Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a new girl at Riverdale High.

Normally, that would be the talk of the school for around a month. Considering just how small Riverdale’s population is, the students would typically be drooling over a chance at interacting with someone new. Someone who, despite being firmly on the North Side of town, reminds them all just a tad too much of the serpents.

But the disappearance of Jason Blossom ruined all of that.

There’s something about Veronica Lodge, despite the fact that most have already written her off as a pompous bitch. There’s something in the glint of her eyes when she looks at them. Something dangerous and nearly … calculating.

But that look is absent from her face as she beams at Betty Cooper.

The blonde in the doorway of the office looks like an AP student if Veronica has ever seen one. Thick blonde hair curls away from her face in waves, down to a rather boxy pink sweater. Her clothes aren’t cheap, but they’re meant to look a lot more expensive than they are, Veronica can tell. The sweater is pressed neatly over an equally over ironed pair of jeans.

Betty smiles tiredly at Veronica after Principal Shepherd introduces them.

“Well then,” Betty says, expression unfaltering. Veronica knows full well Betty probably never plans on talking to her again. She doesn’t expect to make nice with the new spoiled girl with a jailbird father. “Let’s get this tour started.”

The smile is fake, but Veronica returns it, standing up quickly from the chair, and thanking Principal Shepherd. The two girls exit the office together, the difference in their aesthetics made stark in the LED-luminated halls of the school.

Instead of a sweater and jeans, Veronica has on a simple purple dress. It’s a pretty number, and easily identifiable as designer to even an untrained eye. It doesn’t reveal too much skin, while at the same time exposing her figure. Her mother, Hermione, had picked the dress out herself for the seventeen year old.

“Lodges do not dress down, Veronica,” Hermiones had said, cupping her cheek. “First impressions are the only ones that matter.”

Veronica eyes Betty’s outfit up and down quickly. She wonders what Betty’s mother would think of that sentiment.

“So,” Betty shifts on her feet in the middle of the hallway, unsure. The blonde seems to have a mental argument with herself, before smiling once more at Veronica. Only this time, exasperation is stark. “Do you want the actual tour where I spout facts at you for two hours, or do you want the quick run down so we can get lunch?” The blonde is honestly sure Veronica will go on some tangent about not needing to eat, or how she ‘never’ eats. Popular girls are usually like that, offering unsolicited health advice whenever food is mentioned. At least, popular girls like Cheryl and her cronies.

Veronica feels like Betty is broadcasting her very thoughts. It’s like she can tell exactly what the blonde is thinking, though she is surprised by the lack of candor. “The rundown, please. I’m starving.”

Betty’s eyebrows raise minutely, but a genuine smile forms on her lips.

“Hm, alright then. So that bathroom over there… avoid that one. That's for hooking up or getting high…”

*

Betty texts Kevin who meets them right at the front of the school, the three gather in a circle, planning just exactly how to get out of their last three classes of the day without getting unexcused absences.

“... Why does it matter if we’re marked absent, again?” Veronica gently interrupts Kevin and Betty. She absolutely adores Kevin, which most likely has a lot to do with how flamboyantly gay he is. However, she also appreciates his eye for fashion. It’s a relief to find someone in this hick town that has a common interest with her.

“If you get more than three, you have to come to detention during the weekends,” Betty answers with a grimace.

The blonde can tell Veronica doesn’t know what to think of her. Betty Cooper, with her pressed sweater and perfectly ironed jeans, plotting on how to pout and downturn the edges of her eyes so the teachers will buy her lies.

Honestly, Betty could always blubber something about Polly. She doesn’t like using her missing sister for the pity of her honors teachers, but she knows they’d believe her. And since her and Kevin are attached at the hip, she has no doubt that they’d believe him and the new girl got wrapped up in her pity party.

“Fantastic,” Kevin says, and claps his hands together as if to say ‘well, that’s settled’. His flannel stretches over his arms as he does so, and Veronica raises an eyebrow. So he’s not a stick. Good to know. “Guess we’re walking to Pops.”

Him and Betty glance at each other, down at their individual shoes, and then over to Veronicas. Kevin has a pair of [barely used] work boots on, while Betty dons bright white sneakers. They blink vaguely at Veronica’s five inch black heels.

“Uh…” Kevin hums, “Got any other shoes to change into? I’m loving your Louis Vatton moment here, but Pops is a bit of ways down the road.”

Veronica shrugs and waves him off, pulling her black purse into the crook of her elbow as a gust of wind blows by hard enough to shove her skirt and hair to the right. “I’m used to walking in heels for miles around New York City. How far is Pops?”

“About two and a half miles,” Betty says. Her right eyebrow remains halfway up her forehead.

