Chapter Text
Betty is taking a late afternoon nap, trying to catch sleep before she show. She’s not used to keeping hours like these, staying up with the band until dawn starts to break on the unfamiliar horizon and then sleeping well past the morning. She stirs awake at the knock on the door, and scrambles to look at the clock, which informs her that it’s nearly six in the evening, the sky just beginning to dim outside her window. The weirdness of it snags her for a second, until the second, more anxious knock at the door pulls her out of her reverie.
“Just a minute!” she calls, smoothing down her shirt before she jogs to the door, trying to scrape back the flyaways from her ponytail. Josie and Cheryl are asleep in the other bed, silky eye masks keeping them dead to the world.
It’s Sweet Pea on the other side, dressed in his trademark leather jacket despite the heat.
“Sweet Pea, hi,” she says, trying to seem professional. The conversation she overheard between him and Jughead itches inside of her, a scabbed wound that she suddenly wants to pick at. “Do you have time for the interview no, or?”
Sweet Pea gives her a surly look, like the question is somehow impolite. “Yeah, now’s not really a great time,” he dismisses. “I was coming by to tell you guys that we’re hanging out down by the pool.”
“Sure,” Betty says, immediately sensing the opportunity to get a new angle. “I’ll, um wake up Cheryl and Josie, but we’ll be down in a bit.”
“Sounds good,” he says. “Good luck with the two of them,” giving her an amused, knowing look. Betty is all too familiar with the complex and occasionally dangerous process of waking Cheryl from her beauty rest, and gives him a sardonic smile in return.
“I’ll need it,” she says, and then closes the door, appraising the situation.
“Hey, Josie,” she says, deciding to start with the easier task.
“Mh, yeah?” Josie asks around a yawn, pushing her sleeping mask against her forehead. “Is it time for the show already?” She’s dressed in nothing but a men’s t-shirt, Sweet Pea’s by the looks of it, and yet she’s still as effortlessly glamorous as Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
“No,” Betty replies, and Josie’s face pinches in faint irritation. “But Sweet Pea just came by. They’re hanging out by the pool and want you guys to come.”
Josie perks up at that, peeling back the covers and stretching. “Ooh, fun,” she says. “But don’t look so surprised, you’re included in that too. Fuck, we better wake up Cheryl.”
“What do you mean, I’m included?” Betty asks.
Josie rolls her eyes. “So I’m to believe there’s nothing going on between you and a certain drummer?” she asks, and Betty tries to look as innocent as possible.
“Of course not,” she says. “He’s interesting, that’s all.”
“Uh huh,” Josie says, not believing her for a second. “In that case, you can wake Cheryl up. I’m going to go get dressed.”
Forty five minutes and only a few threats of bodily harm later and the three girls are walking out the sliding glass doors into the closed pool area, where The Serpents and the Archies have set up camp. Veronica is dispensing towels from the maid’s cart, laughing with a cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth. She’s wearing a pair of men’s boxer shorts and a lacy black bra, hair pulled up in a surprisingly juvenile banana clip. As Betty watches she’s the first to slip into the pool, instantly turning a collection of people into a party.
Josie and Cheryl assimilate into the crowd easily, grabbing beers from the cooler someone’s put out and going off to flirt. Betty stands for a moment, regarding the living portrait twenty yards in front of her.
“Hey,” someone says, and she turns to see Archie coming to stand next to her, wearing a bathing suit but inexplicably holding his glossy white guitar. “Betty. How’s it going?”
“Archie,” she says, a little surprised. “You ready for the show tonight?”
He grins at her, charming. “Born ready,” he says. “How about you? I didn’t think you were gonna be sticking around this long. Not that I’m not happy about it, obviously.”
Betty hums, rubbing one foot against the back of her calf. “Well, I wasn’t supposed to be,” she says, trying to hide her aggravation. “But it’s been a little trickier getting interviews than I originally anticipated.”
Archie laughs at that, surprising her. “Yeah,” he agrees. “The Serpents are pretty tough nuts to crack. But you know, it’s all pretty simple.”
“Is it now?”
