Chapter Text
Toni Topaz pushes open the door of the Whyte Wyrm and reaches into her pocket for her pack of smokes. It’s unseasonably warm, and she’s grateful, because her uncle blew their gas money on jingle jangle. Probably traded the drugs for old-person sex with Byrdie Marsden, she thinks, wrinkling her nose in disgust. The last time the two went on a bender, Toni was stuck at home, shivering in her puffer coat, eating pizza rolls in front of the open oven door.
Things are different now, she promises herself. I’ve got a steady job, and I’ve got prospects. She’s making decent tips as a bartender—even on nights like these, when her shift ends early; the boys made the decision for her when they jumped the counter to raid the Evan Williams, too impatient to wait for a proper pour. They’re still inside, guzzling bourbon from the bottle and shout-singing “Ace of Spades.” Even Tallboy Petite’s there, because his love for Motörhead is stronger than his loathing for FP Jones, the Serpent King he's eager to depose. Toni’s tired of middle-aged white men and their music. When I take over the Wyrm, the first order of business is trashing that jukebox, she decides. She’s planning her dream playlist when Fangs Fogarty cracks the door behind her.
“Topaz! Moping out here all by your lonesome? Heart-broken that Jones prefers blondes after all?”
“‘All by your lonesome?’ You sound like Grandma Fogarty.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m not after Jughead. It was a three am makeout, hardly exciting enough to make my heart go pitter-patter. The kid deserved a pick-me-up after the number Sweetpea’s brass knuckles did on him.”
Toni’s not lying, exactly. She likes Jughead Jones. She's relieved their friendship survived those clumsy kisses, after he ran the gauntlet to be initiated into their gang. Still, though she'll never admit it, she had once nurtured hopes for more.
When they met, Jughead was both new and familiar. FP bragged about him loudly and often, telling Toni and the barflies about his son's A grades at Riverdale High. One night last year, before they’d ever spoken, she even slept in Jughead’s bed. FP gave her the keys to the Jones trailer when her uncle kicked her out, explaining, "Jug's room is free. He’s run off to the Northside.” Then he recited gang law: "No Serpent stands alone."
Toni couldn't imagine fleeing a father like FP. Sometimes, she still wishes he was her own. He showed up at her uncle’s door the next morning, and, arching his brow and cracking his knuckles, convinced him to take her back, because everyone on the Southside knows that the King is as tough as he is charming, and he dotes on the younger Serpents—as long as they do his bidding.
While FP was gone, Toni shamelessly explored Jughead’s bedroom. On his nightstand, she found dog-eared copies of Slaughter-House Five and In Cold Blood, and a notebook full of morbid story ideas. He’s an artist and a true crime junkie, just like I am, she thought. Gazing at the movie posters on the wall—Rebel Without A Cause and Eraserhead— Toni fantasized about marathoning the classics with him. Her other friends rolled their eyes at her favorites, preferring blockbusters with shoot-outs, car chases, and bikini-clad blondes, but Jughead seemed like the type to appreciate the work of Agnès Varda and Ousmene Sembène. Someday, he'll come back, and we'll be friends, she decided then.
When Jughead finally transferred to Southside High, he turned out to be even better than she expected: loyal, good-hearted, and almost as sardonically funny as she is. Best of all, he’s a thinker, and he arrived when the Serpents most needed a brain.
FP’s a decent Serpent King, but he’s intoxicated more often than not, so he makes mistakes. Case in point, he let himself get caught smoking a joint outside the Drive-in, speeding drunk down the thoroughfare, and hiding the corpse of a high school football star. Until Jughead arrived, Sweetpea Ngo was his heir apparent, but Sweetpea’s hardly more clear-headed than FP: although she loves Toni like a brother, she dreaded his coronation, worried the brawler would land them all in prison. He demands their enemies “pay the brass tax,” even after they’ve waved the white flag of surrender—and Sweetpea thinks everyone outside the Serpents is an enemy. Their rival gang, the foppish Ghoulies, and the rich preps on the Northside. The cops and the mayor, the reporters and the tycoons. Sometimes he even sneers at other Southsiders for being too "cowardly” to join their crew.
Toni’s a thinker, too, of course, and she's better suited to the top spot than anyone else in the gang, but the Serpents won’t follow her alone. They say she's too naive, but what they mean is, she's too female. And her family is too low-rank; although the King favors her, she does not share his blood. It's blood that matters in Riverdale, she admitted to herself, watching her friends defer to Jughead for FP’s sake. The Jones name goes a long way. If Jughead’s on my side, I’ll have a chance. Swallowing her resentment at the injustice of it all, she set about convincing him that he belonged in a leather jacket.
