Work Text:
My heart can't take the beating
Not having you to hold.
A small voice keeps repeating
Deep inside my soul.
It says I can't keep pretending
I don't love you anymore.
Veronica Lodge wasn’t really an emotional person. Okay, so she’d broken down crying at least once a week since they’d moved to Riverdale, but really. A lot had happened in the last few months and no one could fault her for letting things run a little closer to the surface than normal. The point was, for roughly the last fourteen years she hadn’t been prone to meltdowns or emotional outbursts or writing emo poetry or any of the hallmarks of teen angst that afflicted her more pathetic classmates.
(If one particular beanie’d boy came immediately to mind, that was pure coincidence).
The point was, Veronica was a strong, amazing young woman who could take whatever life threw at her and roll with the punches. Make lemonade with the saddest lemons. Find the silver lining of any bad situation with humor, good will, and a little well-placed revenge.
(It was easy to take things in stride when you had access to obscene amounts of money and 99 percent of the school-age populous was terrified of you).
Which was why it was positively ridiculous that she was spending a perfectly nice Saturday afternoon wallowing in self-pity and a stolen bottle of her mother’s wine.
What made it even worse was that she knew very well how ridiculous she was being but she couldn’t quite make herself stop. There were just so many feelings.
Veronica took a healthy gulp of wine, wiping her mouth on her wrist and refusing to think about how that was a thing she would have never done in the Before Times. Instead she focused on the pad of expensive paper in front of her, licking the nib of her (father’s) fountain pen before scratching out one word and carefully replacing it with another, more emotive one. If she was going to write bad romantic poetry she was going to do it in style, dammit. And preferably with a good buzz. Everyone knew alcohol improved the creative process.
She was lucky so many things rhymed with Betty.
(The only thing she could rhyme with Veronica was ‘harmonica’ and just. No).
She wondered if it would be more or less pathetic to burn these after she’d written them. More, definitely, but glancing around at the balled up papers littering her darkened room made her depressed. Well.
What did it mean when the attention (or lack thereof) of one golden-haired girl sent her crying into her mother’s lap?
More alcohol, probably.
She drained her glass.
Definitely more alcohol.
In the time it took her to locate the bottle (leaning precariously against her pillow) and pour herself another glass (with only one or two spills), she was able to work herself into a proper fury against Forsythe Pendleton Jones the third.
Honestly, what kind of a nickname was Jughead, anyway?
Granted, it was perfectly descriptive of what was between the boy’s ears, but how could someone like Betty Cooper be in a relationship with someone like... that?
Who wanted to be Mrs. Jughead Jones ?
Now Lodge, that was a great surname. Present circumstances aside, it had character . It had history . There were entire wings of universities named after her family. Buildings, theaters, even a high school somewhere in upper Michigan. It was the surname of someone who would treat her girlfriend with respect, kindness, and give her everything she deserved.
Not that Veronica had thought about it a lot.
It was just…
What did Jughead have that Veronica didn’t?
(Besides Betty.)
Was it a dick? Because Veronica could buy bigger, and in more colors, and hers wouldn’t randomly embarrass the both of them in class.
It couldn’t be anything material, since Betty wasn’t the kind of girl to care about that kind of thing.
(And if Veronica had been less than sympathetic about Jughead’s current homelessness, it was only because he was so insipid about it. Honestly. He could go home if he wanted but he had to be a self-righteous prick instead. They all had daddy issues, he wasn’t fucking special).
And he absolutely, positively, unquestionably could not be a better kisser. Which, really? Made the whole thing even more infuriating. Because she could still feel Betty sighing softly against her mouth, and her sticky-sweet lipgloss, and nobody who kissed Veronica like that could be satisfied kissing the chapped and thin man-lips of some wannabe Byronic hero who had the depth of a pond in Central Park and was almost as full of shit.
Veronica forced herself to put down the pen and take a breath. And another sip of wine.
It just wasn’t fair.
Something had to change.
She couldn’t mope around in her room forever. She had to take a chance, she had to tell Betty how she felt, and let the chips fall where they may.
She was Veronica fucking Lodge.
(And she was out of wine).
“Hey, Betty?” It was Monday. Veronica’s stomach was doing somersaults and she felt slightly ill, so she overcompensated with an alarming amount of pep and blindingly-white teeth. She scaled it back a bit when Betty (and Archie, who’d had the poor fortune to be talking to Betty at the time and had been rudely pushed out of the way) looked more than a little concerned. “Can we talk?”
“Of course, what’s up?”
God, she’s gorgeous. For a moment Veronica forgot what she was supposed to be talking about. The soft look on Betty’s face when she smiled at her, green eyes deep and inviting, a gentle breeze playing with her blonde hair…
“V?”
Right. She had a mission.
“I was just...uh... I just wanted to tell you, to see if maybe...could you give us a little space please?!” She barked at Archie, probably a little bit more harshly than the situation warranted. He held his hands up and backed away slowly, wondering if girls were like this all the time. It was probably safe to assume so.
Betty just kept smiling, bemused, as Veronica took her hands and massaged them gently with her thumbs. She steeled herself with a quick breath, and then…
“I love you.”
Betty’s lips parted in a slightly confused but glowing grin.
“I love you too, silly.”
“No! I mean. Not, like a friend or, a sister or anything. I’m in love with you.”
“Ronnie, I’m in love with you too.”
Wait, what?
Betty was blushing and looking down in that way Veronica had seen so many times when...when they’d been hanging...out…
She felt like she was missing something vital here.
“I know we haven’t really talked about our feelings yet, and I know that’s kind of my fault with everything going on, and with Jughead kissing me,” she made a face “but…”
There was more, but Veronica was having a hard time hearing over the ringing in her ears. Have you ever had a dream where you were being chased by something menacing and unseen, and you run and run and run but never seem to get anywhere?
That’s how Veronica was feeling, only she was starting to suspect that the menacing and unseen force she was running from had been her girlfriend.
“Baby?” Betty Cooper was calling her baby. “Say something, I’m starting to get a complex.”
“No, uh. It’s fine. I know things have been crazy lately.” Understatement of the millennium .
Betty was all smiles again, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek.
Which...wasn’t out of the ordinary, actually.
“You’re the best. I promise I’ll make it up to you. Date at Pop’s after practice? Jughead can handle the sleuthing himself tonight.”
Neither was that, come to think of it. Every time Betty had asked her out, or Veronica had asked Betty, with the casual rejoinder ‘it’s a date.’
Jesus fucking Christ…
A gentle finger pulled her chin up so she could see Betty’s mischievous expression. “And my parent’s won’t be home. No more making out in the back of your mom’s car.”
Okay that might have happened once.
Or twice.
In the past week.
She was such an idiot.
“See you later?”
“Yeah.” She caught Betty’s wrist as she started to pass by. The bell was ringing, summoning them to class, but more important things were happening here. She smiled honestly, for what seemed like the first time in forever. “I love you, Betty Cooper.” She even laughed at herself. “Just wanted to say it again, I guess.”
Betty glanced at the students filing into classrooms around them. The hallways had certainly emptied out, but there were still enough people around that whatever they did now would be lunchroom gossip. Regardless, Betty pressed a quick kiss to Veronica’s lips, lingering to whisper something only for Veronica to hear.
“I never want you to stop saying it, Veronica Lodge.”
My tears no longer waiting.
Oh my resistance ain't that strong.
My mind keeps recreating
A love with you alone.
And I'm tired of pretending
I don't love you anymore.