“Yeah,” he replies. “We just want you to make us look cool. That’s all, really.”
“I plan to quote you all warmly and honestly,” Betty answers, rote, and Archie laughs again.
“That’s part of the problem,” he agrees generously. “You know, it’s all just a performance. Not just on stage. Being on tour, it’s like- playing a part. Even you.”
The words strike a nerve in Betty, a rare spark of honesty, but Archie is patting her clumsily on the shoulder and jogging away before she gets the chance to ask him more.
“Betty!” Veronica calls, coming up for air in the deep end, her loose black hair floating in the water around her like some sort of exotic seaweed. “Get your skinny ass in here!”
Betty rolls her eyes, but follows anyway, depositing her clothes on a plastic deck chair to reveal the modest one piece she had the forethought of packing.
Veronica swims to the edge of the pool to greet her, propping her elbows up on the side. “Lovely weather we’re having,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows, and then fixes her hand around Betty’s ankle and pulls her into the water.
Betty emerges after a moment, spluttering water. She splashes Veronica playfully, the shock of the water cold and perfect. “Veronica!” she protests. “What if I didn’t know how to swim? I could have drowned.”
Veronica rolls her eyes at her. “If you didn’t know how to swim I highly doubt you would have a bathing suit. Also, we’re in the shallow end.” she counters, and Betty acquiesces the point. “Hey, Fangs!” she calls where he's sitting and smoking a joint a few feet away. “Would you be a dear and get me a cigarette?”
Fangs rolls his eyes at her, but grabs an abandoned pack sticking out of someone’s shucked jeans, sticking two in his mouth and lighting them both. “Yes, your Highness,” he deadpans, passing one over to her and then the other to Betty. She accepts it, fingers slightly damp against the thin paper, a vice she’s picked up as a way to avoid getting roped into drinking to the point of incoherence.
Veronica exhales a stream of smoke and makes a face. “Ugh, I despise Marlboro Reds,” she says before wading further into the shallow end, cigarette held carefully a few inches above the gently rippling water. The two of them settle in to the plastic chairs someone’s graciously thrown into the water.
“I didn’t see you last night,” Betty remarks after a moment, voice too casual. “Where did you end up after the show?”
Veronica sidles a grin at her before she affects an air of casual elegance. “Oh, you know how it is,” she evades. “I hung out with the guys for awhile.” Betty nods at that, makes a concerted effort not to cough at the burn of smoke in her lungs. God, if my mother could see me, she thinks, like she does about twenty times a day.
“I think the boys are working on new material,” Veronica says, giving her a grain of information even though it isn’t the one she wants. Betty looks behind her and sees Jughead flung out in a lounge chair, scribbling darkly in his shabby notebook and smoking fervently. “I guess something has inspired them.”
Betty flicks a glance over at Veronica but offers nothing, just takes another long drag. “Yeah, but they’re still on tour for the album,” Betty says. “They won’t really need to get into the studio for what, another six months?”
“Please, I once saw them fight for three days over a single lyric. They need all the time they can get.”
“Interesting,” Betty says, mentally storing the fact away for later.
They chat about nothing for a while, Veronica giving her all the gossip about the new people coming down to the pool. There’s a crowd after only half an hour, music spilling lazily out of someone’s speakers and glowing orange embers changing from hand to hand.
“Let’s go in,” Veronica says finally. “I’m freezing, and besides, it’s time for this party to really get started.”
She starts swimming towards where the ladder rests in the deep end, and Betty follows, ducking under the water and swimming in a long, smooth slice. Music bleeds underneath the water strangely, a warbling and psychedelic drone of let me take you down, because I’m going to.
She breaks the surface, feeling strange and powerful, and finds that Veronica has already drawn a group of people into her gravitational orbit, placing an empty beer bottle down in the center of the cement.
“Who’s up for a little middle school throwback?” she asks, and there’s a series of playful groans and protests, but Toni leans forward and spins the bottle first, her eyes shockingly red from the joint but still sharp.
