of cheese pizza in front of her, meeting Veronica’s wondering glance.  “Hm?”

“Why didn’t you tell me Kev was giving you a ride home last night?  I searched the party like a madwoman for you.  Didn’t even know you left until Midge Klump said she saw you leave with Kevin here.”

Well, she knew it’d be brought up eventually.  “Oh god, I’m so sorry V.  I was so tired, I didn’t even think to tell you.”

“She was a hot mess, Veronica.  I’m glad I got to her when I did.”  Kevin piped in.

Veronica raised a questioning brow in their direction.

“I had a few shots and took a swim to cool off.”  Betty offered with a shrug.

“I thought you said you were playing pool games with some of the bulldogs…” Kevin turned in his seat, his gaze fixed on her.

Betty bit her tongue.  She’d slipped up so stupidly.  “Oh, I — yeah, I mean it started as me just cooling off and then a few people joined in and we played chicken.”

The answer seemed to be enough for the two of them, because Veronica just nodded and continued on.  “Well anyways, I got home sometime after two and literally passed out in my party dress.  I—.”

“Hey guys,”  Betty glanced up at the low voice, finding Archie approaching their table.

“Archiekins, to what do we owe the surprise?  I thought you were spending your lunch hour on the field.”  Veronica gazed lovingly at her boyfriend, a smile forming on her lips.

“I was, but Coach Clayton just informed us there’s an emergency assembly starting as soon as lunch ends.”

Betty raised her brow and parted her lips to question, but Kevin was the next one to seek up.  “Emergency assembly on the first day back?”

“Isn’t your dad the sheriff, Kevin?  You should text him and ask what’s up.”  Archie spoke.

Kevin rolled his eyes.  “For all we know, they could be telling us that they’re switching all soda machines to diet.  Not every emergency is a call 911 emergency.”

“If they take away cherry cola, Cheryl will make it a 911 emergency.”  Veronica smirked, and the whole table chuckled.

“Do you guys wanna head to the gym now so we can sit together?”  Archie asked.

The four of them nodded in agreement, and within moments they were shoving their food into the garbage and walking towards the large gym.

As they strode in and found seats about halfway up the bleachers, Betty couldn’t help but notice Jughead had already made it into the gym too.  He stood with three people donned in leather jackets, one she recognized as Sweet Pea.  They were deep in conversation, but every few moments Jughead’s head would pop up and he’d look around the gym to see if anyone was listening in.

Betty wondered for a brief moment what they could be talking about, but her thoughts were interrupted by Veronica and Kevin pointing out all of the people in the crowd who they believed had secretly banged.

For a few more moments, Betty’s biggest worry was that they’d point out Betty and Jughead; but then Principal Weatherbee strode into the auditorium, two police officers at his heel, and the entire room went silent.  Betty immediately recognized one as Sheriff Keller.

“Should have texted your dad, Kev…”  Veronica whispered mockingly.  Kevin shot her a narrowed glance and turned back to watch the assembly.

Weatherbee knocked on the microphone a couple times, the sound radiating throughout the room and causing Betty to grimace, then cleared his throat.

“Good afternoon, students and faculty of Riverdale High.”  His voice was gruff and seemed to emanate through the entire auditorium and reach the ears of everyone within the four walls.  “I would like to begin this assembly by congratulating all of you on your first day back from summer vacation.  It is always a pleasure to see so many familiar smiling faces roaming the halls.”

He seemed to pause for a moment, his eyes dropping to the podium as he shuffled through some papers.  The police officers, who now stood on either side of him, remained still as stone, but their eyes searched the crowd.

Finally, Weatherbee took a deep breath and continued.  “There are things in life that are never easy to communicate, and today I find myself struggling to find the right words to say to you all.  It brings me extreme sorrow to disclose to you that a fellow classmate…”  He closed his eyes for a moment, preparing himself for his next words.  “...was found dead.”

The entire room erupted in gasps and panicked whispers.  Betty could hear Veronica and Kevin burst into quiet conversation about it, while Archie seemed to question himself as to whom it could have possibly been.  Betty couldn’t give them the time of day; instead, her eyes trailed to where Jughead had been standing previously.  He was there, but a look dismay engulfed his face, his lips forming a tight frown.  He ran his hand down his face as his eyes darted around the crowd.

Their eyes met a moment later.  Despite how far they seemed to be from each other, there was no doubt that his eyes had widened at the sight of her.  He didn’t break their gaze, and she found her breathing becoming deeper, her chest growing and sinking slowly but dramatically.  Her palms were clammy and droplets of sweat formed at the hairline of her forehead.  

Their gazes didn’t break, and the only alert that someone else had taken the podium was the sound of Sheriff Keller’s voice booming out of the speakers.

“At 8:21 this morning, a body was found by a passerby near the edge of Sweetwater River.  As of 11:47 this morning, that body was positively identified as Jason Blossom.”

Looking into Jughead's expanded pupils, the sound of the crowd bursting into horrified cries became muted almost immediately.  Instead, the same seven words repeated over and over again in her head, screaming it into her brain until it was unbearable.

Jughead had something to do with this.

Chapter Text

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

This was never supposed to happen.

Jughead could see the principal talking from the corner of his eyes, could hear the sheriff confirming his fear; but his eyes were on Betty, and he prayed to a God that he was completely unsure about that she would hear the words his mind was screaming.

His entire face was covered in sweat, his fingers twitching, and he was sure his bottom lip was going to swell from how hard he was chewing on it.  God, he wanted to laugh out loud at the idea that if Sheriff Keller could see him now, he’d be taken away in handcuffs and questioned downtown, no doubt.

But Keller couldn’t see him.  He’d positioned himself and his crew just right — close enough to the exit that they could dart if needed, but blending in to the crowd of overflow students leading down from the bleachers.

Even with the trouble he’d gone to just to blend in, Betty still found his eyes.  She was glue, she was a fucking magnet that he couldn’t pull away from.  He was stuck in position, blue eyes meeting green, but then he realized that he didn’t want to look away.

He thought back to the night before.  He thought back to the way he had struggled to tell her.  The way the lie rolled off of his tongue in place of the truth he’d had every intention of telling her.  His lips betrayed him, they betrayed her.  How could he come back from this?

He couldn’t look in the mirror after she left the bathroom.  He couldn’t face himself, so instead he drew a shower and crumpled onto the bath floor and let the sound of the water absolve his tears.

He didn’t cry often.

He remembered the last time he cried, and he shoved that memory down to the darkest place of his mind.  It was a memory for another time, for a time when he could kick the wall and scream into his pillow.

Because he didn’t cry often.

He swallowed hard when he watched Betty rise from her seat, but his eyes didn’t leave hers until she broke the invisible string that had been holding their gaze together.  Everything was happening in slow motion as Betty bolted past him, charging through the double doors of the gym.

And then she was gone, and everything in him wanted to cripple against the linoleum tiles.

The night air was particularly bitter, though that could have to do with the fact that Jugheads hair was still slightly damp from diving into the pool earlier.  His thoughts threatened to repeat the events of that night, but he pushed them away as quickly as they appeared.  He had to be focused, concentrated, strong.  Nothing could fog his mind right now, not even Betty Cooper.  What was the point of thinking of her, anyways?  He’d likely lost her again after tonight, and he had a sinking feeling that this time, it would stick.

His body blended in to the night around them.  Dressed head to toe in black, his typical crown beanie having been replaced with a less than comfortable true black one, he stepped carefully towards a broken window.  His eyes wandered up the side of the factory, taking in just how large it really was.  He’d passed by this factory many times as a child.  It was just off the main road leading out of Riverdale, and anyone with slightly good vision could see the top of the factory through the tree’s.  As a child, he’d thought it was the biggest building in the world.

With his heart beating in his throat, it seemed even bigger.

“Pea,”  Jughead’s voice, although barely an octave above a whisper, was commanding.  Sweet Pea took one long step and was beside him immediately.  “Do not leave my side through this.  I don’t want there to be a single second that one oof is alone.  We’re going to go left.  They meet in the farthest back corner on the other side of the building.  They’re going to be pissed, and they’re going to be packing.”

Sweet Pea nodded and patted the lower part of his back where his black jeans clung to his skin, separated only by an AR-24.

Jughead nodded, noting the two pistols he was packing.  One tucked into his jeans like Sweet Pea’s, the other tucked into his boot and hidden by his pant leg.  That was back up.

It’s all backup, he reminded himself.  They had agreed earlier that the guns were an absolute last resort.

“Toni and Fangs are parked on the other side of the road, out of view.  They’re keeping watch.  They’ll text if, and only if, they see someone or someone sees them.  They’re texting from a burner.”  Jughead felt his pocket, assuring himself that he had remembered his burner phone.

“Are you ready?”  The words were a joke, he could feel it as they slipped through his lips.  It didn’t matter if they were ready.  This was happening.

“Does it matter?”

He hadn’t realized that he’d escaped the gym until he found himself leaning against a set of lockers, his body soaking in the cool metal as if it were the first cold night after an endless summer.  He clenched either side of his beanie, stretching it over his head.  He wished he could transport out of here.  He wanted to be in his bedroom, under the thick bedding where no light could enter his fortress.  He wished he’d never taken his time as a nine year old for granted, when his only worry was keeping Betty and Veronica out of the many forts he’d built in the living room.

He should have let them in.  He should have let Betty in.

He should have let her in last night.  He should have exposed his demons, laid the cards out on the table and let her see for herself just how damaged he was.  Would she fold?  Probably, but at least he’d know then and there, rather than pining after a girl who would end up running the moment she caught a glimpse of who he was now.

Who he’d always secretly been.

He was so convinced she would run, yet the moment he saw her standing in the Blue and Gold, her body only coming into the picture every so often as she paced the room, he found himself pushing his body off the lockers and striding towards the office.  The door was open, and she must not have noticed as he entered the doorway because the moment her eyes landed on him, she flinched and stepped back.

She’s afraid of you.

Jughead had never felt more nervous than in that very moment.  He hadn’t felt this nervous when he was initiated into the Serpents, having to literally grab a fucking rattle snake from its tank.  He hadn’t felt this nervous when his mother hung the phone up for the final time.  Hell, he hadn’t felt this nervous last night when everything went down.  No, nothing in his life had ever felt like this.

Her eyes were on him, but she actively avoided his own gaze.  Jughead’s chest tightened when he saw that her fists were balled up tightly, a sight he remembered with a tinge of pain.  “Betty, hey…” He tried to step forward, his hands reaching out for hers, but she recoiled immediately.

“Get away from me.”

Jughead blinked hard, but obeyed.  He stepped back, shifting his weight nervously to the right.  He parted his lips, but no words came out.  His throat, his lips, his mouth — all dry.

Betty stepped behind a long wooden desk.  Her face was riddled with fear, and Jughead wanted to bash his head into a wall.  This was all because of him.  Of course she’d be afraid of him.  He was a fucking monster.

“What did you do?”

Her voice was cold, sharp, accusing.  He didn’t understand for a minute, but as her face hardened, he realized that she was referring to last night.

He took a sharp breath, turned to the office door, and closed it.  He heard Betty shuffle, and when he turned back around, she’d moved even farther away.  She stood in the back of the room, her body straight and her arms crossed across her chest.

Her fingers were still curled into her palms, and he wanted so badly to unravel them and kiss the wounds until they disappeared from her skin, never to reappear.

“Look—”  He began, but she intersected him too quickly.

“You killed Jason.”

It wasn’t a question.  It was a statement, and by the looks of it, she was pretty damn sure that she had it right on the nose.  Jughead was taken aback, blinking quickly as he tried to comprehend her words.

“You — what?!”  Jughead exclaimed.  “Jesus Christ, Betty.  You think I murdered someone?!”

Betty didn’t move.  Her facial expression remained unchanged.  She didn’t speak, she just stared.  Not at him.  Past him.

“Betty.”  He composed himself, commanding any ounce of the confidence he’d felt going into last night.  “Betty, no.”

When she still didn’t speak, he let out an audible sigh and pulled his beanie from his head.  He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to find the right way to communicate with her.  “Betty, I didn’t kill Jason Blossom.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me!”  She shot back.  Her voice was threatening, a drastic difference from the typical soothing tone she held.  “You came home last night covered in blood.  You were out all night, after refusing to let me come with you.  It all makes sense now.”

She let out a noise that sounded like it could be a laugh, but it was throaty and laced with fear.  “Of course you wouldn’t want a fucking witness.”

Jughead’s eyes widened.  She actually believed this bullshit.  She actually believed that he was capable of murder.  She believed he was more of a monster than even he believed, and he saw the worst in himself.

He clenched the beanie hanging in his hand and let out a groan.  “Betty, I swear on my little sister’s life that I didn’t murder Jason.”

That caught her attention.  Her eyes finally met his, and he saw the tears she was holding back.  “Tell me what happened last night.”

“Betty—”

“Tell me what happened last night, Jughead.”  Her voice had softened, barely but it wasn’t nearly as hard as it had been a moment ago.  Maybe he was crazy, but he took that little sliver of hope and ran with it.

“Okay.”

The two males had made their way into the old factory through the broken window.  They were careful not to get cut, but Jughead was pretty sure that the glass had dulled down quite a bit in the time since it had been shattered.

They moved stealthily down the darkened hallway.  The concrete was broken below their shoes, but they were careful.  They watched their steps, making the least amount of noise as possible.

“Didn’t this used to be an old cereal factory or something?”  Sweet Pea’s voice was barely there.  If he hadn’t been directly behind him, Jughead wouldn’t have heard the question.

“Maple.”  He responded, equally as quiet.  He didn’t think it mattered, but he still felt the need to correct him.  Hell, Riverdale was known for it’s maple syrup.

“Huh.”  Sweet Pea spoke.  Jughead could practically hear the shrug in his voice.

He was about to comment on the gesture when something stopped him dead in his tracks.  He threw his arm out to stop Sweet Pea, and they both listened carefully.

There was a voice.

No, there were multiple voices.

Jughead took a couple steps forward, searching the hallway for any sign of an office or meeting space.  He could barely make it out in the darkness, but about fifteen yards ahead of them stood a metal door, swung open.  Betty looked back at Sweet Pea, directing his gaze to the door.  Sweet Pea nodded.  They communicated their plan in silence.

They crept silently until they were about five yards from the door, their bodies pressed against the door.  Jughead could make out the voices easily now.  There were three of them speaking, but he knew that meant nothing.  The room could be riddled with fucking Ghoulies.

An ounce of fear crept through his body as he imagined the two of them trying to fight off a dozen Ghoulies.  They could do it, no doubt — but it wouldn’t be easy.

He shoved the fear away and listened in on the conversation happening just through the door.

“I gave you three weeks.  I didn’t need to be that generous.”  The first voice was thick, his voice roaring through the office and into the hallway.

“I—”  The next voice wasn’t nearly as loud.  He had little to go off, but Jughead had a feeling that this guy was terrified for his life.

“Now I’m going to ask you one…more…time…”  The first voice sounded dangerous, violent.  “Where the fuck is my money?!”

The sound of something hard meeting skin radiated into the hallway, followed quickly by a painful yelp.

“I-I don’t have it!”  The second voice cried out.

“Boss?”  A third voice, gruff, popped up.  He couldn’t see it, but he knew the guy was asking permission.  He’d recognize the tone anywhere.

“Not yet.”  The first voice spoke powerfully.  “This agreement is pretty fucking clear.  I keep operations running smoothly out here, so long as my men and I get paid.  When I don’t get paid, well, then we have some trouble.”  His voice was tinted with amusement, like some sick bastard.

Jughead didn’t think twice about his next movement.  He didn’t think about the fact that he was risking everything by doing this.  He moved towards the door, positioning himself so he could just barely see into the room.  Their backs were to him, all of them, and he let out a sigh of relief.

Two men stood tall.  One equipped with a head of dark curly hair and a studded jacket, the other much more heavyset, hair replaced by scalp tattoos.  They stood around a wooden chair.  A crimson haired, pale skinned boy sat in the chair, his hands secured behind his body with zip ties, his ankles tied to the legs of the chair.  He wasn’t fighting, but his body quivered.  The man turned his head slightly, and Jughead immediately recognized the side profile.

Jason fucking Blossom.

What was Jason doing with the Ghoulies?  There was no way he was running drugs, at least not for money.  His family was loaded.  The Blossom’s were the most prominent family in Riverdale, and definitely the most wealthy,  Jason Blossom did not need money.

So why was he here?

Curly Top moved forward, a dark laugh escaping his lips.  “What?  Cats got your tongue?”

“I… I don’t know what to tell you, Malachi.”

Malachi.  He recognized the name, but only from talk he’d overheard at the Wyrm.

“I don’t understand why I’m here.  My-my dad is the one you want.”

“No, no…”  Malachi shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest.  “That would be too easy.  If I kill daddio, then the entire operation is over.”

“K-kill?”

“But you?  You’re the perfect leverage.  See, we need to make it clear to your father that we’re not fucking around.  It was my mistake to believe that I could do that by getting you to make the payment, but here we are, three weeks later.  And guess what?”

He leaned down so that his lips were nearly touching Jason's ear.  “There’s still… no… money.”

Jason’s fingers had balled into fists now, and Jughead could see the way he was beginning to struggle in the seat now.  “I’ll get it.  I just need more time.  Please, I swear!”  He begged through throaty sobs.  “Just give me more time.”

“Mm…”  Malachi tilted his head back, as if considering the option.  Then he chuckled, and shook his head.  “How about no?”

Jughead watched the next scene with wide eyes.  The stockier man pulled a gun from under his shirt, one that Jughead cursed at himself for not noticing, and pointed it directly at Jason’s head.

Without thinking it over, Jughead pulled the gun from his waistband and stormed into the room.  “No!”  He exclaimed.

He was too late.

He heard the click of the trigger.

He watched the bullet launch into Jason’s skull.

A sticky red substance exploded all over, splattering onto him and the men around him.  Some of it hit his face, but he couldn’t be bothered.

He saw the way Jason’s body seemed to tense up for a moment, then go completely limp.

He fell forward in the chair, the chair tilting too far.

His body fell into the pile of blood collecting at his feet.

Jughead’s eyes darted from the dead teenager, to the two men standing in front of him.  They had noticed him the moment he stormed into the room.  He didn’t know what to do.  That seemed to be a trend tonight.

But much like his lack of knowledge on how to handle situations had been repeated throughout that night, so was his impulsivity.

So yet again, he acted.

He drew the gun from his boot, pointing both of his pistols at either men.  His face had turned to stone.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sweet Pea, gun drawn, and he felt a bit of sadness for making his friend witness this chain of events.

“Didn’t realize the Blossom kid had backup.”  Malachi smirked, raising his hands slowly.  “You kind of fucked up.  You know that?”

“Shut the fuck up.”  Jughead shot back.  “What business did Jason have here?”

Malachi cackled, and Jughead cocked his gun.

“Look dude, you could kill me, you could kill him,”  He tilted his head towards the other male.  “But then there will be three dead bodies, and you’ll be charged for each… and every one of them.”

Jughead stared at him with a blank expression.  “Now I know you don’t want to spend life in prison and neither does your little boyfriend — so here’s what you’re going to do:  You’re going to let us walk free, and then you’re going to keep your pretty little mouth shut about this for the rest of your life.”

“What makes you think I won’t go straight to the police?”  Jughead voiced.

This made Malachi laugh, and Jughead decided that he hated the sound of it.  “Go ahead.  Go to the police, and tell them what you saw.  Explain to them why a couple of Serpents were here in the first place.  Maybe they’ll find me, maybe they won’t.  Either way, you’ll get some time behind bars, and when you’re out, I’ll find you,”

Malachi laced his fingers together and extended them outward, cracking them.  “And then, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Jughead’s breath caught in his throat.

“So, what’s it going to be?”

Jughead choked down the fear, and without lowering his weapons, he slowly stepped out of the way, nodding at Sweet Pea to do the same.

“Smart choice, kid.”  Malachi and the other male strode out of the room as if it were a casual Sunday night.  As if there wasn’t a dead body on the floor in front of them.  A dead teenager.

A dead Blossom.

Jughead wanted to collapse right then and there.

But Sweet Pea was watching him intently, waiting for their next move, so Jughead took the deepest breath he’d ever taken, turned to Sweet Pea, and said, “We need to get out of here.  Now.”

The silence between them lingered for a long time.  Somewhere between when he’d started unfolding last night's events and now, the auditorium of students and faculty had been released from the assembly.  And from school, by the sounds of it.  The sounds of lockers opening and closing could be heard even in the closed room, students piling out of the school as quickly as they could.

Everyone was shaken up.  A classmate was found dead, and no one knew why.

Jughead knew it was gang related, but the kids untainted by criminal activity were scared that this was just the beginning.  Would there be a next one?  Who would be the next one?

He watched Betty attentively.  She was taking in the entire story, savoring the words and trying to make sense of all of it.  It took forever, or at least it felt like it.  Jughead felt like his world was still moving in slow motion.

Eventually, she spoke.  “I don’t understand.”

Jughead raised an eyebrow.  He had explained the night in pretty vivid detail.  “What don’t you understand?”

“Why — what could they possibly want with Jason?”

“I don’t know.”  He said honestly.  “Malachi had said something about using him as leverage.”

“Against his dad.”  Betty confirmed, and Jughead nodded.  He caught a glimpse of her fingers as slowly uncurling from his palm, and a sense of relief washed over him.  “But why?”

Jughead sighed and stepped forward leaning back against one of the desks.  “I don’t know, Betty.  All I know is it involved some type of payment, but I don’t know what the money was for or why it was being paid by the Blossom’s in the first place.”

Betty seemed to think about this for a moment, chewing her lip as she engulfed herself in thought.  “This just seems so odd.  It’s not common for gang members to just kill.  There has to be a really serious reason.”

It was morbid, but Jughead’s lips twitched into a small smile.  “And what do you know about gangs, Cooper?”

She rolled her eyes at him.  “I spent a year in California, Jug.  Do you know how prominent gangs are there?”

Jughead nodded, crossing his arms across his chest and crossing his ankles.  “Different types of gangs, but you’re still right.  Gangs don’t just kill to kill.  There’s always a reason.”

“And we know part of the reason, right?  He was using Jason as an advantage over Clifford.  So the question is…”

“What is Clifford Blossom’s involvement with the Ghoulies?”  Jughead intersected.

“And what did he do that pissed them off enough to kill an innocent teenage boy?”  Betty sighed and tightened her ponytail.  “I think this is a really solid starting point.”

“Starting point?”  Jughead tilted his head in question.  Was she saying that she wanted to investigate a murder?

“Yeah, to take to the police.”

This got Jughead to stand straight up.  “What?  No, Betty, did you not hear any of what I said?”

“I mean, how could he possibly hurt you if he’s stuck behind bars for the rest of his life?”  Betty sounded so confident in herself.  It made him feel awful that he had to shut her down.

“And what exactly do you think is going to happen to me?  I was there too, Betty.”

Betty stared at him for a moment, a hint of uneasiness flashing through her eyes.  “Why were you there, Jughead?  You still haven’t told me.”

“I—”  Jughead stared into her intoxicatingly beautiful green eyes, wishing with everything in him that he could skip this part.  Even if she no longer thought of him as a monster, or at least he hoped, she would look at him as a low-life scumbag.  Part of him wished that she hadn’t come back, that he could bury this part of him into a few one night stands, just so he wouldn’t have to see the look on her face when he told her.  He sighed, knowing he couldn’t lie any longer.  “We were raiding them.  We were going to steal their stash.  Drugs, guns, money.  All of it.”

Betty stared at him in disbelief, but she didn’t move.

“We knew that there might be casualties, hoped it’d just be a couple of flesh wounds and nothing more, but the Ghoulies fight back, and they fight hard, so we came prepared.”

“Why, Jughead?”

Jughead stared at her and shrugged.  “It was an order.  They’re not exactly optional.”

“No, I—”  Betty sighed and fidgeted with her shirt hem.  “Why did you join the Serpents?”

This time, it was Jughead who went silent.  Could he tell her that he joined because of her?  She’d be devastated.

But then it hit him.

He’d shown her his hand.  Every card had been placed where she could see them, every demon, every bad thing, every part of him that made him hate himself more than she ever could — and she didn’t run.

He had expected for her to leave, for her to not believe him.  He knew it was a strong possibility, and he bet on it.  And then she didn’t.

She stayed.

So if she stayed for that, maybe she’d stay for this too.

With a gentle nod, he explained.  “I joined after you left.  I didn’t… I didn’t have anything.  I felt alone and miserable, and Toni had always talked about them like they were family.  Like she belonged.”  He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and stuck his hands in his pockets.  “You were everything, Betts.  And then you weren’t.”

He tried not to relive the moment.  Even now, when things were at least civil between the two of them, it was too painful to think about.  He had reached one of the lowest points of his young life, and he had been alone until he joined the Serpents.  He swallowed the lump that had started to fight its way up his throat and stared at the ground.

A pair of white Converse appeared on the ground in front of him, accompanied by a body.  Her body.

He lifted his head slowly and his gaze met her emerald eyes.  Her face was soft like it had been the night before, and she stared lovingly into his eyes.  Her lips parted slightly, a frown tugging at the corners.  “I’m sorry…”  She spoke quietly, cautiously, but then her hands were cupping his cheek and she was leaning into him.

She kissed him apologetically at first, gentle even, and he thought the world could implode around them at that very moment and he’d still only feel her lips.  Their lips moved in sync, dancing to the song of their pasts, a beautiful, tender and compassionate ballad; but then his arms trailed around her wrist and he pulled her as close to him as he could, and their kiss deepened.  They were kissing to the song of their present now, perilous, fatal, and explosive.  He kissed her deeply, his tongue gliding into her mouth.  A quiet moan escaped her lips, muffled by his own.

At this moment, there was nothing but them.  No gangs, no separation, no dead bodies.  Just them.

Her fingers crept into his hair, entangling themselves within his black locks, the beanie long forgotten on the ground of the Blue and Gold.  He nipped her bottom lip lightly, and she tugged his hair hard.  He couldn’t contain the low growl that snaked out of his throat.  Their lips finally separated, a struggle on both ends, and they stood there, forehead to forehead, a breathy mess.  Neither dared move their hands, afraid that the moment would pass.

So Jughead acted, and leaned his head down to her neck.  His lips trailed across her collarbone, and her entire body arched into him.  She wanted this just as badly as he did, and who was he to say no to her?  He bit her collarbone hard and a quiet yelp liberated itself from her lips.  He couldn’t help the smile that grew across his face as he ran his tongue across the reddening bite mark.  He’d missed that sound for far too long, and now that he had it again, he was going to savor it.

His lips dragged all across her neck as she let out quiet whimpers and moans, her fingers fighting the urge to snap his neck back and take his lips within her own.  She tugged his hair, his collar, his shoulders; she begged with her movement.  Her desire alone was enough to cause his pants to tighten around his waist, and he cursed himself for wearing jeans that were already a little small that day.  He’d been far too tired this morning to put actual effort into dressing himself, but now he was wide awake.  He wasn’t sure he’d ever been more awake, more aware, in his entire life.

He pulled back slowly, and chuckled at the way Betty seemed to pout at him.  She pulled her bottom lip under her front teeth and stared into his eyes longingly.

“I need you.”  She spoke breathlessly.  Everything about it made him want to take her right there, right then.  He ached from how hard he’d grown in the last few minutes, and his primitive nature kicked in.  One hand still slinked around her waist, securing her against him, his other trailed down to the hem of her short skirt.  She sucked in a sharp breath, their eyes never breaking contact.  His fingers trailed up her leg, lingering at the uppermost spot of her thigh for what she was sure to think was far too long.  He didn’t care though; he enjoyed the way she looked in the moment.  Flustered and needy, and all because of him.  All for him.

He ran his fingers against the soft cotton of her panties, generating a breathless moan from her.  He smiled at the way her lips parted when she moaned, just enough that the sound could escape but not too much, out of fear that she’d be too loud.  Her eyes rolled back ever so slightly every time something caught her off guard, and he decided in that moment that he’d like to bottle up that look and keep it for the rest of his life.

“Mmm…” Betty leaned her forehead against his, her eyes pleading with him.

God, if you exist, please just let me have her for the rest of my life.

He hooked his fingers through the leg hole of her panties and began to pull it to the side.  He was so engulfed in her, he hadn’t realized that he was panting too.

“P-please… Take—”

The door to the office swung open, and Betty immediately launched herself off of him and into the cabinets behind them.  Her face was flustered, her cheeks painted red, and her eyes were wide.  She let her fingers drop to her skirt, straightening it out as Jughead slowly looked behind him.

Standing in the doorway was Archie Andrews.

His step-sister’s fucking boyfriend.

He’d just gotten cock-blocked by his step-sister’s boyfriend, and suddenly he hated Veronica a little more than normal.

“Uh, Arch.”  Betty tried to sound casual, but Jughead could hear the breathlessness behind her words.  “Sorry, we were — he was —”

“She was helping me through a panic attack.”  Jughead barked.  His words weren’t entirely false, he had been panicking.  Earlier, sure, but Archie didn’t need to know that.

Archie raised an eyebrow and nodded.

“What can we, uh, what can I do for you?”

“You bolted out of the gym earlier.”  Archie said quietly.  “Ronnie wanted me to check on you while she called Cheryl, said I could probably find you here.”

Betty smiled at him and nodded.  “Super appreciated, but I’m okay.  I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?  You—”

“I’m sure, Archie.  I didn’t know him, I was just emotional because I hadn’t slept great last night and you know, girl time.  I didn’t want to cry in front of everyone.”

“How about you, Jughead?  Are you okay?”  Archie turned his attention to Jughead, which caught him by surprise.

“Me?  Yeah, no.  I’m fine.”  Jughead caught his mistake and quickly corrected himself.  “I’m better now.”

Archie smiled at the two of them.  “Alright, I’ll let Ronnie know you’re both fine, though I don’t think she was as worried about you, Jug.  No offense.”

Jughead smirked.  “None taken.  It’s a mutual hatred, stemming from the step-sibling bible.  Both shall hate each other forever.”

Archie chuckled at this and offered a quick wave before leaving the room, leaving the door wide open behind him.

“Jesus Christ,”  Jughead slumped back and sighed.  “Even when she’s nowhere near me, I’m getting cock-blocked by my sister.  Do you know how much I hate having a sister?”

Betty’s lips tilted into a crooked smile and she shook her head.  “Hey, that’s my best friend you’re talking about.”

“Well no offense Betts, but your best friend is kind of a bitch.”

The two of them shared a laugh and Betty stepped forward to pick up the beanie she’d located on the ground.  She handed it over to him and said, “It’s probably for the best, though.”

Jughead tilted his head to the side.  “What do you mean?”

“It’s just, this is the Blue and Gold.  Sure, most students have left for the day at this point, but obviously Veronica is still on the premises.”

“I’m sensing a hint of a next time in your voice.”

Betty smirked.  “Maybe if you work for it.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Cooper.”  Jughead stood over Betty and pressed a firm kiss against the top of her head, then nodded for the door.  “Let Ronnie know that I’ll give you a ride home today.”

Betty nodded, and they walked out of the office and into the hallway, mentally hand in hand, and Jughead was flooded with memories of all the times they’d walk through those same hallways, just like this.  Pretending they were holding hands, picturing his arm draped around her shoulder and her arm resting around his waist.  Showing her off to the school, saying she's mine to any guy who dared look her way.

There were a thousand other things he needed to think about, but for the moment being, a boy could dream.

Chapter Text

The days to follow Jason Blossom’s death were nothing like Betty had expected.  Where she had expected absolute madness and chaos, silence had taken its place.  School had resumed its normal schedule by Tuesday, and by Wednesday the Blossom death was a mere whisper in the hallways.  Friday was spent gossiping about Midge Klump and Moose Mason getting down and dirty in the mens locker room the day before.

It seemed almost surreal to Betty.  A boy — the son of a prominent family in the community, at that — had been murdered in cold blood, and while Betty didn’t know all the details, she did know that he had been murdered by a Ghoulie.  The rest of the town didn’t have nearly as much information as she and Jughead, and it didn’t seem they would anytime soon.  She knew that she could go to the police and tell them everything she knew.

But could she do that to Jughead?

He was finally starting to trust her again, and little by little she was starting to feel like nothing had changed between them.  Maybe it was selfish — it was definitely selfish — but she couldn’t bare to break that trust and hurt him all over again.

She spent the first few days of the week trying to talk to Jughead about the missing pieces of his death, the entire reason the Ghoulies would shoot Jason, but even she was guilty of slowly pushing the thought to the back of her mind as her weekend began.

Betty and Veronica had spent all of Saturday at the mall, shopping for new school clothes and eating the awful food court pretzels that they loved so much.  Day had turned to night, and by the time they got home, it was already nearly nine in the evening.  Betty’s arms were sore from all the bags, and little red indents trickled up her limb that she massaged away as the duo sprawled out lazily on the couch.

Veronica reached behind her back, revealing a small bottle of vodka between her fingers.  Betty raised a brow and tilted her head.  What was her best friend up to?

“Oh, don’t give me that look.”  Veronica shushed her friend with her fingers and smirked.  “Mother dearest is in the city this weekend and FP is working a double at the station.  It’s just B and V tonight.”

Betty had nearly forgotten that FP Jones was a police officer, and her heart stung a bit for him.  He was working around the clock to find Jason’s murderer, completely unknowing that the information lay in his own home.

“Don’t forget about your loving step brother, Forsythe.”

Both of the girls seemed to jump as their heads snapped to peer behind them.  Standing at the entrance to the kitchen were the blue eyes that Betty had spent an entire year missing desperately.

“You know, Betty…”  Polly’s voice shocked her, and Betty quickly turned her phone screen away, a black screen replacing what had previously been filled with pictures from a certain @theonly.jughead Instagram.  “Pining silently over a boy isn’t the smartest way to win him over.”

Betty raised an eyebrow at her.  “You’re definitely the best person to give boy advice.”

Polly laughed, her eyes shifting to the twins sleeping soundly in their matching bassinets, a gift from a wealthy cousin they’d never met.  “Maybe I haven’t had the greatest luck with boys in the past, but I think it’s common sense that if you like a guy you tell him.”

Betty rolled her eyes and let her head drop back on the backrest of the couch.  “Nothings ever that simple with Jughead.”

“What happened with him, anyways?”  Polly settled into a spot on the other side of the couch, curling her feet under her bottom.  “You guys seemed to be going pretty steady before you came out here.”

Betty snorted.  Polly had been the only one she’d confided in about her relations with her best friends brother, considering she was the only one who wouldn’t go absolutely berserk over the idea of Betty being with a boy before she turned eighteen.

There, of course, had been boys before Jughead.  Not many, and nothing like the Jones boy.  Trevor had been her first boyfriend in high school, they had dated for all of two months before they mutually agree’d that they didn’t really like each other romantically.  She went on a date with a boy named Adam from a different school, and that had been a total shit-fire.  She also went to a dance with Dilton Doiley, but it was purely out of pity and they never spoke again after that night.

Jughead was the only boy that had ever meant something, but a secret relationship was hardly steady.

“Not exactly.”

“Okay, still… what happened?”

Betty sighed and shrugged her shoulders.  “I told him I was leaving for a year, and he was less than thrilled.”

“It’s not like you had any choice.”  Polly’s voice softened as she stared at Betty.  “Mom literally made you come out here for your own safety.”

“I… I didn’t exactly tell him that.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t tell him that?  What else would you have told him?”

Betty shook her head slowly.  “I just said you needed help with the twins.”

“Betty Boop,”  Polly offered a sympathetic smile to the green eyed girl and sighed.  “You never told him what was going on at home, did you?”

“Of course I didn’t.”  Betty sat up from the couch, propping her elbows are her knee’s and resting her face in her hands.  “He has so much to deal with, and I already broke down once in front of him.  God, you… you should have seen his face, Pol.  When he saw my hands, he was fucking crushed.”

The tears in Betty’s eyes came to surface, a few loose ones trailing down her warm cheeks.  Her throat felt coated in the salty liquid and she wanted to throw in the towel right then and there and call him.  Fuck, she wanted to call him.  Or even text him.  She just wanted him to know the truth.  Know that she never wanted to leave him.  “It was like whatever perfect image he had of me just… shattered, right in front of his eyes.  I can’t expect him to carry that baggage for me.  Not all of it.”

Polly nodded, her expression contemplative as she reached out and placed a gentle hand on Betty’s back.  She rubbed small circles with her fingers and Betty relaxed into her sisters comforting touch.  “Did you love him?”

Betty choked on the sob that shot up her throat, the tears pouring now.

The three of them spent the rest of the night watching Drew Barrymore movies and Betty felt a comfort that she hadn’t felt since they were children.  Everything was the same — at least for now.

Sunday was by far Betty’s favorite day of the weekend, and by then the thought of Jason was practically non-existent in her mind.  Veronica was spending the day with Archie’s family, FP was spending another day at the station, and Hermione wasn’t set to return until late.

Betty was awake by ten in the morning, Veronica long gone by then.  She spent a few moments contemplating to herself before she finally tiptoed through the bathroom and emerged into the dark bedroom on the other end.  Jughead was sprawled out on his mattress, his black locks scattered a mess against his pillows, the beanie long forgotten in the confides of his bedroom.  The deep green blanket tangled itself between his legs and tiny snores escaped from between his lips.

He was so fucking cute.

If any worries of Jughead thinking she was crazy for this had entered her mind, they made themselves scarce the moment her eyes laid on the sleeping boy.  She crawled into the bed beside him, curling her body against him and resting her head against his arm.  She was flooded with contentment as her eyes fluttered shut, and as the sound of his quiet breathing filled her ears, she found herself enveloped in sleep once again.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep, but as her eyelids fluttered open, she was faced with the striking blue gaze of the no longer sleeping teenager.  He was on his side, propped up on his elbow; his own eyes were sleepy, but they stared down at her and a soft smile grew across his lips.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

Betty smiled back at him, her own face growing warm as she stared up at him.  “Morning, Juggie.”

“So when did…” He motioned at her with his free hand, a quiet chuckle escaping his lips.  “When did this happen?”

Betty shrugged and found herself scooting towards him, eager to be engulfed by the warmth of his presence yet again.  She nuzzled her face into his bare chest and smiled against his skin.  “Around ten.  Speaking of, what time is it?”

“A little after one.”

Betty’s head shot back and she stared up at him again, her eyes wide.  “I slept until one?!”

Jughead laughed harder now, the chuckles rolling through his body.  He seemed to thoroughly enjoy the way she got worked up over small things.

“I don’t think I’ve ever slept that late in my life.”  Betty sighed and rolled onto her back, letting her head drop against the plush pillows.

“Welcome to the dark side,”  Jughead smirked.  “We get at least ten hours of sleep every night.”

Betty rolled her eyes.

“What?  You don’t want to join the dark side?”  He questioned mockingly.

“No.  God, no.  There’s way more productive things I could be doing with my time.”

“Like what?”

“I could think of a few things.”  Betty drew her gaze back to Jughead, the green suddenly laced with desire.  He must have noticed the change in her eyes immediately, because his hands found her waist quickly and he pulled her onto him, her legs straddling his hips.

Betty let out a quiet gasp at the movement, but took no time to lean down and press her lips against his.  They moved quickly, on a mission.  She had been eager for a moment alone with him again since their little rendezvous in the Blue and Gold just a couple days earlier, and she could tell that he felt the same way.  He nipped lightly at her lower lip, and as she parted her lips to let out a quiet moan, he took his chance and shoved his tongue into her mouth, begging hers to dance.

And god, they did.  Their tongues moved in perfect harmony for what seemed like forever.  She wanted him, yes; but they had all day.  She could give herself a few moments to truly enjoy his lips once again.

It had been far too long since she had kissed him.  Sure, there was the time he kissed her outside of Cheryl’s, but she had been unconscious just seconds earlier and her mind could only center on the fireworks exploding around them; and the time in the Blue and Gold was fucking glorious, but everything had been wiped from her mind the moment Archie walked in and ruined it all.

This time, she could taste him.  Like, she could really taste him.  He tasted like cigarettes and morning breathe laced with mint, and she’d never been a smoker but she would happily go out and buy a carton if it meant she could taste him every second of every day.

Her fingers traced vines down his chest and he groaned out in pleasure.  She could feel him between her legs, his arousal growing more obvious by the second.  She smiled to herself, grinding her hips ever so gently against his.  He wanted her just as much as she wanted him.

A quiet gasp escaped her lips as Jughead bucked his hips upwards.  Her eyes met his, and she drew her bottom lip under her teeth as she begged for him with her stare.  “I need you,” her voice was low and thick with desire.

Jughead pulled her back into a hard kiss for a moment, and she whined as their lips broke apart a mere seconds later.  His right arm reached towards his bedside table, tugging at a drawer until it came loose.  Betty directed her gaze to the contents as she watched him pull a foil square from within, trying with all her might to not let it bother her that the thirty-six pack it had fallen from was nearly half empty.

She knew that Jughead had been with a lot of women since she left.  She didn’t like it, but she didn’t have a choice in the matter.  She just didn’t expect to see such a large pack of condoms seem so empty.

But then, as she watched the way he ripped the corner of the foil off with his teeth, she realized that his many affairs meant that he had become much more experienced than the last time they’d been together.  He was good before; but Betty wondered how many new tricks he had up his sleeve this time around, and she felt her thighs clench at the thought.

It didn’t take any words.  Jughead looked at her with big sultry eyes and

Betty immediately reached for the elastic of the pajama shorts she had been wearing.  She lifted her body from his just to shimmy out of her shorts and panties, tossing them to the ground in front of his door, and Jughead followed suit.  His tan boxers fell near her own clothing, and suddenly Betty was very aware of the hard member below her.  She watched as his own fingers found his cock, sliding the rubber down until it was covered.  She expected his fingers to return to his side, or to grip at her skin — she didn’t expect for his fingers to press against her pussy, and she shuddered lightly as he parted her folds, his fingers rubbing gently up and down.

It felt good.  She’d give anything to ride his face another time, but the only coherent thought crossing through her mind in that moment was fuck me.

So she said it.

“Juggie.”  Betty wrapped her fingers around his wrist and raised an eyebrow at him as she pulled his fingers away from her.  “I need you.”

Jughead’s smirk disappeared, and she swore she saw a hint of embarrassment cross through his eyes.  “I just thought you might want—”

“Shh.”  Betty released his wrist, moving her hand to his lips and placing a single finger over them to silence him.  “What I want is you.”

The scared little boy was gone within seconds, replaced with the feral sex-driven man she’d seen just moments ago.  “Your wish is my command, princess.”

His fingers snaked up to her waist, positioning her just above his cock.  She felt his head teasing her entrance, and she bit her lip hard to keep herself from moaning at the literal bare minimum.

She was just about to lower herself onto him, her entire body trembling from how badly she wanted him, when she heard the front door of the apartment burst open and slam shut.

“Fuck!”  Jughead’s grumble was laced with annoyance as he flew up, and Betty jumped off of him immediately, her feet landing hard on the ground and causing a loud thud.

They both went completely still at the sound of Archie’s voice echoing through the apartment.  “What was that?”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,”  Jughead cursed, reaching for his boxers.  “Andrews, again?!”

“Shh!”  Betty scolded him as she retrieved her own pajama shorts.

“I swear to god, if Jughead has a girl over when Betty is in the next room, I’m going to boil him to death.”  Veronica’s voice seemed much closer than Archie’s, and Betty started to panic.