So when she started to flirt, it was a friendly tease, spiced with a dash of manipulation. Then Jughead pulled off his ratty gray hat, running his fingers through his hair like a young Leo DiCaprio, and Toni’s interest sharpened. Suddenly, she was picturing them as a power couple: the Prince and Princess of the snake pit. She fantasized about their future together, spear-heading a Southside Renaissance. I’ll run the Wyrm, she decided, and Jughead will handle the illegal business. He’ll be clever about it, too—like FP would, if he could only stay sober—because he’ll have me to guide him.
We just fit, she thought. He’s different from the rest. Toni assumed he'd be a caring but undemanding boyfriend, accepting her occasional flings on the side, because, until tonight, when he glowered at the men cheering a half-naked Betty Cooper, she’d never seen him act territorial. When Toni came out to him, he swore he supported her, and when she scoffed at monogamy, calling it a “weapon of the patriarchy,” he shrugged, unfazed. Her old friends, on the other hand, were shocked when Toni told her ninth-grade boyfriend that she needed "extracurricular girl time." Fangs was the first to recover from the surprise; he's a tomcat, and Toni suspects he might be queer himself, although he has yet to admit it.
That's why she's comfortable enough to add, “Besides, you know my truest love is pussy."
“You still owe me for stealing my girlfriend,” Fangs replies, though there’s no rancor in his voice, and he’s grinning boyishly.
It's the same playful expression he wore in third grade, after tossing an apple slice in the air and catching it in his mouth to impress her. Back then, they lived at the Fogarty’s little house by the tracks; Grandma Fogarty took Toni in when her father went into hospice, since her uncle was still in prison. When Fangs found her under the porch, crying for her papa, he wiggled his ears until she giggled again.
“Fuck off, Fangs,” she laughs. “Don’t pretend you had real feelings for her. Finding me in bed with Ginger was the highlight of your freshman year. And before you ask: No. I am not up for a threesome.”
“Alright, alright. I’m going to be leaving soon. Do you need a place to crash tonight?”
“I’m set. Thanks, though.”
He tugs her pink braid cheekily before heading back inside. Toni smiles and shakes her head, flipping open her Zippo lighter. But before the flame meets the tip of her cigarette, she notices that the shadow behind the dumpster is moving. She pockets the lighter, puts the cigarette behind her ear, and pulls out her switchblade, gripping it tightly in her fist. As she gets closer, she hears a sniff and debates whether to call for reinforcements. Then she turns the corner and realizes, That’s no Ghoulie. That’s Jug’s blonde.
Betty Cooper is sitting on the asphalt, hiding her eyes with white-knuckled fists, weeping. She’s quiet about it, too: no sobs, just little hitched breaths like a hiccupping kitten’s. She looks up, meeting Toni’s stare.
Toni braces herself for a snide remark and some hair-pulling, a typical cheerleader's attack of choice. She’s accustomed to jealous girlfriends. Most of her fellow Serpents are men who treat lying like an occupational hazard; they disappear for days, then return home without offering an apology or an explanation for their absence. "It's none of your business," they tell their wives, whether they've been joyriding, brawling, stealing, or cheating, and their women are too afraid to argue. Instead, they lash out at Toni, because she's beautiful, and, as a member of the gang, privy to their husbands' secrets. They accuse her of being a “whore,” as though that’s a shameful thing to be, and say she’s “trash,” the kind of girl who gives the Southside a bad name.
But Betty stays silent, so Toni goes on the offensive. “Not going to call me a 'Serpent slut?' Blame me for leading Jughead astray?”
“No,” Betty replies in a hollow voice, wiping her tears with her forearm. “It’s not your fault if he wants you.” She doesn’t look angry, only resigned, and Toni is filled with equal amounts pity and disgust. What the hell is wrong with this girl? she wonders, sliding her switchblade into her pocket. Why doesn’t she fight back?
“I’ve been called Serpent slut,” Betty continues, pushing herself up with one hand. She winces when her palm brushes the asphalt. “I won’t do it to you.” Upright, she links her fingers together, stepping out of the shadows.
“Northsiders didn’t approve of the Serpent Dance?” Toni asks, curious despite herself.
“My mom’s livid. And, um, Jug…” Her voice cracks. “He broke up with me. He left me here.”
Toni is shocked. The last time she’d seen the couple, they were gazing at each other all soft-eyed in the pink light, and Jughead had his hands in the back pockets of Betty’s little denim skirt. Toni half-expected cartoon hearts to appear above their heads.
“Not that Jug called me a slut,” Betty rushes to clarify. "That happened at school. He would never. He said he was keeping me away from the Serpents for my own good. To protect me.”
Moonlight hits the tears in Betty's big green eyes, and they sparkle. She looks like every movie ingenue, her blonde hair a halo, and Toni scoffs. She’s no fan of damsels in distress. But she’s not about to leave a girl behind.