The bottle lands on Cheryl, who’s perched in some drummer Betty doesn’t know the name of’s lap. Cheryl slides down onto the ground and leans across the circle, pressing her mouth firmly against Toni’s. There’s a flurry of whoops and cheers, and Cheryl laughs more genuinely than Betty’s ever seen her do, spinning the bottle with a quick snap of her fingers. The bottle lands indisputably on Betty, sitting on a rubbery chair with her towel folded around her shoulders. Anticipation and anxiety thrums through Betty.
“Come here, baby journalist,” Cheryl croons at her, teasing, and Betty calculates her options quickly.
Betty rolls her eyes and sits down on the ground, leaning forward and pressing her mouth firmly against Cheryl’s before she can chicken out. There’s another cheer, and Betty tastes Cheryl’s fruit flavored, tacky lipstick as she pulls back, wiping a hand against the back of her mouth.
“So the nun does have a sense of humor,” Cheryl teases, not unkindly. Betty rolls her eyes again, the nerves shocking her as she leans forward to spin the bottle, praying to be done with the thing so she can disappear.
The bottle spins for an impossibly long time, finally landing on Jughead. The stupid irony of it makes Betty laugh before she can stop herself. She swears once, twice in her head.
“Jughead!” Veronica calls, voice teasing. “The bottle has chosen you for our lovely journalist! Get over here.”
Jughead looks up at his notebook, looking irritated at being interrupted. He sees the scene in front of him, Betty sitting anxiously and trying not to blush, and his face seems to sour even more.
“I’m not playing some stupid game, Veronica,” he says, the tips of his ears turning pink before he returns to writing, stubbing out his cigarette in a fake potted plant.
The embarrassment in Betty’s stomach turns quickly to anger, and heat races through her. She schools her features into a neutral, easy smile. “I think that means it’s your turn, V.”
Veronica gives her a fast, searching look before her face switches back on like a lightbulb.
“Finally,” she says easily, pinching the bottle between her fingers and spinning it. Betty waits for a few more rounds until the awkward moment is forgotten, and soon everyone is drunk enough that she can get away with slipping off.
She tugs her clothes back on roughly, jeans chafing against her damp skin and her hair plastered unattractively on her face. She’s angry and yet keeps getting angrier, replaying the moment over and over in her head.
She walks quickly back towards the doors that lead to her room, wanting a hot shower and then to crawl under the covers until it’s time for the show to start.
“Betty,” calls a voice behind her, and she curses in her head, coming to a stop and turning around slowly, shoulders squared back like she’s ready for a fight.
Jughead stands a few paces away from her, running an anxious hand through his hair.
“What,” she says flatly.
“I’m not-” he starts, awkward. “Back there, I wasn’t trying to-”
“I get it, Jughead,” she says, voice flat. “It’s fine. Really.”
“I just didn’t mean to-” he says, placating, voice softer than it wasn’t a moment ago, and Betty can’t stand his apologies for her own stupid hope.
“It’s really fine,” she repeats, voice tight with the effort, and then she spins around, leaving him standing there, her heart thrumming wildly in her chest.
Betty is smoothing down her outfit in the mirror, evaluating her denim skirt and white t-shirt, the outfit cute but unobtrusive, good for hanging around unseen, when Cheryl appears behind her. The anger that burned inside of her just a few hours ago has collapsed into an ashy, painful embarrassment and resolute conviction to to return to her lapsed professionalism.
“Please, Elizabeth, for the love of God, tell me you’re not wearing that again,” she exclaims, aristocratic nose pinched with distaste.
“What’s wrong with my outfit?” Betty asks, more out of a dry curiosity than any real insult. Today Cheryl is wearing a silky blue bandana as a top, strapless and leaving little to the imagination with her tight jeans and platform shoes. Her hair is a glossy spill of rust down her pale back, eyelashes darkened and sooty. It would be ridiculous on someone even a hair less self-possessed than Cheryl.
“Betty,” she sighs, magnanimous. “Even if I hadn’t watched you wear that to four shows in a row, it would still look like your mommy picked it out for class picture day.”
Betty rolls her eyes and gets out of the way of the mirror, allowing Cheryl to examine her lipstick.