She turned to Jughead, her face red with embarrassment as she pressed a quick, chaste kiss to Jughead’s lips, and then bolted through the bathroom and into her own room.  She let her bathroom door click and then pulled her bathroom shorts over her legs until they hugged her waist.  She leaned against the bathroom door and took a deep breath, silently cursing her two friends for ruining this for her.  Her breath was heavy and coarse as she tried to catch her breathing, but she couldn’t help but listen in when she heard the loud rasping at the door of the bedroom next to her.

After a few moments of what Betty could only imagine as Jughead composing himself, she heard his door open.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jughead.”  Veronica chided.  “Are you seriously having a hookup in broad daylight when my best friend is in the bedroom next to you?!”

“Who said I was having a hookup?”  She could hear the smirk in his voice, and it made Betty blush.

“Not only did we literally hear you, but those panties on your floor tell a pretty convincing story.”

Betty’s eyes widened.  She’d forgotten her underwear.  Oh my god, she had forgotten her underwear on Jughead’s floor and Veronica had spotted them.  Nothing in her life had prepared her for the colossal embarrassment she was feeling in that moment.  She knew he had been caught off guard too, because there was a long pause between her voice and his.

“I don’t need to explain myself to you, Ronnie.”

“Look, if you’re going to be a sleeze, fine.  But don’t do it just with my innocent best friend in the bedroom beside you.”

Betty gasped at the chortle Jughead let out.

“I don’t know what you find funny about this, Jones.  Take your hookups to their houses for fucks sake.  I don’t need you corrupting Betty.”

“Who’s to say she isn’t already corrupted?  She did spent an awful long time in California.”

“Because she would tell me if something happened.  We’re best friends, we tell each other everything.”

“Everything?”  Archie’s voice peeked through, laced with worry.

“Everything, Archiekins.”  She reiterated.

“Are we done?”  Jughead asked.

“God, I wish we were.”  Betty heard the click of heels agains the floor and suddenly the familiar rasps were at her door.  Betty adjusted herself quickly, smoothing her hair down and straightening her shirt before she walked to the doorway and opened it slowly.

“Hey, V.”  Betty spoke quietly, barely able to find the volume to speak to her best friend.  “Weren’t you spending the day at Archie’s?”

“Change of plans.  His mom got called for some pro-bono case and she needed to spend the afternoon working on it.  Archie actually wants to go to the drive-in tonight, and—”  Veronica peered around before pushing herself past Betty and entering the bedroom, letting the door shut behind them.  “Well, truthfully, Archie needs some friends that aren’t sexist football players, and Jughead needs some friends that aren’t just there to jump his bones.”

Betty raised a brow at Veronica, unable to follow her sentiment.

“So I was thinking of inviting Jughead to the drive-in with us tonight, just so the two of them can maybe talk and be friendly or something, but it would be weird to invite just Jughead, so I need to invite you too.”

Betty laughed quietly.  The idea of Jughead and Archie being friends was rather funny to her — they were on completely different ends of the spectrum when it came to high school, and while Archie had never done anything inherently harmful, he had provided quite the cock-block between Betty and Jughead on two separate occasions.  Still, Veronica’s soft side was showing and that was rare as it is.  So Betty nodded, and smiled.  “Of course I’ll go.”

Veronica smiled, but her eyes lingered around the bedroom and her nostrils flared as if she was trying to smell something.  “I love you B, and we tell each other everything, so please take this with a grain of salt.”

Betty raised her brow at her friend and tilted her head in confusion.  Veronica’s voice dropped to a quiet volume as if she were afraid of the boys hearing her.  “I can literally smell that you were masturbating, or at least you did recently… so maybe shower real quick?”

Betty’s eyes grew wide and her face felt just as hot as before.  Veronica giggled and shook her head at her friends embarrassment.  “It’s okay, B.  I literally did it this morning.”  She swung Betty’s door open again, her heels clicking against the hardwood, and then, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Jughead didn’t understand why he had to go the drive-in, a job he’d held two summers ago, with his sister.  He had absolutely no interest in spending quality time with her, but even more so, he had no interest in being in the presence of the Chastity Belt himself, Archie Andrews.  The guy wasn’t all that awful, and Jughead knew that.  Sure, he was a football player which automatically sorted him into the dick category, but he had never given Jughead the same vibe that other Bulldogs gave him.  He was a little dumb, but he seemed to care a lot about the people he called his friends, like Veronica and Betty.  Betty had never spoken ill of him, and Veronica had been dating the guy for well over a year — which was huge, because Veronica never wasted her time on relationships not worth pursuing.

Still, he had gotten in between Betty and Jughead not once, but twice.

Two fucking times, he kept Jughead from the goddess known as Elizabeth Cooper.

It wasn’t intentional, but it was annoying as hell, and sitting in the bed of Archie’s truck as they waited for the girls to arrive — Veronica wanted them to get a good spot, but claimed she and Betty needed more time to get ready — was on the very end of the list of things he’d like to spend his evening doing.  Betty, however, was at the top.

Yet here he was, legs dangling from the rusted tailgate and scrolling through Reddit on his phone as Archie laid out a few blankets in the cargo bed per Veronica’s orders.  Jughead felt the truck rock as Archie jumped to the ground, but it stopped abruptly when Archie leaned his body against it.  He was a large man.  Jughead thought for a second that he might even give Sweet Pea a run for his money.

“So you and Betty, huh?”

Jughead’s gaze shot up to meet Archie’s, his eyes wide.  “What are you talking about?”  He asked cautiously.  He couldn’t give too much away with his tone or expression.  For all he knew, Archie was just prying into something he had no evidence of.

“Don’t play dumb, man.”  Archie chuckled and crossed his arms across chest.  “I thought I saw you two making out at Cheryl’s when Veronica asked me to find Betty during the party, but I was drunk and assumed you were kissing some other blonde.”

“What makes you think it wasn’t some other blonde?”

“Your little moment in the Blue and Gold.”  Archie smirked and shook his head.  “Dude, her face was red and yours was guilty as hell when I walked in.”

Jughead studied Archie’s face for a long moment, unsure of what to say.  So he’d figured it out.  He knew about Betty and Jughead — but would he snitch?

As if he’d read Jughead’s mind, Archie’s next words were:  “Don’t worry.  I’m not going to tell Veronica.”

Jughead let out a slow sigh of relief.  Veronica was sure to castrate him if she found out that he was with her best friend, the same best friend she’d claimed was off limits a multitude of times.  “Why?”

Archie shrugged.  “It’s not my place.  You may be her step brother, but it’s still your secret to tell.  Not mine.”

Jughead smiled at Archie, a real grin growing across his lips.  Maybe Archie was a little better than he’d made him out to be.  “Thanks, man.”

Archie just nodded as he continued.  “So, is she your girlfriend or is this strictly a friends with benefits type of thing?”

“No, she’s—” Jughead cut himself off as his gaze drifted to the ground, unsure of the next words to say.  Truthfully, they’d never had the talk, even before she’d left.

“It’s time to get the fuck up.”

Jughead didn’t raise his head from the book in his lap, but he recognized the voice immediately.  He’d been crashing on Sweet Pea’s couch for a few nights, refusing to go home with the possibility of hearing her voice again while Veronica FaceTimed her unknowingly.  It had been months since she’d left, and he still fell apart the moment he heard her soft angelic voice, muffled by the atrocious speaker of Veronica’s iPhone.

“I’m good.”

Sweet Pea groaned loudly, and Jughead swore he could hear the eye roll that came with it.  “Is this over that breakup again?”

“There was never a breakup.”  Jughead said quietly, turning the page of the crime fiction novel.

“Toni told me all about her, you know?  About her leaving and shit, and that’s rough, I get it, but it was literal months ago.  You’ve fucked like six girls since then, how could you still be so hung up on a stupid break up?”

“A breakup implies there was a relationship.”  Jughead sighed and closed his book, finally looking up to meet Sweet Pea’s eyes.  “There never was.”

Jughead had no idea what he and Betty were.  “I don’t know, man.”  He finally answered.

Just as Archie opened his mouth to say something, Betty and Veronica appeared in his vision and Jughead had to take complete control of his mind and other parts of his body to not absolutely ogle at the golden haired girl in front of him.

Betty was dressed in a strappy yellow sundress, a color he loved on her, that hugged her curves perfectly.  It fell just above her knee’s, and her feet were fitted with a pair of pink and yellow lace booties that somehow made her legs appear more brilliant than they already were.

The breath in his throat caught and he thought he could die happy in this moment.

And then Veronica ran her mouth, and he thought he could kill.

“You’re sure to catch the eyes of a few cuties like this,”  She said to Betty, her voice laced with flirtation.

Betty’s eyes flickered to Jughead’s and she gave him an apologetic tilt of the lips before smiling at Veronica.  “I’d prefer to watch the movie, actually.”

“Betty, dear.  My sweet, sweet, innocent best friend.  The back-to-school dance is coming up in just a couple weeks.  I’m going with Archie, and I’d really like to not feel like I’m making you into a third wheel.  You have to find a date.”

“I—”

“She could go with Jughead.”

Jughead’s eyes shot to Archie, his brows furrowing.  He took note of the way Betty seemed to look at him again, something he couldn’t quite place flashing through her eyes, but then they were back on Archie.

Veronica laughed loudly as if he’d just told their group the funniest joke she’d ever heard.  “Oh, please.  Don’t make me laugh like that, Archiekins.”  She said breathlessly.

Archie shrugged and reached out to drape an arm around his girlfriends shoulders.  “I’m just saying, it would make sense.  Neither of them have a date, and neither of them seem to want to find one.  Them going to the dance together eliminates the worry of third wheeling us, plus then we could all go to Pops for dinner and not have to get one of those awful circle booths that’d we’d get if they each had their own date.”

Veronica rolled her eyes and shot a narrowed glance at Jughead, but her words were directed at Archie.  “You make a valid argument, Andrews.  We’ll see.”

Jughead moved through the crowded hallways of Riverdale High, his eyelids thick with exhaustion as he searched for his locker.  After spending most of his night tucked between the metal of the truck and Betty Cooper — where he would slyly place a hand on her thigh beneath the blankets their group had covered up with — watching Rebel Without a Cause, the four of them had decided that popcorn and cola hadn’t filled them up, and they took off to Pops Chock’lit Shoppe.

They spent hours in a small booth in the corner of the diner, eating onion rings and burgers, sipping milkshakes, and reminiscing about their past.  They rode the high of their movie-going experience, and spent hours laughing over stupid jokes.  There was no tension between he and his step-sister, no annoyance towards Archie, and no hurt towards Betty.

Everything felt so normal, but normal always seems to be fleeting.

They got home just after one in the morning, and right as Jughead had stripped to nothing but boxers, his cell phone began to vibrate violently on his desk.  He gazed over and saw the incoming call screen, with a simple four letters telling him to answer.  Toni.

Jughead sighed and ran his fingers through his hair as he retrieved the phone and slid his thumb across the screen to answer it.

“What’s up, T?”  He asked nonchalantly, praying to a god he didn’t believe in that this was just a typical late night phone call from his best friend.

“Jug.”  Toni’s voice on the other end was quiet and spiked with stress.  “Can you get down to the Wyrm?”

“Right now?  Toni, it’s—” Jughead glanced at the illuminated alarm clock beside his bed, the numbers taunting him.  “It’s 1:32 in the morning.  Can it wait until after school?”

“You know damn well that if it could wait, I’d just text you the deets.”

“Fucking hell.”  Jughead groaned and nodded to himself in agreement with her statement.  “I’ll be there in twenty.”

It was at the Wyrm that he found out that one of his own, Joaquin DeSantos, had been spotted at the drive-in with none other than Kevin Keller, the sheriff’s son.  The information hadn’t gotten out to their older members, but Jughead knew too well that Tall Boy would flip his lid if it did.

“Do you even know how much you’re risking, Joaquin?!”  Toni pounded her fist against the wooden bar, her brows coming together angrily.  “He’s the sheriff’s son!”

“I fucking know that, Toni!”  Joaquin’s hands animated his words as he shouted back at her.  “He has no clue I’m a Serpent, for fucks sake.”

Jughead cocked his head at this, staring at the vividly bright blue eyed boy that stood across from him.  Joaquin’s hair was tousled and Jughead could tell that they had been arguing since before he’d arrived.

“He doesn’t know you’re a snake?”  Jughead asked curiously.

Joaquin turned to Jughead with a startled expression, as if he’d expected more of an outburst from Jughead.  Granted, Jughead was ready to yell at him for being stupid enough to date a cops kid, but the gears in his head began to move the moment Joaquin admitted to Kevin’s lack of knowledge.

“No.”  Joaquin shook his head.  His voice was lower now.  “I never told him.”

“How did this even happen?”  Sweet Pea broke through, his voice hinting at the confusion that everyone seemed to be feeling.

“We met in… Fox Forest.”  Joaquin admitted with flushed cheeks.  Sweet Pea snorted loudly, to which Joaquin responded to with a deadly glare.  “Try being a gay Serpent, you fucking ass wipe.  It’s not exactly easy to meet people.”

Jughead rolled his eyes at their exchange, but he felt for his brother.  He was right — there weren’t a lot of fish in the sea for Joaquin.  Not in Riverdale, at least.  “Okay, so people go to Fox Forest to hook up.  How exactly did this go from that to drive-in dates on a Sunday night?”

Joaquin sighed and shrugged, leaning back against the bar.  “We kept meeting.  We never exchanged numbers, but I’d tell him to meet me somewhere and he would show up every single time.  It used to just be sex,”  Sweet Pea grimaced, but Joaquin continued.  “but I don’t know.  Something changed.  We started talking more than fucking, and I really started to like him, so I asked him to go on a date to the drive-in.  I didn’t wear anything that would make someone assume I was a Serpent, and then we agree’d to meet again next weekend.”

Jughead raised his fingers to his chin, thinking for a moment before stating, “This could be good.  This could be really good.”

“Excuse me, Jughead?”  Toni shot him a glare.  “How is Joaquin dating the sheriff’s boy good in any situation?”

“Hear me out,”  Jughead said.  “Joaquin being close to Sheriff Keller’s son could work out in our favor.  It gives us an in with the police, without them even realizing it.”

“I’m not—”  Joaquin started to protest, but Jughead put his hand up to stop him.

“We’re not asking you to use him.”  Jughead said with a collected voice.  “Just… give us any information you might find useful, is all.”

“We don’t talk about his dad’s work.”  Joaquin sighed.

“Is this serious?”  Jughead asked.  For a brief moment, he was reminded of his earlier conversation with Archie.

Joaquin stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged.  “I don’t know, man.  I want us to be, I guess.”

“Great.”  Jughead smirked.  “Then he’ll talk.”  And then, “Eventually.”

He had gotten home closer to five, and slept for all of two hours before forcing himself out of bed and into a freezing cold shower to wake his bones up.  He drank two cups of coffee and poured another one to go, but as he approached his locker Monday morning, he nearly lost his grasp on the coffee.

Leaning against his locker was his step-sister, dressed yet again like she was a New York trophy wife and not like she was about to head to class.  Despite the enjoyment he felt last night as they sat in Pops, he had no desire to spend his limited time before class speaking to her.  He’d much rather chug his coffee.

“If looks could kill.”  Veronica eyed him up and down, shaking her head.  “Do not tell me you actually require ten hours of sleep to be a functional human being.”

“Oh, I do.”  Jughead confirmed.  “But I didn’t sleep much last night.”

Veronica’s eyes narrowed into a glare.  “Jughead Jones, did you—”

Jughead quickly shook his free hand at her, annoyed that she thought he’d brought a girl home yet again.

Although, it didn’t help that he had brought multiple girls home over the last year.  But he was done with that.  He didn’t need other girls anymore.  He had Betty.

“No, Veronica.”  He said sternly.  “I just couldn’t fall asleep.”

Veronica searched his face for a moment, trying to find any leverage that he was lying, but when she found none, she just nodded and crossed her arms in front of her torso.  “I thought more about Archie’s proposal.”

“Proposal?”  Jughead raised an eyebrow at her.

“About you and Betty going to the dance together?”  Veronica rolled her eyes as Jughead remembered the brief conversation from the night before.  “I suppose he’s right.  Neither of you have a date, and if last night proved anything, it’s that the four of us have fun.  It’d be a lot less fun with some boring boy and…”  She pursed her lips as if trying to find the right words.  “…some random skank.”

“Aren’t you a feminist?”  Jughead smirked.

“I will stand up for all women,”  Veronica declared.  “Unless those women are stealing my god damn clothes and pearls.”

Jughead laughed out loud, remembering the multiple woman who had tried to do just that to Veronica.

“So, anyways.  Betty’s dress is silver, so dress accordingly.”

“Did anyone ever ask me if I was even going to the dance?”  Jughead questioned.  “Because I wasn’t planning on it.”

Veronica shrugged her shoulders.  “Well you are now.”

Jughead glared for a moment before releasing his stare.  He’d get to spend an evening dancing with Betty Cooper out in the open, and no one would bat an eye.  It couldn’t be that bad, right?

“Fine.”  He agreed.

“And no funny business.  If you so much as feel up by best friend, I will kill you, simple as that.”

Jughead began to smile, finding it hard to hide his amusement with her statement as he thought about all the time he had, in fact, felt up her best friend, when the crowd of students bellowing through the halls all seemed to gasp in unison.  Their eyes were all pointed behind Jughead, and as his eyes found Veronica’s, he realized that hers were wide too.

“No fucking way.”  Veronica whispered.

Jughead immediately turned to see what all of the commotion was about.

Standing in the middle of the hallway, dressed in a red t-shirt, a black high waisted skirt with red buttons lining the right and left of it, and velvet red thigh highs, was Cheryl Blossom.

“I heard she wouldn’t be back for a month or more.”  He heard someone near him whisper.

“Someone told me that she was moving out of Riverdale.”  Another voice chimed in.

“I thought she was on suicide watch.”  Another whisper just a few feet away from him.

Cheryl pushed some of her voluminous red locks out of her face as she placed her other hand on her hip, giving the entire crowd of students a stare that could easily kill.

“What?!”  Cheryl’s voice was assertive as it roared through the hallway.  “You all act like you’ve never seen a bad bitch before.”

Chapter Text

J: just saw a gif of a squirrel wearing a pink vest. made me think of you.

B: i’ll have you know that i would never be caught dead in a vest, no matter how pink it is.

J: the whole super cute animal and the color pink making me think of you just went completely over your head, didn’t it?

B: there are bigger concerns here. a VEST made you think of me!

B: like i can’t believe how lowly you think of me, forsythe.

J: astronomically low really.

B: is it because i made you watch love actually, or because i don’t like bacon on my pizza?

J: those were both factors, but i think that ultimately it points to the fact that you think that breakfast at tiffany’s is a better capote than in cold blood.

B: your sister agrees with me.

J: step-sister*

J: and you’ve only proved my point more.

B: you are the most annoying person i have ever met

J: you weren’t saying that last night when i went down on you. if i recall, you couldn’t keep your hands off of me.

The smile that had formed on Betty’s lips turned sour as she heard the loud crash downstairs.  She set her phone on her nightstand and pushed herself off the bed, walking as quietly as she could out into the hallway.  She could hear the muffled sound of an argument somewhere downstairs, but she couldn’t make the words out.  With a small sigh, she took a few steps down the stairs, careful to avoid the second to the top stair that always creaked.  Once the living room was in view, she knelt against the railing and peered out.

“Jesus Christ, Hal!”  Her mother looked exasperated and exhausted, dressed in the light purple and white striped pajama set that she favored.  Her hair was tied into a messy ponytail, a rare sight for the eldest Cooper woman of 111 Elm Street.  Betty knew that her mother had gone to bed an hour ago, but when she didn’t see her father home yet, she assumed he was working late at the Register.

However, the vision in front of her seemed to tell a different story.

Hal Cooper was standing near the fireplace, using the ledge to hold himself straight.  Beneath him were three pictures that had previously occupied said ledge, the glass from their frames shattered on the ground.  “Shut your whore mouth, Alice.”

Betty curled her fingers into her palms slowly, biting down on her bottom lip as she watched the scene unfold.

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that in my own home.”

“Your home?!”  Hal exclaimed, swinging his free arm against another picture, the glass taking the same fate as the others.  “I bought this fucking house, and I’ll be damned if I let you or the girls treat me like I’m less than a fucking king here.”

“Get a grip, Hal.”  Alice had flinched when the glass hit the floor, but her voice didn’t falter.  “I paid for this house just as much as you did, and I would easily win it in divorce court.”

Hal spit in her direction, but the intoxication that was all too adamant in his interaction caused him to spit too far to the right, the saliva landing somewhere on the ground.  “Is this your way of saying you want a divorce?”

Betty watched with wide eyes as her mother searched the face of a man who had once been kind.  She knew that her father had been drinking more lately, but she hadn’t questioned the extra glass of wine at dinner or the beers in the fridge.  She blamed his late nights on work, she pretended that he was just doing things that a stereotypical dad did.  Having a drink and watching a game wasn’t abnormal, and Betty tried to ignore the fact that one beer typically turned into five or six, sometimes twelve.  She could ignore it, too — he was never obviously drunk in front of her, and with Polly living across the country, the only person left to see it would be Alice.

With the drinking, came the violence, though.  Hal began to get angrier at the television, often standing up and stomping his feet as he screamed at some pre-recorded announcer when his team didn’t win; he’d grown more irritable when questioned about work.  One night, he’d had the audacity to call Betty a whore because she asked to go to Pops with Veronica.  Granted, she was lying — she was going to meet Jughead, but it still wouldn’t elicit such a slur towards his own daughter.  She spent the night crying over it, but she told herself it was a one time thing.  He would never do it again.

And then he began to rant about how much of a slut Polly was for getting pregnant.

She knew that her father had been kind hearted before.  He was the same man who had taught her everything she knows about cars, and who had spent hours throwing the football with her at the park just so she could be good enough to play with the boys.  He had painted her toenails for her to match his navy blue tie, and then accompanied her to the daddy-daughter dance in first grade.  He held her hand in the waiting room at the hospital after she broke her arm, and had been the first to sign her cast — he even bought her a pink sharpie, because it was her favorite color.  He was a generous, loving father for most of her life.  She had never understood what went wrong.  When had things started to go downhill?  What moment pushed him over the edge into drinking?

Alice took a deep breath, looked Hal right in the eyes, and without her voice wavering, she finally said “Yes.”

There had been many moments in Betty Cooper's life when she had questioned things.  She had questioned why her mother stopped putting Oreos in her bag lunch, having suddenly replaced them with organic fruit snacks that tasted like leather.  She wondered why Veronica was insistent on her first kiss being with Chuck Clayton, an extremely rude boy who was a grade higher than them — though she wondered more so why Veronica insisted on her first kiss being when she was ten years old.  Betty still thought of boys as disgusting at that point, but that didn’t change the fact that she had wanted to be accepted by one of them.  She wondered why Jughead all of a sudden stopped allowing girls into his pillow fortress, choosing instead to hang out with boys who thought boogers were funny and video games were amazing.  She wondered why Cheryl Blossom was such a bully, and why Betty had bothered to join the Vixens her freshman year.  She questioned her sister's decision to move to California, and wondered if she was insane when she told their parents she was pregnant over a FaceTime call with a bad connection.

And now she was questioning the Blossoms.

It wasn’t an interrogation.  Not exactly, at least.

Jughead and Betty had met in the Blue and Gold during lunch, and came up with a simple plan to get as much information as they could from Cheryl.  Was it insensitive?  Definitely.  Betty had argued that Cheryl was fragile— her brother had just been murdered.  Jughead had, however, reminded her of Cheryl’s grand entrance and use of the phrase bad bitch; plus, he was right.  They needed to know what she knew.  They needed to know that whatever information the Blossom’s had on this case wasn’t leading back to the Serpents, but more importantly, Jughead and Sweet Pea.  With a little push, Betty finally agreed to the terms.

She would talk to Cheryl during gym, one of their only shared classes, and ask about how things were going at home.  How she was doing, how her family was doing, if they’d gotten any more information on his death yet.  She had to be careful — she didn’t want Cheryl to feel like she was prying, even if that was exactly what she was doing.

So here she was, donning her blue gym shorts and white gym shirt with the big yellow “R” in the center of it, stretching beside none other than Cheryl Blossom.

To say that they were friends before all of this would be generous.  Veronica and Cheryl were friends — best friends, really, and so Cheryl and Betty were civil acquaintances by association.  Betty had protested originally.  Cheryl had been a giant bully most of her life, and while she had calmed down once they reached high school, she had made more than her fair share of body-shaming comments in Betty’s direction during her year on Cheryl’s cheerleading squad.  Veronica persisted like she always does though, and Betty found herself sharing a booth in Pops with the red headed queen of high school on more than one occasion.

“I’ll be damned if this school thinks they can go quiet on my JJ.”  Cheryl was speaking to two girls: one with long, straight brown hair that seemed to have no volume or wave to it, and another with box-dyed blonde hair and thin eyebrows.  They both nodded along to her words, agreeing with her without using entire sentences.  Betty had often referred to these girls as Cheryl’s minions.  She didn’t know their names, and she wasn’t sure that Cheryl did either, for that matter.

Betty straightened her leg out in front of her and stretched her abdomen, the tips of her fingers touching the tips of her white tennis shoes.  After taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she cleared her throat.

The sound came out quieter than she’d expected — more like a weak loss of air than a cough, but it was enough to catch Cheryl’s attention.  Her dark hazel gaze inched towards Betty’s, her perfect brow arching in Betty’s direction.  “Cat got your tongue, Elizabeth?”

Betty fought against narrowing her eyes, but she hated when people used her full name.  “No, sorry — uh.  I had an itch in my throat.”

“First sign of a cold.  Lucky for me, I have an immaculate immune system.”

Both of her minions nodded in agreement.  Betty raised her eyebrow and nodded back, unsure of what to do with that information.  “It’s nice to have you back, Cheryl.  The hallways were too quiet.  I can’t remember another time where you’d missed more than a day of school.”  She finally said.

Cheryl averted her gaze from Betty, her eyes landing somewhere on the other end of the gymnasium.  “My brother hadn’t been murdered in cold blood any other time, so yeah.  I was out a bit longer.”  Cheryl’s voice was cold, and Betty quickly regretted her choice of words.

“I’m…” Betty frowned, but her eyes remained on Cheryl.  “I’m really sorry about what you’re going through.  I can’t imagine—” 

“No, Elizabeth.  You can’t imagine.  You couldn’t possibly imagine how awful it is to lose your twin brother.”

Betty switched legs, working hard to resist the urge to curl her fingers into her palms as Cheryl’s gaze fixed back on Betty, much icier than it had been before.  “I didn’t mean it like that.  I just… I’m really sorry, okay?”

Cheryl stared at Betty for a few long seconds before her gaze shifted.  The iciness left her face, but her eyes still seemed guarded as she nodded in acceptance.  “I appreciate it.”  And then, “Really.”

Betty offered a little smile towards Cheryl before sitting up straight and crossing her legs in front of her.  “Veronica’s stepdad has been out every night working on the case.  Do you think they’ve found any leads?”

“FP Jones?”  Cheryl scoffed, shaking her head.  “He’s utterly useless, just like his hobo of a son.”

Betty quirked a brow at this, allowing Cheryl to continue.  “He has the audacity to tell me that he’s found no leads, when there’s a clear path right in front of him.”

“A clear path?”  Betty leaned in a bit, suddenly much more interested in the conversation.  “What do you mean, Cheryl?”

“Look, Betty.  I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I can’t talk about this here.”  Her eyes darted around to multiple people in the room before she finally spoke again, her voice a few octaves lower.  “There’s too many snakes here.”

Eager for more information, the next words left her mouth before she could stop them.  “Why don’t we have a sleepover?  You, me, and Veronica.”

Cheryl’s face shifted from a serious stare, a delighted smile growing across her plump red lips.  “That’s just what the doctor ordered.  It’ll be at my place, of course.  My claustrophobia acts up in small houses.”

Betty smiled in Cheryl’s direction and nodded, making a mental note to not wear heels to Thornhill this time.

The next few days seemed to pass rather quietly as Betty waited for Friday to arrive.  Friday evening, she and Veronica would depart to Cheryl’s house and spend an evening watching gothic classics, eating truffles, drinking wine, and sharing gossip.  Sometime during that, Betty had a plan to bring up the murder again.  Cheryl knew something, but she obviously wasn’t comfortable sharing that information with the rest of the school.  If Betty could get her to reveal that information to Veronica and herself, she and Jughead would at least have something to work off of.

It was barely six, and Veronica wasn’t set to return home from her date until seven-thirty.  It was at that point that the two girls would take a car service to Cheryl’s, but in the meantime, Betty was going to spend every second she could curled up against Jughead’s side.

Though FP had been working late every night, Hermione had been home more often than not during the last week, giving Betty and Jughead very little alone time.  It had become their routine to lock their bedroom doors and sneak into one another's rooms at night to cuddle, oftentimes falling asleep together.  They weren’t having sex, but they’d spend some nights getting a little frisky with each other before ultimately deciding to cool down in fear of waking anyone or being heard.  Still, Betty felt content.  She relished in the feeling of Jughead’s arms wrapped loosely around her body, his chest rising and falling to what she swore was the beat of her very own heart.

“I forgot to tell you,”  His voice was quiet against her ear as he broke the silence that had previously surrounded them.  “Veronica gave me her stamp of approval to take you to the dance.”

Betty’s cheeks started to warm as she turned her body around to face him.  She felt like a giddy little girl as she looked up into his eyes and asked, “Are you asking me to be your date to the back-to-school dance, Jones?”

“That depends.”  Jughead smirked.  “Do I get to spend an entire evening out with my girl—”  He stopped abruptly, his brows furrowing as he seemed to get lost in thought for a moment.  Betty watched as he finally began to speak again.  “Do I get to spend an entire evening out with Betty Cooper, without my step-sister being suspicious?”

Betty blushed deeper as she nodded.  “I think she’d even let you hold my hand, because you know, the gentlemanly thing to do and all.”

“Well then,”  Jughead propped himself up on his shoulder and peered down into her eyes.  Betty felt like putty beneath him, unable to move or think or speak.  All she could think about was how much she wanted to stare into his blue eyes for the rest of her life.  “Betty Cooper, will you do me the honor of accompanying me to the back-to-school dance next Friday?”

She had a thousand snarky remarks lined up, sarcastic responses that would make him chuckle — but the earnest and hopeful gaze that he was giving her made her melt all over again, and all she could get out was, “Absolutely.”

Jughead seemed satisfied with this answer, and the smile on his face grew ear to ear as he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss against her lips.  Her arms immediately snaked around his neck and pulled him closer, kissing him back more forcefully.  She was so lost in the kiss that she didn’t hear the first knock, or even the second knock.  It wasn’t until she heard Hermione’s voice call through the door, that she finally broke free from the kiss.

“Betty, your mother just called.  Could I speak to you in the dining room?”

Betty pulled back from Jughead, offering a sympathetic twitch of her lips as he slowly rolled off of her.  “She’s probably just telling me that my mom will be home in a couple of days.  Meet in your room when I’m done?”  She whispered as she pushed herself out of bed and straightened her clothes and hair out.

Jughead nodded as he headed into their shared bathroom.  “I’ll miss sharing a bathroom with you, Coop.”  He said quietly before he disappeared through the door.

Betty felt her chest tighten at the thought of not getting to fill most of her time with the beanie wearing brother of her best friend, but she pushed the feeling aside and unlocked her bedroom door, heading towards the dining room.

“Sorry, Hermione.”  She apologized as she took a seat at the long table, across from where Hermione was busy filling out paperwork.  “I guess I fell asleep.  It’s been a long week.”

“No need to apologize, honey.”  Hermione looked up at Betty and smiled compassionately at her.  “I’m really happy that we could offer you a home away from home during all of this.”

Betty curled her fingers into her fists under the table, but nodded affectionately.  There was no doubt that she was thankful for the Jones/Lodge family, but the circumstances surrounding her stay were less than fortunate and this was yet another reminder of that.  “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.  So, you said my mom called?”

Hermione nodded slowly, setting down the pen she’d been holding and lacing her fingers together on top of the paperwork.  “It seems that your father's trial has been set back another couple of weeks.”

Betty’s fingers curled tighter against the palms, her nails being met with the scaring indents from the night that Jughead had forbidden her from going with him — the night he watched Jason Blossom die.  She was aware of the stinging pain her sharp nails left as they pushed harder into her skin, but it was nothing in comparison to the way her heart dropped when she heard those words.  Your father's trial has been set back another couple of weeks.

“I don’t — What?”  Betty stumbled over her words, her eyes darting to the vase beside Hermione.  She couldn’t look her in the eyes.  She couldn’t let her see the pain growing in them.

“I don’t fully understand either.  It seems that his attorney was able to buy some extra time before the trial.”  Hermione sighed, shaking her head.  “It’s not right, but there’s not much we can do besides wait.”

“You think you can divorce me, you stupid fucking cunt?!”

Hal’s voice bellowed through the entire house, causing Betty to gasp as she covered her mouth with her hand, watching in fear.  Hal let go of the ledge, and was now stumbling towards Alice.  The older woman stumbled back a few steps, tears obvious in her eyes.  Before Alice could get away, Hal grabbed her wrist and yanked her towards him violently.  Her whole body seemed to shake as she sobbed and tried to push him away with her free hand.

“Let go of me, Hal!  Please, for the love of God, just let go of me and we can forget all about this!”  She pleaded, but it seemed to be too late.  Hal swung at her with the strength of a steel fist, striking her hard in the eye.  Alice yelped and Betty immediately stood from her position on the stairs, running towards her mother.

“Dad, stop!”  She demanded through a strained voice, praying that her grip would be strong enough to separate the two of them.

“Go to your bedroom, Elizabeth.”  An otherwise normal demand of her mother sounded so wrong suddenly.  Her words were laced with panic as she averted her daughter's gaze, but Hal seemed all too happy that Betty had joined them.

“Wonderful of you to join us, Elizabeth.”  He said loudly, finally releasing Alice from his grip and pushing her backwards.  She fell hard against the ground, and Betty rapidly shot to the ground, pulling her mother into her embrace as she stared at her father with disbelief.  “This is a great example of why you don’t talk back to me.  Understand, young lady?”

Betty’s chest heaved and sweat trickled down her forehead and neck.  Terror coursed through her veins as she stared into the green eyes she shared with her father — only his seemed so much darker now.

All she could do in the moment was nod.

“I know it’s not ideal, and I’m sure you want to go home, but your mother and I both agree that it would be best if you continued to live with us until the trial is over.”

Betty’s nails broke through the skin, the familiar feeling of liquid pooling against her nail beds as she forced a short nod.

“If it’s okay, I’d like to go back to the room now.”  Betty peered up at Hermione with sad eyes, her shoulders slumped as she felt the release of pain in her palms.  Hermione offered her an apologetic gaze but nodded.

“If you need absolutely anything, you let me or FP know.  Okay, Betty?”

Betty nodded as she began to push herself from the seat.  “Okay.”

“You know, he and I have always thought of you as one of our own.  We love you the way we love Veronica and Jughead, and we will do everything in our power to make your time with us as comfortable as possible.”

Betty had begun to walk away, but she stopped suddenly and looked back at Hermione, nothing but genuine sincerity radiating from her.  Betty let her lips twist into a barely-there smile before saying, “Thank you,” and retreating back to her bedroom.

She had been smart enough to wash the cuts off as soon as she got back to her room, placing fresh bandaids over them to allow for healing.  But as she stared at the door leading to Jughead’s room, she couldn’t bring herself to open it.  She was far too fragile in this moment, and she couldn’t bear to put that on him, especially without him knowing the truth.

Instead, she backtracked into her own room and sat herself down on the edge of the bed facing the window, the same spot where he had been laying just fifteen or so minutes earlier.  Her gaze shifted between her palms and the blinds every few moments, but her mind remained blank.  She didn’t want to think about her father, or about the trial.  She couldn’t — so she pushed the thoughts as far back as she could and tried to focus on something she could control, even just barely.

Betty had only met Cheryl’s parents once, when they were far younger.  Clifford and Penelope Blossom were not the type of parents to get involved in school activities, but they had donated more than anyone would care to admit, to nearly every educational body in town as well as some businesses.  Most considered it to be generous — the amounts were generous — but Betty had always felt like there was an ulterior motive to their donations.  Unfortunately, there had never been solid evidence against this, and therefore, it was just a feeling.  A theory, if you may.

There was a sure chance she’d meet both of the Blossom parents tonight at some point, and the thought sent shivers through her spine.  Betty was mostly in the dark when it came to the Serpents doings, but she knew two things for sure: The Ghoulies were their rival gang, and Clifford Blossom was working with the Ghoulies.

The question was simple: What was Clifford's involvement with the Ghoulies?

And why did it cost his son's life?

Betty nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a light tap on her shoulder, and she swung around to face none other than Jughead, who was staring at her with worry filled eyes.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,”  He said quietly, his fingers falling from her shoulder.  Without even realizing she’d wanted it, she found herself missing the touch immediately.  “I got worried, you said you’d meet me in my room when you were done.”

“Oh, yeah.  Sorry.”  Betty let her gaze drift from Jughead, falling just short of the window.  “Guess you’re not getting rid of me quite yet.”

Jughead tilted his head quizzically.

“My mom isn’t coming home for a couple more weeks.”

“Oh.”  Jughead said, sensing the lack of amusement in her voice.  He slowly walked around her, finding home in the spot beside her.  “Is everything okay?”

Betty nodded quickly, instinctively.  “Yeah, for sure.  Just… wasn’t ready to leave Polly and the twins, I guess.”

Jughead smiled a bit and nodded.  “She is a first time grandma, I’m sure she’s trying to soak it in while she can.”

When Betty didn’t respond, Jughead filled the void with his voice.  “I know Alice has been overbearing in the past, but is she seriously so strict that she’s not letting you stay at your own place while she’s choosing to be away from home?  The least she could do is let you be home.  It’s not like you’re going to throw a Cheryl Blossom style rager or anything.”

His words stung, and even though Betty knew that he was only asking because he didn’t know or understand, she felt her blood boil a bit.  “She’s just trying to keep me safe.”  She defended as she pushed herself off the bed and walked towards the dresser.

“I didn’t—”

“I need to pack for Cheryl’s.”  She spoke as she opened the top drawer.  “Veronica will be home soon.”

There was silence for a moment, and Betty felt a tinge of guilt as she realized that she may have used too harsh of a tone.  It wasn’t his fault that she was in this situation, and maybe if she wasn’t so broken, she’d willing to let him in.  She couldn’t blame him for her own stupidity.

An instant later, his arms were wrapping around her body and engulfing her in a hug.  Betty shut her eyes tightly, wondering how she could have gotten so lucky to have a boy like him care about her so damn much.  She bit her lower lip and turned in his arms to face him, her own arms slinking around his waist as she buried her face into the green fabric of his t-shirt.  “I’m sorry,”  She mumbled against his chest.

“I’m not mad.”  He said quietly.  “Just worried about you.  Is everything okay?”

Betty nodded slowly.  “Just stressed about tonight, but I’ll be okay.”

Jughead pulled away from her slowly, his concerned eyes searching hers as he stared down at her face.  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“I want to do this.”  Betty spoke.  “I want answers too.”

Jughead nodded slowly, reaching his hand up to cup her cheek.  “Text me if you find anything, okay?”

“I will, promise.”  Betty reached up and pecked his lips gently before he let his hands drop to his sides, her arms following suit.  “I’ll see you tomorrow, dance date.”

This brought a smile to Jughead’s face and he chuckled quietly before heading back towards his own bedroom, and Betty quickly grabbed her nicest pair of pajamas and some clothes for the next day.  She stuffed them into a duffle bag and a few moments later, Veronica emerged through the front door.

Besides the fact that nearly every corner of Thornhill was hauntingly beautiful and eerie and made Betty feel like some ghost of Blossom’s past would jump out at her, the sleepover seemed to be rather normal.

The night started out with all of the girls changing into their sleepwear.  Cheryl stated that it was required dress code until they woke in the morning, and so they did.  Cheryl was dressed in a silky red two piece, consisting of a short sleeved button up top and shorts, Veronica wore her favorite satin blue camisole with matching trousers, and Betty wore a light lavender tank with a pair of white yoga shorts.

Once the pajamas were acquired, the sleepover began.  Cheryl pulled out her extensive collection of polishes, including different shades of every color in the rainbow — even a few glittery shades — and started deciding what colors would look best on who.  Betty had been eyeing the pastel pink, a go-to color for her, but Cheryl snatched it away from her too quickly.

“Not tonight, Betty dearest.”  Cheryl ordered.  “Tonight, you’re going to wear a favorite of mine.”

Cheryl reached into her collection and retrieved a bottle of dark green nail polish.  She recognized the shape as an Essie bottle.  “This is called Off Tropic.  It’s to die for, and it will look absolutely stunning against your pale skin.”

“Oh, I don’t know.  I’ve never really worn a color like that.”

“C’mon, B.  Step out of your comfort zone.”  Veronica nudged Betty’s shoulder as she pulled a deep maroon out for herself.  “I think you’ll really like it.”

Betty bit down on her bottom lip as she eyed the color.  A sudden glimpse of Jughead’s Serpent jacket flashed through her eye, and Betty made her decision.  “Okay, okay.  Let’s do it.”

A few moments later, Betty was positioned on Cheryl’s plump vanity stool as Cheryl held her wrist, painting her nails carefully.  Veronica had set up shop on the ground and was doing the same on her toes.  “You know, this color would actually work really well with your dress.”

“For the dance next week?”  Cheryl paused, peeking up from the nails.  “What color dress are you wearing?”

Betty nodded.  “Silver.”

Cheryl glanced down at Veronica and offered an approving smile.  “Good eye, Veronica.  This color would look brilliant against silver.”

The three girls carried on with quaint conversation as they painted each other's nails, and as they wrapped up that part of their evening, Betty’s phone dinged from beside her.  She quickly picked it up, careful of her nails, and read the text on the screen.

J: hey there juliet. nurse off duty?

B: depends. does off duty count as grabbing snacks? because v and cheryl just stepped out

J: definitely counts.

J: missing you tonight

B: you’re so cheesy

J: and you love it.

B: you’re right. i miss you too.

“Who’s got you blushing?”  Betty’s gaze, one fixated on her phone screen, rose abruptly to find Veronica staring at Betty from the doorway with a smirk on her face, a bag of potato chips in her hands.

“I was just laughing at a meme Kevin sent me.”  Betty lied, adding her signature smile.

“That better be all it is.”  Veronica strode into the bedroom, taking a seat at the edge of the California King size bed in the center of the room.  “You’d tell me if there was someone special in your life, right?”

Betty bit her lip lightly, nodding slowly.  “Of course, V.”

“I just don’t want you to ever feel like you can’t tell me something.  You’re my soul sister, B.”

“You’re my soul sister, too.”

Betty and Veronica exchanged cheerful smiles as Cheryl strode back into the room, a container of decadent chocolate truffles imported from somewhere in Switzerland in one hand, a box of pineapple chunks in the other.  “Okay ladies,” She spoke as she traipsed across the bedroom to where Veronica was stationed on her bed.  “We’re starting our movie marathon with Queen of the Damned, and then we’ll move into The Conjuring, if you two imbeciles can handle yourselves.”