Veronica nods sharply. “Well, I’m sure I’ll be fine then. Come on!”

She turns and heads down the road, heels clacking smartly off the asphalt.

“Veronica! Wrong way!”

“... I knew that.”

*

Archie presses his forehead against the cold metal of his football locker, and sighs out his relief.

The room shifts under his feet, like a boat, side to side and up and down bobbing on waves. For a moment, just a moment, he flashes back to when he and Jughead would run back and forth across the floor of the treehouse, pretending it was a pirate ship sailing the black sea.

Archie grins to himself at the memory, before the expression falls along with his stomach. He hasn’t talked to Jughead since he canceled their roadtrip, and his friend - actually no, Archie shakes his head and the nausea returns in full force. He doesn’t know if Jug is his friend anymore. Not after the last minute shit he pulled to go fuck Miss Grundy.

Archie grunts and sprints over to the bathroom stalls within the locker room. He thanks whatever lucky stars he has left that he got there early as he drops to his knees beside one of the toilets and hurls his lunch into it.

He doesn’t regret his relationship with Miss Grundy. He doesn’t. She’s so hot and she likes him. No girl has ever liked him the way she does.
The fifteen year old scrunches his pain as he throws up again.

But who would have liked him before now? An awkward, overweight, acne-ridden fourteen year old. No one was ever interested in him like … that. Archie knows that if it wasn’t for his football skills, no one would have liked him at all.

Fred Andrews gave his son the ‘Talk’ when he was thirteen years old. There was no exact reason for it. No girl besides Betty had ever kissed Archie, and that was only back when they were five years old. Fred just figured he’d give his son the Talk at the same age that he himself had gotten it.

But, instead of Archie better understanding his own body, he only started to hate it more. If he was getting the Talk, that means that other kids his age were too. More handsome, charismatic kids who were probably doing all the stuff his dad had talked about. Why did they get to be attractive and wanted so easily? Why did Archie have to work so hard for something they were deemed worthy of since birth?

Why did he have to work so hard to be seen?

But Miss Grundy had seen him. She saw him as attractive, even hot, which no girl had ever done before. She offered him a ride home from his dad’s construction company, and they ended up fucking in the back seat of her car.

Archie knows he can never tell anybody, but part of him wants to see the look on Reggie’s face. To watch his football rival react as he boasts about how a 35 year old woman was interested in an awkward teenager like him.

The door to the locker room bangs open by the lockers, and Archie quickly steps out of the stall to splash water on his face.

*

Chapter Text

“So,” Veronica grins through a mouthful of her strawberry milkshake. She had been in awe of the interior of Pop’s diner. It was a fifties-themed little restaurant, with red booths, neon lighting, and a checkerboard floor. She had never seen anything like it in NYC, especially not in any of the clubs her and her friends would sneak into. “Who the hell is Jason Blossom?”

Betty and Kevin pause mid-bite of their own food. Betty had ordered a vanilla milkshake, and immediately dipped the ends of her blonde waves in it, which Kevin had scrubbed out with a napkin. He himself got chocolate, but let it melt in favor of helping Betty, who’s mom would kill her if she found out she was eating sugar.

Betty starts sipping on her milkshake again as Kevin opens his mouth to explain.

“So,” The brunette starts, clasping his hands as if catching the gossip in midair. “The Blossom family is the wealthiest in town. They live in Thornhill manor on top of the hill down the way, and practically own Riverdale through the maple industry. Their daughter, Cheryl Blossom, is the leader of the Riverdale Vixen cheerleaders--”

“Ooh! Cheerleaders?” Veronica lights up, placing her hands flat down on the table. “I’m so in.”

Betty sighs, flicking at the straw of her milkshake with a baby pink painted nail. “Good luck, I’ve been trying for ages. Cheryl would never allow it.”

“Cheryl despises Betty’s sister Polly, because she dated Jason,” Kevin explains at the face Veronica makes.

“Oh! So where is Polly? Are they still dating--”

“She’s missing,” Betty deadpans, blue eyes fixed firmly on her milkshake. The blonde knows she should feel sad. She should feel worried or anxious or upset at having to explain, yet again, that her older sister is ‘sick’ and was sent somewhere by her parents. All Betty can feel is tiredness. It clutters her soul, the tired. It dirties her brain as well, like the dirt she found on the floor of Polly’s room the day her sister disappeared.

She can still remember the day, clear as glass. Betty came home from school to find Polly gone. Her parents wouldn’t give her any answers. Not when she begged or pleaded or stomped or sobbed. Nothing in Polly’s room was touched, not a single article of clothing or personal trinkets missing. The only sign that Polly was even home that day was a smattering of dirt near her bed.