“I wasn’t expecting to be gone this long,” she says as she tugs at the frayed hem of her skirt, purchased from the local outlet mall. “I only brought a few outfits.” Betty knows that Cheryl dishes insults as casually as other people brush their teeth, but the barb still stings. It’s hard for her not to feel gawky and out of place when she spends hours of her day around girls like Cheryl and Josie, so casually glamorous even before all the effort that they expend. Josie ashes her clove cigarette in a half full can of coke, the sweet, heady smell of the smoke thick in the room. Betty worries idly about the room getting fined for smoke damages. “Oh, don’t worry,” she says, from where she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor and flicking through a stack of albums. “We can help you! It’s been so long since we’ve done a makeover.”
Betty glances over to where Cheryl is still staring at herself in the mirror, no detectable emotion in her expression. “I wasn’t aware that I was in need of one,” she says.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cheryl replies, snapping her compact shut. “Do you know how many mirrors there are in here? You’re certainly not blind.”
“Thanks, Cheryl,” Betty replies, sarcasm thick in her voice.
“Anytime!” Cheryl replies, either not detecting the sarcasm or not giving a fuck.
Josie rustles through the various piles of clothes around the room, whispering to herself under her breath. She pulls out a transparent black top from where it’s buried under a mountain of clothing on a chair. She waves it in triumph.
“Okay,” Josie says, throwing the top over to Betty. “Put this on.”
Betty examines the scrap of fabric, trepidation building in her stomach. The shirt is a tiny piece of silk, trimmed with lace across the top.
“What do I wear underneath it?” she asks, the tiny strap hanging off one finger.
Cheryl and Josie look at her like she’s started speaking in a different language. “Um, nothing,” Josie says, like she’s talking to a small child.
“Seriously?” Betty asks, anxiety flaring bright in her chest. She can’t possibly go to the show in whatever ridiculous outfit Cheryl and Josie pick out for her.
“Don’t be a prude, Betty,” Cheryl scolds, causing Betty to roll her eyes. “You might think you’re blending in, but frankly that schoolmarm outfit isn’t fooling anyone. You’re drawing attention. You want to look like you’re supposed to be here? Put on the shirt.”
Betty considers Cheryl’s argument for a moment before acquesicing. She peels off her white t-shirt, and then hesitates for only a moment before unclipping her modest, plain bra, purchased by her mother from the local department store. She pulls on the shirt Josie has offered and turns back around, waiting for the verdict.
“Oh!” Josie says, evaluating. “That’s super cute. Cheryl, give me those jeans you wore the night Marc Bolan invited us to his after party.”
Cheryl makes an offended noise, clutching the jeans in question tightly. “Absolutely not!” she says. “They have sentimental value!”
“It’s okay, really,” Betty says, watching the two girls go back and forth.
“Cheryl,” Josie says, a wheedling tone in her melodic voice.
“Fine!” Cheryl snaps, throwing the jeans over to Betty “But I swear, if there is one tiny rip in those jeans, I will literally eviscerate you and then hang my jewelry from your ribcage. Capice?”
“Capice,” Betty mutters, shedding her cut off denim skirt for Cheryl’s high waisted, flared out jeans. “Thanks, Cheryl.”
“Anytime!” Cheryl chirps.
Veronica comes into the room then, her lilac sunglasses pushed up on the crown of her head. She’s in her fringe coat, effortlessly iconic, tackle box purse banging at her hip. “What’s all this?” she asks, taking in the scene of Josie forcing Betty to try on an endless series of belts.
“I’m getting a makeover,” she explains, tone dry, trying to communicate to Veronica that she doesn’t really care, this production is more for Cheryl and Josie’s sake than her own.
“The outfit is cute,” Veronica says, taking in the platform shoes and cropped shirt. “But wait- here,” she says, maneuvering Betty into sitting at the vanity. “Let me do your hair.” She drags her manicured nails across Betty’s skull, sending a starburst of shivers down her spine. “It’ll look good curled.”