Veronica and Betty both shot Cheryl a look, which garnered a loud giggle from Cheryl’s lips.  “I’m joking.  About the imbecile thing — I’ll decide how dull the two of you are after we watch The Conjuring.”

The three of them settled up on Cheryl’s bed, snacks in hand, and the movies began.

Betty was positioned on the right side of Veronica, Cheryl on the left, her eyes fixated on the television screen.  Sometime during The Conjuring, Veronica had begged them to turn something else on after far too many jump scares, and Cheryl reluctantly agreed.  They landed on Friends, and somewhere between Monica getting married and Rachel telling Ross he’s the father, Veronica had passed out.  She was snoring quietly between them, and Betty was so content curled up under the satin comforter that she had nearly forgotten why she was there in the first place.

It wasn’t until a voice so quiet that she almost didn’t recognize it as Cheryl’s cut through the silence.

“Betty?”

Betty propped herself up on her elbow and looked over at Cheryl from across Veronica.  Cheryl wasn’t looking at Betty, but she could see the glisten of tears in the corner of her eyes.  “Yeah?”

“This was… nice.”  She let out a quiet sigh, her eyes still directed towards the television.  “It’s been really lonely without JJ.”

Betty bit her bottom lip nervously.  “I’m so sorry, Cheryl.”  When Cheryl didn’t speak again, Betty took her chance.  “Cheryl, you said there was a clear idea of who did this to your brother… What did you mean?”

The silence remained between them for a long time, and Betty was nearly convinced that Cheryl had ignored her question all together.  After what seemed like ages, she spoke up again.  “I think JJ was doing business with a gang.”

“What?  What gang, Cheryl?  Why would your brother want anything to do with them?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe it was an act of rebellion.  Our parents aren’t the most forgiving people, and he may have been angry about something — but I saw him one night.  I had stopped at Pop’s for all of ten minutes to pick up a cherry phosphate and curly fries, and I saw him with them.”

“With who, Cheryl?”

“There were two of them with him, but it was too dark to see what they looked like.  I just remember that they were wearing leather jackets.”  Cheryl let out a long sigh before continuing.  “They were talking all quiet by the dumpsters, and then Jason took off.  I don’t know what happened, but I heard him and daddy arguing later that night behind closed doors.”

“Did you see any symbols that would give an inkling to what gang it was?”  Betty had propped herself even further, fully invested in the conversation by this point.

“No, but between you and me?”

Betty nodded slowly, her eyes widening ever so slightly.

“I think it was the Serpents."

Fuck, fuck, fuck.  Pick up, pick up, pick up.

“Jeez, Betts.”  A groggy voice answered from the other end of the phone.  “What time is-”

“She thinks it was the Serpents.”

There was a silence that fell between the two of them as Betty leaned against the cool marble counter of the hallway bathroom, one hand gripping her phone and the other running through her hair.  When Jughead finally spoke again, his voice was more alert.  “What?”

“Cheryl.”  Betty whispered into the phone, glancing around the bathroom out of paranoia that she wasn’t fully alone.  “She thinks the Serpents killed Jason.”

Her eyes came to a halt against the curtained window that sat just between the large whirlpool tub and the porcelain toilet.  The curtains were drawn just enough for her to see that the window was cracked open.  Listening to Jughead speak, she strode towards the window to shut it.

“Why the hell would she think the Serpents had anything to do with this?!  The Serpents have never worked with the Blossom’s.”

“She saw Jason interacting with two gang members, likely Ghoulies, and-”  Betty caught something from the corner of her eye and stopped abruptly.  She turned her head enough so that whatever it was came into vision, and what it was made her gasp.

Standing in the long driveway was Clifford Blossom, and in front of him were two different people, their torso’s leather clad and their expressions frightful.  One of them was a male with a head full of curly hair, but the other one was a female with hair that fell in greasy blonde strings against her face.  They were interacting with Clifford, but from the second floor of Thornhill, it was nearly impossible to hear.

“And what, Betty?”  Jughead asked impatiently through the phone, startling Betty.

“Jug…”  Betty’s voice was lower than before, cracking slightly as she watched the scene unfold.  Things were seemingly hostile between the three of them, and within moments, the woman had pulled out a knife, pointing it too close for comfort at Clifford.  “I-I think the Ghoulies are here.”

“What?!”

“Not here.”  She corrected herself, watching as the woman made some sort of demand at Clifford.  The curly haired male stood back, his lips twisting into a predatory grin.  “Downstairs, outside.  With Clifford.  Hang on.”  Betty pulled her phone from her ear, quickly finding her camera app and positioning the camera just high enough that she could snap a couple photo’s of the three of them.  She zoomed in a bit, snapping photos of their faces up close, before finally bringing the phone back to her ear.

“For the love of god, do not go anywhere near them, Betty.  Please.”  Jughead pleaded.  Betty quickly realized what he must have been thinking.

“No, hell no.  I won’t.”  Betty shook her head.  “I took a couple photos, but I can’t hear what they’re saying.”

“It’s fine, it’s okay.”  Jughead assured her through the phone.  “We’ll look at those photos when you get home tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.  I should probably get back.  If someone wakes up, they’re going to be extremely suspicious of my time in the bathroom.”  Betty bit her lip, sighing quietly.

“Be safe.”  Jughead said before disconnecting the call.  Betty leaned against the wall beside the window for a moment, her phone pressed to her chest, and out of pure spontaneity, she chanced another glance out of the window.

Staring right up into the bathroom window was the blonde haired woman, her eyes bright in the moonlight but completely strung out.  Betty nearly yelped as she tripped backwards, bolting for the door as quick as possible.

Betty Cooper would not be able to sleep that night.

Chapter Text

The sweltering sun beat down on the bare back of Joaquin DeSantos, his dark hair pulled back into the tiniest of ponytails, a sight otherwise unseen, as he dipped his head under the hood of a dark grey 1968 Ford F-100.  His wrist twisted back and forth as he worked to screw the pressure cap in, a signal that his laboring was finally coming to an end.  He pulled back, taking a step away from the truck as he raised his right hand to wipe away the beads of sweat that had dared to form on his forehead.  He turned away from the truck, surprise gracing his facial features when he was greeted with a water bottle.

“Thanks,”  Joaquin smiled, taking the lukewarm bottle from Kevin’s fingers and tugging the cap off.  He took a deep sip from the bottle, using his tongue to catch the few droplets that had set up camp on his lips.

“It’s the least I can do,”  Kevin bit his lip nervously, his eyes moving past Joaquin to stare at the old pickup.  “My dad’s been crazy busy, and I just didn’t want to add fucked up truck to his already long to-do list.”

Joaquin watched Kevin for a long moment, taking in the childlike features of his face.  His skin was incredibly smooth, looking as though he wore a filter right from Snapchat, and his eyes were especially mossy today, reminding Joaquin of the forest where they’d first met.  His lips tilted upward into a thankful yet apologetic grin, tiny dimples appearing on either cheek.  They’d been meeting since late June, but their rendezvous had slowly turned from simply hooking up to getting to know one another in ways no one else did.

When Joaquin was thirteen years old, his mother had said to him, “the moment you stop searching for the things you want, hijo, they will come to you.”  Her words had stuck with him even after her death just months later, and he found that she had been right — he wasn’t looking for anything when Kevin crossed his path, but here they were now, months later, and Joaquin had never felt more infatuated.

Still, he knew where his loyalty had to lie.

The Serpents had been his family since he was a kid, his older brother and the only father figure he’d ever had, being a tried and true snake himself.  Quin had spent many nights watching in wonder as his brother would pull on his leather jacket, only to return many hours later in the deep of the night, exhaustion creeping over his face as he shed his snakeskin and kissed Joaquin on the forehead to say goodnight.  When his brother died after a gunfight that had gone terribly wrong with the Ghoulies, the Serpents took care of the DeSantos clan.  They paid for Mateo’s funeral and cremation, gifting their mother with a beautiful vase painted with imagery symbolizing Mateo’s life, and gifting Joaquin with a silver chain, a simple cylinder pendant at the bottom.  Inside the cylinder were his brothers ashes, and he’d kept his brother close to him ever since then.

The Serpents paid for his mother's treatments and constant appointments when she fell ill, even going as far as organizing a fundraiser to help cover medical costs when she tried to refuse due to the high costs.  No amount of medicine seemed to save her though, and she passed just before his fourteenth birthday.  It was then that he was gifted with another pendant, this one shaped like a small silver dolphin — his mother's favorite animal — and filled with her ashes.

He recognized how lucky he was to have gained this family, and he knew that he couldn’t allow his ever-growing feelings for the brunette boy in front of him to risk losing their trust.  So with another more nervous then thirsty sip of his water, Joaquin leaned against the truck and casually asked, “Your dad must be awfully busy with the whole Jason Blossom murder, huh?”

Kevin nodded, reaching a hand up to his hair and pushing a few loose strands out of his face.  “It’s been non-stop.  If he’s not home, he’s at the station or investigating a lead; if he’s home, he’s staring at the murder board in his office.”

“Sounds intense,”  Joaquin crossed his arms over his chest and nodded.  “Does he take time to eat?”

“Only if I bring a plate to his office.”  Kevin sighed.  “I understand why, but it doesn’t suck any less.  I never thought I’d say this, but I actually miss hanging out with my dad.”

Joaquin chuckled, but his attention had stilled at the earlier mention of a murder board.  “With your dad being gone so much, you must get lonely at home.”

“Why do you think I’m always free?”  Kevin teased.

Joaquin shifted his weight before pushing himself off the truck, closing the distance between him and the sheriff’s son.  Kevin was quick to notice the change in the air, his own eyes going dark as their gazes locked.  “Your dad work tonight?”  Joaquin asked in a low voice.

Quin could see Kevin’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, peering lustfully into the man in front of him.  “All night.”

“Great,”  Joaquin smirked, leaning in just enough that their lips were nearly touching, Kevin’s own pair parting slightly as an invitation.  “Why don’t we go to your place tonight?”

Kevin pressed his lips firmly against Joaquin’s, his nimble fingers trailing down Quin’s bare torso, stopping just above his navel, and that was all the answer he needed.

It was just past four in the afternoon on Tuesday, and Betty was on a time crunch.  FP had finally been given a day off from the station, and had taken Jughead out for a late lunch and a movie, a tradition they used to share when Jughead was a child and would begin to feel like his father focused more on his step-daughter than his own son.  This gave Betty just barely two hours, not including the time she’d spent getting there and the time she would spent getting back, to make an educational trip to the Southside.

Ever since she had returned home from Cheryl’s house, the image of the strung out woman’s eyes etched into her mind like a never ending nightmare, Betty had spent hours upon hours scouring the internet, looking for any clue that might put her a little closer to the truth.  The Ghoulies were known drug dealers; they had never tried to keep it a secret, but could the very drugs they’re dealing be linked to the Blossom family and the murder of Jason Blossom?  Betty had only ever heard about things they dealt through classmates and at parties, though they never shared who their dealers were.  Everyone just knew it was the Ghoulies.  Things like Jingle Jangle and Fizzle Rocks were on their menu; even ecstasy and molly.  None of these were serious drugs though.  They were things you took if you wanted to have a little fun, but they’d never been proven to be addicting.  Betty couldn’t wrap her head around why there would be a connection, but what other reason would there be for the Ghoulies to be doing business with Clifford Blossom?  It wasn’t until she found herself on Craigslist — a late night last attempt to find anything — reading through the Missed Communications forums, a common landing for those searching for a high.  It was only then that it hit her — her school was full of teenagers who just wanted to party.  She even knew the perfect person to ask, and silently cursed herself for not thinking of it sooner.

Reggie Mantle was easier to crack than she’d expected.  The 5’10” football star and best friend of Archie Andrews gave up his source too easy, so Betty offered the twenty dollars she’d planned to bribe him with as a way to keep him from mentioning their little conversation to Archie or Veronica.  He took the money and made a motion across his lips as if he were zipping it, and that was that.

All of her searching and the cheap bribing of the Mantle boy are what led her to this moment.

She trekked towards the video store, the neon open sign flashing brightly against the darkened windows.  She did a one over of herself in the reflection of the window.  She wore a discreet light brown wrap jacket with deep pockets, the right one holding the wad of cash she’d retrieved from her bank account an hour earlier.  If her mother asked, she’d pass it off as paying Veronica back for a dress.  The jeans she wore below her jacket were dark wash, and her feet were donning tan booties.  Her hair hung down in waves and bounced softly against her shoulders as the wind picked up ever so slightly.

With a deep breath, she pushed through the glass door and was instantly greeted with the stench of cheap cigarettes and booze in an otherwise dark room.  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust from having just been out in the sun.  The room was dimly illuminated by fluorescent tube lights that lined the walls, just bright enough for someone to read the different genres above various racks of VHS tapes.

Movies weren’t her reason to be there though, and as her eyes swept to the counter just a few feet ahead of her, it seemed that the scrawny bodied male with dark green hair and a baggy black sweatshirt seemed to know that.

“Looking for anything… specific?”  His lips smacked together with the last word, creating a lisp on the s.

Betty smiled sweetly at him before taking a long stride towards the counter, dipping her hand into her pocket and fidgeting with money.  “Actually, I am.”  Betty took a second look around the room for good measure, and draped her voice in the sticky sweetness that she reserved for only her fakest of moments.  “My BFF just got dumped by her so-called soul mate, and I heard you sell something that could give her the party she so desperately needs.”

The man behind the counter stared at Betty for a long moment, his eyes sweeping over her entire body.  It made her feel disgusting, watching him stare at her that way, but she stood her ground and didn’t waver.  She was on a mission.

“I’ve got just the thing for you.”  He finally said with a smirk.  “You a Jingle Jangle type of gal, or are Fizzle Rocks more up your alley?”

“Jingle—”

The bell above the door chimed as a man who had to be at least 6’4” strode in, his face hard and his chin covered in a thick beard, the light brown hair that sat atop his head peppered with grey strands.  He wore a red and grey flannel over a plain black t-shirt and jeans that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in weeks.  A small hoop hung from his right ear and a brown paper bag was cushioned between his arm and his side; as he stalked through the small room, he couldn’t be bothered to look in Betty’s direction.

The green haired boy’s gaze immediately turned to the older man as he stepped behind the counter, placing the bag on the grimy surface with a loud thump.  “I told them to send you after closing,”  He mumbled, as if hoping that the blonde Northsider in front of him might not hear him.

Betty decided to play dumb, fiddling with her jacket sleeves as her eyes wandered yet again around the video store, but her ears paid close attention to the scene behind the counter.

“I have shit to do.”  The older man’s voice was gruff, his temper short.  “So either pay up or lose out on your shipment for the week.”

“Can’t you see I’m with a customer, Gerald?”  The younger one asked, annoyance soaking his words.

Betty’s stomach twisted in nerves as she listened, her arms stretching out in front of her as her fingers dragged down a worn copy of It.  She pretended to inspect the other titles in the horror section, her fingertips leaving trails in the dust that had collected over them.

“Boss will be thrilled to hear that you won’t be bringing in any money this week.”  The man, assumed to be Gerald if she’d heard the younger boy correctly, started to pick up his bag, but the other one quickly shut him down.

“No, no — don’t do that.”  He said with a sigh.  “Give me a minute, babe.”  His pet name, directed towards Betty, had her feeling all kinds of disgust as she resisted the urge to curl her fingers inward.  Instead, she just glanced back and nodded with that sugary sweet smile, then returned to looking through the movies.

The sound of the cash register opening behind her peaked her interest and she peered from the side of her eyes to watch as he took out a large stack of hundreds, handing them over to Gerald.  Gerald counted them out, Betty counting with him in her mind, and she swore she’d counted at least three grand.  When he was satisfied, Gerald stuffed the money into the breast pocket of his flannel and shoved the bag over to the younger boy.  Without another word, the matured male walked out from around the corner and towards the door.  Just as he pushed the door open and took a step out, he peered back and met Betty’s gaze.  With a predatory smirk, he said, “If your friends are half as good looking as you, I do house calls too.”

Betty had to shove down the vile that dared to come up her throat as she broke his gaze and looked back to the younger gentleman.  The sound of the door shutting told her he was gone, and she’d never felt more relieved.  She quickly pulled out a stack of twenties and laid them on the counter, trying hard to not eye the paper bag.  The man noticed this, his eyebrow raising slightly.  “You in the market for something harder than Jingle Jangle?”

“What?”  Betty asked with mild confusion, but then it hit her: whatever that Gerald guy had just delivered was not a typical party drug.  “Oh, no.  No, thank you.”

He smirked and nodded, taking the twenties from the counter and scanning through them before reaching under the counter.  His fingers lingered under the counter for a moment before letting out a breathy sigh.  “One sec.”  With that, he pushed away from the counter and disappeared into a back office.

Betty watched as he left.  The moment he was gone, her eyes darted to the paper bag on the other side of the counter.  Without giving it much thought, she leaned over the counter and pulled the bag towards her.  She braced herself and unrolled the top of the bag.

The breath she didn’t know she was holding caught in her throat as her eyes landed on what was in the bag.  Bricks of off-white powder wrapped in something that had to be saran wrap were stacked in rows of three.  Betty’s fingers shot into her jacket pocket, struggling to find her phone.  As she pulled it out and opened her camera app, her hands shook rapidly.  She knew that whatever was in the bag wouldn’t be good, but she had never expected this.

She had never expected heroin.

She shakily positioned her phone above the bag and started snapping photos.  Her breathing was coarse as she made the raised the phone and began to take photos of the store and the counter space, knowing she would need proof of where she had seen it

It was at that moment that the green haired boy stepped back out of the office, holding two tubes of Jingle Jangle in his hand.  His eyes darted from Betty to the opened paper bag, and back to Betty.  Realization hit his face hard as he noticed the phone in her hands.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”  He exclaimed as he began to bound around the counter towards Betty.

Her eyes widened but she knew what she had to do.  She pointed the phone in his direction, positioning his face in the frame just enough to catch his features, and snapped one last photo.  His fingers were outstretched, just inches away from her own wrist, and she thought he might actually get her.  She stepped back quickly though, leaving the cash on the counter and the green haired boy in the dust as she sprinted through the door and down the street.

“I’ll fucking find you, you Northsider bitch!”  She heard him call after her.  She turned the corner of the street, having to urge her feet to stop running as she reached a long wall of brick and shade.

She leaned against the wall, hunched over on herself as she tried to catch her breathing.  She could feel the panic start to set in as she took cognizance of what had just happened.

What the fuck had she gotten herself into?

Betty had been so consumed in her thoughts as she went through the events of that afternoon that she’d barely noticed her phone ringing.  It wasn’t until it was on its last ring that Betty turned her head, her mother's smiling face illuminated on the screen.  With a sigh, she sat up from her bed and grabbed the phone, sliding her thumb across the screen before pressing it against her ear.

“Hey, mom.”

“Hi, honey.”  Alice’s voice was soft on the other end, a side of herself that she’d only begun to show within the last year.  As their time in California continued, Alice’s strict side began to melt away and be replaced by a kind, nurturing, and protective mother.  The mother she had never felt like she could be before.  “How was school today?”

“It was fine.”  Betty shrugged.  “But that’s not why you’re calling, is it?”

The line stayed silent.  “Hermione told me about dad’s trial being set back.  Why the hell is it being set back?”

A year and a half ago, that response would have earned Betty a flinty ‘Language, Elizabeth’.  Times had changed though, and so had she and her mother.  “It seems that your father's attorney is trying to claim self defense.”

“Self defense?”  Betty spat out.  “What could dad have possibly been defending himself from?  You’re half his size!”

“I know, honey.  I know.”  Alice sighed.  “I’m choosing to remain hopeful.  There isn’t any evidence, and the judge will see that.”

“Will he?  Because he’s seen the photos of you in the hospital, mom, and he’s still granting dad more time to prove that what he did to you was self defense.  For fucks sake, self defense doesn’t look like that.”  Betty felt the sting of tears in her eyes, her fingers already curling into themselves as she felt the anger bubble up through her throat.

Betty stared at herself in the mirror, her eyes glistening with fresh tears as her fingers caressed the purpled section of skin just above her cheek bone.  She winced at the feeling, the pain still new.

With a sigh, she wiped the tears from her eyes and retrieved her concealer from her vanity.  She applied a thick layer of it, blended it out, then applied a full coverage foundation she’d never used before.  For a single moment, she was grateful that Veronica had always talked her into buying things that she’d never use.

Not wanting to bring on the questioning stares of why she hadn’t opted for her typical routine of a couple drops of concealer to even out her redness, she accompanied the foundation with a full makeup look.  She brushed on a beautiful sparkly green eyeshadow, smoking it out with a deep brown, then coated her lashes in a volumizing mascara.  She swept on a bit of a peach tinted foundation, careful not to bring attention to the spot above her cheekbone, and finished her look with a pinky nude lipstick.

She didn’t give herself the option to rethink her choice and wipe it off — instead, she pushed herself off her desk as soon as she was done and retrieved her purse from her bed.  She made her way out of her room and downstairs, her eyes flickering across the space as she looked for any signs of her mother or father.  When she saw none, she bolted out of the front door and was met by the familiar old green truck that she’d grown to love.

She opened the door and pulled herself inside in a swift movement, smiling lightly at the beanie wearing boy sitting behind the wheel.  His eyes were wide as he took in her features, and Betty felt her face flush.

“What?”  She asked shyly.

“You just…”  Jughead bit his lip, his eyes now meeting hers.  “Wow.”  He breathed out.

Betty smiled, trying to ignore the twisting in her stomach as she thought about the makeup.  “I wanted to try something new.”

“I like it.”  He smiled.

“Me too,”  She lied.

“Betty?  Are you still-”

“He did it to me too, mom.”

“I know…” Alice’s voice was sad.  Her mother had never liked to talk about the things Hal had said about Polly or the things he had done to Betty.  Her mother hated knowing that she couldn’t protect her own daughters.  Betty had always tried to understand her mother’s refusal to bring it up, trying to see it from her mom's eyes — but she didn’t think she could keep trying anymore.

“No, mom.  You don’t know.  You never talk about it, you never let Polly and I talk about it if you were around.”  Betty winced at the feeling of her palm wounds being reopened — wounds that hadn’t even had a chance to begin to heal.  Her entire body felt tense, and suddenly the feeling of her palms being split open and blood dripping down her skin didn’t feel like enough.  There was no relief this time.  She needed more.  She could hear the front door open and close but she couldn’t find a single fuck to give as her voice raised and her need for relief intensified.  “He hurt me too, mom!  His own fucking daughter.  He hurt me too!”

“Betty-”

“No.”  Betty pulled the phone from her ear.  The anger had finally boiled over and all she could do now was scream as she threw the phone against the wall.  It hit the wall with a hard thud and fell to the ground.

Her body slinked off the bed, curling into herself on the floor.  The pool of warm liquid on her palms smeared against her cheeks and hair as she pressed her face into her palms, her body shaking as violent sobs left her throat.  The space around her felt like it was closing in on her and all she could see behind her eyelids was his awful, monstrous face.

I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

“This was fun, Jug.”

Jughead peered across his dad’s old Jeep Cherokee, the same car he’d been driving since Jughead was a child.  If he looked hard enough, Jughead could still find the dried up ice cream stain that was too stubborn to loosen from an outing they had taken right before his parents split.  Despite the fact that marrying Hermione Lodge meant marrying into quite a bit of money, FP Jones had never cared much for it.  He had always been happy with the things he had, and Jughead appreciated it.  Despite that, he sometimes wished his dad would treat himself every once in a while.  He was a hell of a hard worker, and he deserved a few nice things.

Jughead nodded and smiled a bit.  “The movie was a little corny.”

“They always are nowadays.”  FP chuckled.  “I tell you what, the only good horror flicks come from my era.  Everything went downhill once I turned eighteen.”

“That’s a little dramatic, dad.”  Jughead smirked.  “There’s plenty of good ones out there, you just have to find them.  Betty—”  Jughead stopped himself, his breath hitched slightly at the sound of her name sliding off his tongue so easily in front of his dad.

“Betty what?”  FP asked curiously.  When Jughead didn’t respond, his eyes fixed on the road dashboard as he tried to back track, FP asked again.  “Betty what, Jughead?”

“Uh…”  Jughead bit his lip and took a deep breath.  “She likes that one director, Andres Muschietti.  She liked his adaptation of It, and was really into his original Mama even before he made a new one.”

FP let out a chortle and nodded his head.  “I didn’t realize you knew her so well.  You two kind of parted ways when you went into middle school.”

Jughead shrugged.  He knew Betty way better than his dad expected, but that wasn’t exactly something he could mention.  “We’re room neighbors.  We talk.”

FP shot him a quick glance, and Jughead could feel his body tense under his stare.  “That better be all you’re doing with her, Jug.  I know how you are with the ladies, but not Betty, okay?  She’s… fragile.”

Jughead scoffed, offended on Betty’s part that his dad thought she was fragile.

Betty Cooper was the strongest person he’d ever met.

“She’s not a precious teacup, dad.”  Jughead shot back.  “She’s way stronger than you give her credit.”

“I know, I know.”  FP pulled the car into the parking lot of the Pembrooke and turned his keys, removing them from the ignition.  “She’s just gone through a lot in the last year and… she doesn’t need anyone to take advantage of her.”  FP shot Jughead a quick glance, his eyebrows raised.  “Especially not someone who should be a friend to her.”

Jughead stared at his dad for a long moment.  He wasn’t sure how a year in California helping her sister with the twins could be counted as going through “a lot”, but he let go of the thought quickly and shook his head.  “I would never take advantage of her, dad.”  He left the other words running through his mind unspoken as he pushed open the door of the Jeep and stepped out of the car.

The walk from the car to the elevator was silent besides the two men exchanging pleasantries with Smithers.  Jughead tugged on the sleeve of his sherpa jacket, something he’d worn knowing that the movie theater would be freezing as always.  It hadn’t hit him that the sun would still be blistering at six-thirty in the evening, and he could feel the sweat beading up on his forehead.  He quickly peeled the jacket off of his body, eager to reach their floor and relax in the chilled air of his bedroom.  He looked up to see his father’s eyes staring at him, and his eyebrow quirked.  “What?  The forecast didn’t say it would be hot as balls,” He joked.

FP didn’t speak.  Instead, his eyes flashed to Jughead’s right arm.  A bit confused, Jughead followed his gaze.  It was then that he realized that the sleeve of his t-shirt was pushed up just enough to reveal the bottom half of a two headed serpent.  Jughead’s eyes widened as his gaze moved back slowly to meet the dark eyes of his fathers.

“I can explain.”  Jughead offered shakily, but it was too late.

“What the fuck is that, boy?!”  FP reached over, grabbing his son’s arm with a tight grip, using his other hand to push the sleeve up the rest of the way and point at the tattoo.

Shocked by his father’s sudden physical aggression, Jughead yanked his arm back as his eyes narrowed.  “You know exactly what it is.”

“I want to hear you say it.”  FP’s voice was a near yell, his face tensing up angrily.  “Tell me why you have that fucking tattoo.”

There was a thick silence in the air as Jughead stared into the eyes of his father, the man he’d known his whole life, the man he’d wanted to be just like as a child.  This was the same man who’s raging alcoholism and involvement with the biker gang had pushed his mother away, causing Jughead to live a life without his little sister.  Since he was four, he’d only seen his sister in person three times.  They talked as often as possible, but even that was rare these days.

The whole world felt dark as Jughead trekked down the hallway, gripping his favorite stuffed dog tightly in his hands.  He’d been sleeping in his bedroom when the sound of voices yelling had awoken him from a dream about a dancing hotdog.  When his eyes finally adjusted to the small bedroom, dimly illuminated by the porch light outside his window, he realized that his new born sister wasn’t in her crib, and he decided it was his job to find out why.

The living room smelled like the yucky juice his father liked to drink at night, and sometimes in the morning.  Jughead scrunched his nose and let his eyes wander to the front door that stood wide open.  Standing in the frame was his mother, his baby sister swaddled tightly in her arms and a large maroon suitcase at her side.  His father stood in the middle of the living room, facing her as she spoke.

“You’re a real piece of shit, FP.”  His mother said sternly.

“I’m the piece of shit?  You’re the one fucking leaving, abandoning your family!”  FP retorted.

Jughead stared at his mother with wide eyes as he crept forward a couple steps, coming into the view of his parents.  “Mommy?”  He asked with a tired voice.

Both of his parents turned their attention to him.  FP’s mouth dropped open and Gladys shook her head slowly.  “See what you fucking did, FP?  You woke Jug up!”  She exclaimed.

“Mommy, where are you going?”  He took another step towards her, clutching his stuffed dog even tighter.

“Yeah, Gladys.  Where are you going?  Huh?”  FP accused.

“This is why I’m leaving!”  Gladys turned away from Jughead, beginning to trudge down the stairs of their porch.  “I’m sorry Jughead.  Mommy will see you soon.”

She didn’t look back at him once, she didn’t tell him she loved him.  She told him she’d see him soon, and then she was gone.

“Say-”  FP began, but Jughead interrupted him as the elevator door opened.

“I’m a Serpent.”  Jughead growled as he turned his back to his father and plodded out of the elevator towards the apartment door.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me, Forsythe!”  Jughead felt his face twist into a scowl, his nostrils flaring as his father called from behind him.  He made a beeline to apartment 330, quickly shoving the door open.  FP was on his heels though, making it through the door before it had time to shut.  Jughead started to stomp towards his bedroom, afraid of the scorching feeling he felt in his chest and what that may cause him to do.

Jughead was pissed.  His father, a former Serpent himself, had no right to be so judgmental of a choice Jughead had made for himself, a choice he had made because he had no others.  Where was his father when Jughead had felt his heart shatter to pieces?  When he started staying out late or bringing guests home in the middle of the night just to sneak them out in the morning, his father had joked that he was charming and that the ladies loved him.  FP let Veronica make snarky remarks about his man-whore behavior.  No one ever stopped to realize that he was burying his pain, his heartache, in sex and alcohol because he was too afraid to be alone.

God, he was more like his father than he’d care to admit.

Still, who did FP think he was, trying to tell Jughead how to live his life, when the only reason FP had even gotten sober in the first place was because of a woman who wasn’t his mother?

“Forsythe!”

“Don’t fucking call me that!”  Jughead exploded as he turned on his heels to stare his father dead in the eye.  “Don’t—”

They heard it at the same time.  A scream, followed by a loud thud.

Both of their eyes darted to Betty’s bedroom door, knowing that Hermione was at a meeting and Veronica was with Archie.

His father started to pace towards Betty’s bedroom, but Jughead was quick to put his hand up.  “No.”

“Excuse me?”  FP stopped in his tracks, turning to face Jughead.  “Did you not just hear her?”

“She doesn’t need you going in there and playing dad.”  Jughead stared at his father with hard eyes.  “I’ll take care of it.”

The veins in FP’s face were still bulging, a sure sign of his anger, but he let out a long sigh and nodded.

Jughead strode towards the guest room, turning the knob slowly and opening the door.  Not a single light illuminated the room, even the window sheltered from light by the curtains that Betty had rarely closed.  He closed the door behind him and let his eyes adjust momentarily before spotting the pale foot peeking out from the floor on the other side of the bed.  Fear boiled in his throat as he stepped towards the foot.  “Betts…?”  He asked quietly, begging silently for her to answer him.

He let out a loud sigh of relief when he found her very much alive, but he quickly realized she was curled into herself, sobbing forcefully.

“Betty, baby, hey.”  The anger he’d felt moments ago had leaked out of his body as he fell to the floor beside her, quickly taking her into her arms.  “Hey, look at me.”

Betty didn’t respond with words.  The sobs racked her body as she reached out and grabbed hold of Jughead’s shirt, pulling her face against his shirt.  Jughead acted quickly, wrapping his arms around the honey haired girl and rubbing his hands comfortingly up and down her back.  “It’s okay, baby.  I’m here.”  He said softly.

Her sobs cooled down eventually, turning from violent cries to gentle sniffles, but her fingers remained clutching his shirt for dear life.  She finally turned her head away from his chest, taking a deep breath.  She kept the side of her head against him, her eyes peering in the direction of the window.  In the darkness, Jughead could barely make out her facial features but he felt the way her palms seemed to stick to his shirt, leaving warm wet spots against his chest in their place.

The realization hit him like a train.

“Betty…” Jughead slowly pulled his arms from around her, placing his hands over her own.  She was trembling still, and he heard a sharp breath escape her lips as he peeled her hands slowly from his shirt.  He didn’t have to look at her hands to know what was happening.  He had seen this once before, the only other time she’d opened herself up completely to him.  The last couple of weeks had been nice, but neither of them had truly started to open up to one another yet, and he feared that they never would.

He rose to his feet slowly, pulling her into a standing position with him.  She staggered a bit, her legs weak beneath her body, and leaned against him for stabilization.

“It’s okay, Betts.  I’ve got you, okay?”  He whispered against the top of her head.  “I’m going to help you get cleaned up, okay?”

She didn’t speak, only nodded.

He walked backwards around his bed, his steps careful and calculated as he maneuvered her around the bedroom.  His back hit the bathroom door gently and he allowed one hand to slip from her arms to open the door.  He steered her into the bathroom and let her lean against the counter as he turned to flip the light on.

When he turned back around to face her, his heart dropped to his stomach.

There was blood smeared across her cheeks, and streaks of her hair were coated in the deep red liquid, a stark contrast against her pale waves.  Her eyes were bloodshot, the skin around them swollen from crying, and there were deep indents on her bottom lip where she’d been biting it.  “Oh, baby…” He whispered, his heart breaking to pieces as he took her in.

Betty turned her gaze to the bathtub and when they returned to him, they were pleading.

“Do you want me to draw you a bath?”  He asked softly.

She nodded, but her gaze didn’t leave him.

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

She nodded again.

“Okay.”

A few moments later, he had drawn a warm bath for her and had helped her strip from her clothes.  In any other scenario, he would have been turned on by the sight, but sex was the farthest thing from his mind currently.  Right now, he was focused on cleaning the blood from her hair and her face, and bandaging the wounds on her palms.

Betty curled her knees against her chest as she soaked in the bath, her eyes fixed on the spout as Jughead wetted a soft cotton washcloth and smoothed it over her skin.  The blood had dried a bit, taking longer than Jughead had expected to come completely off her skin.  Once her face was free from the crimson, he used his hands to wet her hair.

He pulled down her normal shampoo and squirted a bit of it into his hands before lathering it into her hair.  He massaged her scalp gently, careful not to pull her hair, and when he was satisfied that the blood was gone, he used his hands once again to rinse her hair.

He was about to reach for the body wash he knew was hers, when his eyes caught his own soap beside hers.  He reached for his own instead, pressing a dollop of it into his hands then slowly working it down her back and shoulders, arms, neck, and legs.  The soap bubbled up against her skin and he could feel her physically relax as she took a deep breath.  He smiled.  This had been the right choice.

Once he had finished rinsing the soap from her body, he drained the bath and helped her to her feet.  He wrapped her in a cushiony towel, leaving her discarded clothes for another time, and escorted her back into her bedroom.

“Light off?”  He asked once he had gotten her tucked into the bed, the towel still wrapped around her body.  Betty nodded again.  

Jughead’s phone vibrated in his pocket.  He pulled it out to take a quick look, already deciding that if it was any of the Serpents, he would reply later.  Instead, there was a text from his father, a rare sight.

Had 2 run, emergency at station.  B good 2 her.  Talk abt snake shit ltr.

Jughead sighed and placed the phone on Betty’s nightstand just as she reached, wrapping her fingers around his wrist.  He gazed down at her and smiled softly.  “Think you were getting rid of me that quick, Coop?  Nice try, but I’m officially putting myself on Betty duty all night.”

His joke gained him a small giggle from her, a sound he’d never been happier to hear.

He sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled his boots and t-shirt off, then quickly laid down beside her, opening his arms for her to crawl into them.  She did just that, laying her head on his bare chest.  He wrapped his arm around her, his fingers fiddling gently with the cotton of the towel.

They laid like that for a long time, Jughead occasionally pressing gentle kisses into her hair as she inhaled and exhaled slowly against his chest.  He was almost convinced she’d fallen asleep, until she muttered the first words he’d heard her say all night.

“I lied to you.”

Jughead blinked twice at the ceiling, racking his brain for anything she could have lied about.  “What?”

Betty took a deep breath before continuing.  “I told you that I went to California to help my sister with the babies.  I mean— that was part of it, kind of.  But it wasn’t why I went.”

Jughead raised a brow, nodding for her to continue.

“My dad, Jug… He’s…”  Her voice broke and she sniffled, a telltale sign that she was close to crying again.  “He’s abusive.  Like really, really abusive.  I know I told you about the time he hit my mom and made her bleed, but that wasn’t the first time… and it wasn’t the last.

“He started drinking kind of out of nowhere, and it started with heated arguments that would turn into yelling matches between my mom and him; but then she told him she wanted a divorce, and he started to get physical.  He’d grab her by the wrist, shove her into things.  Then he started to hit her in the face, and he’d leave these awful bruises from his fist, or where he’d held her arm too tightly.  He’d call her worthless, and when I witnessed it the first time, he called me all kinds of slurs and threatened me too.  And my mom wouldn’t do anything.  She’d cry herself to sleep, and then she’d just apply some makeup or wear a long sleeve and pretend it never happened.  I think she thought that if she pretended everything was normal, it would be; but it wasn’t.  It wasn’t normal, and it went on for way too long.”

Panic trickled up his throat as Betty spoke, his hands gripping her tighter to him as if he could somehow protect her from her past trauma.  Part of him wanted her to stop talking so that she wouldn’t have to think about it, she wouldn’t have to feel the pain all over again.  Still, he let her continue.

“He hit me, too.”

Jughead gritted his teeth together and decided in that moment that he would never be satisfied until he saw Hal buried six feet under.

“He hit me a total of three times, and I guess I was just as bad as my mom because I just covered it up with makeup and went about my day.  I didn’t tell anyone; I didn’t try to tell anyone.  Not even V.  I just… acted like everything was okay, because I so desperately wanted it to be.

“The night my mom finally served him the divorce paperwork, he lost it.  He fucking lost it, Juggie.  He went completely berserk, started beating the living crap out of her.  Her entire face was bloodied and bruising and one of her eyes was swollen shut and he didn’t stop.  He pushed her to the ground and started kicking her in the ribs, and I swear to God, I thought my mom was dead.  I had to watch all of it.  He made me fucking watch it, to teach me a lesson.  I tried to call the police and he took my phone and tossed it into the kitchen, and I remember just sitting there, terrified for my mom's life and for my life and wishing I had anyway to get into contact with the police or even Kevin or you, because both of your dads are cops.

“I guess fate was on my side that night, because a neighbor heard the yelling and called the police and reported it as a domestic disturbance.  The cops practically broke our door down and they were able to restrain my dad and arrest him that night.  My mom got taken to the hospital, and the next morning she told me that she wanted me to go live with Polly for the year.  I begged her to let me stay.  She was telling me to give up Veronica, Kevin… you.  I wanted to be angry at her for even suggesting it, but I couldn’t bring myself to be mad when her face was swollen and so many parts of her body were purple and bruised, all at the hands of my father.

“I guess my dad stupidly admitted to the police while he was drunk that he wanted to kill my mom, and they wanted to charge him with attempted murder, but they couldn’t charge him until he went to court, so my dad posted bail a few days later.  My mom got me on the first plane out because she didn’t want me to see him.  She was scared that he’d try to manipulate me so that I’d testify for him.

“My mom stayed behind for a couple weeks while she healed, but she eventually flew out too, and we spent the year there.  She worked on healing emotionally, which was hard when she was having weekly phone calls with her lawyer about the case.  He ended up getting booked again for something stupid, drunk and disorderly I think, and this time the judge wouldn’t let him post bail, so now he’s just sitting in a jail cell waiting for his court date, which was supposed to be this week.

“That day when Hermione needed to talk to me?  She was telling me that my dad's court date got pushed back again, and then my mom called me tonight and told me that it was because his lawyer was trying to find a way to claim it as self defense.  He wants to claim attempted murder as self defense.  What’s even worse, is the judge is allowing this, like he’s allowing my dad’s lawyer the time to come up with some insane story about how my dad was just defending himself, when he’s fucking seen the photo’s of my mom’s almost lifeless body.  If the cops hadn’t shown up, my mom would have died, and they want to act like it was self defense.”

Guilt flooded over Jughead as he felt her exhale onto his chest.  He had spent so much time being angry at her for leaving him that he’d never stopped to think that she had to.  She had told him about the one instance of her father hitting her mother, but he’d never even considered that as a reason for her sudden departure from Riverdale and from his life.  He’d had every intention of letting her go completely, letting her memory fade from his mind as he buried himself in woman after woman, drink after drink, drug run after drug run.

He was appalled with himself.

Betty must have sensed this, because she suddenly turned to him, propping herself up on her elbow as she gazed into his eyes.  Her eyes were bright green, sparkling with unshed tears as she reached a hand up to cup his cheek.  “I was afraid that if I let you in, if I let you see all of this fucked up shit… you’d leave.  It was my baggage and I couldn’t expect you to carry it for me.”

“Betty, no.”  Jughead’s eyes softened as he looked into hers.  “That’s not how this works.  That’s— I want to be there for you.  Always.”

Betty bit her lip and nodded, a quiet sigh escaping.  “Thank you… for everything.  For tonight.  I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Betty Cooper, I will be there anytime you need me for as long as you’ll allow me to be.”  Jughead leaned towards her, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips.  She responded by kissing him back just as softly, and for a long time, that was all that was happening and Jughead was content.  He raised his hands to cup her neck, tasting the saltiness of her earlier tears soaked on her lips.  Her fingers entangled in his hair, the beanie falling to the ground within moments.

Their lips moved together slowly, dancing to the quiet melody of unspoken words between them.  Always.  Forever.  Mine.  Love.

Love.

The chaste nature turned to fire, the desire to deepen their kiss overwhelming Jughead as he pressed his lips harder against hers, his tongue beckoning her lips to open for him.  She was quick to do so, her own body falling flat on her back as Jughead leaned over her, his tongue slipping between her lips.  Betty’s chest rose and fell quickly, her fingers entangling within his thick black locks as he brought his own elbows to rest on either side of her head.  The world around them ceased to exist as he nipped her bottom lip, tugging it just enough to make her gasp.  The sound sent sparks through his body.

He moved from her lips slowly, kissing down her cheek to her ear.  His breath was warm against her earlobe as he traced it with his tongue.  Her body shivered against the feeling, a wanting moan escaping her mouth.  He wandered from her ear, tracing down her neck to her collarbone.  The way she moved below him, desire flooding her eyes, gentle whimpers filling the air around them — Jughead thought for a moment that he might actually believe in God.  How else could he explain the angel below him?

Jughead caught a small patch of skin on her collarbone between his teeth, sucking it tenderly and slowly.  Time no longer existed.  He gazed up at her, her skin still between his teeth with the promise of bruising, and their eyes locked.  He was caught off-guard by how beautiful she looked in that moment.  After so long, she was open and unafraid, on complete display for him and only him.  There was a look of pure adoration in her eyes that hadn’t been there the last time they’d been close.  The feral sex-driven animals searching to get off were gone, replaced by two teenagers in love.

It was that moment, as Betty reached for the trim of her towel and slowly unfolded it from around her body, that he knew.

Jughead Jones was and always had been in love with Betty Cooper.