“I’ll get you home," she sighs. "Wait here. The last thing we need is to catch the boys’ attention when they're still wound up by your bad-girl-Sandy impression.”
Toni finds Sweetpea and Fangs at the pool table. “Have you seen Alice Cooper? Jug and Betty had some kind of lover’s tiff, and the damn fool left her here alone.”
“She stormed out a half-hour ago. That bitch is crazy.”
“But kind of hot,” Fangs admits.
“She knocked back five shots of tequila, then shoved FP around like she couldn’t decide whether to fuck him or fight him,” Sweetpea explains. “Hey, did you get a look at that lacy thing the cheerleader had on? I could-“
Toni cuts him off before he can pursue that line of thought. “We’ve got to get Betty back across the tracks. Let me take your bike.”
“I’ll do you one better,” Fangs offers, tossing her keys on a silver chain. “I swiped these from FP after he passed out on the couch. He can’t afford a DUI while he’s on probation.”
Saluting the boys, Toni strides quickly back outside, where Betty is leaning against the wall in obvious exhaustion. She straightens as soon as she sees Toni, her posture as perfect as a finishing school graduate's, and Toni jerks her chin toward the truck.
“Won’t FP need it?” Betty asks.
Toni shakes her head. “Get in, T. Swift.”
——————————————————————
As Toni pulls out of the lot, Betty surreptitiously checks the seatbelt for blood; her nails punctured the skin of her palms when Jughead turned away from her. A few hours ago, gazing at herself in her bedroom mirror, she’d hoped to end the night in this truck. But in her fantasy, Jughead was here, too. She’d push off his hat, caressing the curl over his forehead while he whispered, "I believe it now"-that she loved him, she wanted him, that she’d never leave. He’d call her beautiful, and sexy, and swear to share every part of his life with her, dark and light. When he unbuttoned her blouse to kiss the swell of her breast over the bustier, she'd sigh, blissful.
Instead, she’s here with Toni, picturing how much better the other girl would look in black lace.
Just when the tears start falling again, Toni glances in her direction. One indignity after another, Betty thinks glumly. And it’s going to get worse. She predicts more public crying in her future.
“Why’d you do it?” Toni asks, eyebrow arched, and Betty relaxes, grateful the Serpent is pretending not to notice her heartbreak.
“Do what?”
“The stripshow. I mean, yeah, ok, I did it, too, even though it’s sexist and disgusting. It was worth paying the price to get into the Serpents because they’re my family. But you’ve got a family already, and a nice house on the Northside of town, and all those cashmere sweaters. Why give that up for a boyfriend who screens your calls? Why not date one of those sentient letterman jackets instead?”
Betty flinches. She’d suspected as much, but it hurts to know for sure that Jughead’s been avoiding her. “Jughead’s as much my family as my sister or my parents,” she says, refusing to be embarrassed by the fervor in her voice. “He’s been my friend since we were four years old. I love him. I always will.”
Toni looks skeptical. “Even if he doesn’t want you?”
By now, the wounds on Betty’s hands are burning. She feels like she’s back at cheerleader tryouts, flinching at the HBIC's vicious quips. But there’s no Veronica Lodge here to defend her, fighting fire with ice. There’s just Betty: plain, ordinary, perpetually second-choice. I’m not that Betty anymore, she tells herself. I don’t need my best friend to fight my battles. I'm a fighter, all on my own.
“Yes,” she says firmly. “Even if he doesn’t belong to me….I’m still his. I won’t ever give up on him. Or his dad.” She takes a deep breath. “I know you think I’m some privileged Northside princess, and maybe I am. But I’m more than an archetype, ok? Like you’re more than the snake patch on your back. I fight when it matters: for my friends, for my family, for Jug.” Her words are coming faster now. “I figured out who killed Jason Blossom. I planned the fundraiser that saved Pops. Do you know why Cheryl Blossom testified for FP? I blackmailed her. Jughead should see that I’m not a liability, I’m an asset.” It’s far more than she’d intended to confess, and Toni is clearly taken aback, but the outburst is long overdue.
Betty's tired of being treated like there's nothing beneath her prim façade. I’m more than the girl-next-door, the cheerleader, the blue-ribbon baker, she thinks, frustrated. I'm more than a Cooper.
“Alright, how about this? I’ll come to you if Jug's in trouble." She pauses. “And for what it’s worth? He and I are friends. Yeah, we hooked up after you broke up the first time, but he’s not pining over me. And I’m certainly not pining over him.”
Betty smiles despite her sorrow, recognizing the overture for what it is. “Thanks,” she says softly, stepping out of the truck.
“And Betty?” She turns to see Toni smirking through the window. “You look good in black.”