Betty feels raw and exposed, shoved into sharp focus when she prefers to dwell around the edges of a frame. Her hair is curled into ringlets, the same style as Veronica’s, and her mouth is sticky with unfamiliar gloss, eyelashes sticky with dark pigments. The shirt Josie gave her is delicate and satin-y, trimmed in lace and cropped six inches above her belly button, accentuating the flare of Cheryl’s jeans. In Veronica’s purple sunglasses the world looks magical and unfamiliar, everything tinted an eerie shade of lavender. Betty has no idea how she’s going to take any legible notes.
She’s standing alone by the side of the stage, tucked back behind the curtain. It’s her new pre-show ritual, one of the only times of day that she’s really left alone to collect her thoughts. She listens to the audience stirring just behind the curtain, like a wave of energy that’s about to crash, the rumbling, kinetic sounds of thousands of people all waiting for the same thing.
Every night Betty listens and feels grateful for the opportunity to be on this side of the stage, to get to crash into the living biography happening around her, people who will one day be dead and still have teenagers listening to them up in their bedrooms. Despite the megalomania and the condescension and the drugs and the lack of sleep, Betty can feel like one note in a larger song, in a moment that will become history, even if for only a couple minutes before the night really starts.
F.P jogs out onto the stage and the crowd gets rowdier, the sounds of laughing and screaming and clinking bottles and anticipation.
F.P looks younger under the screaming hot stage lights, the age washing out of his features and making him look strikingly like Jughead. His enthusiasm and intensity is palatable when he holds the mic up to his face, a purity that washes Betty clean every time. She’s seen this set enough times to pick out the minute differences, the way the band plays when they’re in a good mood or all in a fight, when they’ve split a joint before the show or when they’re hungover and sour about it.
The music changes but never the feeling it gives her, electric and cold and bracing, like swimming in the ocean at night or having a cigarette on the edges of a party, hushed and private and smoggy. Like speeding down the highway at night with the windows down and freezing air rushing through your teeth.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” F.P crows, the audience rowdy with anticipation. “This is The Serpents!”
The guitar comes to life suddenly, a greasy bass line that feels drunk and meandering, punctuated by the sharpness of the drums. I was running through the desert I was looking for drugs Sweet Pea all but slurs into the mic, his slouched posture even more exaggerated than usual, his hair in his face. It’s magnetic, impossible to look away from him, his wide mouth and long fingers flashing underneath the neon lights.
It’s a weird, clever song, and Betty would be able to guess if she didn’t already know that Jughead wrote the lyrics, Sweet Pea howling I break down like a woman.
In her glammed outfit, for once, Betty forgets to be self-conscious, forgets to intellectualize and break down the music second by second. Instead she tips her head back and just listens to it, still sounding fresh and new to her ears. A small miracle that she gets to witness each night. The whole show passes like that, the stinging disappointment she feels when they bash through the last chorus, you’re not so nice but sex sells so cheap.
Her gaze sweeps across the stage and Jughead looks right at her, his entire body vibrating with the intensity of the music, and all of the air is ripped out of her lungs, she can’t even try to pretend anymore.
The song ends and Jughead comes off the stage, straight towards her, and Betty can’t catch her breath, can’t figure out how long you can go on wanting something and not asking for it, never asking for it. She’s always been so good at restraint, repression, never letting her desires bubble up to the surface, but Jughead keeps peeling all her safeguards off of her, leaving her vulnerable, unprocessed. She stares at his long fingers and can’t stop thinking about them around her wrists, in her hair, against her thighs.
There are people waiting to spring into the post show ritual, trying to clap Jughead on the back or offer him a beer, wrestling the drum sticks out of his hands, but he heads straight for her, his eyes dark and burning. She watches him approach and she is no longer the outside observer, the journalist, she’s one of the characters. She can’t see the ending of all this, anymore.
“Hi,” she says, eyes wide, and then Jughead Jones is standing right in front of her, his white t-shirt translucent with sweat, dark hair falling into his eyes, the kind of boy she thought only existed in the posters tacked to her bedroom walls. The palm of his hand is bloodied, raw from the force of his playing.