His fingers traced the curve of her hip as he kissed down her chest, peppering kisses over the swell of her breasts, her own fingers entangled in his hair yet again, tugging it lightly.  He groaned quietly against her skin, his tongue swirling around her hardened nipple, earning him a gasp from the mouth of Elizabeth Cooper as she arches her back, pressing his face closer to her body.

He moved to the next breast, paying just as much attention to it as he had the last.  Her skin was soft against his lips, his tongue, the taste of her overwhelming as his lips traveled hungrily down towards her navel.  Scattered kisses scorched her skin as he moved further down, trailing to her thighs.  He nibbled the skin lightly, tiny purple spots appearing in various spots as he moved from thigh to thigh, worshiping her fully his mouth, his lips, his tongue, his teeth.

He peeked up again, meeting her gaze once again — and god, it was otherworldly to see her watching him.  He placed a gentle kiss on the piece of skin he’d been working between his teeth, never once breaking their gaze.  With a low voice he asked, “Is this okay?  Are you okay?”

“Yes,”  She answered quickly, her lower lip coming up to rest between her teeth.

“Do you want this?”

Her nod was eager.  “I want this.  Do you?”

Jughead’s smile was embarrassingly wide as he stared into her pools of emerald, trying to think of any situation where he wouldn’t want this.

Nope.  There were none.

“I do,”  He lowered his head once again, pressing a featherlight kiss against her pussy.  She gasped audibly, her grip tightening in his hair as he continued to press kisses against the sensitive skin, her body wriggling beneath him.

He parted his lips just enough to allow his tongue to explore, swirling small teasing circles just to the sides of her folds.  She was trembling under his mouth and he’d barely started.  Something about the realization that her quickened breaths and jerky movement were all at the fault of him sent a rush of shivers down his spine, the waistband of his jeans feeling much tighter than before.

Ever so slowly, he parted her lips, dragging his tongue down until he was nearly pressing his tongue into her entrance.  She was already so wet for him. 

“You taste so good baby,”  He breathed against her.  The taste of her was exhilarating; he would happily choose her over any alcohol ever again.  He quickly stroked his tongue up towards her clit, her breathing hitched and coarse as his tongue danced around it.  Every time she pleaded through needy whines and hungry moans, electricity shot through his body.  Her hands ran the length of his head, pushing him closer to her — he knew what she wanted, and he was happy to oblige.

He pressed his tongue against her clit gently; she responded with a gasp and a hard tug of his hair.  He stroked her slowly, spelling her name over and over again with his tongue as he brought his hand up, pressing a single finger inside of her.  Jughead groaned lightly, reveling in how tight she felt around his finger.  Her hand shot up to cover her mouth as she moaned, bucking her hips upwards.  “Jug,”  She panted as he pumped his fingers inside of her, his speed increasing with each draw.  His tongue continued to sweep through her folds, circling and sucking her clit with an appetite he never truly could fill without Betty.

He could feel the way her legs twitched, dancing to the rise of her release, as she begged him, “Jug, I-I’m going to come.”

She let out an impatient whine as he pulled his head away from her thighs, his eyes meeting hers once more.  Slowly, his finger released from inside of her, coated in her juices.  Without breaking their eye contact, he reached his fingers to his lips, his tongue darting out and lapping up the remainder of it.  She watched him with wide eyes, and even through the darkness he could see the flush of her cheeks.

Without a moment's notice, she was pushing herself up and towards him, crashing her lips into his.  His hands reached for his belt, but her hands were quicker as her nimble fingers undid his belt clasp then quickly darted for the button.

“Jeez Cooper, you in a hurry or something?”  Jughead asked as he broke their embrace apart to breathe.

“I need you, Jughead.  I want you.  I-”  Her voice stopped abruptly but her fingers moved rapidly.  She yanked the zipper of his jeans down and pulled at the waistband, exposing the grey boxers he was wearing.  He let out a groan as he felt his hardened cock release from the confines of his jeans, but he couldn’t ignore her words.

“You what?”  Jughead questioned, bringing his hands up to cup her cheeks.  “What is it, Betty?”

She shook her head slowly, a gentle smile crossing her lips.  “I just want you.  All of you.  Tonight.”

Jughead bit down on his bottom lip, feeling the warmth of his cheeks.  Something so simple, words he’d heard a thousand times from random hook ups — but coming from Betty’s lips, they were sacred.

He laid his palm against her chest, steering her gently back into a laying position.  She hit the fluffy white pillows with a bounce, her blonde hair fanning around her head like a halo.  She was undoubtedly the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on.

He placed his hands on either of her knees, encouraging her legs to spread as he pulled his boxers down his thighs and kicked them and his jeans off.

There they were, completely bare for the other to see, and Jughead had never felt more alive.

He inched closer to her, his movements careful and considerate.  He could fuck Betty any other time.  Tonight, he was going to make love to her.

With a slow shift, he pressed the tip of his shaft against her wet folds.  Betty bucked her hips upwards with a needy moan as she raised her hands to his bare chest, her fingers tracing intricate lines up and down the length of his torso.  He found her entrance with ease, warm and pulsing for him, and slid into her haltingly, watching her face for permission to continue.

Her head fell back against a pillow as she gasped, her fingers curling into the skin of his chest.  He took the sign and flew with it, pressing himself inside of her bit by bit until he couldn’t anymore.  She called his name into the darkness, fingers moving up to grasp his shoulders tightly.  He felt waves of desire flood through his body, the sensation of being inside Betty Cooper otherworldly.  They’d had sex before, multiple times even, but the sex a year ago and the sex now was completely different.  They understood each other now, in a way they hadn’t before.  She accepted him as a gang member, and he learned her truth.  Their bodies were bare, their walls were down, and their souls were out in the open.

It took a few moments of messily thrusting before he found his rhythm within her.  He pumped into her quickly, his hands stabilizing him on either side of her head, his gaze locked on her face.  Her face twisted into pure ecstasy with each thrust, each groan, and Jughead knew that there was no way he could last long watching her.

“Faster, Jug,”  she begged as her arms slinked around his neck, pulling him for a deep kiss.  He obeyed her command, his thrusts becoming quicker as he filled her over and over again.  He kissed her back with urgency as his fingers trailed down her frame, past her navel and towards her saturated core.  He didn’t wait this time, his need to make her come overtaking his senses.  He parted her folds with his thumb and middle finger, using his index finger to rub gentle circles against her clit.

He could feel her walls start to flutter, his own cock throbbing at the feeling.  He groaned loudly, rubbing her clit harder.  “Come for me, baby.”

Betty cried out as she reached her climax, clenching around him and could feel himself reaching the edge of his orgasm too.  His thrusts became sloppy as he reached both hands towards her face, urging her to look at him.  Her eyes were glazed over but she met his gaze nonetheless, smiling a lopsided grin as she bit her lip, riding the high of her orgasm.

“Betty Cooper,”  Her name felt like a prayer, and maybe it was.  “I love you.”

He crushed his lips against hers roughly, not giving her time to answer him back.  It may have been his subconscious, fearful that she didn’t feel the same — but her greedy kiss was all it took to send him over the edge, and within moments he was coming too.

They rode their orgasms out together until their bodies went limp, soaked in sweat and bodily fluids.  Jughead collapsed on top of her, still pressed deeply into her as his chest heaved.  Betty brushed her hair from her face and panted heavily before wrapping her arms around him.  It felt funny for a moment, for her to hold him like this — but there was a comfort in it that he’d never felt before.

They stayed like that for what felt like twenty minutes, just catching their breath and being there together, present.

Finally, Jughead pulled himself out of her, reaching for the towel Betty had discarded earlier.  He was sitting on the edge of the bed, wiping himself off when he felt her fingers trickle against his neck.  He crooked his head to see her staring into him, her eyes wide with something he couldn’t quite place.

“You love me.”  She was soft-spoken, a small smile peeking through her lips.  It wasn’t a question, but he could hear the query in her voice.

Jughead grinned as he dropped the towel to the floor, turning his body to face her.  She sat back on her heels, her hands falling to her laps as she watched him.  

“I love you.”  He confirmed.

Betty’s smile grew wider as she threw her arms around his neck, pressing her body against him in a tight embrace.  “Jughead Jones, I love you.”

He hadn’t said it with the expectancy of hearing it back, but as she said it, he swore he felt the planets collide.  Betty Cooper loved him back.

Betty Cooper loved Jughead Jones back.

Jughead wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her even closer.  The mix of his body wash and her sweat filled his lungs as he gripped her, never wanting to let her go again.

He couldn’t let her go again.  He wouldn’t.

“Be mine.”

Betty pulled back from him, her eyes full of curiosity as she stared into his eyes.  “What?”

“Be my girlfriend, Betty Cooper.”  He reiterated.

“But V-”

“I’ll tell her, I’ll let her try to murder me for being in love with her best friend.  I don’t care.  Nothing can hurt me when I have you.”

Betty’s lips parted slightly as she searched his eyes, but finally her smile reappeared and she nodded eagerly.  “Of course I’ll be your girlfriend, Juggie.”

Jughead felt fireworks explode in his body as he leaned in, kissing her with the same eagerness as before.  

Only now, he was kissing his girlfriend.

Chapter Text

The sea was especially violent this time of year.  Polly had told Betty so earlier this month, explaining that there tended to be a lot of storms in October.  Most of Southern California was the opposite, still enjoying the post-summer warmth during this time.  The little beach front town that Polly had moved to seemed to defy all odds though, and storms began to roll in early October.

“I hope it’s clear for Halloween,”  Polly had said in passing while they sipped their morning coffee earlier in the day.  Polly had retreated to the den after breakfast to spend the day with the twins, cooing and loving on them, but Betty was drawn to the weather.

She sat under a clearing on the back porch, dressed in sweatpants and a tank top — because after all, this is still California — and watched as the waves crashed angrily against the rocks and sand.  The sky, a dark grey signaling more storms to come, was a stark contrast against the blue-green of the water and the white foam.  As the waves began to rise, ready to crash at any moment, she could almost make out the change in color.  The blue-green shifted to something much darker, but only momentarily, and then it was gone.

Betty felt her chest tighten.  She had seen that before.

“I was thinking about telling her tomorrow.”

Betty’s fingers, which had been silently tracing circles against Jughead’s abdomen, came to a halt as his words cut through the silence of their post-coital cuddling.  She peeked her head up from the spot between his neck and shoulder and met his blue eyes.  For a moment, she was transported back to the oceans of California, the deep blue of his eyes reminding her of the beautiful waters reaching for the sand just outside her sisters home.  The beach had always been a constant reminder of what she was missing, and it had broken her heart many times over.

Not anymore, though.  Jughead Jones had finally asked her to be his girlfriend just four days ago, and it was as if they’d spent the last four days making up for all the lost time between Betty leaving Riverdale and returning a year later.  They both had excuses for not meeting with the rest of their friends during lunches.  Betty would claim she had a phone call with her mother scheduled, and Jughead would tell the young Serpents that he had to catch up on some history homework.  That, of course, wasn’t entirely a lie.  There was a lot of history to catch up on between the two of them.

Betty had meant for them to meet in the Blue and Gold to just talk on Wednesday.  She had planned it before he had even asked her to be his — the intention was to tell him about her little visit to the Southside, and show him the photos.  She felt a ping of guilt though, knowing he’d be upset with her for going somewhere alone that was known for being less than safe.

What’s honestly going to happen if I wait a couple days to tell him?  She had told herself.  We can ride out the high of the dance, and then I’ll tell him on Monday.

She was sure he would understand.  He was Jughead, and he loved her.

He loved her.

And she, him.

Among everything else going on around the two of them, she had nearly forgotten his vow when he asked her to be his girlfriend.

“I’ll tell her, I’ll let her try to murder me for being in love with her best friend.  I don’t care.  Nothing can hurt me when I have you.”

It was a terrifying thought in itself, telling Veronica Lodge that her best friend since childhood and her step-brother were more than just a couple of bickering friends-by-association.  She’d never explicitly said that they couldn’t date, but it was implied rather often that Veronica thought Betty was too good for the likes of Jughead.

“Your crush on Archie has gotten out of hand, V.”  Betty sat on the bleachers of their middle school football field, a hard eaten apple in her hands as she watched the Riverdale Middle School Mustangs run back and forth on the field, practicing for their upcoming game.

“This has nothing to do with a silly crush, and everything to do with the lack of a cheer squad at this school.  These boys need some pep in their step, and I’m going to be the one to deliver it to them — with your help, of course.”

Veronica was dressed in a poofy gold tutu with blue leggings below it and a plain blue t-shirt to match.  She had spray painted a pair of her sneakers gold, and her hair was held back in a gold bow.  Her makeup matched her outfit, with blue eyeshadow reaching her brows and gold stars painted on her cheeks.  Betty would laugh, if Veronica hadn’t dressed her in the same get up

Betty often wondered how much more simple her life would be without Veronica’s shenanigans, but the thought was pushed away quickly.  She didn’t actually want to know.

“You realize that you’re not allowed to call anyone else your best friend ever, in the history of forever, because I’m doing this for you right now, right?”  Betty said as she finished off her apple, placing the core neatly on the seat beside her to throw away later.

“When the time comes and you find yourself hopelessly in love, I’ll be there to cheer you on too,”  Veronica giggled.  Betty giggled too, because Veronica was thirteen and saying she was in love.

“Oh man, your moms are going to go wild for the scrapbooks with these pictures.”

The clanking of someone climbing the stairs of the bleachers surprised both of the girls, their heads swinging to find a camera holding Jughead making his way towards them.

“No.  Nope, no way!”  Veronica crossed her arms in front of her.  “Get out of here, dipshit.”

“Ouch,”  He placed his hand to his heart, feigning pain.  “What crude words to use against your loving step-brother.”

Veronica narrowed her eyes, but she soon heard the sound of the coach calling the players off for their first break.  “Ugh!  I don’t have time to deal with your antics right now, Holden Caulfield.”

“Sorry Juggie,”  Betty offered a sympathetic shrug as she rose from her spot and stepped to where Veronica was standing.

“First lesson of love, B: boys like Jughead are never worth it,”  Veronica rolled her eyes as the two girls got into position.

She could hear the sound of the shutter clicking and her cheeks burned red as the two girls began hooping and hollering for the Mustangs, pompoms from the dollar store waving wildly in the air.

Betty used to wonder if Veronica had some type of implication about the two of them before Betty went to California, but if she did, she never said a word.

So here they were, spending their last moments together before Betty would be rushed off to Thornhill for an exhilarating pre-dance slumber party, the thought of telling Veronica in the furthest corner of her mind.

“At the dance, I guess.  She can’t kill me with an audience,”  Jughead continued.

Betty blinked, feeling her stomach drop.  They were really doing this.

“You’d be surprised,”  Betty managed before heaving a sigh and pushing herself up into a sitting position.  Jughead was quick to follow as she pulled the white sheet up around her bare torso, holding it tightly to her.  “Are you sure you’re ready for her to know?”

Jughead nodded, lifting his hand to brush a few stray hairs from Betty’s face.  “I don’t want to hide us anymore, Cooper.”

“I don’t either.”

“Then it’s settled.  I’ll tell her tomorrow.”

“No—”  Betty stared into Jughead’s eyes for a long moment, a wave of anxiety crashing over her.  She knew what the right thing to do was.  “Let me tell her, okay?  It’ll be better for her to hear it from her best friend.”

“Are you sure?”

“I mean, yeah.”  Betty shrugged, chewing lightly on her bottom lip.  “I can probably tell her tonight.  I’m pretty sure it’s just V, Cheryl, and myself anyways.  It’ll be much less awkward than you telling her at the dance, where everyone would see it if she flipped out.”

“So long as you’re sure,”  Jughead leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on her lips before pressing his forehead against hers.  “I love you, Betts.”

“I love you too, Juggie.”

As it turned out, Betty was completely wrong.

It would have been just as awkward for Veronica to find out at the dance as it would be for her to find out at the sleepover.  Sure, it would have been fine if it was just the three girls — but no, Cheryl rarely did things simple.

Cheryl had also invited Josie McCoy, Midge Klump, and Valerie Brown, to a sleepover that Betty was sure would be a small intimate slumber party.

Betty wasn’t mad per-say, because she did enjoy the company of these girls.  Rather, she was annoyed that it would be much harder to tell Veronica about her secret relationship with an entire group of people sitting around them at nearly all seconds.

She had just pulled out her phone to text Jughead ‘retreat, we have to tell her tomorrow. too many people here’ when Cheryl walked up to her, and in true Cheryl fashion, snatched the iPhone right out of her palms.

“Eh, eh, eh,”  Cheryl waved her index finger in front of Betty’s face as she placed the phone into a small wicker basket.  “We are going fully unplugged tonight.  Our skin needs to be the most radiant it can be for tomorrow's dance, and it can’t do that if we’re staring at blue light all night long.”

Betty raised an eyebrow at Cheryl but nodded as she stifled a sigh.

As Cheryl made her rounds to the other girls, all of them already dressed in their sleepwear, Veronica appeared beside Betty.  She nudged Betty lightly and offered an apologetic grin.  “If it helps, I had no idea she was going to invite half the cheer squad, or that she was going to pull a Ms. Darbus and take our phones away.”

Betty giggled at the comparison and shrugged her shoulders.  “We should probably listen to her anyways.  Have you ever seen her with a pimple?”

“I swear to god, she has an in-home dermatologist.”

The girls shared a giggle, and suddenly the same wave of anxiety that Betty had felt earlier was hitting her again, causing her stomach to churn.  Their friendship had always been so easy-going.  She feared that this new piece of information would change everything.  Would Veronica approve?  If they ever broke up, who would she side with?  Would their friendship end if Betty’s relationship with Jughead ended?

“I’m scared, Juggie.”   Betty gazed up at the outstretched hand in front of her.  Jughead, a mere eight years old donning a pair of black jeans and a t-shirt with a guitar on it with his signature grey beanie sitting atop his head, leaned down from his spot on the first branch of the tree.  He had always been nimble, finding the best hiding spots during hide-and-seek and climbing any tree he possible could.  Betty, on the other hand, had never been so daring.

She could feel the anxiety rise in her throat as she stared at his fingers, traces of a lavender nail polish still on his thumb from when Veronica forced him to let her paint his nails the night before.

“It’s the coolest thing ever, Betts, believe me!”  He sounded almost giddy, his stance not wavering as a smile grew across his lips.

“I-I believe you, but-”

“No buts!”

Betty gulped as she pressed her hands against her light grey overalls, smoothing out the nonexistent wrinkles that her mother had taught her to always look for.  With a nervous nod, she finally reached up and linked her fingers with his.

She let out a gasp as Jughead pulled her up the length of the tree until she was grabbing for the branch to heave herself the rest of the way up.  It took more strength than she’d imagined, but she was finally sitting atop the branch-

-and Jughead was climbing to the next one.

“Juggie!”  His name flew out like an exasperated sigh as she watched him ascend, one branch after another, until he was suddenly another three feet above her.

“It’s easy, c’mon,”  He invited her up with a wave of his hand, but Betty merely crossed her arms over her chest and huffed.

“No way, Jose.”

“Chicken,”  Jughead giggled.

Betty pursed her lips but finally allowed her eyes to wander.  She was knocked nearly breathless as she took in the sight of the park from up high.

Granted, she was only on the first branch and it was only seven feet in the air, but Betty was a mere four feet tall and she’d never been so high before.  It was like she was seeing the park for the first time.

“Jug-”

“Betty!”

Betty jerked with startle at the sound of Veronica’s voice ringing through her eardrums.  Without having the time to catch herself, she lost her balance and felt her body falling to the right.  She hit the ground with a loud thud and a groan, and the sound of Veronica shrieking could be heard through the entire park.

“What were you doing up there?!”  Veronica demanded.

“She was climbing the tree with me,” Betty could hear Jughead shuffling down the tree, landing smoothly on the ground.   He came up to her quickly, kneeling beside her body and reaching out the same hand from before.

“FP told you not to climb any more tree’s, you big dummy!”  Veronica huffed.  “Now you’re hurting my best friend by making her climb them too?”

“V,”  Betty pushed herself into a sitting position, rubbing the arm she’d landed on.  There was a scratch and a painful spot that would definitely turn into a bruise later, but she didn’t feel like anything was broken.  “It’s okay, I’m okay.”

Veronica eyed her best friend as if she was searching for any way to prove Betty wrong.  With a sigh, she just shook her head.  “This is why I don’t like when you hang out with Jughead.  You do stupid things.”

“You okay, B?”

Betty glanced over at her best friend, Veronica’s eyes watching her with worry.  “Yeah, it’s just—”

“Alright, ladies.  Now that we are all officially unplugged, we can let the slumber games begin.”  Cheryl’s voice broke through Betty’s, causing the two girls to look in her direction.  She was standing in the doorway of her walk-in closet, dressed in a silky red nightgown that fell a few inches above her knee and a matching robe, holding a pair of strappy red heels.  “First off, shoes.”

An hour and a half later, after more harrowing discussions about why black heels with a black dress would be too tacky and old school than Betty could handle, the group had finally broken apart for a couple of moments.  Betty was adjusting her silver dress on the hanger inside Cheryl’s closet, envisioning the way Jughead would react when he saw it, when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder.  Betty jumped slightly and turned, suddenly face to face with Valerie Brown.

“Shit, did I scare you?”  Valerie’s expression was contrite.

Betty offered a kind smile and shook her head.  “No, I was just off in la-la land thinking about the dance tomorrow.”

Valerie perked up at this as she pulled her own dress down, a beautiful yellow piece with a camisole style top and a skirt that would fall to her ankles.  Cheryl had given her props for pairing the dress with a royal blue stiletto, a look that was guaranteed to catch people’s eye tomorrow.  “This is your first dance back, right?”

Betty nodded and straightened her dress out on the hanger before letting the fabric slip from her fingers.  “First dance since Sophomore year.  Suddenly we’re seniors.”

“I overheard that you’re going to the dance with Jughead,” Valerie spoke.  Betty tried to hide the light blush that appeared on her cheeks at the mention of her name.  God, she was gone for him.

“I am, yeah.”

“That’s cute.  I saw you guys talking after school the other day, are you two a thing now or something?”

Betty’s entire face went red at the implication.  She opened her mouth to speak, but was quickly interrupted by the sound of Veronica’s voice entering the closet.  “God, no.  Of course they’re not.  Betty’s only going with him because it makes the entire pre-dance process easier.”

Valerie queried a brow at Veronica but smiled and nodded.  “When will you realize your step brother is hot, Veronica?”

“Ew.”  Veronica visibly cringed.  “Never, because he’s not.  Now get out here, ladies.  We’re about to play truth or dare.”

“Midge, truth or dare.”  Cheryl’s voice sounded victorious as she spoke, and she was, in all reality.  She had successfully avoided any embarrassing dares thus far, seemingly knowing the best times to pick truth or dare.  Maybe it was the way she narrowed her eyes when she saw the mischief in someone’s grin or the fact that, dead brother or not, Cheryl Blossom was kind of a terrifying bitch.

A terrifying bitch with a soft side, but a terrifying bitch nonetheless.

“Truth,”  Midge answered confidently, as if she felt there was nothing she could be asked that would be even slightly incriminating.

Cheryl’s grin shifted into wicked territory.  “Is it true that you asked Kevin to be in a throuple with you and Moose?”

Midge’s hand flew to cover her mouth while the other girls gasped.  Betty sat awkwardly in her striped pajama shorts and baby pink v-neck.  She wasn’t surprised by this information; Kevin had told her about this at Cheryl’s house party.  She would, however, be surprised if Midge tried to deny it.

“Oh my god, who told you that?!”

“So you admit that it’s true,” Cheryl smirked.

“He was into Moose, and like, I guess Moose was… kind of into him… too.”  Midge shrugged, her eyes falling to the ground.  She tugged at her oversized Bulldog sweatshirt, a definite piece from Moose’s closet, and sighed.  “I wasn’t trying to invite him for a threesome or anything, I just wanted Moose to be happy.”

“But a threesome wasn’t off the table, was it?”  Cheryl giggled.

“I mean, I— hey, not fair!  It’s my turn to ask.”  Midge shot Cheryl an amused expression that seemed to answer the question in itself, and Cheryl nodded with a satisfied grin.  Midge quickly turned to Josie, who sat in a cheetah print cami and black cheer shorts, and smiled.  “Josie McCoy — truth or dare.”

“Dare, obviously.”  She responded with a grin.  Josie had picked dare for every round so far.

Midge frowned, but twisted her lips to the side as she searched through her mind for an acceptable dare.  “Okay, I dare you to prank call Pops and ask him if Ivanna Tinkle is there.”

The entire group seemed to roll their eyes.  “What?!  Moose has been making me watch The Simpsons lately!”

“Midge, I swear you’re stuck in middle school sometimes.”  Josie groaned.  “How exactly do you expect me to make this prank call?  Miss dictator took our phones.”

“Don’t you fret, my dearest Josie.  Thornhill has always had a landline available.”  Cheryl quickly pulled a classic red corded phone from her bedside.  It was something Betty had assumed was just decoration, never pegging the Blossom’s as the type to have a home phone.

Cheryl immediately started tapping the buttons, then shoved the phone to Josie’s ear.  “It’s ringing,”  She proclaimed as Josie scrambled to grab hold of the phone.

“I hate you for this, M—”  Josie started to whisper, but was quickly interrupted by someone answering on the other end.  “H-hi, I was just wondering if you could check if there’s someone named Ivanna Tinkle there?  She’s not answering her cell.”

A few moments passed and Josie was suddenly hanging up the phone with urgency.

“I hate you, Midge,”  She declared as she handed the phone back to Cheryl.  “Pop knew that was me!  He literally said, sorry Josie, no Ivanna Tinkle here.”  

The entire group burst into laughter at the immature stunt, Josie even joining in for a couple of laughs here and there.  When the laughter finally died down, Josie turned to Veronica.  “Alright, girl.  Truth or dare.”

“I’ve gotta go with truth this time,”  Veronica smiled as she leaned back against the headboard of Cheryl’s large bed, crossing her arms over her chest.  “Ask away.”

Josie seemed to think for a minute before asking, “Do you think you’re going to marry Archie?”

Veronica’s mischievous grin turned into that of a lovestruck girl as she nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I do.”

Valerie and Midge cooed at her as Josie smiled.  “If the Pussycats aren’t your wedding band, don’t bother inviting me,”  Josie’s words were sharp but her tone was soft.

After the girls finished exchanging heartfelt words about Veronica and Archie’s relationship, Veronica turned to Betty and laughed quietly.  “Alright B, truth or dare.”

Betty contemplated for a long moment.  She had picked mostly truth’s thus far and remained safe from any questions regarding her love life, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Veronica would finally ask something that would indict her.  With her shoulders square and her nose raised, she confidently spoke the word, “dare”.

Veronica’s eyes were playful as she nodded, pulling a cherry red apple from a basket of snacks that sat in the middle of Cheryl’s bed.  The girls had been nibbling on them throughout the game, but the apple remained untouched.  She tossed it in Betty’s direction and Betty’s instant reflex was to catch it, but confusion was obvious on her face.

“Remember when we were in fifth grade, and we’d say the alphabet as we twisted our apple stems, and whichever letter it broke on was the first letter of the name of our soul mate?”

Betty giggled and nodded.  “I remember you would tug it out on A because you had a fat crush on Arch.”

Veronica rolled her eyes and smiled.  “Okay, I dare you to do that, but…”

There’s always a but.

“As soon as the stem breaks, you have to blurt out the first name that comes to mind when you think of soulmates.”

“Soulmates?”  Betty couldn’t help the nervous laugh that escaped her mouth, drawing it out a bit so it’d seem more obnoxious than anything.  “V, we’re not in fifth grade.”

“Okay, fine.  The first name of someone you wouldn’t mind hooking up with.”

Betty bit her lip, but nodded.

“Okay.”

She gave the stem a little twist and girls started the alphabet in unison.  They spoke it slowly, Betty’s curl’s taking time in themself.  Her heart beat faster with each passing letter as she feared what would happen if she landed on the letter J.

And then it hit her.

Maybe this was the perfect way to tell Veronica.

Sure, it was a bit chaotic, but Betty would be lying if she blurted out anyone else’s name, and she really didn’t want to deal with Veronica asking questions about a boy she didn’t even like.  So maybe she’d need to pull a Veronica and…

“J…”

Tug.

The stem broke from the apple abruptly, and the group fell silent.

“Well?”  Midge asked impatiently after a few beats.

Betty’s heart rate quickened as she looked up from the apple to meet the eyes of her best friend.  She’d already broken the stem, there was no backing out now.

She took a deep breath and said the first name that would have come to her mind no matter what letter she landed on.

"Jughead."

He almost made it.  He was so close.

He’d grabbed his overnight bag, which was actually just his school bag with his tux stuffed into it, slung it over his shoulder and had almost made it to the door.

And then he heard his name.

“Jug.”

Jughead let out a deep groan as his hand froze against the door handle.

He knew he’d have to talk to his dad eventually, but he had successfully avoided any type of confrontation since Tuesday.  His father’s shifts had lined up perfectly so that he was leaving for work right as Jughead was getting home from school, and so far there had been no connection between the murder and the Serpents.

Joaquin had visited the sheriff’s son's house for an overnight stay, but the best information he could find was their lack of actual suspects.  Sheriff Keller kept a murder-board style whiteboard up in his office, but the only information they’d gained from that was that Jason had made a lot of enemies on the football field.  Joaquin had also concluded that Clifford Blossom was acting completely useless, and Penelope Blossom was too much of a mess to be of any help to the case.

The lack of tracing anything back to the Serpents was great — but Jughead had really hoped there’d been some obvious line to the Ghoulies.  Clearly, Malachi was better at this game than he’d originally suspected.

Jughead slowly stepped back from the door and turned around, facing his father who stood in the entryway of the kitchen.

“Yes, father?”  He asked, his voice thick with sarcasm.

“We need to talk,”  FP’s voice was gruff, reminding Jughead of the man’s drunken days, but knew that his father was likely just tired.  The man gestured a hand towards the couches in the living room.  “Have a seat.”

Jughead shook his head quickly.  “I think I’ll stand.”

FP opened his mouth to argue, quickly shutting it and opting to rub his hand down his face instead before taking a few steps towards his son.  “Where are you headed to?”

“Archie’s.”

“You’re taking an overnight bag to Veronica’s boyfriends house?”  FP raised a brow.

“Ronnie’s forcing us to bond before the dance while she and Betty are at Cheryl’s.”

FP pondered this for a second before accepting it with a nod.  “You’re taking Betty to the dance?”

It was Jughead’s turn to nod.

“Does she know?”

“That I’m taking her to the dance?”  Jughead smirked.  “Yeah, I would assume so.”

“Not what I meant, boy.”  FP took a step closer, now only about four feet from his son.  “Does she know you’re a snake?”

Jughead tensed his jaw.  “Why would that matter?”

“Don’t play dumb, Jug.”  FP nodded in the direction of the bedrooms.  “I saw the way you rushed in to save her like you were some knight in shining armor the other night.”

Jughead couldn’t help the chortle that escaped his lips.  “Knight in shining armor?  That’s the last thing Betty needs or wants, dad.”

“I’m well aware that she can hold her own.  I’ve known her as long as you have, remember?”

“Who’s that?”  Jughead’s finger pointed towards the little blonde girl stuffing her backpack into a cubby.  She wore a pink bow in her hair and blue overalls, and when he saw the cupcake she held in her other hands, he immediately wanted to be her friend.

Veronica smacked his hand down and glared at him.  “My mommy says it’s rude to point, so don’t point!”  She let out a quiet huff and grabbed the boy by his wrist, dragging them across their kindergarten classroom until they reached the girl.  “Jug-head, this is my best friend Betty.”

Betty turned to look at the two of them and her big green eyes lit up.

“Betty, this is my stupid soon-to-be step brother Jug-head, and he wants a piece of that cupcake.”

“You still ran in there like she needed to be rescued.  There’s obviously something there — so, does she know?”

Jughead shrugged and sighed.  “Yeah.  She knows.”

“And she’s comfortable with it?  With the gang?”

Jughead thought back to the night he’d found her in his bedroom, the accusations she had made against the Serpents.  His mind flashed forward to the day he told her everything about the murder and the Serpent’s involvement, or lack-there-of.  His honesty had seemed to quell some nerves, but he still wasn’t entirely sure she was comfortable with his involvement in a gang.  Was anyone ever truly comfortable with that type of thing.  “I don’t know dad.  Was mom comfortable with it?”

FP was a smart man.  He knew Jughead would throw something about Gladys into the fire to throw him off, and he had prepared for it.  “No, she wasn’t.  She left because of the gang.”

Jughead laughed at the accusation, but he felt anything but happy.  “No, she left because you were a raging alcoholic who didn’t care about his fucking family.”

“Don’t you get it, son?”  FP’s face, which had hardened at the mention of Gladys, had softened just slightly.  “The alcoholism was the tipping point, but the gang?  That’s what led her to leave.  I was practically married to the Serpents back then, Jug.  I was doing everything and anything they asked of me, because I took a god damn oath.”

“You took an oath when you married mom, too.  Didn’t seem to care much about that.”

“You’re right, I didn’t.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved your mother like the grass loves rain; but breaking my oath to the Serpents meant the possibility of my family getting hurt.  I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you or your sister or your mother.”

“So instead you let her leave and take JB with her.”  Jughead hadn’t even realized that he was clenching his fists, but when he chanced a glance, his knuckles were pure white.

FP let out a long sigh, knowing that the argument surrounding the mother of his children was a futile one.  “The Serpents aren’t just some after school club you join to make friends, okay?  There are things I had to do back then that I’m not proud of, things that give me nightmares still to this day.  Things that can still cost me everything.  My job, my marriage, you.  I was the fucking king, but when your mother left, I finally realized that I had to give it up.”

Jughead said nothing.  He didn’t know what to say.  The memories of his father in the gang were limited.  Jughead had been a toddler back then, he remembered little more than the birth of his sister and his mother leaving.  He did, however, remember the way his father looked when he would stumble through the house, often times passing out on the couch in the front room of the trailer, and the way his mother sounded when she thought no one else was listening as she’d cover FP with an old, mangled blanket and whisper “fucking Serpents”.

“I don’t want that life for you.”

Jughead didn’t want that life for himself either.  He knew that with joining the Serpents, there came a possibility that he could end up just like his father.  The difference was that FP had succumbed to the life of the Serpents and the bottom of a bottle.  Jughead would never put himself in that situation, and he didn’t expect that he’d ever have to be.  The Serpents had changed since FP was a part of them.  They’d grown.  They’d modernized.  There was no more Serpent Dance for the ladies to perform in lieu of the initiation, and their rivalry with the Ghoulies would soon come to head if Jughead had anything to do with it.

After a silence that seemed to last forever between the two of them, Jughead just sighed and turned back towards the front door.  “Are we done here?”

FP shoved his hands into the pockets of the worn jeans he was wearing and shrugged lightly.  “Tell me one thing, boy.  Is Gerald still the king?”

“Gerald?”  Annoyance coursed Jughead’s tone as he shifted the bag on his shoulder and inched towards the door.

“You may know him as Tall Boy.”

Jughead quirked an eyebrow and rolled his eyes.  “Yeah, he’s in charge.”

FP’s face changed from careless to concerned, the corners of his mouths twitching in a frown.  “Be careful, boy.”

Jughead sat in the driver's seat of his old pickup truck, his overnight bag stuffed between the back of his chair and the tiny back seat.  He’d made it nearly all the way to Archie’s house when he got Toni’s text.  It was a simple one, really — “meet at my place asap”, but the lack of explanation was more than enough to make Jughead’s stomach churn as he flipped a u-turn and headed towards the Southside.

He took a deep breath, staring at the old beat down trailer that Toni lived in with her grandfather.  She’d lived there since they were fourteen — he was the only family member who accepted that she was bisexual.  Her parents had been less than kind, opting to disown her completely instead.  It had been rough, but she had come out stronger in the end.  Plus, her grandpa needed her.  He had been quite the guy in his early years, leading the Uktena tribe into battle and victory many times; but living like that came with an endless amount of health issues, and unfortunately Thomas Topaz was dealing with the worst of them now, having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease a mere seven months ago.

It was something Toni struggled with daily, but her hard exterior would never lend that idea to an outside eye.

With a deep breath and a “running late” text to Archie, Jughead pushed open the door and slid out.  He made his way up the steps and without knocking, opened the front door.  The front door led directly into the kitchen space, the dull yellow tile barely illuminated by a nightlight plugged in beside the sink, and the house seemed eerily quiet.

“Over here, Jones,”

Jughead’s eyes dragged along the decaying wallpaper that led into the living area, his pupils struggling to adjust to the lack of light.   He recognized Toni and Sweet Pea immediately, their vast height difference giving them away.  Joaquin was the next one he was able to make out in the dark, his bright blue eyes shining through the darkness.

The man in the center took Jughead a moment to recognize.  He wore a black ribbed sweater, the neck of it worn and stretched under a heavy black denim jacket.  Three leather strings hung around his neck like loose chokers, and his hair was lawless and unwashed.

“What the fuck is he doing here?”  Jughead demanded as he stepped around the kitchen counter and towards the center of the living room.

“Cool it, Jones.”  Toni stepped forward from the group, slipping her hands out of the pockets of her Serpent jacket to cross them over her chest.  “My grandpa is asleep in the next room and you know he doesn’t need to be woken.”

“Great plan, Toni.  Bring Kurtz into your house and then expect the Serpents to not make a big deal over it.  I fucking applaud your brilliant plan.”  Jughead’s glare shifted from the pink haired girl in front of him to the Ghoulie who stood just a couple of feet behind her.

Jughead had never been a fan of Kurtz.  The Ghoulie that was just a year older than Jughead had always been up to some type of sneaky trouble, oftentimes found near the Wyrm or stalking Serpent territory.  He had never caused actual problems, and had yet to gain any useful information on the Serpents to take back to the Ghoulies — but he was not to be trusted, of this Jughead was sure.

“I came here on my own accord.  Not on Ghoulie business,”  Kurtz held his fingerless gloved hands up in defense, his voice low.

“He wants to help,”  Joaquin expressed.

Sweet Pea was the next to speak.  “And if he doesn’t, I’ve got my brass knuckles on and ready to go.”  He held up his fist to flex his fingers, the newly shined brass knuckles glimmering in the little bit of light from the kitchen.  Jughead knew it was less for Jughead though, and more for Kurtz.

“How can we be sure?”  Jughead stepped around Toni, walking towards Kurtz until they were just a foot apart.  “How do I know you’re not a snitch?”

“Why would I step right into the snake pit if all I wanted was information?”  Kurtz spoke like a true storyteller and Jughead hated it.

He felt Toni step beside him, her eyes peering up at him.  He sighed and met her gaze.

“He’s got some need-to-know shit,”  Toni spoke sternly and she nodded her head in the direction of Kurtz.  Jughead raised his eyebrow in silent disagreement but ultimately gave in and chanced a glance at the young Ghoulie before him.

“Well?”  Jughead said abrasively when Kurtz didn’t immediately speak.  “Get to it.”

“Penny is in town.”

“Peabody?”  Jughead’s eyes widened as he stared at Kurtz in disbelief.  “Penny Peabody?”

Kurtz nodded slowly, folding his hands in front of him.

“That’s not possible.”  Jughead’s eyes darted between the Serpents.  “That’s not possible, right?”

“She was exiled way before our time.”  Joaquin said, his brows knotting.

“Yeah, she was exiled.  She was chased out of Riverdale, right?”  Jughead could feel the sweat building on his forehead.  He’d never met Penny Peabody, barely seen pictures besides the old pixelated from when she was younger; but he’d heard the stories.  She’d been a danger to the gang from the very beginning, always involving herself in risky dealing and causing altercations between the Serpents and the Ghoulies.  The final straw was when the Serpents caught her embezzling money from the Wyrm and wiring it to an unknown source in New York City.  She’d taken tens of thousands of dollars, and that piled on top of all of her other shady business earned her a swift kick to the curb.

“It was your dad that ostracized her, Jones.”  Sweet Pea spoke cautiously.  “My dad told me the story once.  FP cut her tattoo off and banned her from coming back.”

Jughead thought back to his earlier conversation with his father.  “There are things I had to do back then that I’m not proud of, things that give me nightmares still to this day.”

He wondered briefly if that was what kept his father up at night.

“Okay, and?”  Jughead decided to brush off the information, not finding it currently useful.  “Either way, she was banished.  Why would she be back now?”

“That I don’t know,”  Kurtz confirmed.  “What I do know is she’s doing business with the Ghoulies.  She was spotted at the Haus of Dead a few weeks ago, speaking to Malachi.”

“Pre or post Jason Blossom Murder?”  Toni asked.

“Pre,” Kurtz responded.

Jughead’s face hardened as his gaze dropped.  “I don’t get it.  What could she possibly want now?  It’s been way over a decade since she got exiled.  Any unfinished business would be long forgotten by now, right?”

Kurtz shrugged casually, running a hand through his dark hair.  “Word on the street is she’s stopping by tomorrow night.”

“We could stake out,”  Sweet Pea offered.

“Tomorrow?  Fuck, that wouldn’t work for me,”  Jughead shook his head and sighed.  “I-I’m taking Betty to the dance.  I can’t cancel.  My dad would be suspicious, and my sister would murder me.”

I also just really fucking want to take Betty to the dance and this bullshit can wait one night.

Kurtz didn’t acknowledge Jughead’s words with so much as a nod.  “Expect my text tomorrow.”

“I don’t have your number, Kurtz.”  Jughead rose a brow as he watched Kurtz stride across the living room towards the kitchen.  

He adjusted his jacket as if bracing himself for the cold weather that hadn’t dared touchdown in Riverdale yet, and without turning back to the group, he opened the door and said, “You’ll know it’s me.”

And then he was gone.

The entire situation seemed all too odd.  Jughead slowly turned back to his group of friends, rolling his eyes.  “What the fuck was that?”

“How can we be sure it was Peabody?”  Sweet Pea stepped forward, crossing his arms as he puffed out his chest.  “No one’s seen her ages.”

“I’ve only ever seen pictures, but if those dead eyes don’t give her away, the giant scar on her forearm will,”  Toni moved towards the couch, plopping down on it and crossing her booted ankles over one another.  Joaquin was quick to follow suit, taking a seat beside her.  “And if he’s wrong, then we don’t have to deal with her.  But if there’s even a fraction of a possibility that she’s back, this could mean war for the Serpents.”

Jughead paced the front room, scratching the back of his neck as he raked through possibilities of her return.  “It doesn’t add up.  It just doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t, but whatever brought her back has to be a big deal, right?”  Joaquin asked.  “She wouldn’t come back for just anything.”

Jughead nodded slowly but his pacing didn’t lose speed.  “So now we just have to figure out what it is.”

Jughead had spent an upwards of two hours at Toni’s as they tried to understand Penny’s sudden reappearance in Riverdale.  It wasn’t until nearly 9pm when he finally found himself at Archie’s doorstep, knocking lightly on the door.  It wasn’t late per-say, but the street lights were on and half the houses on the street were dark, so Jughead felt a little bad.

The door swung open and an older man with peppered brown hair and smile lines greeted him.  “You must be Jughead,” His tone was just as kind as he’d expected.  “It’s great to meet you.  I’m Fred, Archie’s dad.”

Jughead nodded slightly and reached out as Fred took his hand in his and shook it the way he’d expect a businessman to shake.  “Thanks, and… sorry it’s so late.”