Betty has avoided home as much as possible ever since. She knows her mom and dad notice, but she’s too scared to say anything about it to them. All she needs is for them to say she’s crazy too. How much disobedience would it take to ship her off to wherever her sister is?

“Oh, I’m so sorry--” Veronica starts, but stops instantly at the shake of Kevin’s head.

The brunette places his hand on Betty’s shoulder, and hides the hurt in his eyes when she shrugs it off to stare out the diner window. He turns back to Veronica. “Anyways, Cheryl is Jason Blossom’s twin sister. Which, they were always a bit too close if you ask me. Kind of Sweet Home Alabama Core, but whatever. Who am I to judge? Anyways, like rich white people do, Cheryl and Jason took a canoe ride across Sweetwater river, but get this? The boat capsized. Some Woodscouts found Cheryl sopping wet on one side of the river, blubbering about how the boat capsized.” Kevin leans across the table to whisper the next part, as if telling a ghost story. “And Jason hasn’t. Been. Seen. Since. He’s presumed dead.”

He leans back in his seat to punctuate his story with a loud slurp of his milkshake.

Veronica stares at him, dark eyes bearing into his own light brown ones. When he doesn't finish talking, she gapes at him and Betty, wiping the condensation on her hands from the milkshake glass off on the soft fabric of her dress. “Wait, seriously? A disappearance-presumed-dead? That's what has everyone worried?” She rolls her eyes. “That shit happened every day in NYC. One murder? That's it?”

Kevin pouts at her, eyes squinty. “It’s a big deal here!” He defends. “There’s only like five thousand people in Riverdale, ten if you count the Southside. Which my dad certainly doesn’t. Uh, he’s the Sheriff by the way.”

Veronica raises an eyebrow. “Sheriff, huh? Interesting. What’s the South Side?”

“It’s the other side of town, full of gangs and drug dens,” Betty waves her off. “Or at least, that’s what my mom says. It’s just generally the less wealthy side of town. People down on their luck.”

“But there is gangs,” Kevin cuts in, giving Betty a meaningful look that Veronica can’t decipher. “The Southside Serpents, for one.” He turns back to Veronica. “Stay clear of them - dangerous biker gangs.”

“Biker gangs and disappearance mysteries?” Veronica raises her eyebrows over her drink with a small grin. “This town finally sounds interesting.”

*

Jughead groans into the pillowcase under his face. Technically, he groans into a pillow, but considering the tablespoon-sized amount of fluff within the fabric, he prefers to call it a pillowcase.

Like Archie, Jughead had a growth spurt over the summer too. His 5’10 frame, despite its lankiness, is far too small for the shitty cot in the corner of the drive in. His back aches from where the springs poke and prod at his seeable bones, and when he tries to sit up, he has to flop back down when the room spins.

He doesn’t know the last time he ate something. Pop has been giving him free food all summer, a burger a day, but Jughead refuses to ask for more than that of the man. God knows Pop already does enough for him, offering constant free refills of coffee and letting him spend most of his time inside the diner at the same red booth every time.

The last thing Jughead needs is to somehow finally overstay his welcome.

The fifteen year old grumbles some choice swear words as he stumbles up from the cot. He hits his head on the slanted ceiling, mutters a quiet ‘“fuck”, and jams his trademark grey crown beanie over the bruise.

Jughead tilts his nose down to smell the shirt he’s wearing, and further down to smell the jeans. They seem alright, if not a little stale, but it doesn't matter. He found some quarters snooping around the drive-in, so he can go to the Laundromat later. It’s only ten miles away, so it’s walkable, and it’s not like he plans on going to school…

He rubs a tired hand over his eyes and shuffles over to sit by the projector. Next to it is a bunsen burner and a shitty, burned saucepan. He reaches under the table, grabs a can of something, and pulls the tab to rip the top open. Apple pie filling. Not a nutritious breakfast, but beggars can’t be choosers.

He dumps it in the pot.

A pang of guilt hits Jughead’s chest as he watches the sugary monstrosity start to simmer. He’s been secretly stealing cans from the Canned Food Drive in front of the library. He only steals a few once a week. He could technically qualify for food stamps, but he doesn’t need social services getting on his ass.

His eyes slant towards the photos lining the crooked table besides his cot. He can’t have social services intervene. Not when he’s so close to getting his mom and sister back.

His mom and jellybean are all that matters. Not his dad, not Archie, not Riverdale, not even the Drive-in.

Jughead eats the filling straight from the pan.

A tear rolls down his cheek.

It’s just not as good as his mom’s.

*