“Hi,” he says, unimportant, and then he is kissing her, his mouth slanted over hers hard and fast. Betty gasps, hands floundering at her sides, and then she is kissing him back, not caring about who sees or what people think about her. Their teeth clack together, terrifying and electric, Betty stumbling back two steps with the force of it. Someone jeers at them, Sweet Pea, probably, and Jughead flips him off with one hand, still kissing her. Oh my god, she thinks, oh god, and then she knots his white t-shirt with one fist, yanking him further into her. Jughead gasps in a way that sounds like a sob.
The Archies set starts up, Archie singing I’m selfish, I know, but I don’t want to ever see you with him, and Jughead breaks away, wraps his hand around her wrist, pulling her after him. Betty is dizzied, every molecule of her fizzling with the liquid terror and anticipation, her heartbeat even louder than the music.
They stumble to the dressing room, not saying anything, both of them too clever and too dishonest with words. His hand presses into the small of her back and fuck you Betty thinks in one clear pulse. Fuck him for being so himself, for making this a real thing, fuck her for wanting it too badly to care about the consequences.
He shuts the door to the dressing room behind them, the click of the lock sending a thrill through her stomach. Betty sits up on the dressing table, the vanity lights radiating heat, the entire room smelling like hairspray and stage makeup and spilled beer as she tries to catch her breath. She’s imagined this so many times in the privacy of her own head that there’s something absurd about it being real, actually playing out in front of her.
“The outfit does it for you?” she asks, fighting to keep her voice steady, making a joke because she’s already overexposed with all of her clothes on, a mass of raw nerves.
Jughead just looks at her, and the game is surrendered, she has no moves left to play besides this thin sarcasm, this game of make believe. She slides off of the counter, steps closer to him.
“You do it for me,” he says, and it’s not banter anymore, all of their cards are out on the table. There’s a wet click in her throat when she swallows, and then Jughead is on her, his mouth hot against her throat, calloused thumb pressed hard against her face. The blood from his hand smears a little on the bolt of her jaw. He kisses her like he’s trying to crawl inside of her, like there’s nothing that could possibly be close enough.
She pulls back, heart hammering against her ribs, feeling like all the air has been pulled out of her. “I’m not that nice,” she tells him, voice thready but insistent. She doesn’t know how to make him understand that she’s not the girl with the ponytail, the girl with impeccable manners, the immaculate construction of Betty Cooper. He can’t want that, she can’t deliver it, not to him.
Jughead grins at her, all sharp teeth. “I know,” he says, looking at her, and then his shirt is off and so is hers and there is nothing left between them but skin. Jughead is feverish, almost too hot, and Betty surrenders to her own desires.
One of his hands is resting against her throat, like he’s taking her pulse, and she glances at the tattoo there, a serpent flexing around the bridge of his thumb. She wants it, wants every single thing about him, her pulse raging, and she’s fucked, finished. She yanks down his pants, unceremonious, Jughead stumbling as he kicks out of his jeans.
“Oh my god,” he says into her mouth, and thank christ that he’s as much a mess as she is, that he is similarly undone. “Betty, oh my god.”
“Stop talking,” she mumbles, not unkind, and his laugh is a sharp and perfect thing, clever fingers unzipping her borrowed pants, the zipper yanking and then snapping off with the force of it. Betty half remembers Cheryl’s threat and dismisses it from her mind just as quickly, music still seeping into the room from the show outside, the distant roar of the crowd reverberating in her bones.
He hauls her back up onto the counter, and she hisses through her teeth, Jughead pressing one hand up to the mirror behind her, steam fogging around the outline of his fingers. He tries once to pull off her underwear and then gives up and rips them, Betty laughing before she sinks her teeth back into the flesh of his shoulder, a bite hard enough that it’ll leave a mark. Jughead stutters a moan, sucking air in through his teeth. His mouth is open against her cheek, breath hot, as he slides a finger into her. It’s him that gasps first, not her, and her head falls back against the mirror hard, Jughead moving one palm to cradle the back of her skull.