Fred laughed and shook his hand at him in a nonchalant way.  “Oh please, this is nothing.  Arch doesn’t get to bed until nearly two in the morning most nights.  Always writing a new song or—”

“Okay, okay, dad.”  Archie tumbled down the stairs, cutting his father off quickly.  He was dressed in a pair of basketball shorts and a white tank, and if Jughead was any good at guessing games, he’d guess those were his pajamas.  “Jug doesn’t need my life story.”

Jughead smirked as he stepped inside and Fred pushed the door shut.  “If I don’t get it from your dad, I’m sure Ronnie would cough it up real quick.”

A faint blush appeared across Archie’s cheek at the mention of his girlfriend, but instead of addressing it he just waved Jughead up the stairs.  “My rooms up this way.”

“You boys want pizza?”  Fred called as they reached the top of the stairs.

“Yes.”  They responded in sync.  Jughead couldn’t help but chuckle to himself.

They soon reached a tall white door that stood slightly ajar, and Archie quickly pushed it all the way open, revealing a bedroom that screamed high school football star.  The walls were dressed with jerseys from his favorite teams, posters of his favorite players, a calendar of all the different teams, and a shelf that held multiple trophies for athletics.  The wall beside his bed, however, held multiple non-sports posters, most notably The Smiths and Mother Mother.

“You like Mother Mother?”  Jughead found himself asking as he stepped further into the room.  His eyes caught the framed picture of Veronica on the small wooden desk, right beside another framed picture of the two of them at a dance last year.

“Are you kidding me?”  Archie asked as he took a seat on his bed.  “Touch Up changed my life.  Ryan Guldemond is the entire reason I got into song writing in the first place.”

Jughead quirked his brow at this.  Fred had mentioned that Archie wrote songs a few minutes ago but Jughead had barely registered it.  “How did I not know you write music?”

Archie shrugged.  “I mean, this is the first time we’ve really hung out without the girls around so…”

“Okay, touche.”  Jughead cocked a grin.  “Still, I’m surprised my step sister hasn’t gloated to the entire household that she’s dating a dreamy musician.”

The blush appeared again as Archie shot a glance at the photos on his desk.  “I don’t know, man.  She loves my music, but I think it’s… intimate to her, you know?  I write songs for her, and she likes knowing they’re just for her and I.  She’s a romantic.”

“And so are you, clearly.”

“Like you’re not,”  Archie chuckled.  “You wax poetic.”

“I read a lot of books.  It was inevitable for me to be as verbose as I am.  In fact,”  Jughead dropped his bag beside the desk and took up shop in the small wooden chair that he could tell was stolen from the dining room.  “You should be thankful I’m not worse.  I could be worse.”

“You and Veronica really are siblings, jeez.”

“Step siblings, thank you very much.”

“Veronica never corrects me when I say siblings, you know.”

“How gracious of her,”  Jughead rolled his eyes and leaned back in the wooden chair, slipping his phone from his pocket.  The screen remained blank, and for a moment he found himself worrying about Betty.

She can take care of herself, she’s a big girl, he scolded himself.

“Why do you correct people, though?”  Archie propped himself up on his elbow, his brows knotted as if he were trying to understand something that Jughead just wasn’t giving away.  “I’m not trying to play therapist or anything, and you don’t have to tell me.  I guess I just don’t get why you still correct people after all these years.  She’s your sister, whether it's by blood or marriage.”

Jughead ran his hand up his face and into his hair, sniffling a sigh as he shook his head.  “I already have a sister.”

This seemed to catch Archie’s attention, his ears nearly perking up.  “Wait, what?  Veronica’s never mentioned another sibling.”

“That’s because Ronnie has never met her — Jellybean.”

Archie arched his brow.  “Does everyone in your family have weird nicknames?”

“Trust me dude, they’re better than the real thing.”

Archie smirked, but his attention didn’t seem to waver.  “Why haven’t they met?”

“Mom hates the idea of her being corrupted by the rich folk,”  Jughead shrugged.  “Hell, she’s only let me visit a handful of times.”

“That’s rough, man.  I’m sorry,”  Archie’s eyes dropped to the floor for a moment, and Jughead thought he’d finally escaped the dreaded sister talk, but then their eyes met again.  “Why though?”

Jughead quirked a brow.  “Why what?”

“You never explained why you don’t call Veronica your sister, you just told me that you have another sister.”

Jughead’s eyes wandered around the room for a moment, thinking hard about the question.

“Dad said I get to the be the ring bearer and walk down the aisle with the flower girl, who I guess is my sister,”  Jughead spoke excitedly into the phone, his feet bouncing below him on the ground of the home he and his father would be moving into within the next month.

“What are you talking about?”  Gladys’ voice sounded surprised on the other line, and had he been older, he would have picked up on the hint of annoyance at the talk of her ex husband's wedding.  “Jellybean isn’t going anywhere near that wedding.”

“No, no, mommy,”  Jughead giggled.  “Her name is Ronnie!  Well actually, I think it’s Veronica but Ronnie sounds cooler and she likes it too!  It’s-”

“That girl is not your sister, Jughead,”  Her voice rang high-pitched through the phone, causing Jughead to wince slightly.  “She is simply your step-sister on paper.  Calling her anything but would be a disgrace to your real sister.”

“But daddy said-”

“Your daddy is a liar,”  She spoke sharply.  “Put him on the phone, I need to have a word with him.”

“It’s a betrayal thing,”  Jughead sighed, shaking his head back and forth.  “If I accept Ronnie as my sister, I’m letting go of my blood sister.”

“Says who?”  Archie’s quick response surprised Jughead and he shifted uncomfortably in the chair, raising his hand to itch at the back of his neck.

“My mom.”

“Obviously I don’t know the full story, but your mom left you, right?  She took your little sister and she left you and your dad behind?”

Jughead nodded slowly, his chest tightening ever so slightly.  “Well, yeah, but-” 

“And since then, she’s made it pretty clear that she doesn’t approve of the life your dad married into, despite the fact that it was at no fault of your own?”

“I have a feeling Veronica tells you more than you let up,”  Jughead’s tone was slightly irritated as he listened to the red head go on.

“Nah man, this is just what I’ve picked up from what you’ve told me.”

Jughead rolled his eyes but nodded for Archie to continue.

“So your mother actively keeps you out of your little sister's life, but you feel like accepting Veronica as your other sister would be the ultimate betrayal?”

Jughead had never given Archie much credit, but he found himself dumbstruck by the football player currently.  The man was more on the dot than his own father and step-mother had been in the past, and Jughead had never even given Archie the time of day until recently.

His mouth was agape as he tried to find the words to say to Archie, but he kept drawing a blank.  “I mean — I — yeah, I guess so,” he finally blurted out.

“But your mom is the one betraying both of her children, all because she’s salty about your dad.”

“In her defense, my dad was a heaping pile of shit.”

“And she may have had every right to leave him, but involving you and your sister in her bullshit isn’t right.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jughead slumped down in the chair, chewing on his lip.  “I know.”

“You are allowed to have a life outside of your trauma,”

Jughead peered up at Archie, struggling to keep up his hard exterior.  He did his best to not think about his little sister unless he had to — it was the one subject that was always guaranteed to make him sad.  But maybe Archie was right.  Maybe Jughead could open up to Veronica a little more, treat her more like a sibling than a nuisance.  Sure, they’d spent most of their lives bickering, but she’d never done something inherently awful to make him hate her.  She was pesky and vexing but she was also smart, passionate, and had a good head on her shoulder — and Jughead knew that he’d go after anyone Veronica asked him too, not that she needed it.  He was pretty sure her dad was a mafia boss of sorts.

Could Jughead finally drop the step that had become a barrier between he and Veronica?

As if she were listening in on his very thoughts, Jughead’s phone began to vibrate violently in his hands.  He glanced down at the screen, raising his brow in surprise at the name RONNIE appearing there.

“Speak of the devil,”  Jughead twisted his lips into a smile as he slid his thumb across the screen and pressed the phone to his ear.  “What’s up, Ronnie?”

“JUGHEAD FUCKING JONES,”  Her voice screeched through the phone, nearly shattering his eardrums.  “YOU HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO DO.”

Chapter Text

Jughead had been left completely breathless three times in his entire life.

The first time was when Dumbledore died in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The second time was after he’d been punched in the gut relentlessly, over and over again during the Serpent initiation.

And the third time was now.

He should have known by the way Archie’s pupils had grown until there was no more color, just black.  The other sign would have been the gasp that Pop Tate let out, followed by the cooing of his gentle voice.

All of it should have prepared him for what he’d see when he turned around, but nothing can truly prepare you for the moment you realize that someone is the one true love of your life.

She was standing there, wearing a real-life ball gown that fell to the floor, synched at the waist.  The overriding color was silver, but the top, with the neck dipping down to the crevice between her breasts and covered barely by a simple piece of tulle, glistened with dusty pink and silver rhinestones.  Her hair was down in waves, the framing pieces pulled back and held behind her head with a piece that matched the dress perfectly.

Her eyes were framed by a smokey brown eyeliner and lashes, and her lips were a pinky toned nude that made it nearly impossible for Jughead not to stand up and kiss her right there in front of everyone.

And then he realized, he could.

Veronica had spent the better part of an hour yelling at Jughead from Cheryl’s patio the night before, going off at him for being conniving, for lying right to her face about his relationship with Betty, and for spending a year burying himself in girls and booze instead of just telling her the truth.

Ouch, but he deserved it.

By the end of the phone call though, things had taken a turn for the better.  She was no longer yelling, but instead, she was speaking to him rationally, as a father would speak to the boy picking up his daughter for their first date.  She’d asked his intentions, set a few ground rules, and ultimately came around to the idea of her best friend dating her brother.

She would not, however, let up on the whole lying about it for over a year.

All that mattered now though, was that she knew, which meant that Jughead could push himself out of the booth and take Betty in his arms and tell her that she was the most beautiful person he’d ever laid eyes on.

So he did.

She giggled as his arms wrapped around his waist, pulling her towards him in a fight to feel the warmth radiating off her body.  

“Jesus Christ, Betts,” he breathed as he took her in, eyeing her from the very bottom seam of her dress to the stray hairs at the top of her head.  She was at this moment and all others, the most beautiful girl in the world.

Betty ducked her head shyly, her fingers coming up to rest against his chest.  It was then that Jughead noticed her manicured fingernails, all shaped into a perfectly chiseled ballerina cut and painted a natural pink, silver glitter creating an ombre down each nail.  He couldn’t help but stare at the way she moved the nails so delicately across the fabric as if she were reminding herself that this was all real.

Jughead related all too well.

“You look great, Juggie,”  Her voice was barely a whisper as she gazed back up, their eyes meeting in a locked glance.  Jughead tried to fight the heat that grew across his face, but there was no use.  He was completely gone for this girl.

“Me?  Have you seen yourself?”  His fingers ran up and down her sides, feeling the soft fabric of the skirt beneath his fingertips.  “I could read a million books in my lifetime and still never find the words to describe how brilliant you are, tonight and every night.”

Without a second thought, he dipped his head down until their lips met, kissing her without a single care in the world.  In this moment, there were no Serpents, no abusive parents or step-families, no Ghoulies, no secrets.  There was only them.

The light thump of a purse hitting his upper arm shattered the moment as he pulled away from Betty’s lip, gazing around in confusion.

There, standing in a strapless black dress with a sequined torso and a chiffon skirt, was the culprit.  Veronica.

“I bought that lipstick for Betty to wear, not you.”

Jughead smirked and rolled his eyes, rubbing the back of his hand against his lips for good measure.  “But it’s my color, Ronnie.”

Veronica narrowed her eyes and shook her head in annoyance.  “You are the definition of the worst.”

“You love me anyway,” Jughead chuckled as he released Betty from his arms, nudging Veronica lightly with his elbow.  She was quick to look up at him with a confused glance, and Jughead understood full well.  He and Veronica had never been affectionate towards each other, even when they were children that got along mostly well.  There wasn’t a doubt in his mind, especially now, that he’d do what he needed to do to protect her.  She was his sister, and he would do the same for her as he’d do for Jellybean.

“Yeah, well,”  Veronica darted her eyes towards Archie sitting in the booth.  “I’d still choose a pair of Louboutin over you.”

“Hear that folks?”  Jughead smiled as he draped his arm over Betty’s shoulders, leading her towards the booth.  “She didn’t deny it!”

Veronica rolled her eyes so hard they may have very well rolled off of her face as she followed behind them, slipping into the seat beside Archie.  She turned to peck him gently on the lips in a clear attempt to not ruin her deep plum lipstick, but the flush that grew across their faces proved how intimate it was for them.

Jughead had never noticed how deeply in love Veronica was with the football player.  Maybe… just maybe, that was why she was letting the two of them off with a warning.

“You look as handsome as ever, lover,”  Veronica smiled against his lips before pulling away and straightening the black bow tie he wore.

Jughead had initially laughed when Archie walked back into his room donning a bowtie of all things, joking about how hipster he was.  But if Jughead was being completely honest, the bowtie worked better on Archie than it would on most others.

“And you are completely stunning,”  Archie replied, stretching his arm out and behind Veronica’s head.

“Smooth,” Betty and Jughead said in unison.  They shared a chuckle and he placed his palm against her thigh, squeezing ever so lightly.

Pop was quick to make his way to their table, taking their orders of two baskets of onion rings and four milkshakes as the four of them exchanged a few laughs with him, reminiscing in memories of their childhood here.  The four of them, though not always friends, were connected by this singular place.  The center of all of their universes.

The savory scent of grilled hamburger wafted through the air, teasing Jughead’s nostrils as if he were in a cartoon, and the invisible smell had grown fingers, gently guiding him towards the kitchen.  It was a smell he had loved since he was a small child, his first real memory of eating out with his father being in Pops.

As he aged from toddler to child, pre-teen to teenager, he found himself spending more and more time in the far back booth of the cliche vintage diner.  When he was given his first laptop, a thoughtful if expensive gift from Hermione (though the tag had included his father, he knew it wasn’t a purchase FP had willingly made) on his thirteenth birthday, Jughead started to spend his hours after school clicking away at the keyboard, writing short stories and poems never meant to be seen by another.

Pop Tate became accustomed to seeing Jughead, and they fell into a sort of routine.  As Jughead got older, the routine altered to fit his lifestyle.  When he started staying up later, Pop would have a steaming hot cup of black coffee ready at the same booth as always, and a double cheeseburger with all the fixings and a heaping helping of fries would find itself plated in front of him just moments after he’d opened his laptop and begun to type.

His routine changed yet again when Betty began sneaking off to Pops to meet him in the dead of the night when they knew that none of their friends or family would be awake to see them.

Pop raised an eyebrow the first time, but he never spoke of it.

Jughead trusted that he never would.

He trusted Pop.

It was nearing 12:30 in the morning, and Betty was supposed to meet him half an hour ago.  He’d ordered their food, his normal for himself and chicken tenders with a mixture of onion rings and curly fries for Betty.  The whipped cream on her vanilla milkshake had melted into the ice cream and her tenders had surely grown lukewarm if not cold.  Jughead had kept himself busy with his food and a new horror thread on his phone’s Reddit app, applauding himself for only stealing one onion ring from the girl’s plate.

He gave it another fifteen minutes before he finally surrendered his internal battle of not wanting to be that guy.  He opened his texts with Betty, a long thread of flirtatious jokes and book talk, then typed out something casual: “there was a battle between the climate of pops and your milkshake. i’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your milkshake is not a victor.”

Moments later, the bells of the door jingled, and in walked Betty Cooper, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist, willing the light tan coat to remain shut against the frigid wind of outside.  She looked as beautiful as ever, but as he stared at her, something seemed to be missing.

The bright green of her eyes was dimmed, and she looked almost… lost.  As if she wasn’t quite sure why she was there.  She offered the waitress behind the counter a quick smile — thought it would better be classified as a slight upwards tilt of her lips — before her eyes finally landed on Jughead.

As if he’d imagined it all, her eyes grew bright and her smile widened as she strode towards him, undoing her jacket in the process.  She discarded it from her arms and folded it neatly over the back of the booth before squeezing in, her smile unfading.

“Sorry I’m so late,” She finally spoke.  “My parents were up later than normal.”

He noticed the slight crack in her voice as she mentioned her parents, but if she had noticed herself, she didn’t speak of it.  Instead, she took the straw of her milkshake and stirred it slowly, eyeing the now soupy concoction of vanilla ice cream, sprinkles, and whipped cream.

“Funny enough, I just texted you to tell you that your milkshake died.”

They exchanged a small chuckle then dove into their meals, spending the rest of their time talking about their ever so different lives.  As Betty went on about her sister's pregnancy and the man that had left Polly as soon as he found out, Jughead couldn’t help but feel that there was something she wasn’t telling him.

When all the onion rings had been devoured, the milkshakes having never stood a chance against the heat of the evening, and the clocks on their phones all illuminated a timestamp of 9:12 PM, Veronica declared that it was officially time to make their way to the dance.

“Fashionably late, but not late enough that everyone is too indulged in their shenanigans to notice our entrance,”  She explained as she stuffed her phone into her black clutch.

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,”  Betty giggled as she and Jughead shuffled out of their booth.

“It’s a science, my sweet best friend,”  Veronica smiled.  “And I do have it all figured out.”

Sitting in the middle seats of the black Cadillac Escalade, arm outstretched to meet Betty’s as Veronica and Archie whispered sweet nothings and offered tiny pecks between the two of them in the back seat, Jughead could feel his heart beating with an appreciation he’d never felt before.  Love for his girlfriend, affection for his sister, and a bond he’d never expected with the red-headed jock who had read him like a book.

He knew that this moment here, driving down Main Street in their formal wear, his hands linked with Betty’s, Archie’s forehead pressed against Veronica’s with a smile formed on his lips, would be the moment he remembered as he read his vows to Betty on their wedding day, Veronica draped in a bridesmaid dress beside her and Archie donning a groomsmen tux to the side of Jughead.

The realization that he wanted to marry this woman made his chest tighten in the best way imaginable, and he squeezed her hand tightly in response.

“You okay?”  Betty whispered from her seat, her gaze shifting from the dim roads outside of the window to his eyes.

“Never better, Betts,”  He replied, a smile growing across his lips.

Betty’s nose and eyes crinkled with her grin as she squeezed his hand back, a quiet “hm,” humming from her lips.  “I love you,” she breathed.

“I love you too,” and he meant it.

They pulled up to the front of Riverdale High a few moments later, shambling out of the car until they were all standing in front of the red brick and tall cement columns.  The air has cooled down an incredible amount, the crisp breeze cooling down Jughead’s ever-warming face.  It was Betty’s fault that he felt so hot, really.  She’d walked into Pop’s looking like an angel, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her in and out of that dress since.

“Cheryl’s already inside, shall we go find her?”  Veronica was pressed into Archie’s side, her chip tucked into his neck as they started up the stairs, and Jughead knew that while the question was out loud, it was directed towards Archie.

Jughead and Betty stayed behind for a moment, linking their fingers together as they strode up the steps slowly, content in the silence around them.  A couple of students walked around them, not offering so much as a second glance their way.

“I think this is the first time we’ve held hands in public,”  He said against her ear as they made it to the final step.

“I like it,”  Betty said quietly.  “It feels nice.”

“I can think of a few other things that feel nice.”

“Jug!”  Betty giggled, smacking his chest lightly as they walked through the towering double doors.  The hallways were mostly empty besides a group of freshman girls giggling as they walked towards the gymnasium and a guy standing against the lockers talking into his phone that Jughead recognized from his gym class as Dilton Doiley.

“Hey, I may be completely and utterly in love with you, but I’m still a guy,”  Jughead smirked.  “And that dress isn’t helping at all.”

“You like it?”  Betty asked, fingering one of the rhinestones on her hip.  “It’s not too much?”

“Betty,”  Jughead stopped abruptly in the middle of the hallway, turning to face Betty as he reached his hands up to cup her jaw gently.  “You are everything.  You could never be too much.”

Betty’s eyes had softened as she stared up at him, her own hands reaching up to wrap around his forearms.  They were as bright and green as the traffic lights they’d driven through as he realized he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and something flashed through them so quickly he nearly missed it.  Before he could speak, Betty was pulling Jughead down to her, pressing her lips hard against his.

His lips caught on quickly, immediately kissing her back with a burning need to keep his lips pressed against hers.  She parted her lips just enough to invite his tongue in, and he followed her silent order, their tongues dancing together to the pounding of the bass that rocked the hallways until they had to pull away to catch their breath.

“Fuck, Betts,” He breathed, pressing his forehead to hers.

Betty remained silent, instead opting to grab his hand in hers as she pulled away from him completely, her feet starting down the hallway in the opposite direction of the dance.

“Pretty sure the dance is the other way, baby,” He called to her, but she kept silent, leading him down a path, destination unknown.

When Betty finally stopped walking, they were standing in front of the Blue and Gold.  Jughead’s eyebrow raised in question as he looked from the door to his girlfriend, but Betty just smirked and pulled open the door, leading the two of them inside.

The door shut behind them rather loudly, but he suspected that no one was around to hear it.  They were, at this point, quite far from the entrance to the dance, the music a distant hum now.

“What’s up, B-”

His words were interrupted all too quickly as her lips smashed against his, her arms wrapping around his neck as her fingers entangled in his hair.  He could feel the beanie fall from atop his head, landing at his feet as his arms snaked around her waist, pulling her against him.  She kissed him with an eagerness for more, surprising Jughead more than he’d care to admit.

“Betty, baby,”  He pulled his lips from hers, gazing down at her.  She stared back up at him from under hooded eyes, the bright green now dark and needy.  “This is… it’s a pretty public place.  Are you sure you’re okay with this?”  He asked lowly.

Betty smirked, pressing her palms to his chest as she pushed him back against the desk, her eyes never leaving his.  “Stop talking,”  She demanded.

Jughead was caught off guard by her suddenly dominant tone.  Choosing to obey, he simply smirked and nodded as Betty moved to press her lips against his ear, tugging gently on his earlobe.  Jughead let out a pleasured sigh, his fingers resting on her lower back as she worked her way from his ear to his neck.

He could feel the space in his suit pants lessening as his cock twitch, hardening at something as simple as her lips against his neck — but who was he kidding?  He’d been gone the moment she walked into the diner in that dress.  That damned dress was the fall of him.  He’d been the guy who made the girls work for it, and maybe it wasn’t the best title but it drew the ladies to him; and now, he was feeling all kinds of hot and heavy over the pink pouty lips that were kissing trails along his neckline.

A quiet half-moan escaped his lips as Betty released her lips from his neck, bringing them back to his lips to kiss him messily.  Jughead responded eagerly, arching his hips against hers as he did.  She gasped at the movement, feeling how hard he was through the fabric of her dress.  Her fingers immediately bolted for his pants, fingers fidgeting hungrily as she undid his belt buckle and pulled his zipper down.  She moved quickly, as if she were on a time crunch —  and let’s face it, they were — tugging the black pants down and letting them fall to his ankles in one swift movement.

He was fully hard, throbbing now, his boxers tented and proving how badly he wanted her.  He reached for her ass, but she slipped out of his grip too fast, taking a couple of steps back.

“A-are you okay?”  He asked breathlessly.

Betty nodded with a wanting smile on her face.  “Yes,” was all she said as she reached up behind her back, and it was then that he realized that she was taking her dress off.

“Keep it on,” He implored.  “I’ll fuck you under the skirt.”

Betty let out a half-gasp/half-giggle at his remark, shaking her head.  “After the dance, silly boy.  Until then, the dress needs to remain clean and free of wrinkles.”  With that, she pulled her arms from the armholes, letting the dress fall gracefully around her until it was nothing more than a mess of tulle and rhinestones at her feet.  She stepped out from the dress, her long pale legs accentuated by the black ankle strap heels that she wore; and in true Betty Cooper fashion, she picked the dress up from the ground, brushing any wrinkles from it and folded it in half, draping it over the chair in corner of the room.

She stepped towards him slowly, seductively, dressed in nothing more than her heels, a lacy white strapless bra and panties to match.

She was an actual angel.

“Jesus Christ, Betts,” he said as he bit his lip, urging himself not to come right then and there at the sight of her.

“How many times are you going to say that tonight?”  She giggled, inching closer to him until they were mere centimeters apart.

“As many times as you take my breath away,” He responded, running the backs of his fingers down her cheeks.  She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch for a moment, her entire face showing that of pure ecstasy — and then she dropped to her knees.

Her fingers found the elastic of his grey boxers with ease, pulling at them until they joined the pants around his ankles, and suddenly his pulsing hardness was there in the open, in the middle of the Blue and Gold.  “Fuck — are you sure, Betts?  You don’t have to do this,” He explained, fear crossing his mind as he wondered if she felt like she had to compete with the girls from his past.  Did she realize that there was no competition?  That she was it for him?

“I know,”  She said, gazing up at him from where she sat, kneeled on the ground, her heels pressing gently into her ass.  “I want to.”

She wasted no more time.  She wrapped her manicured fingers around his cock, stroking him slowly and sensually.  He couldn’t look away from her or her silver and pink nails, and he suddenly found himself wanting to feel those nails scratching down his back as he fucked her oblivion.

He twitched in her hands, bringing his own to rest against the desk as he leaned back himself.  He couldn’t help but let his eyes wander to the little window on the door.  If anyone decided to walk away from the dance, choosing the unlit pathway towards the shitty boy's bathroom or a locker across the way, there was no doubt they’d see the two of them.  Maybe they wouldn’t see Betty, as she was easily shielded by the desk and Jughead’s body, but they’d see Jughead, his eyes fluttering closed every few seconds, his teeth pressed hard against his bottom lip, and they’d know.

Most would be put off by the idea — even Jughead was a little unsure about it, but another part of him, something deeper and more feral, welcomed it.  Let them see the way we mark each other as our own.

The idea was trivial though.  It was late, everyone was either in the gymnasium or right outside of it, and no one in their right mind would decide to use the shitty bathrooms on this end of the school unless they had to.  He would bet—

“Fuck,”  His thoughts were interrupted at the feeling of Betty’s warm lips wrapping around the head of his cock, her tongue tracing circles at the tip.

His eyes immediately fell back to Betty, who was staring up at him again through those damn hooded eyelids.  He felt the low growl in his abdomen before it made its way up to his throat and out through his lips.  He couldn’t help himself as he placed his hand on her head, arching his back as she took more of him in her mouth.  He knew he’d mess up her hair, but he no longer cared.  Hair was manageable, it was fixable.  All he cared about at this moment was Betty, and how badly he wanted her.

With her head bobbing, her tongue tracing lines up and down his cock as her fingers stroked the base of his shaft, she had him on edge within minutes.  He would be embarrassed in any other setting of how quickly she was working him up, but not now.  People would grow suspicious if they didn’t make their way out to the dance soon.

“Betty, f-fuck,”  He tilted his head back, his fingers entangled in her hair as he groaned her name.  “I’m about to come.”

He expected to feel the loss of her lips around him, but the feeling didn’t come.  He was teetering on the edge of his orgasm as his eyes flashed down to her.  Her lips, still working their way along his cock, had tilted into that of a smile, and that was all the permission he needed.

He gasped, tightening his fingers around her blonde hair as he felt himself come undone, his hips twitching violently as spurts of the warm liquid shot into her mouth until there was nothing left.

When she was sure he was finished, she released her lips from him with a pop, her tongue darting to lick her lips slowly.  Jughead could barely catch his breath as Betty rose in front of him, her nails resting against his neck as she pressed her lips to his again.  He kissed her back just as eagerly as before, his own hands running up and down her bare back as they pressed their bodies together in an attempt to be even closer.

When they finally did pull apart, Jughead felt the loss of warmth harshly.  Betty began to turn on her heel, taking a step towards where her dress was, but he was quicker, wrapping his fingers around her wrist and tugging him back to her.

She let out a quiet gasp as she gazed up at him, her eyes wide and confused.  “Veronica’s going to start asking questions,” She spoke, but her tone was less than convincing.

“Stay,”  Jughead tightened his grip on her wrist, his other hand resting on her hip bone.  “I guarantee they haven’t noticed we’re gone.”

“But-”

“Let me fuck you, princess.  Right here,”  Jughead’s tone was low, barely more than a growl as the hand resting on her hip squeezed the skin, making her gasp.

Betty bit her lip hard, her free hand resting atop his.  “Well, when you put it that way…”

Jughead smirked, tugging her wrist hard as he turned her around so that she was facing forward, her backside pressed up against him.  She shed from her lacy underwear faster than he’d ever seen anyone else do it, half impressed with her speed.  He was still hard, and as he pressed himself against her backside he could feel himself start to throb again.

The sound that escaped Betty’s lips was sinful as he pressed his palm against her back and leaned her over the desk so that her ass was in the air, her fingers gripping the edge of the desk.

Jughead watched as she wiggled her ass towards him, egging him to come forward, to meet her halfway here.  He felt playful, and instead of giving her what she was silently begging for, he simply pressed his groin against her butt, letting her feel how hard he was without giving her what she really wanted.  She whined almost immediately.

“Oh baby,”  Jughead spoke, ignoring her quiet pleads.  “You should see yourself from this angle.  You are immaculate.”

“Juggie,” she cried impatiently.  “Please, for the love of god, fuck me.”

Jughead smirked, leaning down to shuffle around in his pants until he retrieved the sought after item: a condom, wrapped in a little purple foil.  He tore the foil open with his teeth, discarding it to the side as he rolled it over his length.  Leaning over her, he began to press chaste kisses down her spine and then back up again until he reached her shoulder blades.  Placing his hands on either side of her, he pulled back, admiring the gentle glow of her skin in the darkroom barely lit by the moonlight as he positioned himself behind her, his tip barely pressed against her entrance.

“I love you, Betty,”  He spoke low, his thumbs tracing gentle circles on her hips.  “But I’m going to fuck you hard tonight, okay?”

He could see the way her breathing seemed to quicken as she nodded eagerly.  “Please, yes.”

With the confirmation of consent, he wasted no more time.  He pressed his hips against her forcefully, thrusting into her with a loud clap as their skin connected.  Betty was the first to let out a loud moan, her neck craning back just as Jughead reached forward.  His fingers wrapped around the mess of hair, pulling her backward with a tug of her hair.  She gasped at this but obeyed his silent command with an urgency.  Within seconds, her back was pressed against his torso, her arms gliding behind her head as she wrapped her fingers in his hair, little puffs of air escaping her lips between moans.

Jughead thrust into her harder, his own hands running up her torso and cupping her breasts under her bra, thumbs circling her nipples as he pressed his body against hers harder.

She was tight around him, making it nearly impossible for him to last, but he willed himself, refusing to come until she was close.  One of his hands slunk down her figure until he could feel the delicate skin of her pussy.  He didn’t hesitate, parting her folds with his thumb and middle finger.  As he began to trace circles against her clit, Betty tilted her head back farther, her gasps becoming quicker by the second.

She arched against him, her leg raising to rest against the desk, giving him a much better angle.  He thrust into her with such desperation to feel her that he hadn’t realized just how close he was.  His second climax was just over the horizon, but he couldn’t.  He wouldn’t until he made Betty come too.

He rubbed her clit more vigorously as his thrusts started to become sloppy, his groans heavy against her neck as he pressed his lip against the nape of her neck, his teeth scraping the skin rough enough for her to feel but light enough that it wouldn’t hurt too bad.

“J-Juggie,”  Betty pleaded, her fingers drawing him closer with his hair.  “I’m cl-close.”

Her voice trembled, her eyes shutting tightly, and then she was gone.  Her body shook vigorously as the feeling of her orgasm washed over her and swept her away, the tightening sensation bringing Jughead over the edge for the second time that night.  The tremors of pleasure turned into full-on earthquakes, his hips bucking wildly as his teeth sunk into her neck, trying to find anything to hold onto this moment.

They collapsed forward on the desk, neither of them willing to move from that spot as their breathing slowed, their eyes growing heavy.  It would be all too easy for them to fall asleep here, in the school newspaper office, and awake on Sunday morning to the light peeking through the windows.  Maybe they’d luck out.  Maybe their friends would never find them, and they’d spend their night sleeping in perfect, naked bliss.

Then again, Archie had found them here once before.  Maybe it was better to not risk it.

Jughead kissed the top of her head gently before reluctantly pulling out of her.  As he discarded the used condom into the trash bin, crumpling up a few papers and throwing them on top of it just in case, Betty rose from her spot and pulled up her underwear.  Jughead watched in amusement as Betty pulled her dress from the chair and stepped back into it, her nimble fingers reaching around to pull her zipper up.  He pulled his boxers and pants back up, re-tucking the black button-up shirt into his slacks and clasping the belt tightly around his waist.

They dressed in comfortable silence, Jughead watching with a grin as Betty seemed to work magic with her hair, fingering it around until it looked nearly the same as it had when she walked into the diner.

As they set to leave the room, Betty leaned up to Jughead and pressed a gentle, loving kiss on his lips, a smile on hers.  “I love you,” She whispered against them.

“I love you,” He replied, feeling the words in the very depths of his soul as he wrapped his arm around her waist, pressing another kiss against her temple for good measure.

They arrived back in the gym to the sound of My House by Flo Rida pumping through the school’s stereo system.  The music was loud enough that Jughead could barely hear himself think as they navigated their way through the crowd of students in search of their group.  Betty’s hand was linked with his and she led the way — he was thankful the music was so loud at that moment, otherwise he’d be reminded of what she’d led him to earlier that night, and it would be at no fault of her own if he dragged her into the locker rooms and took her again.

A red trumpet dress so glittery that Jughead was nearly convinced it was plastic appeared in his vision, and Betty came to a halt.  He looked up to find Cheryl Blossom standing in front of them, a genuine smile on her face that he’d never quite seen before.

Her dress was strapless, the torso forming something of flames over her chest, the rest of the dress accentuating all of her curves, fanning out in layers like a mermaid tail once it hit the knee.

This is a high school dance, not the Vanity Fair Oscars After Party, he thought, immediately shunning himself for even knowing what that was.

“Betty!”  Cheryl exclaimed, wrapping her arms tightly around the girl in front of him.  She met Jughead’s eyes and smiled a little less but nodded his way.  “Hobo,” she greeted.

“Cheryl,”  Jughead returned the gesture before stepping up to Betty’s side, resting his hand on her lower back.

“That was quite the stunt you pulled last night, Betty dearest,”  Cheryl smirked.  “It was chaotic — I’m proud.”

Betty laughed, shrugging her shoulders.  “Have you seen Veronica?  We were just looking for them.”

Cheryl seemed to ponder for a moment before shaking her head.  “I think she was dancing with her little lover boy near the punch table a little while ago.”

Betty nodded, thanking Cheryl before they were off again, making their way to the opposite end of the gym where the peak of the Bulldog ice sculpture peaked out from over the crowd.  As they neared it, the black sequins of Veronica’s dress and red coat of Archie’s suit came into view.  Jughead was slightly disappointed, hoping they’d be a little closer to the snacks.  He could really use a bite after their little stunt.

But then he noticed that Archie was not in fact dancing, but was standing exactly where Jughead wanted to be.

Veronica was dancing beside Josie McCoy and Kevin Keller, her hair flying wildly as she screamed the lyrics to the song with them.  Betty turned to gaze at Jughead, leaning in to speak into his ear.  “I’m going to join them, is that okay?”

“Betty,”  Jughead chuckled.  “Of course it’s okay.  I’ll go take a post next to Archie and watch you dance.”  And eat some snacks, because he’s literally next to the punch table.

The song had switched to some type of dubstep remix of an older Taylor Swift song, Trouble, and Betty was immediately pulled into the group of teens, throwing her arms up to dance with them.

Jughead did exactly as he said he would, stalking over to where Archie was standing against the punch table.  They exchanged glances and nods as Jughead quickly loaded a paper plate full of treats.  When he finally did take up a spot next to Archie, the redhead couldn’t help the laughter that escaped his lips as he caught sight of the plate.

“Didn’t we literally just eat at Pops like an hour and a half ago?”

“I am a growing boy, Archibald,”  Jughead countered.

“With the appetite of an ape, clearly.”

“I think apes eat less.”  Jughead popped one of the mini cupcakes into his mouth in one bite, licking the frosting that had gone astray from his lips.  “Thank god for good metabolism, right?”

The boys shared a laugh as Jughead continued to devour the plate of food, mini corn dogs here, chocolate dipped pretzels there.

“I always thought that no one touched the snacks at these things, and never understood how they were half gone by the end of the night.  I think I finally get it.”

Jughead smirked, finishing the last mini corn dog and tossing the plate into the trash can beside the table.  “If I was there, I can guarantee that I ingested most of it.”

Archie nodded, shaking his head in disbelief.  “You just get weirder and weirder the more I get to know you.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m weird.  I’m a weirdo,”  Jughead grinned slyly, his voice laced with humor.  “And you’re stuck with me now.”

The song shifted from an upbeat dance song to the strumming of guitars filling the auditorium.  “That’s our cue,”  Archie said, striding past Jughead towards Veronica.

Jughead straightened his shoulder, staring towards Betty.  He’d done this before — slow danced.  He’d danced with Ethel Muggs once at a middle school dance.  It had been awkward and he couldn’t wait for it to be over.

Staring at the glowing blonde in the ball gown a few feet in front of him, he felt nervous.  What if he was no good at this?  What if he stepped on her feet, or tripped over his own?

All of his fear disappeared though, the moment she turned to meet his eyes.  The smile on his face was soft, the look in her eyes meant for him and only him.  He took a deep breath and strode towards her.

He wasn’t totally sure of what to do, but he’d seen enough sappy movies thanks to his sister that he knew he should wrap at least one arm around her waist — so he did.  He felt awkward with one arm dangling down useless, so he repeated the movement with the free arm, pulling her closer to him.  Betty, clearly more sure of her movements, wrapped her arms around his neck effortlessly.

She batted her eyelids at him, giggling quietly as she whispered, “Hi.”

“Hey,” He whispered back, a faint blush growing across his cheeks.

He could hear the first lyrics of the song, a gentle female voice radiating through the crowd.

“When I was younger 

I saw my daddy cry 

and curse at the wind.  

He broke his own heart 

and I watched 

as he tried to reassemble it.”

Jughead pressed his forehead against Betty’s, swaying slightly to the strumming of the guitar.  His eyes drifted shut, flashes of his childhood playing in front of his eyelids.  He watched his dad, stumbling drunk through the household, but still tucking Jughead into bed.  Words slurred, he would read a bedtime story from Jughead’s bookshelf, until Jughead could no longer stay away.

“And my momma swore

that she would never let herself forget.

And that was the day that I promised

I'd never sing of love,

if it does not exist, but darlin’.”

Images of his mother danced in front of his eyes.  The domestic bliss between his parents as they sat on the couch, watching some Saturday morning sitcom as Jughead played with dinosaurs and Jellybean suckled her blankie.  The sound of doors slamming when FP would come home drunk again, forgetting the milk she had begged him to pick up.  The hurt in her eyes as she looked at Jughead for the last time before taking her final steps out of their trailer.

“You are,

the only exception.”

His eyelids fluttered open, blue eyes meeting green, and Jughead felt like he was seeing her for the first time while simultaneously feeling like he’d known her eyes forever.

His heart pounded in his chest as he searched her eyes for anything that would tell him that she didn’t want this, that she didn’t want him.  He had spent an entire year choosing to ignore her presence in his life, choosing to ignore the pain in his chest every time he heard her voice or saw her name pop up on his Instagram, choosing to bury himself in girls that deserved more than a boy that would never feel anything for them, a boy that was using them to pretend that the love of his life didn’t exist anymore.

Over the course of a year, he could have reached out to her.  He could have texted, called, FaceTimed, or even liked a picture on her profile just to show her that he was still there.  He could have been there for her when she needed him more than ever.  Instead, he tried to erase her from his life, but he was oftentimes a failure, and he had failed at even that.  The soap she loved so much still resided in his bathroom, his fingers unable to pull a different one from the shelf every time he ran out.

How could she be in love with him?  How could she possibly love him through all of his failures, his downfalls, his toxic behaviors?

He didn’t understand.

But then she smiled, and the song ended.

“Oh, and I'm on my way to believing.”

And suddenly, he did.

He felt the vibration in his pocket, pulsating violently against his outer thigh.

He was leaned up against Betty, having been convinced (or more so, persuaded by her hips) to dance with her.  The sound of 18 by Anarbor rocked the gym, the chorus inviting the crowd to jump up and down as if they were at a live concert.  He wouldn’t have even noticed the vibration had it not been persistent.

Jughead pulled his phone from his pocket, annoyed that he was even checking it when he could be here, in the moment, with his girlfriend.

A number illuminated on the screen that he didn’t recognize, and as the call finished, presumably going to voicemail, he saw a total of eight missed calls from the same number.

“Everything okay, Juggie?”  He heard Betty call over the music.

Jughead glanced up from his phone and smiled, shrugging lazily.  “I just have a bunch of missed calls from this number I don’t know.”

Betty raised an eyebrow, glancing at the time illuminated from the giant scoreboard in the gym.  “It’s after eleven, maybe it’s your dad calling from the station?  Or…”

Or maybe it’s a Serpent with some new information.

Just then, the phone lit up again with the same number.  Betty gave him a concerned look but nodded her head in the direction of the doors leading outside.  “Take the call, Juggie.  It’s okay, I’ll be here when you’re done.”

“You’re right,”  Jughead nodded, pressing a chaste kiss against her cheek and whispering, “I love you,” before finding his way through the crowd.  He could almost hear her call it back to him as he pushed through the gym doors.  He hadn’t realized just how warm it was inside until he was met with the brisk air of the night, much cooler than it had been even at nine.

He glanced down at his phone again, a small wave of anxiety rolling through him before he leaned against the concrete stairwell and slid his thumb across the screen.  He pressed the phone to his ear, and with a quiet voice, answered, “Hello?”

“Finally decided to answer, huh Jonesey?”  The voice on the other end was feminine and raspy, but completely unfamiliar.

“Who is this?”  Jughead asked warily.

“You’d almost think you’re busy tonight with the number of calls it took.  Where are you?  A school dance or something?”

Jughead went still, his eyes scanning the field before him.  “I’m going to ask you again, and then I’m going to hang up.  Who… is… this?”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Jones,”  The woman on the other end let out an unpleasant laugh.

“I’m not going to indulge in your antics.”  Jughead began to pull away from his phone, but her next words stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Your girlfriend.  Betty… Cooper, I believe?”

Jughead pressed the phone back to his ear, listening carefully for her next words.

“She’s quite fetching.”

“What did you say?”  Jughead let out a ragged breath, one he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“All snakes have a soft underbelly.”  The woman’s tone was malicious, but the sound of Betty’s name had Jughead listening more intently than he’d like.  “She’s yours, am I right?”

“How do you know Betty?”  Jughead ordered, his free hand tightening into a fist so tight that his fingers began to go numb.

“I’ve been watching you, Jones,”  She continued.  “And by association, her.”

“That’s impossible.  We don’t… she doesn’t come out with me…”

“She goes out on her own just fine, wouldn’t you say?”  She mocked.  “According to these pictures I have of precious little Betty Cooper, she’s been on her own a few different times.”

“What fucking pictures?”  His jaw was trembling, the anger boiling inside of him.

“Why don’t you take a look for yourself?”

The line went dead, and seconds later his phone pinged with a message.

He glanced down at the screen in disbelief.  From the same unknown number, there was a multitude of pictures.  Some of him, some of Betty — none taken with consent.

The first one he noticed was from the day he drove her home after the assembly.  They were sitting in the truck at a stoplight, and Betty seemed to be looking down at her phone while Jughead changed the radio.

The next one that stood out was a picture of Jughead talking to Toni at school.  The picture was shot from a distance, their bodies blurry but visible.

The next photo made him want to strangle someone.  The photo was taken tonight, through the window of the Blue and Gold.  He had sworn that the blinds were fully closed, but this picture vividly painted Betty’s arms wrapped around Jughead’s neck as they kissed, and he shuddered at the realization that if they’d seen that, then they’d probably seen everything.

With a shaky breath, he moved to the next photo.

It was a picture of Betty, taken across the road from her, as she walked out of the door of a video store he knew all too well.  It was a video store on the Southside. He couldn’t remember a time Betty had mentioned this, and he quickly understood that it was because she hadn’t.  She had kept this trip from him, and for why?

He swiped to the last photo, his eyes widening as he stared at her.

If he didn’t know her features so well, he never would have known that the photo was of Betty.  It was the side of a giant house with a dimly lit window on the second floor.  A grainy pair of eyes can be seen peeking through the window.  Jughead instantly recognized it as the night she’d called him from Cheryl’s bathroom.  Betty had taken photo’s too, but they were blurry and he couldn’t recognize anyone but Malachi and Clifford in them.

It was then that he realized who the woman was.

Penny Peabody.

“Kurtz,”  Jughead concluded, stuffing his phone into his pocket forcefully as he swung the gymnasium door open, rushing back into the dance.

He pushed through a handful of students, completely uncaring that he might be pushing them a little too hard.  His mind was zeroed in on Betty.  He had admitted to the Serpents and Kurtz that he was going to the dance with Betty tonight.  He had specifically said that he wouldn’t be on Serpent business.  He trusted that Kurtz was being honest, and that may have been the biggest mistake of his life.

His group of friends finally came into view, and he searched them, looking for the glistening rhinestone of Betty’s dress or the matching clip in her hair.  His heart started to beat faster when he realized that she wasn’t there.

He grabbed Veronica by the arm and she turned to him with her hand raised, ready to smack him.  When she realized it was Jughead, she lowered her hand but her eyes remained narrowed.

“Where’s Betty?”  He yelled over the music.

“Calm down, lovestruck-” 

“Where’s Betty?!”  He demanded, his voice echoing over the group.  Josie and Kevin both turned to look at him, their eyebrows raised.

“Her mom called, she just- she just went to the main hallway, I think,”  Veronica finally said, tugging her arm from his grip.  “What’s going on?”

“I need to find her,”  Jughead shook his head, turning on his heel and heading towards the dance entrance.

He willed himself to calm down, telling himself over and over again that she’d simply stepped away for a phone call.  A phone call with her mother was important, it could have to do with her father's case, and Betty would absolutely want to know any important information, whether she was out with friends or not.

He pushed past the couple making out in front of the entryway, earning him a loud “what the fuck dude” from the tall male that he recognized from the football team.  He searched the main hallway, his eyes darting to every crack and crevice, every staircase where she could be sitting.

Outside.

It’s quieter outside.  She can hear her mom better.

Jughead sprinted down the hallway until he reached the main entryway of the school, the same way everyone was entering the dance.  He threw open the door, his eyes flitting around the open space, seeking the brilliant glow of her eyes.

He was ready to give up and move to the next spot he could think of her being — the Blue and Gold — when a small teal rectangle caught his attention from the corner of his eye.

Sitting three steps away, screen face down against the concrete, was Betty’s phone.

Everything went blurry, the world spinning as he felt his knees hit the hard sidewalk.  There should have been a rush of pain shooting up through his legs, sending brainwaves to his head to tell him that he’d just hurt himself, but he felt nothing.

He didn’t even feel the arms that grabbed him from behind.  In the blur of everything, he could make out the glittery black and red meshing together, and the shape of a bow tie and hair like fire.  His friends had followed after him, and he knew they were speaking, knew they were asking him what was wrong, but he couldn’t hear them.

With the last bit of strength he could manage before breaking down completely, he choked out the truth.

“She’s gone.”

Chapter Text

His fingers wrapped around the neck of his jacket, the real leather in pristine condition as he pulled it down from the coat hanger beside the door.  He threaded his arms through the sleeves, letting it rest against his body.  He patted the material down, searching for the feeling of something wicked residing in his inner pocket.  When his palm rested against the slight bulge, his breath caught in his throat.  Was he really doing this?

Of course he was.

He had been with the Serpents for some time now, taking the title of King at a mere seventeen years old when his predecessor, his own father, had bolted.  He left behind a beat-up trailer, a gang, and his young son, his wife having passed a lifetime ago.  The Serpents had resented him for it, but not nearly as much as his own son.

The young man held his arm out towards the doorknob, his slow movement deliberate, as if he could somehow plead with the gods to change his goal tonight.

“Are you kidding me?”  A shrill voice had FP turning on his heels quickly, coming face to face with the orbs of copper mixed with sage, little black stars dancing just below the fluttering lashes.  The tone was harsh, but the pain in her face told him exactly what she was thinking.

“I have a job,”  FP offered with a sigh.

“ We had a date.”  Gladys’ eyes narrowed, a hint of water in the outer corners that she’d be sure to hide.  “It’s our goddamn anniversary, FP.”

He knew this.  He’d never forgotten their anniversary, always trying to plan something special despite their income-to-bill ratio.  This year, he had haggled a friend into stealing a bottle of expensive Champagne from one of his cleaning company’s clients.  He paid a whopping $30 for the job, but it was still more than he’d ever spent on any type of fancy alcohol.  He’d planned to pop open the bottle and watch Dirty Dancing, Gladys’ favorite movie after they’d put the kids to bed - but then he got the call.

Three of his men had been ambushed during a run.  Two of them had made it out with nothing more than a few flesh wounds, but the other one hadn’t been given the same fate.  He’d spent the better part of the weekend consoling a heartbroken wife and three sobbing children as he tried to explain that their father wasn’t coming home.

“I’ll be home before you know it.”  His eyes wandered the room behind her, the pain of letting her down once again far too harsh for him to deal.  “Promise.”

“Empty promises.”  Gladys threw her hands in the air, declaring defeat as she stormed down the hallway.  “They’re all just empty fucking promises!”  She called out before she could slam their bedroom door.

FP’s shoulders drooped for a mere moment, the idea of staying home with his wife and kids a serious consideration; but then he remembered that he was King, and he put on his brave face.

“We are absolutely coming here for our next vacation,”  Hermionie’s voice echoed through the phone, the image of her smiling clear in FP’s mind.  He could hear the tilt of her lips through her words as she went on about some bagel shop she’d found in Madrid.  “Now that I’ve found them, I don’t know how willing I am to let them go.”

“Sounds like we may have to transition to a long-distance marriage if you ask me,”  FP chuckled, leaning back in the dining room chair.

“You get me,”  She giggled.  “I have a meeting in ten, but I’ll call tonight.  Give the girls and Jughead my love when they get home from the dance.”

“Always do.  Love you, my beauty.”

“After all these years, you’re still using such a cheesy pet name.”

“After all these years, you still blush every time you hear that cheesy pet name.”

“I hate when you’re right.”  Hermione laughed.  “I love you, sweetie.”

FP set his cell phone down on the dining room table as the line went dead, a smile present on his lips just as there always seemed to be after a phone call with his wife.  He was thankful to Gladys for giving him Jughead and Jellybean, even if it had been far too long since he’d seen JB, but the love they shared was never the forever kind.  They’d been two kids in an unfortunate situation and they found comfort in each other.  They didn’t believe they could get any better than the life they’d been given.  That divorce, however messy, was the best thing to ever happen to him.

He’d just barely gotten up from the table when he heard the door open.  He glanced down at his watch briefly, a little confused as to why his kids were home from the dance just after midnight.  He knew for a fact that the dance ended at one in the morning, but there’d be at least one party afterward.  The kids weren’t going to tell him they were going to a party where there’d be underage drinking and lord knows what illegal substances - he was the sheriff after all - but he knew.  Sometimes he thought they forgot that he spent his teen years in Riverdale too.

“Hey-”

“ God, Jughead!  I can’t fucking believe this!”  Veronica screeched as she, along with Jughead and Archie, piled through the door.  “Do you even understand how bad this is?  And it’s all your fault !”

“I know, Ronnie!”  Jughead exclaimed back, the beanie that normally rested on his head now squeezed between white knuckles.  “If I didn’t already know, then you beating it into my skull definitely did the trick!”

“You guys, maybe right now isn’t the best time for a sibling dispute…”  Archie chimed in.  “Betty is-”

The clearing of FP’s throat caused the group of three to nearly jump out of their skin, all of their bodies twisting to face the older gentleman in front of them.

“Betty is what, exactly?”  He asked.

It was his son, the spitting image of himself on prom night all those years ago, who spoke first.  His eyes were wide and full of a worry he’d never seen his son possess before, and his olive complexion had gone pale.

“Dad,”  He confirmed as if trying to make sense of how FP was standing in front of him.  “I thought you had work tonight.”

“I worked the morning shift.  Had to train the new deputy.”  FP shrugged, but his gaze didn’t break from Jughead.  “Where is Betty, Jughead?”

The group of teens seemed to freeze in place, panic setting in on all of their faces.  In turn, FP started to feel the same panic.  He was directly responsible for the Cooper girl while her mother was off in California, dealing with the trial of the god awful Hal Cooper from a safe distance.  He had promised Alice that Betty would be completely safe in his and his wife's watch.  Even knowing his past with the Serpents, Alice and FP being good friends in high school, she trusted him with her daughter.

Looking at the three of them in front of him now, he wondered if that was the worst possible idea Alice could have had.

His eyes scanned all three of them, searching for a clue to Betty’s whereabouts when Veronica seemed to explode.  All of the anxiety she’d been holding onto boiled over as her lip began to quiver until she finally exclaimed, “The Ghoulies took her!”

Almost immediately regretting her choice, FP’s stepdaughter yanked her hand from her boyfriend's grip and held it over her mouth as she gasped.

“ Ronnie- ”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hold it in anymore Jug!”  Veronica cried out.

FP stared at the group in shock, searching his mind for what to say next.  Words swirled behind his eyelids with each blink, every single one of them not good enough to express the anger that was bubbling under the skin of his chest until he could finally croak one single word out.

“ Boy .”

Jughead jumped back at the sound of his father's voice, the panic still actively swimming through his eye sockets.  “Dad, please-”

He had barely walked three feet into the cold when he heard the rustling of footsteps behind him.  Hand on the gun inside his jacket, ready to draw as he turned around.  Still standing in the community of trailers that he’d grown up in, he was suddenly incredibly grateful for the silencer on his gun.

Erasing any sign of fear from his body, he slowly turned around.

He was met with the dark eyes of a man he was no stranger to.

“Santiago,”  FP confirmed, nodding his head as if this were any other casual meeting.

“FP.”  The man, dripping from head to toe in a tailored black suit, his black hair greased back, took a step forward.  FP’s reflex was to take a step back and keep the distance.  A voice in his head, maybe that of his fathers, told him not to.  Take a step forward, give the man less space.

So he did just that and took a single step forward.

Santiago had a wicked smile as he rested his hands in his pockets.  It was unnerving how calm the man seemed to be, not just in this moment but in all interactions FP had been granted with Santiago De Leon.  The man had been in charge of the Ghoulies for ages, longer than FP had been running the Serpents, and while he hated to admit it, Santiago was good at his job.  The Ghoulies were dangerous, but they were loyal and smart.  And so long as you stayed out of their way, there’d be no reason for them to cause harm.

That was, until a couple of them stepped out on Santiago’s watch and put a bullet into the head of one of FP’s men.

“Word on the street was you were planning to pay me a little visit,”  Santiago said cooly.  “Thought I’d save you the trip.”

FP smirked but his heart raced, his fingers still locked around his gun.  “How kind of you,” He said through gritted teeth.

“I am nothing if not thoughtful.”

FP’s eyes narrowed.  “Let’s cut to the chase.  Why are you really here?”

“I felt like paying my old friend FP Jones a visit.”

“We’re not friends.”  FP clenched his free fist but remained still.  “Your men ambushed mine.”

Santiago let out a laugh.  “I would hardly call that an ambush.  Your men stepped foot on Ghoulie territory.”

“My men didn’t step foot near your shit.  They were at the bridge.”

“And just a few feet too far over, I suppose.”  Santiago took another step forward.  “I take our territory very seriously.  I will not have your snakes step foot on my land without repercussions.”

“You put a fucking bullet through one of their skulls!”  The veins in FP’s neck began to throb as he stared down at the man in front of him.  If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he may not have noticed the way Santiago flinched before his hand trailed to his back.  Without a second thought, FP drew his gun, pointing it directly at Santiago’s chest.

The man still seemed so calm with a gun aimed in his direction.  Was this how FP appeared when confronted by danger?  He liked to think so.

“I did no such thing,”  Santiago smirked.  “I am not responsible for my men's actions.”

“You are directly responsible for them; and because of their actions, I had to explain to a family why their father wasn’t coming home.”  The sound of FP cocking his gun filled the otherwise silent night that cloaked them.

“Then I would hope you would be empathetic to the fact that I also have a family waiting for me at home.  I assume you don’t want to have that conversation twice.”

“It’s a small price to pay.”

“I fucking warned you!”  FP exclaimed, his eyes narrowed and his brows low.  “I warned you about the Serpents and you didn’t fucking listen.  You-”

“ Enough! ” Jughead’s voice barreled through the apartment, even catching FP off guard.  He’d heard his son get mad before but he’d never heard him like this.  The beanie in his hand flew across the room, hitting a vase on a shelf somewhere behind FP.  Veronica gasped and Archie winced as the vase fell to the ground and shattered, but the Jones men stood unaffected.  “Don’t you fucking think that I know how bad this is?  Don’t you think I know how badly I fucked up?  But just this once, dad, I am begging you to save your scolding for another time because my girlfriend is missing and I have no fucking leads on where she is.”

Slowly but surely, FP began to unclench his fists and let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.  His son’s eyes were wide puddles of blue, pleading for help from his father.  “Okay.”

“Okay?”  Jughead asked as if unsure by his father's answer.

“Okay.  I’m not going to scold you.”  FP nodded towards the dinner table.  “Not even for the vase.”

Jughead took a deep breath and nodded, motioning for Archie and Veronica to follow him to the table as he took a few steps forward.

When they were all seated around the table, FP spoke again.  “The House of Dead.  Have you checked there?”

Jughead dropped his head, sighing.  “The Serpents already checked it out.  No sign of Malachi or Penny.”

FP raised his brow.  He hadn’t heard that name in ages.  In fact, that last time he’d ever seen her was after he’d removed her Serpent tattoo and tossed her out of the gang for disloyalty.

“Penny Peabody?”  He asked. Jughead nodded slowly.  “What the fuck is Penny doing in town?”

“She’s working with the Ghoulies.”  Jughead sighed.  “The thing is, I get why she has a vendetta against me.  Sweet Pea told me what you did to her, dad - of course she’d come after your son.”

“What did you do to this woman, FP?”  Veronica asked as her brows furrowed.

“You don’t want to know,”  FP answered as he took a deep breath and turned his attention back to Jughead.  “So you know about that.”

Jughead nodded again.  “What I don’t get is what the Ghoulies could possibly want from me.  They’re fire starters but they’re lazy.  What could possibly make them want to work with her to take me down?”

Before he could even begin to consider the possibilities, Jughead’s phone began to ring.  He watched as his young son scrambled to pull the phone from his pants pocket, struggling more so as the phone slipped from his grip, landing smack dab in the middle of the table.

They all stared at the flashing UNKNOWN on Jughead’s phone screen.

“What are you waiting for?”  Veronica asked, her eyes so clearly full of anguish as she stared intently on the small black iPhone.  “ Answer it .”

Jughead nodded, reaching his fingers for the screen.  “Okay, okay, just - no one speak.  Let me do this.”  Everyone silently agreed as he drug his fingers across the screen, turning it to speaker immediately.

“Hello?”  He asked lowly.

Everything was quiet for a moment, and then they heard it.  “J-Jug?”

Everyone at the table seemed to lurch forward as Jughead snatched his phone off the table quickly, the blue in his eyes nearly taken over by the black of his pupils.  “Betty!”  He shouted.  “Betty, where are you?”

A quiet sob came through the speakers.  “I-I don’t know, Juggie.  I’m scared…”

“Baby, it’s okay.  It’s okay.  I’m going to find you, I promise.”  And then, “How were you able to call me?”

There was a long pause before Betty sniffled and finally answered.  “Malachi made me.”

FP stared at the phone in disbelief.  If he was half the cop people seemed to believe he was, he’d be tracking this call and going after Malachi right now.  This was a kidnapping in every sense of the word.  But he knew how the Ghoulies worked, and he knew that he’d be putting Betty’s life in more danger this way.

“What do you mean?  Is he there now?”

“Yes…”  Betty took a deep breath.  “H-he has some requests.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Jughead’s side before he continued.  “What does he want?”

“He wants you to come here.”

“But I-I don’t know where you are.”

They could all hear the murmuring of someone else on the other end of the line, assuming it to be Malachi as he fed young Betty Cooper information and lines.  Eventually, she spoke again.  Her voice trembled as she tried to keep her voice from cracking.  “He said to meet him where it all began.”

“Where it all began?  I don’t-”

“He said that if you don’t know what that means, ask your dad…”

Jughead’s neck snapped upwards as he met his father's gaze, a brow raised in confusion.

“There’s… there’s one more thing, Juggie…”

FP could feel the pain that radiated off his son’s body as he watched the boy take a deep breath, his chest rising and staying put for a pregnant moment before finally letting go of the air.  “What is it, Betty?”

“Come alone, Juggie.  P-please… come alone.  I love you.”

“I lo-”

“Aw, lover boy,”  A new voice came over the phone, this one thicker and cynical.  Malachi.  Jughead’s body visibly tensed up.  “This is the stuff of Disney movies, let me tell you.  Little prince charming comes to save the damsel in distress.  The only difference is that this damsel will fucking die if you don’t follow my orders.”

“Don’t you dare lay a fucking finger on her, Malachi,”  Jughead was already pushing himself out of the chair and running towards his room.

“Listen here, mighty Serpent prince.”  There was a sound that radiated through the phone that could only be described as a gun being loaded and cocked, and then a loud whimper that had to have come from Betty.

This time, everyone stood up.  Jughead was nearing his own bedroom door, but the sound stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Malachi, don’t .”

“You saw it firsthand, Jones.”  The voice on the other end was cold and uncaring, the mischief missing completely.  These threats had become all too serious.  “And just like I had the brains blown out of Jason Blossom, I won’t hesitate to do the same to your little Northsider.  Come alone in the next thirty minutes, or you’ll find your girlfriend dead and the blood will be on your hands.”

The line went dead directly after.

“Oh fuck.  Oh, fuck fuck fuck.”  FP stared at the limp body in front of him.  They were cloaked by darkness, stationed between two unoccupied trailers, and hidden behind a couple of trees, but the fear that someone may pass by and see the mess caused fear to grow within him that he’d never known.  His hands shook violently as he tried to look at anything except the body.

Finally, when he felt confident enough that the body was out of sight, he trekked across the trailer park.  He weaved between trailers and vehicles, not wanting to step out on the main road.  It wasn’t until he was nearly half a mile away from his own home when he came to an old grey trailer with a mustard yellow door.  He barely touched the wood steps as he rushed up the deck, his fist connecting with the door hard enough to shake the entire trailer.

“Open up man, it’s me!”  He yelled through the door.

It opened suddenly, revealing a tall man with a disheveled beard and hair that stretched down his back.  He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, but the television lit in the background and the three beers on the table told FP that this man had already begun to settle in for the night.

“What the hell, Jones?”  He asked, pressing his lips together in a tight frown.  “You couldn’t fucking call?”

“ No, I couldn’t.”  FP let out a long breath, running his hand down his face.  “I need your help.”

Jughead had slammed his bedroom door in their faces, emerging only moments later, having replaced his suit jacket for a leather coat that FP recognized all too well.  The boy strode across the room, hands fiddling in his pockets as if he was taking inventory of what he had with him.

“You’re not seriously considering going alone, are you?”  Archie asked as he and Veronica rounded the table, joining FP as he followed his son.

Swinging around to meet their faces, Jughead’s eyes were dark and full of rage.  His jaw was clenched tightly and his brows furrowed as his eyes met each of theirs individually before landing on his father's.  “You heard him,” was all he had to say.

FP understood the Ghoulie threat all too well, but still - he couldn’t ignore what he’d heard said on the phone.  “Is it true, Jug?  Malachi killed Jason?”

Jughead barely nodded as he actively avoided FP’s gaze.  “He made one of his men do it, but yeah, he called for it and he was right there.”

“You watched it happen?  Did you see them toss the kid into the river?”

This time, his son shook his head quickly.  “It didn’t happen there.  They killed him at that old maple factory.  I guess they moved the body.”

“The maple factory?  Why were you even there in the first place?”  FP interrogated.

“Tall Boy sent us.  We were planning to ambush during some type of meeting, steal their weapons and drugs.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.  The Ghoulies have never secured their shit there, and they sure as hell don’t meet there.  They do all of their business in the House of Dead.”

“Wait,”  Veronica’s arms crossed in front of her chest, her eyes staring intently at her step-brother.  “You’ve known all this time who killed Jason and you didn’t do anything.”

Jughead’s jaw twitched as his eyes turned angry yet again.  “Stop acting like you understand why I do the things I do.  Stop pretending like you live some fucking life where you don’t have all the money in the world to pay other people to make decisions for you.  You’re so fucking shallow, you know that?”

“Jug, what the fuck?”  Archie stepped in, his own face contorting slightly.  “We get that you’re angry, but taking it out on your sister isn’t going to solve anything.  You need to calm down so you can think clearly.”

“Archie, I mean this in the nicest way possible: shut the fuck up.”

“ Boy.”  FP reached forward, gripping his son's shoulder hard.  Jughead immediately tried to retract, but it was useless.  The man had a death grip when he needed one.  “I need you to think more clearly for a moment, okay?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to think more clearly?  The clock is ticking and I don’t even know where I’m going!”  He exclaimed.  “Where am I going, dad?  He said to ask you, so tell me.”

FP watched as the anger in his son’s eyes dissipated, turning into a pleading sorrow that broke his very soul.  Under the hard exterior, Jughead was just a scared little boy - just like FP had been all those years ago.

A realization hit FP at that moment.  “Jug, you need to try the old trailer park.  Do you remember our trailer?”

“I mean, kind of.  It’s been ages, but I know the area.”  Jughead said with a quiet sigh.  “Why would he be there?”

“I have a hunch, alright?”  FP looked from his son to the door, then back to his son.  No part of him wanted to allow him to go off alone, but he knew that the Ghoulies didn’t spit out empty threats.  “Look, you head to the trailer park.  I have a plan.”

“A plan?”  His son asked, a questioning brow raising on his face.

“The less you know, the better.  Just trust me, okay?”

Jughead nodded slowly but took no more time waiting around.  He was out the door and down the hallway seconds later.

FP’s heart beat hard in his chest as he stared at the doorway, worry truly setting in for the first time.  His son could die.  Betty could die.  Someone could get hurt.

But the risks had to be taken.

FP finally turned to look at his step-daughter and her boyfriend.  They were pale and scared, and he felt bad for being part of the reason for that.  Still, they had no time to waste.  “Veronica, I need you to call Cheryl and get her over here immediately.”

“What?  Why?”  Veronica questioned despite reaching for her phone immediately.

“I’ll explain it when she gets here,”  FP nodded in Archie’s direction.  “I need you to call up a couple of your football friends and ask them if Jason had been offering them any goods before he died.”

“Goods?”  Archie asked.

“Trust me, they’ll know exactly what I mean.”

FP strode to the kitchen, pulling out the drawer they’d deemed as the junk drawer, rifling through it until he found exactly what he was looking for.  He slammed the thick, dusty yellow book on the countertop, immediately opening it to a page full of names and numbers.

“What are you going to do?”  Veronica inquired.

FP looked up to meet the dark brown gaze of his stepdaughter and smiled.  “I’m going to call up an old friend.”

Chapter Text

Darkness.

There was an overwhelming amount of darkness, and Betty had landed smack dab in the middle of it.  She didn’t know where she was, or how she’d gotten there for that matter, but the more she tried to think about it, the more her head throbbed.

God, why did her head hurt so bad?

“Betty!”

The familiar voice crashed right through Betty’s migraine.  “Polly…?  When did you get back from California?”  Betty searched the darkness for her sister, her eyes widening as an odd sight materialized in front of her very eyes.

Right there in plain sight was a memory Betty had blocked out many moons ago.  A young Betty Cooper, just nine years old and donned in a pink polka dot swimsuit and a white swim skirt stood just a couple of feet away, her blonde hair pulled back in her signature — but soaked — ponytail.  A bag of dried fruit was clutched in one hand, the other forming a fist as she glared at a twelve-year-old Polly who’s champagne waves sat wet against her lilac tankini where she stood near the edge of the pool.

“I was here first, Polly!  I just want to eat my snack!”

“You can’t sit here.  You’re a little kid, and this is where all the teens sit.”  Polly gestured her hand aggressively in the direction of the table that Betty was standing in front of.

“You know I hate when you call me a little kid, and you’re not even a teenager!  You’re twelve!”

Polly’s eyes narrowed as she clucked her tongue, shaking her head.  “I’m a pre-teen, and mom put me in charge so you have to listen to me.  So get up and sit somewhere else where little babies are welcome, ‘cause it’s not here!”

“I’m not a baby, you’re just a big meanie!”

Polly smirked, placing her hands on her hips.  “You’re just a big old baby, aren’t you Betty?  A big, whiny baby.”

Betty tried to reach her arms out to her former self as she remembered what happened next.  With a loud scream and outstretched hands, Betty’s small body lunged forwards, connecting with her older sister with a hard push.  Polly grasped for anything worth grabbing on to, but it was too late.  With a cry for help and a big splash, Polly was immersed into the pool.

Goldfish crackers in disarray at her feet, young Betty’s chest heaved as her fingers curled tighter into her palms.

As if the newly unearthed memory had a timestamp, the colors around her disappeared and suddenly she was back to complete and utter darkness and a headache she couldn’t shake.

She was dreaming, this much she was sure of.  She’d never been so hyper-aware of her placement in her dream state as she was now, and she had to question the punch she’d been drinking at the dance.  There was just no way that someone hadn’t spiked it.  She was going to wake up soon with a disastrous hangover and she already regretted drinking the punch.

Except that she didn’t remember drinking any punch.  In fact, she had no recollection of the dance past Jughead stepping out to take a phone call.

Oh no, she worried.  Had she gotten so blackout drunk that she hadn’t remembered Jughead coming back in?  Some girlfriend she was.  She’d sent him out for an important phone call that may have possibly been the Serpents delivering some important information surrounding the Ghoulies… and Malachi.

A flash of curly dark hair and eyes that looked almost black flashed in front of her eyes, but it was gone within seconds, replaced with the long hallways of the Pembrooke.  A girl came into view dressed in a light pink sweater and blue skinny jeans as she stormed down the hallway.  Her hair was in a sloppy ponytail and a hint of mascara resided under her eyes.  When Betty realized that it was another version of her past self, one from just over a year and a half ago, she felt her heart sink.  She remembered this memory too, and all of the trauma that caused this memory in the first place.

The younger Betty wiped her pink sleeve against her eyes and slid the keycard Veronica had given her ages ago through the slot, pushing the door open as soon as she heard the click signaling that the door had unlocked successfully.

She shut the door quietly, careful not to wake anyone who might be home at the moment.  Slowly, she walked to Veronica’s bedroom door and shook the handle.  The door opened, revealing a perfectly made king size bed and absolutely no best friend.

“Veronica?”  She called out quietly. “I’m sorry I didn’t text first, I just… My phone died before I could and…” Her voice fell as she realized she was speaking to no one.  Veronica was bound to be out, off with Archie or maybe at dinner with her family.  She should have let it go then and just retreated home, or even stayed and waited for Veronica.  It wouldn’t have been weird, they were practically glued at the hip anyway.  But still, Veronica had told her she’d be there anytime she needed her and Betty needed her so badly right then.  The anger she felt towards her parents started to manifest into anger towards her best friend.  Present-day Betty could barely hold back a sob as she watched her younger self curl her fingers yet again into her palms, not even a wince as she dug her nails deeper.

But then she heard his voice.

“Ronnie?  I thought you went to-”  A more youthful Jughead tilted his head.  His eyes were bright, not yet dimmed by the heartache of their split or the stress of his time in the Serpents.  “Betty, hey.  I didn’t realize you were coming over, I would have ordered a pizza or something.”

As if she were completely frozen on the inside, a youthful but pained Betty shook her head.  “I’m not here for you.”

Even now, Betty could see the pain flash through his eyes as the memory played on in front of her.  “Oh, yeah, no.  That was weird of me to assume.  Um, Ronnie will be home in like an hour if you want to wait around, or… have you been crying?”

Betty sniffed and shook her head, avoiding his eye contact.  “I’m fine, Jughead.  I’m just gonna go home.”

She tried to move past him, but he was quick as he placed his hand on her forearm.  The anger boiled over as she yanked her arm away from him.  His eyes grew wide as he watched the transformation.  Even after everything she’d been through, this angry girl seemed like such a stranger to a Betty.

“I’m fucking damaged.”  Her fingers dug deeper into her palms, and it was like Betty could feel the sting of the skin breaking through her dream.  She’d seen this before, she’d thought of this exact moment too many times in the past.  She couldn’t bear to watch Jughead go through this again.  She shook her head hard, pleading the memory to dissipate.

When she regained focus, the image was gone and she was back to the blackness that encompassed her.  The ache of her migraine was as present as ever.  If she could just force herself awake, then she could down a few Tylenol and a bottle of water, and everything would be fine.

Her headache was only made worse by the sound of a cell phone ringing.  Was she really hearing her phone outside of her dream but not waking up?

As she watched a new vision appear before her eyes, she realized that no, she was not.

“If Jug comes back in before me, will you tell him I just stepped out to take a call from my mom?”  Betty was stood there, dressed in the silver and dusted pink dress she’d been wearing just a few hours ago, but it felt like she was watching a movie instead of a memory this time.  As she watched herself step into the main hallway and put the phone to her ear, she couldn’t for the life of her remember this.

“Wait, mom, what?”  Betty spoke loudly into the phone as she started to walk towards the school entrance.  “Hold on, I can’t hear you over the music.  Let me step outside.”

Her dress gilded behind her as she strode through the front doors.  “Okay, that’s better.  What were you saying again?”

“Betty, honey,”  Alice’s voice was clear as day despite coming through the phone, but there was a hint of crying in her voice.  “The judge on your father's case was forced to step down after some allegations came out against him.  They replaced him today.”

Betty frowned.  “What does that mean for dad’s case…?  Is he going to be out even longer now?”

“Quite the opposite, my darling daughter.”  A sniffly laugh came through the phone.  “As soon as this new judge saw the evidence from before, he dropped all need for more witness statements or even more court.  They booked your father a couple of hours ago.”

Betty’s heart raced as she watched herself clutch her chest and gasp.  “What?!”

“He’s being sentenced to fifteen years for attempted murder and physical assault.”  Alice sobbed through the phone.  “We did it, baby.”

“Oh my god, mom.”  Betty couldn’t help but let out a cry of her own as a smile grew on her face.  “It’s finally over.  You’re coming home.”

“I’m coming home.”  There was a comfortable silence between the two Cooper women as they relished in the victory until Alice spoke up again.  “Get back to your dance, honey.  I just had to tell you the good news.  I’ll be flying home in a couple of days.”

“I’ll call you in the morning, mom.  I love you.”

“Oh, Betty… I love you too.  Bye for now.”

The line went dead as Betty clutched her phone to her chest and took a deep breath.

She wanted to believe so badly that the Betty she was watching her, the Betty who had just received the best news she’d gotten all year, was a memory like the rest, but none of it seemed to be clicking in her mind.

Not until the flash of brown curls appeared again, this time accompanied by a spiked leather jacket.  He trailed up the stairs towards a girl who was still relishing in the good moments and soaking up the cool air before heading back into the warm gym.

“You two just make it so easy, don’t you?” The man asked with a grin on his face that could only be described as wicked.

“Excuse me?”  Betty raised a brow.

“Say goodnight.”  The man with the curly hair raised his hand in the air, his fingers curling tightly into his palms.  She didn’t have time to react before his fist connected with the side of her head.

Betty woke up with a gasp, her chest heaving rapidly.  For a moment, she thought she’d woken up in the comfort of her bed at Veronica’s place, but then everything came into view and her heart began to dart all around her chest.  She was sitting upright in a metal chair, her wrists tied tightly behind her and aching, and the room before her was nothing like the Pembrooke.

In place of the calming neutral walls of her temporary bedroom was an unfavorable wallpaper that barely clung to the walls, even draping off the walls at some points.  A large window with a blackout curtain tacked over it sat a few feet in front of her, and a couch that had definitely seen better days was placed to her side.

She could feel the fear rising in her throat as she realized that she was no longer dreaming.  This was real.

“Well, well, well.  Looks like Sleeping Beauty finally woke up from her nap.”

Betty twisted her neck to the side, causing pain to radiate down her body.  A woman that couldn’t have been much taller than herself stood just feet away from her, dressed in a jacket similar to the man from her dream — her memory? — with eyes that were sunken in and hair that looked as greasy as the food she swore she’d need when she woke up.

Wait, Betty’s eyes widened at a sudden realization.  This was the same woman she’d seen from the Blossom’s bathroom window.  The one she had taken photos of.

“What do you want from me?”  Betty pleaded, tears forming in her eyes as she realized the impossible situation she was in.  She was tied up in a place she’d never seen before with a woman who looked ready to kill.  “I’ll give you my tuition money, I’ll give you every cent I’ve saved, just please… let me go.”

The woman seemed to laugh out loud.  It was a dreadful sound that shook Betty to her core.  “I don’t want your money, you dumb bitch.  You’re just a pawn.  A trap.”

Betty’s lips parted, a dryness taking over her mouth like never before.  She wanted to ask what the woman meant, she wanted to beg to be let go — nothing came.  The woman, sensing Betty’s anxiety, simply smirked.

“She’s all yours, Malachi.”

Malachi.  The face from earlier, the man with the fist from her dream, flitted in front of her eyes for a mere moment.

“It wasn’t a dream,”

She hadn’t even realized she’d said it until she felt Penny’s grungy fingers grasp her by the chin and force her to look up into the woman’s mucky eyes.  “What was that, princess?”

Betty’s pupils grew larger as she stared into the woman’s eyes.  “I-it wasn’t a dre-”

“Mm, the princess has awoken.”

That voice.

The same voice from her dream — memory.  It was him.

Betty tried to swing around, nearly forgetting that she was tied to a chair.  Excruciating pain ripped through her body as she slammed back against the metal of the chair.  She gasped loudly as wisps of hair fell in front of her face; her lips trembled and her head bowed.

“Get out of here, Peabody.  Go stand guard or something.”  His voice rang through the pain.

With a huff and a shuffling of feet, the woman was gone and her body was replaced by none other than the curly-haired boy in a spiked jacket.

Malachi walked with a nonchalant step, taking a seat on the dirty couch beside her.  His feet propped up on the arm of the couch as he leaned back, his eyes trailing up Betty’s figure.  Just the feeling alone made her cringe.  She’d never felt so incredibly worthless in her life.  Here she was, tied to a chair in the lair of a gang that rivaled her own boyfriends.

That was the moment it clicked for her.

Malachi was after Jughead.  The woman had called her a trap.  Betty was just bate to get to Jughead.  And Malachi had mentioned something about making it easy before he had knocked her out… How had he known that Jughead wouldn’t be with her at that moment?

The phone call.  It was an unknown number, and it kept calling.  It had to have been them.  They knew.  But if they knew they’d be at the dance, what else did they know?

“You’ve been watching me.”  She didn’t raise her head as she spoke, but even she was surprised by how calm her voice appeared as she spoke.

Malachi shifted in his seat, stretching his arms forward and cracking his knuckles.  “Once we got word of beanie boy’s little plaything, yeah.  Took you long enough to realize.”

Violated.  Betty felt so incredibly violated by this new knowledge.  “How did you know?  We weren’t out about our relationship.”

“Let’s just say… we had a man on the inside.”  Malachi chuckled lowly.

“I don’t get it,”  Betty spoke towards the ground.  “What is your issue with Jughead?  He let you walk away, he didn’t go to the police.  Why are you still after him?”

“You know what, blondie?  You may be book smart but you’re pretty fucking clueless when it comes to putting the pieces together.”  Malachi sat up, leaning over his knees as his gaze flickered to Betty.  “This was all preordained, baby.”

Betty’s eyes shot to Malachi’s then.  “Wha-”

“Quiet.”  Malachi reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out what looked to be a cheap flip phone.  He flipped it open and started to punch in a series of numbers.  “You’re going to do me a little favor, princess.”

“What makes you think I’d do anything for you?”

Malachi laughed as he pulled back his jacket, revealing an inner pocket and the metallic silver of a pistol.  “Because if you don’t, you’ll die the same way that poor old Jason Blossom did.”

Betty took a deep breath, fear lodged in her throat and nodded slowly.

“That’s more like it,”  Malachi spoke.  “You’re going to give your little boyfriend a call, and you’re going to tell him to meet me here alone.”

“But I don’t-”  Before she could finish speaking, the cell phone was on speakerphone and ringing.  Malachi held it in front of her face with one hand, the other ready on his gun.  The phone rang a total of six times before she heard the sound of someone answering.

“Hello?”

His voice was quiet and broken in a way that only she could hear.  It brought tears to her eyes as she tried to speak.  Eventually, she got a single crippled word out.  “J-Jug…?”

“Betty!”  She winced as his voice bellowed through the phone.  “Betty, where are you?”

The tears only welled more as she broke down.  She was going to get herself killed for this, but even worse, she’d get Jughead killed.  “I-I don’t know, Juggie.  I’m scared…”

“Baby, it’s okay.  It’s okay.  I’m going to find you, I promise.”  His voice was determined and warm, and she knew he meant it.  She just wasn’t sure there was anything he could do at this point.  “How were you able to call me?”

Betty met Malachi’s eyes with a questioning gaze.  He seemed to understand and nodded at her.  “Malachi made me.”

“What do you mean?  Is he there now?”  Even in her wildest imagination when she had conjured up every last possibility she could think of that could result from him being in the Serpents, she had never seen herself as a target.  She’d never imagined that she would be here, making the ransom call to her love.  She never thought she’d be the hostage, yet here she was.

“Yes… H-he has some requests.”

She could hear his harsh breath through the phone.  “What does he want?”

Betty shut her eyes tightly, urging this all to be a dream as she continued.  “He wants you to come here.”

“But I-I don’t know where you are.”

Once again, she found herself looking into the eyes of the Ghoulie king.  His voice was barely a whisper as he spoke to her, “It’s where it all began.  If he doesn’t know what I mean, he can ask his ol’ daddio.”

God, now she was involving FP?  She could hardly contain the tremble of her lips as she relayed the information.  “He said to meet him where it all began.”

There was a confusion that laced Jughead’s voice as he tried to understand.  “Where it all began?  I don’t-”

“He said that if you don't know what that means, ask your dad…” She cut him off.  And then, “There’s… there’s one more thing, Juggie…”

There was a long pause.  “What is it, Betty?”

A single tear ran down her cheek but held on to the hope that she wasn’t leading him right into the lion's den for dear life.  “Come alone, Juggie.  P-please… come alone.  I love you.”

“I lo-”  

She prayed that this wasn’t the last time they’d exchange those vows before Malachi snatched the phone away, choosing to continue the conversation on his own.  “Aw, lover boy.  This is the stuff of Disney movies, let me tell you.  Little prince charming comes to save the damsel in distress.  The only difference is that this damsel will fucking die if you don’t follow my orders.”

She could hear Jughead’s anger through the speaker.  “Don’t you dare lay a fucking finger on her, Malachi.”

“Listen here, mighty Serpent prince,”  Without warning, Malachi pulled the gun from his pocket and cocked it, pointing it directly at Betty.  An involuntary whimper escaped her throat as the tears began to pour down her cheeks again.

“Malachi, don’t.”

A smile grew across Malachi’s face.  “You saw it firsthand, Jones.  And just like I had the brains blown out of Jason Blossom, I won’t hesitate to do the same to your little Northsider.  Come alone in the next thirty minutes, or you’ll find your girlfriend dead and the blood will be on your hands.”  The phone flipped shut forcefully.

Betty tried to contain her sobs as Malachi tossed the phone to the floor and shoved the gun back into his pocket.  “Why are you doing this?!”  She cried out.

“Don’t you get it, little girl?  It’s an eye for an eye.”

Betty watched as the tall man walked out of her view, back towards the other end of what seemed to be an old trailer.  She bowed her head once more as she felt the crushing weight of relapse, the only movement her hands could offer being the curling of her fists.  She wished so hard that she could provoke the same darkness that she’d seen in her sleep when she pushed Polly into the pool or when she’d yelled at Jughead for trying to help her.  It was of no use though.

She was too weak.

He parked the truck off the side of the road leading up to the trailer park that he’d only known for a short period of time.  Gun tucked into the back of his pants, covered by his leather Serpent jacket, he walked the rest of the way in chilling darkness.  The trailer park, though dimly lit, was in sight and that made Jughead’s stomach churn.

It looked the same apart from a few empty spots and a sign that was in desperate need of an upgrade.  What stood out the most to him was how many of the trailers looked like they had been abandoned.  Gardens were overgrown, beat down cars were rusted and windows broken, and roofs seemed to be collapsing.  The trailer park used to be full of families, they were a community.  Now there were only a handful of trailers that seemed to have anyone at all residing in them.

But why was this the place where it all began?  And why of all people did his dad know?  Yeah, his dad had been in the gang once upon a time.  It had been a Jones tradition, most of the men were raised Serpents.  But it was never something his father encouraged, especially after he landed his role as a police officer.  His dad had left the gang when Jughead was still young, so the knowledge was never passed down.  It wasn’t until Betty had left and Toni had introduced him to the gang that he had even thought about joining… so he had a hard time understanding why his dad had any involvement in this at all.

Granted, Sweet Pea had told him the other day that it was FP who exiled Penny Peabody after slicing off her tattoo; but Peabody was an idiot at best, there was no way she had arranged all of this.  She’d been an assistant to Malachi.

So what was Malachi’s problem?

A few turns down and he could see his old trailer come into view.

Holy fuck, he thought.  It was run down as hell.  The windows had been painted black, the screen on the door had been torn off and had taken up residence in the front yard, and the steps to the trailer were rotted and caving in.  It almost hurt to see his old home, his childhood home, in such a disastrous state.

But that was nothing compared to what he felt when he watched Penny and Malachi emerge from the front door enrobed in those god awful Ghoulie jackets.

“The prince has made his arrival,”  Penny spoke first as they made their way down the steps.  The door behind them was left open, and considering that there was no one else outside that he could see, Betty had to be just inside that door.  If he could just get by the two of them, he could get to his girl… but that was a death wish if he’d ever heard one before.

“Timely.  I like it.”  Malachi smirked.  “And just in time.  You had about three minutes before I blew your girlfriend's brains out.”