He’s not gentle but Betty doesn’t want it to be, she has one white-knuckled hand clutching the table for balance and the other around his neck, everything too much and somehow not enough. He presses a thumb against her clit, rubs fast and mean, and Betty comes with a strangled moan, the sound close to sobbing. “Fuck,” she says, pulling her mouth back against his, the taste of him like menthol cigarettes and stale beer and something inexplicably Jughead.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, filthy, pulling his fingers away and wiping them on her hip. Her arms are a messy tangle around his neck, mouth trailing down the elegant line of her collarbone. She kicks her pants down from where they’re caught around her knees, slides off the counter so that she can feel his erection pressed against her bare stomach.
She twists, Jughead letting her push him back against the dressing table, sliding her thumb against his sharp hip bone. She stares at him for a moment, taking it in, the boy stripped of rock star glamour and his existential malaise. The terror shooting through her still is nearly pleasurable, the sharp bliss of coming up against the edge of free fall. She sinks to her knees, the surprised arch of Jughead’s eyebrows melting into something more primitive as she curls her fingernails around the elastic band of his underwear.
She’s never actually done this before, but the hours of listening to Cheryl and Veronica overshare have finally come in handy. She presses her mouth against the hollow of his hip bone, a flash of teeth that makes him moan, and then pulls down his underwear, wrapping a hand around him, warm and solid.
His hand sinks into her hair, giving an experimental yank, and Betty moan loudly, surprising even herself. Jughead grins wide at her, and Betty wraps her mouth around him, wrestling back control when he makes a choked, surprised sound. His fingers scrape against her skull, giving her goosebumps.
She gets into a rhythm after a minute or so, bobbing her head and focusing intently on the motion of it. Jughead talks in broken, obscene fragments, one hand in her hair and the other pressed against his forehead, features pulled tight. There’s a certain satisfaction in seeing him unravel like this, the gleeful wildness of ripping open a present.
“Betty, I’m going to-” he warns, voice clipped and overwhelmed, and Betty curls a hand around the base of his dick, finishing him off. She sits back on her heels and wipes her mouth primly, flushed all the way down her chest.
“Fuck,” Jughead says, almost to himself, looking dazed and uncomposed. Betty stands up, one knee twinging. There’s a beat of silence more intimate than anything that’s transpired between them. Jughead hands her back her borrowed shirt from where it’s hanging from one of the bulbs of the mirror.
“Thanks,” she says, and it’s a little sad as she watches their masks slide back into place once more. Her breath is still faster than normal, like she can’t get enough air.
“Are we gonna talk about this?” Jughead asks her, zipping back up into his skinny jeans. Betty does the same, trying to shuffle her clothes back into place.
“We can’t,” Betty says, voice more resolute than she feels. There’s a tiny part of her that wants him to argue with her, to insist that there is some way for them to make this work. “And this can’t- it can’t happen again. Okay?”
She looks at him, trying to appraise his reaction, but he just nods, something tender working its way into his expression. He smooths a hand down her arm, cradling her elbow for a moment.
“Okay,” he says, and then presses a chaste kiss to her temple before he moves to leave. He gives her one last, long look before stepping out, shutting the door with a neat click behind him. The tears rise before Betty can stop herself, but she swipes fast at her face before they have the chance to spill.
She studies her reflection in the mirror. Splotchy hives have risen on her collarbone, the way they do when she’s anxious or excited, and her meticulously curled hair is a wreck, dark haloes of smudged makeup around her eyes. She looks nothing like something she could recognize, like she’s assimilated into this world so deeply it’s starting to become her.
“You are fine,” she tells herself harshly, an old trick, and then she steps out the door.
Veronica is asleep in Betty’s bed when she finally gets back, her features much younger in sleep, the comforter pulled up to her chin. Betty pulls on random pajamas that are on the floor and slips in next to her, desperate for some sort of comfort.
“Veronica,” she says, and the other girl’s eyes flick open, like she was just feigning sleep. Betty’s voice is rough with a trapped sob. “Veronica, I need to go home.”
Veronica traces a finger down the line of Betty’s nose, all the way down to the dip of her mouth.
“You are home,” she says, like it’s all that easy, and then rolls back over, leaving Betty alone with her tangled thoughts.