Jughead clenched his teeth and tried to resist punching him right then and there.  “You told me to come alone and I’m here, so where is she?”

Malachi tilted his head in the direction of the trailer and pursed his lips together, an ear-splitting whistle coming out.  Moments later, two men emerged from the trailer doors.  Between them was a fragile-looking Betty Cooper.  Her dress was dirty, her hair knotted, but worst of all: right on the side of her head was a giant bruising lump.

“Jug!”  She cried out as soon as she saw him.

The two Ghoulies manhandled her down the steps and towards Malachi and Penny.  When they were finally close enough that Jughead could see the smear of makeup under her lashes and her bloodshot eyes, they let go of their grip on her arms, pushing her forward.  She stumbled through the dirt and tripped on her dress, falling right into Jughead’s arms.  As if he’d been holding the world's longest breath, the moment she was in his arms, he felt like he could breathe again.

“Baby, oh my god,”  He whispered, wrapping his arms tightly around her and breathing in her scent.  She sobbed quietly into his chest as he ran his hands up and down her back as if he had any chance of soothing her right then.  “It’s okay, I’m here.  I’ve got you.”

“It was awful, Jug…” She spoke through the tears.

“Don’t try to pull a fast one on me Juggie,”  Malachi stepped forward, raising a brow in Jughead’s direction.  “This was a trade.  The Northsider is free to go, but you’re sticking around.”

Jughead narrowed his eyes at Malachi, but he knew from the get-go that he wouldn’t just come and save Betty.  It was never that simple.  There was going to be blood, of that he was sure.  He could only hope that it wouldn’t be his or Betty’s by the time this was over.

“Betty, baby… hey,”  Jughead slipped his hand under her chin, lifting it so he could see his eyes.  “I left the keys in the truck okay?  It’s parked half a mile down the road behind a couple of trees.  I need you to go-”

“No.”  Betty’s eyes began to water again.  “I’m not leaving you.  You can’t make me say goodbye to you, Jughead.”

“This isn’t goodbye, baby.  I’ll be okay.  But I need you to get out of here because they will not hesitate to hurt you.”  His voice was barely audible, meant for her and her only.

“No!  You can’t promise that you’ll be okay, we both know that.  If you stay and fight, I stay and fight with you.”

“Betty, if you stay, I don’t know if I can protect you.  You might get…” Jughead gulped at the dangerous thought.  “You probably will get hurt.  I can’t let that happen to you.”

“It’s not your decision to make.”

“Actually-”

“Enough of your fucking lovers spat,” Penny’s voice broke through their little bubble as she pulled out a pocket knife from her jacket.  “Ponytail is more than welcome to stay.  In fact, I’d love to get my hands on her.”

“Over my dead body,”  Jughead glared.

“That can be arranged,” Penny took a step towards the two of them.  Jughead instinctively pushed Betty behind him as he reached for his gun.  He should have known before he drew it that it would be a bad idea, but it didn’t seem to stop him.  He cocked the gun, pointing it towards Penny.  “One more step and you’re dead.”

“Oh, the boy thinks he’s got game suddenly.”  Malachi laughed, pulling out his own gun.  Just as he thought he was going to point it at Jughead, he inched his arm just slightly so the barrel of the gun was pointing directly at Betty’s temple.  One wrong move and the love of his life would be gone forever.

Her hair fell in sweet loose curls around her face, small breathes escaping her lips as her eyelashes fluttered.  She was beautiful always, but there was something about the peace she seemed to radiate when she slept that made him feel weak in his knees.  The rosy blush of her cheeks was always a little pinker, her movement was a little airier, and the way she would curl into him as if she couldn’t sleep without him there made him never want to leave.

But it was five-thirty in the morning, and they’d accidentally fallen asleep during their secret date with the laptop and her sister's Netflix subscription.  He had meant to set an alarm in case that happened, but he was determined not to fall asleep.  He’d chugged three cups of coffee before he arrived and made sure they stocked up on sugar, but all it seemed to do was put them into a sugar coma.

Her parents would be waking up soon, getting ready to start their days, and they both still had to get ready for work.  Slowly and unwillingly, he pulled his arm from under her torso.  She grumbled quietly, moving just barely as he freed himself and raised from the bed.  She was too peaceful to wake, and he knew she didn’t typically wake up until six-thirty.  He’d let her sleep some more.

He leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple as he fixed her blankets for her, and with a whisper meant just for himself, he said the words he’d been thinking all night.

“I think I’m falling in love with you.”

The sound of a siren fractured his thoughts.

“Oh hell no.  I told you to come alone, Jones!”  Malachi shouted, drawing the gun on him now.  From the corner of his eye, Jughead could see the red and blue lights of a police cruiser racing towards them.

“I did!  I swear I did!”  Jughead exclaimed, his eyes widening.  His dad's plan.

The cruiser squealed to a stop right behind him, and without missing a beat, he could hear his father getting out of the car and cocking his own gun.  “Weapons down!”

Jughead dropped his gun instinctively, regretting it immediately after.  Penny and Malachi seemed completely unbothered.  Jughead was surprised to see that there was actually rage in place of fear on Malachi’s face.

“I said,”  FP’s voice radiated through the night.  “Weapons down!”

“You think I’m afraid of you, pig?”  Malachi snarled.  “You’re one man.  I have a fucking army.”

As if they’d been waiting for his cue, ten more Ghoulies appeared from the trailer.  Some with brass knuckles, some with guns, others with knives.  As much as he hated to admit it, Jughead knew that Malachi was right.  They were outnumbered.

“You seem to forget, kid.  I was a snake too.”  FP laughed.  “I don’t come unprepared.”

A moment later, a bright red convertible was screeching to a pause right beside the cruiser.  And it was being driven by none other than Cheryl fucking Blossom.  And seated within the confines of the car were Sweet Pea, Fangs, Joaquin, Toni, Archie, and Veronica.

Veronica passed something forward to Cheryl, and within seconds Cheryl was standing on the hood of the car, bow and arrow pointing towards Penny.  “I suggest you back away from my school chums, you greasy ghoul.”

“Damn, FP.  You can’t even fight for yourself anymore.  You need to bring in a bunch of kids- ah!”  An arrow connected right into Penny’s thigh, causing her to fall to the ground in agony.

“Let this serve as a reminder to you all.”  Veronica cautioned as the remaining teens began to pile out of the car.  “Cheryl Blossom doesn’t miss.”

As if the arrow in Penny’s thigh seemed to ignite a fury within the Ghoulies, the world around Jughead began to blur as roars of anger echoed through the night, each side running at each other, separating Jughead and Malachi.  It wasn’t until a certain man with a braided beard began to bellow towards Jughead that he snapped back and reality began to move at normal speed again.

Without a second thought, Jughead formed a fist and delivered a nearly fatal uppercut to the man's jaw.  He watched as his head snapped to the side and he fell to the ground unconscious.

Not dead, Jughead had to remind himself.  He wasn’t a murderer, and he would not be made into one tonight.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Cheryl loading up her bow again as Toni tossed her an arrow.  Sweet Pea and Fangs were doubling down on some guy off to the left of the trailer, and Archie was administering a kick to the gut of one of the men who had manhandled Betty.  FP was fighting off two different Ghoulies, but they were small and it was nothing the man couldn’t handle, especially when Joaquin jumped up and slammed one of them against the cruiser.

Within minutes, some Ghoulies were starting to scatter, some were knocked unconscious on the ground; Some were even in handcuffs.  Another one had just lunged at Jughead, forcing him back a few steps, but he was quick to grab hold of the guy's shoulder and knee him in the gut.  Then, just to finish the job, he kneed him in the neck too.  The guy coughed blood as he grasped at his stomach and fell to the ground, rolling around in pain.  Jughead was nearly too busy enjoying the agonizing look on the guy's face to realize that Malachi had made his way back towards him.

He looked up just in time to see Malachi, eyebrows furrowed and lips twitching, standing just feet in front of him.  Jughead was staring down the barrel of his gun.  He reached for his own, ready to win this fight, but the gun was gone.  He’d completely forgotten to pick it back up.

His eyes widened as he watched Malachi’s finger position over the trigger.

“Jug, no!”  He heard his sister scream, but it was too late.  He heard the mind-numbing blow of the gun go off before he felt it.  He shut his eyes tight and prepared himself for death.  It would be a quick one, he wouldn’t feel a thing.  His only regret was knowing that his friends and family, his Betty, would have to watch him bleed out.

Only, death never came.

“Holy shit,” He heard Toni’s voice somewhere behind him.  Slowly, he opened his eyes.  He nearly choked at the sight in front of him.  Laying in front of him, breathing but unconscious, was Malachi.  A small spot of blood near his appendix started to grow, becoming darker with each passing second.  Any Ghoulie that wasn’t already on the ground had dispersed.

He turned around with the expectation that his father would be there holding his gun, ready to file a report on why he had to discharge his firearm on Malachi.  What he found was not only startling but painful to see.

Standing mere inches behind him was Betty Cooper, both hands shaking and wrapped around his own pistol, her green eyes wider than he’d ever seen them before.

Betty Cooper had just saved his life.

Everyone stayed silent, waiting for some type of cue.  A cue for what, he didn’t know.  Or maybe they just didn’t know what to do now.  They had come ready for war, and they had delivered.  But suddenly the war was over, and a man was bleeding out on the ground behind him at the hands of the one person he’d never expected to see behind a gun.

“Betty…” Jughead spoke slowly as if relearning how to talk again.  His mouth felt dry.

As soon as her eyes met his, her arms went limp and the gun fell from her hands.  Jughead nearly dove to her, engulfing her in his arms just as her knees started to give way.  That was all it took for her to break down.  With a painful howl, Betty dug her nails into Jughead's arms and held onto him for dear life, and he did the same with her.

He knew they’d have to talk about this eventually, but for now, it was over.

It was sometime afternoon the next day when FP had finally made it home from the station.  Everyone seemed to gather at the Pembrooke, and while Jughead appreciated the sentiment of his friends being around to support one another (was he really calling Cheryl his friend? He must be delusional), he only really wanted to be with Betty and Betty seemed to have no desire in spending time with her friends either.  She trekked to her room as soon as they got back, and Jughead was close behind.  She hadn’t even changed out of her dress originally, until Jughead pulled out some clean pajamas for her.  Even when Kevin showed up somewhere around 4 in the morning to offer his support and see Joaquin — which was surprising to Jughead, considering the last time they’d heard about Kevin, his Serpent pal was still lying to the kid — Betty was reluctant and asked if they could talk later.  She passed it off as being tired, but she wasn’t sleeping.  She wasn’t talking, but she wasn’t sleeping either.

She was curled up in Jughead’s arms, faced away from him and staring blankly at the walls.  He wanted to make her feel better, he wanted to make the pain go away, but he knew that it was an impossible task.  Instead, all he could offer were his arms.

She fell asleep eventually.  It wasn’t until nearly eleven in the morning that she started to snore, but it was a relief that she was finally resting.  Jughead tried, but with his dad still at the station, sleep seemed to be impossible.

When he heard the front door open and the sound of Sweet Pea greeting FP, Jughead decided to go ahead and get up.  He tucked Betty in under her covers tightly and strode through their shared bathroom to his room, where he changed into a dark purple ’S’ shirt and a pair of black jeans.  By the time he walked into the dining room to greet his dad, FP was sitting at the end of the table with a large cup of water looking exhausted.  Sweet Pea and Joaquin were raiding the kitchen cabinets, but the rest of the crew were passed out in various locations throughout the living room.  He wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that Cheryl had taken the couch, making everyone else sleep on the floor… except for Toni, who was sleeping right next to Cheryl.

Jughead raised his brow but didn’t question it.  That would be the most normal thing he would have seen in the last twenty-four hours, so he was just going to leave it be.

“What’d you get him for?”  Jughead asked, taking a seat across from his father.

FP looked up and nodded at Jughead in acknowledgment.  “Well, they think I was there for a noise disturbance call originally.  I had an old friend who just happened to still live a few trailers down, call in a complaint about Malachi.”

Jughead smirked, shaking his head.  “Good one, dad.”

“Since she gave a name, I ran his name through the system and it popped up with multiple warrants so I was fully prepared to arrest him just off the warrants, but after Veronica spoke to Cheryl and Archie talked to his boys, Cheryl was able to get a confession out of her dad and she was smart enough to record it, which was enough to arrest him.”

“Wait, what exactly was Clifford Blossom confessing to?”

As it turned out, Clifford Blossom was using the Ghoulies to run an underground drug business.  Jason had gotten word of it and started swiping a bit here and there to sell to the guys at school.  Clifford was paying Malachi for what he assumed Malachi was selling, completely unaware of what his son was doing.  Malachi went ahead and took it into his own hands and found Jason out, but when he threatened Clifford with the idea of his son dying, Clifford didn’t seem to care at all.  He’d even gone as far as to say it would teach Jason a lesson.  Malachi tried to show the Blossoms an ounce of mercy by allowing Jason to get him the money the Ghoulies were owed, but Jason was never able to gather it up.  That amount of money being pulled from his bank account would have appeared far too suspicious.

“Where exactly did I fall into all of this though?  I don’t get it, dad.”  Jughead sighed, rubbing his hand down his face.  “I don’t know why they were after me.”

There was a full moment where all Jughead could hear was the sounds of breathing and his two Serpent buddies chowing down at the breakfast island.  Finally, FP spoke up.  “It wasn’t you that they were after.  It was me.  Or more so, they were trying to get their revenge on me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I did some awful things when I was a young Serpent King.  One of those things… was killing Santiago De León.  He was the head of the Ghoulies, and uh… Malachi’s father.”

Jughead’s eyes widened as he slammed his fist down on the table.  “What?!  You couldn’t have told me this sooner?!”

“I swear kid, I didn’t know Malachi had any kind of inkling.  There was only one other person who knew about that night, and he ended up being the person to help Malachi out with everything.”

Jughead thought long and hard for a moment before a thought crossed his mind.  “Tall Boy.”

FP nodded slowly.  “The man will do anything for a paycheck.”

“How did you get him to confess?”

“Offered him double of what he was already being paid.  Malachi recruited him some time ago, guess he had an idea that it had been a Serpent to kill his dad.  You being at the Maple factory the night of Jason’s death was no coincidence.  Tall Boy sent you in there knowing that it would be the very event to set everything in motion.”  FP sighed, leaning back in his seat.  “Tall Boy is a Judas, but he won’t be back around here anytime soon.”

Jughead stared at his father with a questioning gaze.  

“Like I said, the man will do anything for a paycheck.”

The boy nodded at FP.  “And Penny?”

A quiet laugh escaped FP’s throat.  “She’s still petty about being exiled.  Now she can be petty behind bars.”

Jughead smirked and nodded.  “You never answered my original question though, dad.  What’d you get Malachi for?”

“He’s being charged for possession of a deadly weapon, possession, and distribution of an illegal substance, and last but by no means least, the murder of Jason Blossom.”

Jughead took a deep breath, holding it for a moment longer than he intended.  And as he let his breath out slowly, he felt an incredible weight melt off his shoulders.  For the first time in far too long, there was no underlying fear.  No worry of what the next day might hold or if one wrong move would land him in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

“FP?  Jughead?”

The two men were in sync as they looked up to find a sleepy but seemingly still chic Cheryl standing at the end of the table.

“What can we do for you, Cheryl?”  FP asked before Jughead got the chance.

“I just wanted to say… thank you.”  Cheryl’s eyes fell to the table, and Jughead would have sworn that there was a slight blush covering her cheeks.  By god, was Cheryl Blossom shy?  “For finding my JJ’s true killer and bringing my father's crimes to light.  I’m so…” Cheryl’s eyes raised to meet Jughead’s, then FP’s.  “So… sorry that I thought it was the Serpents.”

“You were just going off the information you had, there’s no hard feelings.”  FP smiled at Cheryl and nodded.  She offered one back in return and turned to leave.  “Oh.  Good morning Betty.”

Jughead crooked his neck back to see Betty standing at the entryway of the dining room, fully dressed in a pastel yellow sweater with a boat neckline and a pair of light washed denim jeans.  Her hair seemed to have been washed and was pulled back into a slick ponytail.  Despite her ready to take on the day appearance, there was a distance in her eyes.  She seemed farther away than the couple of feet that were between them.  He’d only seen that look one other time before.

“Ready for our movie night?  Just you, me, a bottle of some expensive wine my parents won’t miss, and the Pembrooke all to ourselves.”  Jughead smiled as he held the door open wide for Betty, letting her walk past him.

“I can’t stay.”

Jughead blinked as he let the door close and turned to look at her.  She looked past him, not daring to make eye contact, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so far away from her.  The feeling made him shudder with anxiety.  “No, that’s fine.  Honestly, we can do this another time.  I’m sure there will be lots of-”

“Jughead, I’m leaving.”  Betty met his eyes this time, piercing him with their bright green orbs.

“What… do you mean?  If you need to go now, it’s okay.  We can just text.”

Tears formed at the edges of her eyes as Betty tried to blink them back.  After an all too pregnant pause, Betty bit her lip and continued.  “No, Jug.  I mean I’m going to California.  Polly is having the twins and I need to be there.”

“Oh, Coop, I’m not worried about some little vacation.”

“Don’t you get it, Jughead?”  The tears slowly started to fall from Betty’s eyes, leaving small wet trails down her cheek in their wake.  “This isn’t going to be a vacation.  I’m going for the year.  Maybe longer if my mom decides.”

Betty may as well have punched Jughead square in the stomach.  He could feel the breath get knocked out of him, the all too real tightening in his chest.  “You’re moving?  How?  When?”

“Not… moving.  Just taking some time away from Riverdale.  My mom isn’t even selling the house.  I’ll be back, Jughead.  It’s not that long in the grand scheme of things-”

“Not that long?!”  Jughead was disgusted with the laugh that escaped his lips.  “A couple of weeks isn’t that long.  Hell, a month or two isn’t that long.  But a year, Betty?  That’s entirely too long.”

“I-”

“When are you leaving?”

Betty’s lip quivered as she stared into Jughead’s eyes as if the answer dancing on her tongue was one she didn’t want to reveal.  “I fly out tomorrow.”

Another gut-wrenching blow to his stomach.  He nearly fell to the ground with that one.  This was it, this was what dying felt like.  It had to be, because he’d never felt a pain like this before and he couldn’t see himself surviving it.

But then came anger.  It didn’t take away the pain; in fact, it merely inflamed it, but he could breathe through the anger.  He could channel this pain through the anger, and who better to channel it towards than the very girl breaking his heart in this very moment?

“Juggie, we can make this work… okay?  I swear, we can walk this back.”

Jughead held up his index finger, shaking it fervently in her face.  “No.  No, we can’t just walk it back.  No, Betty.”

“Juggie-”

“Don’t call me that.”  Jughead narrowed his eyes as his gaze fell on the entryway table.  He couldn’t stand to look at her anymore.

“People don’t just up and move in a day, Betty.  You should have told me.”

“I… I know.”

“Just go, please.”

Betty started to walk towards the door but she paused just as her fingers curled around the handle.  “You know what, Jughead?  No.  You can’t just push me away over this.  I’m sixteen, it’s not like I can just live here on my own.  I didn’t get a choice in the matter.  My mom is sending me out tomorrow and following suit in a couple of weeks.”

“You could stay though.  Where’s your dad in all this?!”

It was quiet and not meant for him, but he heard her gasp anyway and the quiet sob that followed after.  “So that’s it?  You’re going to give up on us, just like that?  Like there was never anything there?”

“Are you going to fly to California tomorrow?”  He asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“Then I guess we have our answer.”  Jughead clenched his fist and began the trail to his room, but even through everything else, he couldn’t wish her ill.  “Have a safe flight.”

And even as he stepped into his bedroom and slammed the door, he knew he meant it.  Whether or not she knew, he couldn’t care less.

“Well, I guess I couldn’t expect you to get a full night's sleep.  You do look beautiful though,”  Jughead spoke as he raised from his chair and stepped to her, wrapping her in a tight hug and pressing a gentle kiss to her temple.

Where Betty would normally encase him in her own hug and press her face into his chest, she opted to pull away from him and meet his eyes.  Jughead raised his brow but offered her a sympathetic smile.  “Everything okay?”

“Can you come to my room?”  Barely audible, a request meant for his ears and his ears only.

A few minutes later, they were standing in front of a dresser that had been wiped clean of all of Betty’s belongings.  Her suitcase was packed full with a duffel bag sat atop it.

“So your dad is officially going away?  For good?”  Jughead asked as Betty finished explaining the phone call she’d received last night.  The phone call that set it all in motion.

“Even with good behavior, he won’t be up for parole for a minimum of ten years.”

“That’s amazing, baby!  We should be celebrating.”

“I can’t.”  Betty sighed.  “Your dad told my mom about everything that happened last night and she caught the first flight back.  I have to pick her up from the airport, and then I’m going home.”

Jughead blew a breath out, nodding slowly.  “Wow, I’m not gonna get to hold you whenever I want now, huh?  You won’t just be a room away anymore.”

“Jug…” Betty’s eyes welled with tears.  “Last night was the worst night of my life.  They had me tied up; I couldn’t protect myself.  And all I could keep thinking was, there’s a darkness in me that makes me do bad things like hurt myself, that I could be harnessing to save myself but instead all I could do was cry.  I was so weak… and then, when I finally did it, I fucking shot someone.  I could have killed him.”

“You saved my life, Betty.”

Betty raised her hands to cup Jughead’s cheeks as the tears started to fall from her eyes.  “I know, and I’m so eternally grateful for that.  I can’t imagine a world without you in it.”

Jughead stayed silent, leaning into her touch.

“But… it’s your life that put me in that position in the first place.”

It was a blow to his esteem to hear it, but she was right.  He was the reason she had been in that situation in the first place.  “I’m so sorry.”

“I feel like as long as you’re a Serpent, I’m going to have this giant X on my back.  Your enemies will always come for me because they’ll know it’s how to lure you in.  How many times will it take before they finally kill one of us?”

“Betty, if you mean the Ghoulies, they’re not going to be a problem anymore.  It’s over.  We won.”

“We won this war.  How many more will there be?”  Betty’s gaze dropped to Jughead’s lips.  “I can’t wait around to find out.”

Jughead’s heart dropped in his stomach.  There was no way he was understanding her correctly right now.  “What are you saying, Betty?”

“I’m saying that I love you, Jughead.  I am madly in love with you, I’d even marry you.  But you have to make a choice.”

Don’t say it.

“It has to be me or the Serpents.”

“Betty, what?  I don’t understand.”  Jughead’s eyes scanned Betty’s face, searching for any sign of paltering.  Any sign that she was just kidding, just messing with him.  There was no way she was asking him to choose between her and his Serpents.

“I can’t go through that again, Jughead.  I can’t stay in a relationship where I have to watch my back constantly in case there’s a rival gang out to get me because I’m the Serpent’s girlfriend.”

“Betty, this is insane.  This is like asking me to choose between my family.  I can’t… I can’t make that choice.”

When Betty’s eyes met his again, they were full of hurt.  She sniffled quietly and nodded, letting her hands drop from his face.  She reached for her suitcase as she wiped her eyes on the back of her sweater sleeve.  Jughead stared at her in awe.  “Betty, it doesn’t have to end this way.  We love each other, we can make this work.  We have to make this work.  I just got you back, baby.”

Betty simply shook her head as she stepped around him and towards the door.  She turned the handle slowly as if she were waiting for something to change.  Jughead could do nothing more than stand there, watching her leave.  He was frozen.  His body felt like it was made of stone.  One wrong move and he’d crumble to pieces.  Just before she opened the door, she offered him one last glance.  Their eyes met, her own glistening with tears and what he could only describe as a wistful sorrow, and for a second he felt like she had changed her mind.

“I love you, Jughead Jones,” and with that, she was gone.

He should have chased after her.  He should have begged her not to go.  He should have promised her he’d give up the gang if it meant keeping her, but he couldn’t make a promise to her that he couldn’t keep.  The gang was his family, despite the danger it had put him and his loved ones into.  Despite his father's stance against it.  Despite everything that had gone down.  They had been there for him when he was completely alone, they had supported him for the better part of the last year of his life.

But she was also the love of his life.  He knew he’d never know a love as great as hers, he’d never feel a love as warm as hers.  Her presence alone didn’t just make him want to be a better man; because of her, he was a better man.  He was stronger with her, stronger because of her.  There was nothing and no one that could replace her, and that alone made him wish he had chased after her.

But right now he was frozen in time, floating in space and watching his useless body do nothing but repeat the words she said over and over and over again.

Me or the Serpents.

You have to make a choice.

I love you, Jughead Jones.

She loved him, but she had left him.  Twice.

So instead of chasing after her, a choice he’d regret for the rest of his life, he sat down on the bed he’d first made real, true love to her in, in a room that suddenly held no concrete proof that she’d ever even resided in it, and clutched onto the pillow, inhaling the scent of vanilla and roses that was ingrained into the fabric.

One tear broke free first, but it was quickly followed by another one, and then another one.  Soon enough, he was bawling into the last piece he had of her, fingers clutching the satin fabric as if it held the very breath he needed to live.  Through the broken sobs and choked cries, he finally said the words he should have spoken before he let her walk away from him.

“I love you too, Betty Cooper.”

Chapter Text

It’s crazy, she thinks, just how quickly the seasons change in Riverdale.  Winter into spring, spring into summer; and just like that, the warm air and cool nights transform into fallen leaves and chilled breezes.  She’s never been a huge fan of the colder weather — she liked her array of sweater choices and booties, but she loved her collection of dresses and skirts more.  She loved the feeling of summer — the warmth on her shoulders, the way it felt to jump into a cold lake, the iced coffees from the little shop Veronica had introduced her to ages ago.  Everything about summer had just always been her favorite .

She still appreciated the other seasons.  She was Betty Cooper.  Of course she could find good in every season.  She loved the smell of dewy grass and fresh flowers on her morning walks during the Spring.  And was she even a Cooper if she didn’t practically transform into a resident of the North Pole and watch Elf twenty times over during the Christmas season?  And her mom always sent her back to the city with an extra pumpkin pie when she visited for Thanksgiving.

The one holiday she had never really enjoyed was Halloween.  She hated the way candy prices would rise just because some company decided to slap a ghost on the packaging, and she actively avoided trick or treaters.  Halloween night would come and Betty would find herself plopped on her bed, all lights in her apartment turned off, headphones in, and a classic horror film playing on her laptop.  That was about the extent of her Halloween celebrations.

At least it was, until this one.

She was drunker than she should be, considering she still had to get home and make her way to her childhood bedroom without waking her mother, but in her defense, she was always drunker than she should be when she was partying with Veronica.

She hadn’t even intended to come to the party, or Riverdale, for that matter.  She was perfectly content being holed up in her bedroom like the last four Halloweens.  But Veronica was Veronica, and when her best friend caught wind of Cheryl Blossom throwing a huge Halloween rager at Thistlehouse, the other mansion on the Blossom estate that she had taken ownership of when she returned home with a Bachelor’s degree in Toxicology from Penn State, there was just no talking Veronica out of it.

Betty figured she could use a trip to see her mom, and Polly had moved to Greendale two years ago, so she was using really any chance she could to see her niece and nephew.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re cute as hell,” Betty swung around at the sound of Kevin Keller’s voice, an embarrassingly wide smile on her face as she came face to face with her longest friend.  He was dressed so obviously as Freddie Mercury at Live Aid, fake mustache included.  “But Betty, darling, you’re supposed to dress up for a costume party.”

“Excuse me,”  Betty scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest.  She was pretty sure some of her drink sloshed out onto the stone floor of the greenroom she’d been hanging out in, but there was no love lost.  “I am dressed up… as Sharon Tate, as portrayed in Once Upon a Hollywood .”  She motioned her hand down her body at her striped t-shirt and cut off shorts.

“I literally never saw that movie,”  Kevin shrugged.

“Okay, but like…” Betty narrowed her eyes.  “You’ve at least heard of Sharon Tate’s murder, right?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Oh my god.  Charles Manson?”

“Oh, isn’t he that gothy singer guy who removed a rib?”

“Kev!”  Betty scorned, shaking her head in disappointment.  “That’s Marilyn Manson, and the rib thing was just an oddly well traveled rumor.  He’s also a disgusting pig.”

“And what are you two doing over here when the party is so clearly happening out there ?”  Betty could recognize the sound of Veronica’s heels before she even appeared, and lo and behold, her constantly runway-ready BFF came into Betty’s view beside Kevin.

Veronica had rolled her eyes at Betty’s costume when she showed up at the Cooper’s front door earlier that night, giving the whole nobody’s going to get it spiel.  She had opted for a much more recognizable, and much sexier costume: a head to toe, skin tight Catwoman costume with heels so sharp she could kill with them and a smokey eye that made Archie’s mouth water at the sight of her.  If she hadn’t been completely morally opposed to love, she’d have thought it was cute.

“We’re just catching up,” Betty smiled, gazing from Veronica to Kevin.

“Oh please,” Kevin rolled his eyes.  “Betty just spent far too long explaining her costume to me.”

“You’re not alone there, friend.  She did the same to me this evening when daddy’s driver dropped me off at her place.”  

Just as Veronica was finishing her sentence, a male with long dark hair pulled back into a bun, cat ears on his head and striking blue eyes, engulfed Kevin in a hug from behind.  The man was shirtless, wearing only a pair of tight dark washed jeans and some combat boots to go with the rest of his “costume.”  Betty wasn’t sure she’d ever seen the boy in her life, nor had she noticed his presence on Kevin’s insta before.  But as she squinted to get a better look, she nearly dropped her drink.

“Joaquin?!”

Both Kevin and Joaquin’s heads snapped up to stare at her.  “Uh, ye- holy shit.  Betty?”

Betty nodded, raising her cup to her lips as she sipped to stall time.  She hadn’t realized that Kevin and Joaquin were still seeing each other after all this time, but more so, she hadn’t seen a Serpent even once since she left for college.

There was an odd feeling in her stomach, like nervousness or anxiety, as she stared at the seemingly happy couple.  “Wow, it’s been like…” she finally blurted out.

“A few years I’d guess,”  Joaquin finished for her.  “You look great, Coop.  Way better than the last time I saw you.”

Betty nodded, offering a fake smile that she knew Kevin and Veronica could see through, as she downed the rest of her drink.  She knew exactly what day he was talking about.  He hadn’t seen her since the war with the Ghoulies.

He hadn’t seen her since she broke up with Jughead.

Suddenly there was guilt mixed in with her anxiety.  She didn’t even know why.  She and Joaquin had never been close.  She knew him through Jughead and kind of through Kevin, but they’d never shared many words with each other.  Still, there was this overriding feeling of guilt that when she broke up with Jughead, she hadn’t just said goodbye to him.  She’d said goodbye to all of the Serpents who came to her rescue, too.  She hadn’t even tried to reach out.

Veronica, the ever so oblivious best friend that she seemed to be, was quick to strike a conversation.  Tipping her own drink in the direction of the two boys, Veronica smiled her movie star grin and started in on the one thing she would always find a way to comment on.  “Okay, you are just the hunkiest little kitty cat I have ever seen.”

“Isn’t he?”  Kevin smirked, turning his head just enough to press a kiss to Joaquin’s cheek.  “He wasn’t going to dress up originally, but I had a pair of cat ears hanging around—don’t ask—  and Freddie did love his cats.”

Joaquin scoffed and rolled his eyes.  “You just wanted an excuse for me to walk around shirtless.”

“Ugh, too cute.  I literally adore you two.”  Veronica said against the brim of her cup as she took a sip.

“What about you, Little Debbie?”  Kevin’s gaze slid from Veronica to Betty.  She snickered at the awful nickname, blaming it on whatever and however much Kevin had drunk that night.  “Bring any eye candy to the party?”

From the corner of her eye, Betty could see Veronica’s shoulders tense.  After being fellow roommates for the last four years and best friends since childhood, Veronica had seen Betty at some of her highest moments and some of her lowest.  Her highest being before they’d even graduated, and her lowest being, well… existing more in the last four years.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t dated.  She’d dated plenty.  She’d gone on a couple dates with a guy named Aiden, and she’d dated Adam for nearly six months.  There’d also been a brief fling with the barista from the campus Starbucks, whom she definitely felt badly for not remembering the name of.

“Nope,”  Betty offered a shrug of faux nonchalance.  “Single as a Pringle.”

The cringe that took over her face was not unknown to her as it was reflected in the face of the others too.  What the hell was that line?

Kevin recovered quickly though, shaking his head to fein disappointment.  “We have got to change that."

“You know what?”  Betty immediately tipped her empty cup in the air as if needing to prove a point.  “I, uh, I actually need a refill.  Catch you later, Kev!”  Betty quickly backed away from the crowd, turning her back before they could wave her back down.  She trudged through Thistlehouse, dodging herds of drunk jocks that had peaked in high school and girls she’d never seen before in her life, and tried her damndest to not overthink his statement.

It wasn’t like Betty hadn’t dated.  In fact,  she’d been on plenty of dates.  The issue lied in the fact that almost none of them went past the first date, and the ones that did only lasted a few more.  Adam Hastebarger was the only one having outlasted the rest.  The two of them were together for a whopping five and a half months before Betty got too drunk with Veronica one night and came to the realization that she would absolutely hate being Mrs. Hastebarger some day and proceeded to implode their relationship through a voicemail that she only remembers part of.

A sober Betty realized how wrong it was to let things end like that, and demanded that Adam meet her at the local coffee shop that Veronica was a barista at.

“Remind me why your best friend works here again,” Adam sipped from the steaming Americano as he eyed the raven haired girl behind the counter for a split second.  “She’s loaded.”

Betty shrugged as she held her cappuccino, letting the heat of the cup warm her chilled hands.  She silently snickered at herself for forgetting her gloves in the dead of winter, but her hangover was awful and her brain wasn’t doing much more than buzzing currently.  “She gets bored.  I have a couple late classes, and Archie practices with his band a couple times a week so they don’t see each other those days.”

“She got a job because she was bored?”  Betty knew it was meant as a joke, but she couldn’t help but sense a condescending tone underneath it all.  Could she blame the guy though?  She was ninety nine point nine percent sure that Veronica had popped up in the voicemail at some point too.  “Why not just, I don’t know…. make a couple more friends?”

“It takes a very special person to deal with Veronica Lodge.” Betty offered a smile in his direction.  “Plus her dad bought her some super expensive espresso bar for her birthday two years ago and she’s been making latte art ever since.  Now she can make it for more than just me and her boyfriend.”

Adam nodded at that and took another sip from his drink.

The silence that followed lingered for far longer than welcome.  Just as Betty opened her mouth to make a snide remark about the lady in the fur coat walking down the street outside their window, Adam cleared his throat.

“So that voicemail.”

Betty bit her lip but stayed silent.  She was pretty positive that wasn’t the end of his statement.

“I didn’t realize my last name was so dreadful.”

“Oh, god.”  Betty squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment.  “I really didn’t mean that, Adam.  I was so drunk.  I’m so, so sorry.”

“I don’t know, you made a pretty solid argument.”

When she finally opened her eyes to look at Adam, he was stirring the last of his coffee slowly with a stir stick and looking at her without really looking at her.  He was doing that thing she’d learned from Kevin where you look at someone's forehead to avoid making eye contact without them realizing.  Except she did realize.  “I debated your last name?  God, I’m the worst.”

Adam shrugged before lifting his cup to his lips and taking the last drink of coffee.  Without speaking, he set his cup down, rose to his feet, and wrapped his scarf around his neck.

Just as he was about to step away, he craned his neck just enough to look in her direction one last time.  “You were right, by the way.  Elizabeth Hastebarger doesn’t sound nearly as good as Elizabeth Jones.”

Eventually she found a drink station, one of many because of course Cheryl Blossom would have such a huge house that there would be more than one drink area.  This one was a beautifully decorated table with a black tablecloth and a couple of Jack-O-Lanterns lit with tea-candles, pushed up against a window looking out over the courtyard.  She was surprised to find that the drinks were mostly untouched and the courtyard was empty, but as she surveyed the area she’d found, she realized that despite the blaring music, she’d actually moved away from the crowd for the most part.  Besides a couple of people chatting in the corner of the room and a couple making out at the other end of the drink table, Betty was pretty much alone.

With a breath of relief that she hadn’t realized she was holding, she tossed her red cup in the garbage and grabbed a bottle of beer from the bowl of icy drinks.  Cheryl’s taste came in handy every once in a while, and one of those moments was now.  Betty had never liked the cheap beer — it was all about the ale.

Just as she cracked it open, the devil herself appeared.

Not that she was calling Cheryl the devil because she was awful or anything.  Cheryl was just dressed as a slutty satan.

“Betty!  So glad you could make it.”  Cheryl’s arms were wrapped around Betty’s shoulders quicker than she could say no as the fiery red head engulfed her in a huge hug.  “It’s been ages.”

Betty stifled a sigh as Cheryl’s devil horns brushed against her hair and slowly wrapped her own arms around the girl, offering a hug back.

“ Cute ,”  Cheryl exclaimed as she pulled back from Betty and surveyed her costume.  “Slightly morbid, but I love it.”

Betty blinked at Cheryl, surprise washing over her face.  “You actually get my costume?”

“Betty, dearest.  Would I be the reigning gothic queen that I am had I no clue who Sharon Tate was?”

A smile grew across Betty’s face.  This was the same Cheryl Blossom she’d always known, just a little more mature.  “No, I guess you wouldn’t be.”

“I’m so glad Veronica was able to drag you out of the city.  You’re so quiet on your socials, I hardly knew what to expect in terms of looks.  You could have shaved your head and dyed your eyebrows pink for all I knew.”

Betty nearly choked at the image Cheryl had successfully conjured up in her mind.  “Not yet, but I haven’t had my midlife crisis yet so there’s still time.”

Cheryl laughed as she reached into one of the buckets of ice and pulled out a White Claw.  Using her own claws, she snapped it open and took a tidy sip from it.  As she lowered it from her full red lips, she leaned up against the table with a pleased sigh.  “I must say, I’ve really outdone myself this year.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well, it’s a great party, but I haven’t been to a Cheryl Blossom party since high school so I don’t have much to compare it to.”

“I can’t take all the credit, of course,”  Cheryl continued as if Betty hadn’t spoken.  “My wonderful TeeTee helped me plan and execute.”

Betty raised an eyebrow in confusion.  “TeeTee?”

“Oh, you remember Toni, don’t you?  She was a friend of your high school beau.”

Betty blinked at Cheryl.  She hadn’t seen much of Cheryl on any of her social feed’s and it finally hit her why.  Sometime after she and Jughead had broken up and Betty had gone off to college, Cheryl started posting stories and photos of herself and Toni.  Toni was always super nice to Betty, but every time she saw her face, Betty was reminded of Jughead.  So one afternoon when the pain of their breakup was hitting her especially hard, Betty made the choice to soft block Cheryl.  She still followed her, of course.  Cheryl’s posts just wouldn’t appear in her feed.

So of course Betty wouldn’t have known that Cheryl and Toni had become a thing.

“Toni?  Yeah, I remember her.  How’s she doing?”

“Marvelous!”  Cheryl’s face lit up as she spoke about the once purple haired girl.  “We both attended Penn State, where I double majored in botany and toxicology.  Toni got a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology with a minor in photography.”

“Wait, you’re already done?”

“We were both accepted into accelerated programs and finished a year earlier than planned.  We moved back to Riverdale and into Thistlehouse in July.”

“And now I work as a counselor and case worker at the Centerville Rehabilitation Center.”  Betty cocked her head just enough to see a familiar face enter the room.  “Betty, hey.  It’s good to see you.”

“Wow, Toni, it’s good to see you too.”  Betty smiled at Toni, taking in the differences from when she’d last seen her.  What one was long, purple waves, had been replaced by beautiful, intricate braids with strands of pink and blue weaving around her naturally dark hair.  She wasn’t much taller than before, but her shoulder was decorated with a gorgeous snake that seemed to swirl around and down her arm, disappearing into the white gloves she wore.

And why should Betty be surprised that she’s dressed as an angel?

Was everyone here dressed in a couples costume but her?

“I hate to break up the reunion, but I actually need your help in the main dining room, Cher,”  Toni said, intertwining her fingers with Cheryl’s.

“Ugh, is Dilton being creepy again?”  Cheryl asked.

“He’s terrified of you, so maybe he’ll actually stay away this time.”

With a roll of her eyes, Cheryl pushed herself off the table and waved a goodbye to Betty.  Within seconds, the couple had left the room and Betty was once again standing in near silence.  With another sip of her beer, Betty made the choice to step outside into the courtyard.  The cool autumn air caressed her face, a small chill running down her spine.  She wasn’t dressed for the cold, but then again, who was tonight?

Nevertheless, she continued out into the chilly night, soaking in the quiet hum of the beats from inside.  She found a solid cement bench a few feet away, sitting gracefully beside the beginning of a long row of rose bushes.

How in character of Cheryl , Betty thought as she took a seat against the cool stone.  She lifted the beer to her lips once more and finished off what was left of it.  She had drank more tonight than she had in a long while, and while it felt good to let loose a little bit, Betty couldn’t help but feel a bit of remorse.  She had spent the last few years of her life running away from her problems, burying them in schoolwork, extra circulars, and unpaid internships.  It was doing great things for her resume, but her social life had paid the cost.

Veronica had watched her best friend deteriorate into a shell of who she had once been, and Betty regretted that.  She had never wanted Veronica to feel pity for her so she always tried to cover her resistance to going out with some type of excuse.

“Betty, c’mon.  We’re in our second year of college, we have a super chic apartment just a few blocks away from school, and yet we never go out.”

Betty sighed, lifting her eyes from the textbook she had been hard at work highlighting in to meet the gaze of her best friend.  Veronica donned a deep amethyst dress that cut off a few inches above her knee with a plunging neckline, a pair of black pumps and dainty jewelry to accentuate it.  Veronica Lodge never had to get ready for a party, because she dressed herself every day as if she was attending one.  “Midterms are next week, V.  I’ve got so much studying to cram in between class and interning at Metro Print.”

“You’ve been studying for three days straight.  Your brain needs a break, or it’s going to overload and just stop functioning completely!”  Veronica threw her arms in the air dramatically before crossing them over her chest.  “Don’t make me go to this party without my best gal pal.”

Betty offered a sympathetic smile in her direction.  “Next party, I’ll be there.  Swear.”

“You’ve said that the last three parties!”  Veronica stifled a sigh as she walked towards the kitchen, her heels clicking against the hard linoleum.  With her back turned to Betty, she said, “You and I both know this is about more than midterms.”

“Excuse me?”  Betty perked up, her eyebrow raising as she stared at her best friends back.

“You are the smartest person I know.  You were valedictorian, you held a 4.2 GPA through like, all of high school, even with everything going on with your dad, and you never studied like this.”

“Yeah, well, college is harder.  I’m barely maintaining a 3.8 GPA now, and if I want to get into grad school, then I need to do better.”

“You didn’t start studying like this until after you broke things off with J-”

“Don’t.”  Betty interrupted immediately.  “Don’t say his name.  Don’t bring him into this.”

Veronica let out a quiet sigh and turned back around, holding her small black clutch with the purple studs, and made her way back towards the living room Betty was sitting in.  “Don’t you think it’s time to move on?”

“I have moved on.  I literally just went on a date.”

“Three months ago.  You went out for Chinese food three months ago with that weirdo Luke from your biology class.”

“I don’t have time to date, Veronica!”  Betty exclaimed, feeling the heat rise up her neck.  “Not all of us can depend on our parent’s money if college doesn’t work out!”

Veronica blinked slowly at Betty, seemingly unsure if Betty had really just said that.  Betty wasn’t quite sure she had said it either, but when she saw the ever so subtle liquid well up in her best friend's eyes, she knew that she had, and she knew that she’d made a huge mistake.

“God, V, I-I didn’t mean that,” Betty spoke quietly, moving the book from her lap to the coffee table.  “I’m really sorry.”

Veronica nodded slowly as she chewed on her bottom lip.  “It’s fine, B.  I’m going to head out.”

“I promise I’ll go next time,” Betty said quietly, unable to look away from her best friend.  “I double dog pinky promise.”

A gentle smile grew across Veronica’s lips as she shrugged.  “We’ll see about that,”  and then, as she walked towards the front door, “And hey, you can lie to me all you want, but you can’t lie to yourself.  You’re the only person who knows exactly how you’re feeling, so accept that and do with it as you will.”

Veronica had been right that night.  Betty had been burying herself in order to hide from the fact that she regretted breaking up with Jughead every single day since she had walked out of his bedroom, and seemingly, out of his life.

She kept telling herself, today is the day you reach out.  Just say hello through a text, or follow him on Instagram again.  Just start the conversation.

But every day, that conversation was followed with, but he didn’t follow you.  He didn’t choose you.

And well, she was right.  She had left Jughead with an impossible choice, but a choice nonetheless, and he had made his.  If she was being honest with herself, and she rarely was these days, she wouldn’t have truly made him choose between the Serpents and her.  She recognized how important they were to him, and they had saved her life.  In the moment, it felt like the right choice to tell him he had to choose.  She was traumatized by what she had gone through, and part of her blamed the Serpents.  But just as she didn’t blame her mother anymore for her fathers abuse, she didn’t blame the Serpents or Jughead for what the Ghoulies had done.

If he had simply followed her like she was praying he would, she would have told him he could have both.  But in the midst of it all, when he thought he could have one or the other, he chose the Serpents, and Betty had to live with that.

So it became an unspoken rule after high school, when she no longer had to see him at school in the hallways or during lunch periods, that there would be no mention of Jughead around her.  She knew that Archie and Jughead had formed a relatively close friendship, and Veronica was in touch with him because they were step siblings after all, but neither of them dared to talk about him with her around.  She’d heard inklings of their conversations when she was holed up in her room studying, so she knew the bare minimum.  He was living on the other side of the city, and attended NYU just like Betty, but they were in separate programs and so it was incredibly unlikely that they crossed paths.

Betty also specifically took early morning classes, knowing he didn’t like getting his day started until the sun was high in the sky and the lunch bells were dinging.

She didn’t know much outside of that, most other inklings were about Archie meeting with Jughead at a local bar or Veronica seeing her family for the holidays; and honestly, she was thankful she didn’t know more.

Things had gotten a little easier, of course.  She was less reluctant of social activity and had gone out a few times with Veronica and a few college friends.  Still, there was a tinge in her chest every time something reminded her of him, and after four years, she found it astonishing that so many things still reminded her of her high school crush-turned-boyfriend.

Veronica and Archie aside, and not completely counting Kevin and Joaquin, it wasn’t that common for high school sweethearts to last, so why the hell did she still feel something for Jughead?

It was probably the alcohol thinking for her, but she found herself getting angry.  She was mad at herself for not getting over a stupid high school boyfriend when there were plenty of attractive guys at her college that she could go out with in a moments notice.  She was mad that she was so hung up on Jughead fucking Jones and his stupid blue eyes and his stupid dark hair with the little ringlet that hung so cutely in front of his face whenever his beanie was sitting slouched on his head, when she didn’t even know if he still looked like that.  For all she knew, he could have shaved his head, he could be bald, he could have gotten an awful self tan and looked like Ross in that one episode of Friends.  And she was mad that even if he had all of these features, even if he had shrunk two feet or lost a couple toes, she’d still feel for him.  She hated him for that.

So, in the drunken state she was in, Betty made a hazy decision.

Even if it was Reggie or Dilton, she was going to hook up with the next guy she spoke to.  She was going to use Ginger Lopez, a girl from her freshman year World History class, for advice.  She was going to get over Jughead by getting under someone.

It didn’t matter that it hadn’t exactly worked in the past.  Tonight, she was determined, and Betty always did the things she was determined to do.

A cheers into the abyss with her empty bottle, she made the declaration to herself.  She was going to sleep with the next guy who—

“What are we toasting to?”

Betty startled, fumbling with the bottle in her hand until it fell to the grass and rolled off into the darkness.  She slowly turned towards the voice — the male voice — nervous but ready to keep her promise to herself, until-

“ Jughead ?”

“I thought that was you,”  Jughead stood in front of her, dressed in an all black suit minus the blazer, a white button up sitting under the black vest.  On his shoulder rested a very obviously fake raven, and on his head, a beanie was missing, replaced by tousled dark hair.

“Edgar Allen Poe,”  Betty thought out loud as she examined his costume.

“You’re the second person to figure it out.”  It was dark, but Betty could barely make out the smirk that Jughead expressed.  “Cheryl being the first, because of course.  I thought the raven would be a dead give away, but apparently people aren’t as well read as they once were.”

“She got mine too,” Betty said in agreement.

“Sharon Tate, right?”  Betty nodded slowly to his question.  “Good costume.  Mind if I sit?”

“Go ahead.”  Even though there was plenty of room for him to sit, Betty felt the need to scoot a few more inches to the side.  She blinked slowly at him as he took his seat, unsure if she was seeing him because he was actually there, or because she was so angry she had manifested him.

“I’ve never been a party person, and this damn kegger is just reminding me of that,” Jughead spoke casually, never quite looking in Betty’s direction.  Betty crossed her fingers in her lap and tried to figure out what to say.

Was this some kind of sign?  She’d been avoiding him all this time, and suddenly he’s there in front of her, speaking to her like there hadn’t been a mess of a relationship in their past.  This had to be a sign, right?

So even if he was a manifestation and she would look insane talking to air (she could blame it on the alcohol after all), Betty decided to try and make friendly conversation back.

“I distinctly remember you going to all of Cheryl’s party’s back in the day.”

Jughead chuckled and shook his head.  “I typically hung outside and nursed a couple beers.”

Betty nodded, remembering the last party of Cheryl’s that she had attended where Jughead had also been in attendance.  It had been the night he saved her from drowning.  The night they kissed for the first time in far too long.

Shaking the memory from her mind, she asked, “So if you’re not much of a party person, why exactly did you come tonight?”

With a shrug, he answered her.  “One last hurrah, I guess; and Archie wouldn’t shut up until I agreed to come.”

“Typical Archie,” Betty smiled ever so slightly, reminded of how perfect Archie and Veronica were for each other.  They were both incredibly persuasive people, and when they couldn’t persuade, they would just bother people until they got what they wanted.

“And what about you?”  he asked.  “Didn’t you learn not to wander Blossom property when you’re drunk?”

The giggle that escaped her lips made her cringe.  Who did she think she was, giggling like that to her ex boyfriend?  “Well, lucky for me, there’s no pool out here.  Just grass and rose bushes.”

Jughead nodded in acceptance of her answer, and a silence grew between them.  For a moment, Betty forgot that he was even there.  She was letting the cool, gentle wind graze her face when his voice finally broke through the quiet wall.“What are you doing out here anyways?”

It was Betty’s turn to shrug, her eyes wandering the dark property.  “It was getting overwhelming in there, and honestly, I’m a little drunk right now so I needed some fresh air.”

“A little drunk?”  Jughead finally turned in his seat to look at her, the smirk still on his face.

Betty cocked her neck just enough to see his face and giggled quietly.  “Okay, I’m a lot drunk.  And I was thinking about calling an Uber, but my reception sucks inside,” she lied.  She wasn’t about to tell him that she had just promised herself meaningless sex with the next guy to speak to her, when he was the next guy that spoke to her after the fact.

Then again, if this was a sign, there was the possibility that she could be under him tonight instead of some random guy.  That would defeat the meaningless sex part, of course, but-

No .  No way in hell was Betty going to lead herself down that road again.  She and Jughead had broken up over four years ago, and here she was feeling all wishful for him again, believing in signs , thinking about hooking up with him.  Who was this girl?

“I’m actually headed back to my hotel at the Five Seasons if you want a ride.”

Okay, maybe there were such things as signs.

“Are you sober enough to drive?”

“I had a beer about two hours ago,” Jughead chuckled.  “I’m good.”

Betty nodded slowly, and within five minutes, Betty was lifting herself into the familiar truck Jughead had been driving since high school.

As the truck started up, Betty could hear a distant flapping sound.  As Jughead started to drive out of the Blossom estate and onto the main road, the sound got louder.  “You’ve got a broken fan belt, you know.”

She could see Jughead raise his eyebrow from her peripheral vision.  “How can you tell?”

“You hear how it kind of sounds like you have a flat tire?”

Jughead nodded slowly.

“That’s your fan belt.  Your tires are fine, you’d be driving more lopsided if they were that low.”  Betty shrugged.  “It’s a pretty cheap fix, and really easy to do.  Just don’t put it off for long, otherwise your engine will overheat.”

“You always were good with cars, weren’t you?”

It had been one of the few things her father had taught her that she’d carried with her.  That and a love for the classics, which is what sparked Betty to reach forward and turn on the radio.  It didn’t take her long to switch between channels, having memorized her favorite Riverdale stations when she was a child.  97.5 was the best station for classic rock, often playing the likings of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Hootie & the Blowfish, Whitesnake, and more.  Just as the channel turned from static to music, they caught the end of Fly Like an Eagle by the Steve Miller Band.  Betty turned it up and leaned back against her seat.

“I love this song!”  She exclaimed as the doo doo doo-doo’s filled the cab of the truck.

Jughead tapped his finger along to the beat as he nodded in agreement.  “It’s a classic, that’s for sure.”

“All of these songs are, Jug,” Betty laughed, bobbing her head slowly to the music.  “It’s the classics station.”

The song ended too quickly, replaced by the voice of the overnight radio host.

“That was Fly Like an Eagle by Steve Miller band.  Up next, we’ve got The Turtles for you!”

The recognizable beat of one of the most well-known and most covered songs filled the truck this time.

“ Imagine me and you, I do.

I think about you day and night, it’s only right

To think about the girl you love, and hold her tight.

So happy together.”

Betty felt a strange tug on her heart as the voice of Howard Kaylan echoed over the radio, singing words she’d always known but couldn’t dare sing along to right now.

She couldn’t deny the signs anymore, could she?

He was there, in the flesh.  They were alone.  There was a love song playing over the radio.

And as they pulled up to the curb of the Cooper residence, all lights on the street out besides the few Halloween decorations, Betty had a split second decision to make.

She had spent so long trying to get over him, trying to understand why she left him in the first place and regretting it with every ounce of her being.  She had stayed in love with him through every other date, she had even drunkenly told her at the time boyfriend that she wanted to marry Jughead instead of him.  And sure, he hadn’t reached out, but maybe that was because he was struggling with getting over her too.

Had they really spent all this time apart, trying to get over each other while still silently pining?  Had he been wishing that she’d contact him as much as she’d hoped he would?

All signs pointed to yes.

And if all else failed and there were no feelings left between the two of them, their relationship had started as a simple hookup.  Who was to say it couldn’t end that way too?

So, in that split second, she made her choice.

She unbuckled her seatbelt but turned her body towards Jughead rather than opening the door.

“Jug,” She said quietly, barely a whisper over the sound of the music.  There was a nervousness to her voice, a quiver in her throat.

“Hm?” Jughead turned slowly, their eyes truly meeting for the first time tonight, and Betty knew he had to feel the same sparks that she was.  There was an electric current between them, a magnetic force pulling them together.  Without another thought, Betty took his face in her hands and pressed her lips against his.

They were soft and luscious, just like she remembered, and for a moment, their lips moved in sync to the song, relearning one another.  Years without his lips against hers, and yet they danced together like they had never been a part.  

But then there was emptiness.

A lack of pressure.

Cold.

Betty opened her eyes to find Jughead staring down at her in disbelief.  His eyebrows were furrowed as if he were trying to understand the situation, and now Betty felt more confused than ever.  His lips were parted just enough that she could feel his warm breath against her face, coming out in short little bursts.

It was dark and she was drunk.  Was she really seeing anger in his eyes, or was it passion?

“What the hell, Betty?!”  He exclaimed, backing away from her.

Definitely anger .

“I-I…” Betty fumbled over her words, her stomach reeling as she pushed herself back towards the passenger side door.  “I must have misread the signs, I’m… I’m so sorry.  I should go.”

“Signs?!”  Jughead ran his hand over his face in the same way he used to when they were younger.  She recalled the way it resembled his father; it was how the Jones men showed their stress.  “I don’t know what signs you’re talking about, but you can’t just kiss me like that.”

Betty felt the heat in her face, her cheeks burning with embarrassment as she shot back at him, “Why?!  We’re adults now, aren’t we?  Can’t people kiss without it meaning anything?”

She was lying through her teeth.  Of course it meant something to her, but she couldn’t let him know that.

“No, Betty.  We can’t, not when it comes to our history.  I can’t kiss you without it meaning something.”

“So it did mean something to you,” Betty gulped.

“ Betty .”  Jughead sighed loudly.  “Whether it meant something or not doesn’t matter.  I can’t kiss you.”

“Why, Jughead?”  She was fully aware she was making a fool of herself, but the alcohol had taken over and she no longer cared.  “Give me one damn reason why this can’t happen again.  One reason why we can’t hook up for old times sake.”

“Oh, for fucks sake.  Who even are you now?”

“One reason.”

There was a long silence between the two of them, the final verses of the song playing through the speaker while Betty waited for him to speak.  It was becoming too much for her as she watched him open and close his mouth over and over again, no words coming out, his eyes locked on the steering wheel of his old truck.

Her anger was dissipating, turning into sheer desperation.  “Juggie, ple-”

“I’m getting married tomorrow.”

It was a slap in the face as Betty stared at the dark haired boy with the shadows under his eyes in disbelief.  All the signs she thought she’d been picking up on… it was all just pity for his high school ex-girlfriend.

Jughead didn’t feel love for her anymore.

He didn’t feel anything for her anymore, that she was sure of.

And that is what finally made her realize how drunk she was.

Before she could stop herself, the contents of her stomach were already on their way up, and she realized that alcohol tasted much better going down than it did coming back up.

Chapter Text

“There is something to be said about a navy blue dress shirt against a rich black suit jacket,”  Veronica stood in front of the store mirror, holding what appeared to be an expensive piece of navy blue fabric against an even more expensive piece of fabric. (Jughead would come to find out later that these two pieces of fabric were in fact very expensive, and much too far outside of the budget that he or any sane man would ever have for a shirt they’d wear once or twice and then never look at again.).  “It’s classy and chic all in one.”

Jughead rolled his eyes, his entire torso slinking against the back of the armchair he sat in.  His favorite part of this day so far had been the fact that this store had comfortable chairs, a luxury that stores like Target and Zumiez rarely offered.  “Nothing about this wedding screams classy or chic , and I’d rather not spend an entire month's salary on a shirt.”

Veronica huffed in frustration as she hung the two articles of clothing on the metal hangers beside the mirror.  “Every girl has the wedding of her dreams.  Don’t you want to give Jessica hers?”

“Jess and I agreed, we want to keep it small.  The only reason we’re not eloping at a town hall in the city is because your mother and my dad offered to pay for the venue if we agreed to get married in Riverdale.”  Jughead shrugged, crossing his arms across his chest.

“How romantic, you’re getting married in the only church in Riverdale, and you’re not even religious.”

“You know, you sure do have a lot of opinions about my wedding for someone who tried to talk me out of it three months ago.”

“You and Jess had been dating for seven months, and I’d met her all of once.  Of course I was concerned, Jughead!”

Jughead couldn’t help but nod in and out of a restless sleep as some random serial killer documentary played on the screen in front of him.  His body was stretched out across the couch, his grey beanie stretched down past his eyes to allow for darkness in the otherwise well lit apartment.

Remind me to get some black out curtains next time I’m at Target , he told himself as he made a mental note, turning once more to try and angle the sun out of his eyes.

He’d just finally nodded off for more than a second when he heard the jangling of keys in the door.  It didn’t dawn on him until after the door opened that his best friend and roommate wouldn’t be home from his trip to Indiana for another couple of hours.  He peeked his eye open just in time to see a flash of dark hair walk past the couch.

“ What are you doing here?”  Jughead groaned as he sat up.

Veronica nearly jumped out of her skin as she rounded the corner to the small kitchen, turning on her heel immediately to face her step brother.  “I thought you were coming back tomorrow,”  She said calmly, avoiding the fact that Jughead had just scared her half to death.

“And I thought there was no way you’d ever step foot inside this apartment without Archie, yet here we are.”

Veronica rolled her eyes and set her monster of a purse on the cheap counter.  “Archie gets home soon, I thought I’d surprise him by making dinner.”

“You don’t cook.”

“Okay, fine .  I was going to order from our favorite Italian restaurant.  I’m sure he can go for a fine meal after spending the last week eating nothing but fried foods.”

“You know that this is Archie we’re talking about, right?  His relationship to food is close in comparison to my relationship with food.  He has had no issue with the fried food.”

“You didn’t tell me why you’re back early,” Veronica said, a stern tone to her voice.  “Why in the world would you come back from Martha’s Vineyard an entire day early?”

“Jess got asked to come in for an interview at some radio station tomorrow so we decided to head back today.”

Veronica placed her manicured nails against her collarbone, feigning shock.  “Now wait a minute, I was under the impression that you were going alone to work on your novel.  Add a girlfriend and this becomes an incredibly romantic trip.”

“When exactly did you decide that you’re entitled to every detail of my life?”

“Mm…” Veronica seemed to think for a moment.  “Prom night at Pops, definitely.”

Jughead stiffened and a blanket of silence coated the room around them.  Veronica’s eyes widened just slightly as she realized that she’d just mentioned a night that Jughead had attempted to remove from his memory over and over again.

Jughead took a deep breath and pushed himself off the couch, deciding that now would be a perfect time to head to his own bedroom for the nap he’d been trying so desperately to get.  As he walked past Veronica, he could hear her sigh before attempting to change the subject.

“Why did you bring Jessica to Martha’s Vineyard?  I didn’t realize you two were travel-to-luxurious-locations serious.”

Jughead shrugged, stopping in the hallway and turning to face his sister as he stuffed his hands in his jean pockets.  “I just did, I don’t need a reason to bring my fiancé to nice place—”

“Wait, what?”  Veronica’s eyes widened even more than before.  Jughead could feel his heart begin to race.  He had definitely not intended on telling Veronica about this quite yet.  “Did you just call her your fiancé?  I know for a fact that before you left, you were still calling her your girlfriend and I have the texts to prove it!  Oh my god, Jughead Jones!  Did you propose to Jessica at Martha’s Vineyard?”

Jughead sighed quietly, nodding slowly.  “I mean, yeah, I guess I did.”

“You guess?”

“It wasn’t some big romantic gesture.  We just kind of… decided it.”

“You decided to get married?  Jughead, people decide to get married when they’re in their forties and still single and they have a pact with their best friend.  Twenty-somethings don’t just decide to get married, especially when they’ve been dating for all of seven months.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”  Jughead accused.

“It’s just, you’ve never been the type to just rush into something reckless—”

“Jess and I aren’t reckless.”

“Jug, neither of you are ready to get married.  You’re both still in school, you don’t have the money, where would you even live?”

“I don’t remember asking you your opinion on how it’s going to work out.  How about you leave my relationship to me and bug off?”  Jughead said lowly before storming off down the hallway, slamming his bedroom door behind him.  Crawling into bed, he put on his noise canceling headphones and blasted the newest Mother Mother album until his body gave in and finally went for that nap.

If Veronica had stayed for a night in with Italian dinner and Archie, he wouldn’t have known. 

“And yet here we are.”

Veronica breathed in a deep breath and nodded slowly.  “Here we are.”

“Can we please grab some lunch now?  You’ve dragged me through three different clothing stores — I didn’t even know Riverdale had that many clothing stores to begin with — and you haven’t fed me.  That’s torture, y’know, Ronnie.”

Half an hour later, Jughead was sitting in an old, slightly worn booth with a half-gone chocolate milkshake in front of him and a plate of onion rings that had since been devoured, mainly by himself.  Veronica had eaten all of two.

“People are going to start thinking you’re a five year old when they see the things you eat,” Veronica shook her head as she eyed the crumbs of onion rings past that sat on the plate in the middle of the table.

“They wouldn’t be that far off, Ronnie.”  Jughead smirked and took another sip of his milkshake.

Just as Veronica opened her mouth to speak again, the bell of the familiar diner’s door tinkled.  Veronica smiled as Jughead turned around in his booth seat to see his roommate walk in, glancing around until he spotted the two of them.  With a quickness in his step, Archie moved towards the booth until he was standing in front of it.  His smile became a frown all too quickly as he found the empty plate of onion rings.

“Oh, come on!”  Archie let out an exasperated sigh, feigning dramatics.  “You know I love Pop’s onion rings!”

“Don’t look at me, lover boy.  Blame your roomie.”  Veronica said as she glanced down at her phone.  “Oh, shoot!  I completely forgot I have a mani-pedi booked with my mother today.  Can I trust you two to your own devices for a few hours?”

Jughead shrugged.  “Guess you’ll find out.  Be careful though, I might go buy a dress shirt from Walmart or something if you’re not back soon enough.”

“Forsythe Pendleton Jones The Third, if you so much as step foot into the Walmart parking lot, I will have my driver take you to an undisclosed location and force you to eat only fruits and vegetables for a week straight.”  Veronica narrowed her eyes at the raven haired boy, then moved her glare to Archie.  “I’m trusting that you will make sure he makes no design decisions without me present, Archibald.”

Archie slunked back in his chair a bit and nodded.  “Promise, babe.”

“Great!”  Veronica’s vicious stare did a 180, turning into a smile that could only be made by cheerleaders of the past.  “Then with that, I bid you both adieu.”

Jughead could still hear Veronica as she left, requesting one of the servers to pack the salad she’d ordered to-go and send it home with Archie.

Jughead relaxed in his seat as he took yet another sip from his milkshake and shook his head.  “You’re going to live with that someday.”

Archie laughed.  “Yeah, I guess I am.”  Eyeing the root-beer float that Veronica had ordered for Archie specifically, he pulled it towards him and took a swig of it before setting it down with a clank.  “Are you going to Cheryl’s party tomorrow night?”

It was Jughead’s turn to laugh, shaking his head back and forth.  “God, no.  I have had enough Blossom parties to last me a lifetime.”

“Oh, come on dude!”  Archie pleaded.  “It’s been years.”

“Not enough years.”

“I heard Reggie is bringing weed.  We can get stoned in the bathroom, make the party way more bearable.”

“Smoking in a Blossom mansion bathroom with my roommate and some of his jock friends?  Sounds enticing ,”  Jughead said sarcastically.

“Okay, look, don’t tell Ronnie but you can even embarrass her by wearing some stupid couples costume with Jessica.”

“I don’t exactly have any interest in dressing up as some latex-covered superhero, but thanks Pureheart; plus Jess doesn’t get into town until the day of the wedding.  Her sister took her on some bachelorette road trip to Maine.”

Archie seemed to think for a moment at this, but Jughead could see the lightbulb in his head go off as a smile grew across his face.  “I haven’t thrown you a bachelor party!  That’s it, this is your bachelor party and you don’t get another choice.”

“Can’t you take me to some sleazy bar?  Hell, the Wyrm is still open.”

Archie shook his head with a smirk.  “Nope.  Your bachelor party is being held at Cheryl’s, and costume is mandatory.”

“What the hell has my sister done to you?”

It was Archie’s forced celebration and Jughead’s desire to embarrass his step-sister by wearing a fake raven on his sleeve that led him to this moment: standing in the doorway of his high school ex-girlfriend’s bedroom, making sure she left her bathroom safely after changing into some pajamas.

He hadn’t gotten nearly as drunk as he’d expected too, and smoking in the bathroom lasted all of ten minutes before Reggie admitted to having only brought enough weed for two bowl fulls.  He also hadn’t left the way he’d expected, because never in his wildest imagination would he picture himself having a pleasant conversation with the girl who broke his heart, and then leaving the party with her.

But she was drunk, and her mom’s house was barely out of his way.  At least, that’s what he told himself.

Then she had to go and fuck it all up and kiss him, which was another thing he hadn’t expected.  And if Jughead was a dick, he’d have told her off then and there.  But, he had to remind himself, she was drunk, and within moments of his apparent bombshell of a wedding announcement, she was throwing up outside of his truck.

He would pretend that his reason for helping her had everything to do with him being a proper gentleman and not at all a dick, and that he hadn’t just thrown a cold coffee at some asshole lawyer-type while walking in Times Square a month ago.

He could have just left her there on the sidewalk of her childhood home.  He should have, he thinks, because why should it be his responsibility to take care of her?  He’d done that once before, and she thanked him by breaking up with him.  Just the reminder of that night had his chest feeling tight and his limbs feeling weak.

Maybe he’d had more to drink than he’d expected, and driving home was the worst thing he could have done.

He’d reprimand himself in the morning, when the feeling of the cold autumn air was crisp and he was thinking of how lucky he was to be able to experience a morning like that.

He doesn’t think too much about the fact that it was a fall morning he was thankful for first, and not his wedding.

After about five minutes, Betty emerged from her bathroom dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of fluffy flannel pajama pants that he’s pretty sure he’d seen in a Christmas bag last year from Veronica.  Mystery solved of who the gift was for.

Gone was the Sharon Tate get up, a girl with tired eyes and a messy ponytail taking its place.

She jumped slightly as she noticed Jughead standing in the doorway, but he noted that she didn’t seem too bothered.  Instead, she just continues towards her bed.  Jughead sighed quietly to himself before speaking up as she crawled into her bed and under her covers.

“You feeling any better?”

“My mom made pumpkin scones today for breakfast, with this really delicious almond and hazelnut spread.”

Jughead raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly.  “Sounds delicious.”

“Not when it’s coming back up.”

“Noted.”  Jughead took a step towards her bed cautiously, eyeing her to make sure she looked alright.  It was then that a street lamp reflecting into her room through some open blinds caught Betty, illuminating her golden strands of hair as they lie splayed out against her pillow like a beautiful, antique fan; the deep emerald of her eyes twinkles, and for a moment he’s lost in an ocean in the middle of a storm.  Jughead felt a strange sensation as he looked into her eyes for the first true time since they had broken up, and every ounce of his soul wanted to reach out and touch her face.  She hadn’t taken her makeup off yet, something Betty had always been notorious about in the past, and part of him wanted to hand her a makeup wipe, but then he remembered that they hadn’t spoken in years, and he had no idea who this Betty was or what she was notorious for.

“Thanks for staying, Jug.”  Betty’s words were slurred slightly, partly from the drinking and partly due to the fact that she was clearly exhausted.  Her eyes had begun to butterfly shut.  The blankets that covered her moved slowly with her chest as she began to slip into a state of sleep.  “Good night, I love you.”

“What?”

Jughead stared at Betty in shock, but it was too late.  She was out like a light, a quiet snore escaping her rosy lips every couple of seconds.

She definitely hadn’t meant what she said, he knew that.  In her drunken and tired state, she’d said something stupid.  She probably thought she’d been talking to Veronica, her mom — hell, even Archie.  But there was no way she’d meant to say that to Jughead.

With a quiet gulp and a tight feeling in his chest, Jughead began to walk out of her bedroom and down the stairs towards the front door.  He’d walked these stairs so many times in his youth, his fingers twitching at the feeling of the familiar stained wood.

“We’ll be out in like sixty seconds, Juggie.”  A cheerful blonde popped her head out from the door at the top of the stairs, illuminating every stair down to the ground level, where a quiet Jughead stood slouched against the wall.  “I mean it this time, V is putting the finishing touches on her makeup.”

“Betty!”  A much less soothing voice screeched from behind the door Betty was propped up at.  “What did you do with the lipstick?! I need it!”

Betty rolled her eyes and giggled before tilting her head back towards the room and saying, “Look to your right.”  She gazed back at Jughead and smiled apologetically.  “We’ll be down any second now, swear it.”

Jughead simply shrugged and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his dark grey jeans, the chains from his belt dangling quietly.  A few moments later, the two girls emerged from Betty’s bedroom.

Veronica was dressed in a pair of dark skinny jeans and a deep violet blouse that he distinctly remembered she had gotten for her birthday from her aunt last year.  The shoes she wore were higher than any heel he’d ever seen on her own, let alone higher than any that she was allowed to wear at thirteen, and he was without a doubt positive that she had snagged them from Hermione’s closet.  Her hair was hanging loosely around her shoulders, a headband that matched her blouse surprisingly well peeking out from the top of her skull.

Betty was the polar opposite of her best friend, a stark contrast between the two of them that it nearly took his breath away.  She wore a light pink dress with little cherry blossom petals sprinkled around the skirt that fell right at her knees.  A pair of bright white tennis-shoes and light pink socks to go with the dress, and her hair was pulled back into a looser ponytail than she normally wore, with a few strands flying free to shape her face.

They looked like night and day, and the night owl in Jughead wanted suddenly to bask in the bright day’s sunlight.

“Sorry for the wait, Juggie.” Betty offered affectionately as the two girls trailed down the stairs to meet him.

“I’m not sorry at all.”  Veronica cut in, crossing her arms across her chest.  “This is serious business, I had to get the right look down.”

“A date with Archie is not some fancy smancy business deal, V.”

“ First date, thank you very much,” Veronica corrected Betty.  “And you’re right, it’s far more important than any business deal!”

Betty giggled quietly at her best friend's nervous behaviors.

“Remind me again why I have to tag along on this stupid thing,” Jughead finally said, but he was pretty sure he knew the answer anyways.

“Because my mother said thirteen is too young to be going on dates alone, but that I could bring a friend, and I wasn’t about to let B here be a third wheel.”

Jughead and Betty rolled their eyes simultaneously, Jughead going as far as to shrug at her.  “Fine, let’s head out.”  Swinging the front door open and heading down the stone pathway, he couldn’t help but sneak one more quick glance at the sunshine behind him.  “The quicker we get to mini-golf, the quicker we’re done with mini-golf.”

He’d loved Betty for so long.  Before he’d truly believed in the word love, he was pretty sure he had still loved Betty.  He would recall faint childhood memories and realize that the common denominator and all of his best memories was none-other than Betty Cooper.  For a while, those memories haunted him.  He could no longer look back at the formative years of his youth without a painful tightness in his chest, and all he wanted was to find Morpheus and take the little blue pill.

But they had started to fade, and while they were still painful to think of, Jughead no longer felt the need to double over in pain.  Eventually he wasn’t thinking of her more than a couple times a month.

But here he was, sitting in the driver's seat of his truck, fingers clenching the wheel as if he were afraid to drive away.  He sees her again, in the flesh and not through his sister's occasional Instagram stories where he swears he sees a peek of blonde hair in the corner of the screen, and suddenly his mind is flooding with memories, and flashbacks are being triggered by something as mundane as a staircase.

She hadn’t meant anything by it.

She hadn’t meant anything by it.

He kept telling himself that, over and over again as he drove right past Archie’s, where he was supposed to be staying.  The voice got louder, more harsh and more painful, as he continued to drive, driving right over the train track that separated the town in two, and suddenly he was transported to a land he’d only come to remember during writing assignments and calls with Jellybean where he could hear his mother in the background.

“Jones?” Jughead looked up from the dirt driveway to see an old friend approaching him, a sweater wrapped tightly around her halloween costume and a pair of fluffy pajama pants protecting her legs from the cold.  “I came as soon as I got your text.”

“Thanks, Toni.” Jughead offered a small smile in her direction as she took a seat beside him on the stairs of her old trailer.  Her grandparents had moved to Florida a while back, but Toni kept up with the rent on the spot so that they always had somewhere to stay for visits.  Despite their lack of acceptance when she had first come out, Toni had helped them become more educated and in turn, they became more accepting.

“What’s going on?”

“What makes you think something is going on?” Jughead raised his eyebrows.  He knew she knew, but he couldn’t help but play a bit.

“We haven’t sat on these steps since Christmas break of our freshman year of college, and I distinctly remember the snot you got all over my favorite denim jacket back then.”

“We don’t have to talk about the snot.”

“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a really ugly crier?”  Toni smirked.  “No, seriously.  Your face goes all squinty and wrinkly and the snot, dude… so much snot.”

“I hate you,” Jughead said with a dramatic sigh.

“I hate you too,” Toni smiled, hitting his shoulder lightly with her own.  “So what brought you back?  You know you could have just come by the party again.”

Jughead shook his head and leaned back against the stairs, a position that felt almost natural as he remembered all the times he’d bask in the sunlight from these very steps.  “We talked about everything here.”

“That we did.  Most kids have treehouses and hideouts in their rooms, but these stairs were our safe haven.”

“It was always easier here, you know?  Like, I’d walk to your house with no intention of even talking about my feelings, but the moment I’d sit down on this stupid little step, the words would just spill out of me.  If we were here, it was like we had no secrets.  It was our own little bubble.”

“I still come here some nights, honestly.”  Toni sighed, tightening the jacket around her.  “When things get really overwhelming, as they sometimes do with Cheryl, I come here and talk everything out with my mom.  Or, I mean… I guess I pretend that’s what I’m doing.”

Jughead offered a sympathetic smile at his long time friend.  “You’re not pretending.  She’s there when you talk to her; she listens.”

Toni nodded slowly and shrugged.  “I miss her, dude.  Every day I wish she could meet Cheryl, because as crazy as Cheryl can be, I think she and my mom would get along so well.”

“Anyone who can get along well with Cheryl is a saint, which lines up with everything you’ve ever told me about your mom.”

“I was really young when she died so I don’t have a lot of memories; but grandma and gramps talk about her all the time.  She was a wicked cook, and when I turned eighteen my grandma gave me all of the recipes my mom had written down.”  Toni laughed quietly into the dark night.  “I make a mean Succotash now.   Gramps told me that she would make it for every event, no matter how big, so I was hellbent on getting it down.”

“You know my relationship to food, Toni.” Jughead raised an eyebrow at his friend and smiled.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Toni waved her hand in his direction and laughed.  “I was going to make acorn bread for your reception, but I suppose I could switch it up last minute.”

Jughead’s lips tightened at that moment and his gaze drifted back to the dirt driveway before them.  He could feel the way his heart tugged in two different directions as he tried to figure out what to say next.

“Jones?” Toni asked quietly, placing her hand on his shoulder.  “What’s going on?”

“I…” He tried, shaking his head.  “I don’t know, Toni.”

“Did something happen between you and Jessica?”

“No,” Jughead stated quietly, and even though he wasn’t lying — nothing had technically happened — he couldn’t help but feel like the words couldn’t be farther from the truth.  “I saw Betty tonight.”

“Ah,” Toni said with a nod, as if the puzzle pieces were finally fitting together.

“We talked at the party, and then I gave her a ride home,” He continued, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.  “The thing is, she kissed me.”

“Oh, shit.” Toni bit her lip.  “And you kissed her back?”

Jughead took a deep breath and nodded.  “Yeah.  I mean, just for a couple of seconds before I realized I was engaged and pushed her off of me.”

Toni stayed silent, anticipating his next words.

“So I went off on her and ended up telling her I was getting married, and then like two seconds later she was puking right outside of my truck.”

“Don’t tell me you left her on the side of the road puking.”

“No, god no.  I helped her up to her room and made sure she got to sleep safely.”  Jughead shrugged, recalling the tension between he and Betty as they trailed up her family staircase silently through the dark like they had in the past, many times before.

“Sounds awkward, but it was the right thing to do.”

“Toni?”  Jughead bit his lip and turned to face his friend, the beat in his chest fast and uneven now, like it was beating all over the place.  He’d always told Toni everything.  She was the first to know about Jessica, the first to hear about the engagement purposely.  They were practically family, and while he did talk with Veronica much more these days than in high school, there were some things he preferred to talk through with his best friend.

This was one of them.

“Mhm?”  Toni responded quietly, her own facial expression anticipating his next sentence.

“She told me she loved me.”

If Toni had been drinking anything at that moment, Jughead would have been covered in it.  This he was sure of.  Toni’s eyes had grown wide and her eyebrows nearly reached her hairline as she tried to process what she had just heard.  “I need some context here.  Was this before or after the kiss?”

“After.”  Jughead reassured.  “I don’t even know if it was directed at me.  She was asleep a literal second later.  She could have been talking in her sleep for all I know.”

“Do you actually believe that or is that something you’re telling yourself?”

Jughead’s shoulders drooped and he sighed, shaking his head.  “I don’t really know anymore.”

“So Betty kisses you and tells you she loves you… and now you’re feeling some type of way about your marriage to Jessica.  Do you still love Betty?”

“ No .”  Jughead said, maybe too quickly.  “There’s no way.  We broke up years ago.”

“You’ve broken up before, though.”  Toni stated.  “And I didn’t ask how long ago you two broke up… I asked if you still love her.”

Jughead took a deep breath, breathing in through his nose and letting the air slip slowly through his barely parted lips.  He repeated this action a few more times as Toni waited patiently for his answer.

Out of all the times he had thought about Betty in the last couple of years, he had avoided the most important question.  Did he still love her?

The little bit of light that had found it’s way through his blackout curtains caressed his eyelids, causing Jughead to open them slowly and wearily.  Based off the shade of light coming in, it was far earlier than he was used to waking up, and he had no interest in actually staying conscious.  With a grunt, he rolled to his side, throwing his arm over the brown haired beauty laying on the other side of his bed.

Except all he found was more mattress.

Jughead’s eyes opened more widely, the blurry image of his bedroom coming into focus.  Just as he suspected, there was a serious lack of a beautiful brunette in his bed.  Catching the time real quick, he realized that Jessica wouldn’t need to leave for class for another two and a half hours.

“Jess?” He called out.  When he didn’t hear a response, he pulled himself out of bed, threw on a pair of green pajama pants over his boxers, and headed out of his bedroom into the living room.

“Jess, you out here?”

“Over here.”  Her soft voice called from the kitchen.  He found her sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee in her hands.  Her eyes were focused on the coffee, and he couldn’t quite tell if she was trying to read an old faded logo from a coffee cup his dad had given him ages ago.

“It’s so early, why are you up?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” She shrugged.  “So I came out and made coffee.”

Jughead's body instinctively moved towards the coffee pot, reaching for his favorite green mug and pouring himself a heaping portion of the caffeinated bean juice.  As he touched the cup to his lips and took a gulp of coffee, he couldn’t help but notice the way the coffee was warm.  Not hot, as if it had been brewed within the hour.  Warm, like it had been sitting for a while.

“Any particular reason you couldn’t sleep?”

Jessica shrugged and took a sip from her coffee, black like his own.  They were similar like that… similar in many ways that he hadn’t shared with Betty and her love of flavored coffee and whipped cream on top.  Not that it mattered.

“Honestly, Jones?”  Jessica finally heaved a sigh as her eyes glanced up to meet his own.  “You were having a nightmare.”

Jughead raised his brow in confusion.  He typically remembered his own dreams, at least for a moment.  Smirking in an attempt to cut through the tension that seemed to have cloaked the air, Jughead asked, “Was I screaming about dead writer zombies chasing after me trying to steal my work?”

Jessica’s face didn’t budge as she stared into his eyes, but he swore he saw an ounce of pain flash through her eyes.  “I don’t know what you were dreaming about, but you were panting and calling out for someone.”

Jughead’s smirk faded.  “Oh?”

“You called her Betty.”  Jessica bit her lip and only then did her face change from hard to pleading.  “I’ve heard Veronica mention the name before, but I think I finally put two and two together.”

Jughead’s eyes were wide now, disbelief staining his mind.  There was no way he was calling out for her.  He hadn’t seen her in ages, he hadn’t looked at her socials in months.  Why would his brain choose a night when Jessica was there to suddenly dream about the girl who broke him?

“Betty’s your ex, isn’t she?  The one you won’t talk about.”

Jughead held his coffee cup with both hands as he let out a quiet, defeated breath.  He did not want to have this conversation this morning.

He didn’t want to have this conversation ever.

“I mean, yeah.”  Jughead finally said.  “Yeah.”

“God, Jones!”  Jessica said sharply, pushing herself up out of the stool and away from the counter.  Her defenses were up, and Jughead couldn’t blame her.  “I don’t expect you to be calling out for me in the middle of the night, but your ex !?  You told me you’re over her!”

“I was!” Jughead exclaimed, his own heart rate beginning to rise at the thwarting tone in her voice.

“Was!?”  Jessica exclaimed.

“Am!”  Jughead backtracked, shaking his head as he placed his coffee cup on the counter.  “I am over her, Jess.”

“Obviously not if you’re dreaming about her in the middle of the night.  God, if you’re in love with her still—”

“I don’t control my fucking dreams,” Ignoring the second part of her tyrant, Jughead rolled his eyes but he immediately regretted it as Jessica threw her hands in the air.

“Don’t!”  She exclaimed.  “Don’t do that to me.”

“Do what?  I’m literally just standing in the kitchen!”

“You’re reacting like I’m being crazy!  Don’t make me feel crazy.”

Jughead opened his mouth to spit back some insult about her needing to stop acting the part, but he stopped himself before he could.  This wasn’t who he was.  He wasn’t his father and mother circa his childhood, and he wasn’t about to do something that would make him no better than either of them.  His hands dropped to his side as he let out a deep breath and shook his head.  “I’m sorry,” were the next words to come out of his mouth.

Jessica stayed where she was on the other side of the counter, her guard still standing tall, but he could see the tension in her shoulders ease just barely.

“I never meant to make you feel that way.”  Jughead spoke with a soft voice, and even though her walls were starting to crumble slowly, he remained where he was.  He would let her come to him if she was comfortable.  “I’m sorry.”

Jessica sighed, nodding slowly.  “You know I’ve been burned before… How do I know you’re not going to do the same?”

Jughead looked to the ground for a moment, giving himself time to process her question.  He had been burned too, and neither of them fully trusted the other not to do the same.  It was just another similarity between the two.

“You don’t.”  Jughead finally said.  Jessica seemed surprised by his answer, but remained silent.  “Simply put, there’s no way to know if one of us is going to hurt the other.  And if we do, then that’s just fate.  We can’t know for sure if we’re meant to be in each other's lives temporarily or permanently, but what I do know is I don’t want to spend whatever time we do have looking over my shoulder and waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Jessica nodded slowly, bringing her hands up to wipe below her eyes.  “Can we make a promise?”

“As long as it doesn’t involve stealing my fries, then yes.”

Jessica giggled quietly and began to walk around the counter and into the kitchen.  She walked right up to Jughead and placed her hands in his.  “Can we promise that if there’s ever a moment where one of us realizes that this is temporary, we’ll come clean about it?  No matter what, we won’t try to ‘avoid the heartache’ or whatever by ignoring it.”

Jughead's lips tilted up in a smile as he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss against her forehead.  “I promise.”

“Me, too.”

His entire body was exhausted, the bags under his eyes heavy, and he was pretty sure his brain was fried from the way the night had gone.

Still, he’d never felt more clear-headed before.

“Toni?”  He finally asked through the piercing silence.

“Yeah?”  She asked from her spot next to him.

“I think there’s something I have to do.”