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Betty meets Jughead Jones in September.
She runs into him one night, walking home late from the auto shop. She has grease stains on her forehead, her arms, stashed beneath her fingernails; and she’s clutching her pink bag tightly as she weaves the south side streets alone. He’s across the street when a few other serpents start to whistle at her - she pulls out the mace attached to her keychain and tries not to look like she’s running. Jughead saunters across the street, in his beanie and his leather jacket, and settles into stride with her.
“Walk you home?” He asks, eyeing the mace, and shooting a dirty look at the catcallers across the street.
“No, thanks.” Betty says firmly, turning to face him square on. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
The boy looks at her; assessing; waiting. “Alright, then,” he says, stepping back. “Just so you know, those guys are harmless. Bark’s worse than their bite.”
“Either way,” Betty replies, cheeks hot, muscles tense, “I think I can handle myself.”
Jughead nods, and turns to cross the street again. “Nice meeting you, Elizabeth Cooper” - and she doesn’t wonder at the fact that he’s been paying attention enough to know her name, because she apparently has been doing the same. Jughead Jones, son of the infamous FP Jones, youngest leader of the serpents since their birth.
Betty runs the rest of the way home.
She’s all but forgotten about the incident weeks later, when she’s changing the alternator belt on a ‘73 Camero that someone clearly doesn’t know how to take care of, and Frank, the shop’s new owner, calls her name.
“Mmhmm?” She replies, not wanting to step away from the car of her dreams . “I’ll just be a few more minutes here, promise, then I’ll get out of your hair -”
“Elizabeth Cooper.” The voice is unexpectedly familiar, and she immediately steps out from under the hood. If there was anyone she thought to see in the back of the auto shop at 6pm on a Saturday, it’s certainly not Jughead Jones.
“Betty.” She corrects automatically, wiping her hands off on her jeans in a futile attempt to clear some of the dirt. “How can I help you, Forsythe Jones?”
The corner of his mouth twitches up at her use of his ridiculous first name; although, “Jughead”, as he corrects her, isn’t much better. “I wanted to introduce myself. In broad daylight, if possible, and somewhere a little less…”
“Sketchy?” Betty fills in for him, finally offering a small smile. “Alright, noted. What else are you here for?”
“A job offer.” He settles into a relaxed stance, either not noticing or ignoring Betty’s suddenly raised eyebrows and folded arms. “The southsiders are looking for a news outlet a little less...monopolized. We’re starting up a new paper, but Riverdale’s writing talent is sparse, to say the least. I’ve read your articles in the Blue and Gold, and they’re good. Excellent, really. We’d like to have you on board our staff.”
Betty bites her lip. It’s a tempting offer. A real writing spot on a published paper...it would look good on her college application. No, it would look great. Forget about working at the auto shop every night, and the yearbook committee, and cheerleading, and the Blue and Gold, and tutoring…
Fingernails dig into palms even as she holds her other hand out to shake Jughead’s.
“When do I start?”
She starts on Monday; after an unusually difficult practice with the Riverdale Vixens, she walks across town to the office of the Riverdale Advocate, which turns out to just be the kitchen of a girl named Toni’s trailer. It’s her, Toni, and Jughead when the clock hits seven, and they kick off the meeting with introductions and a discussion of what the paper will look like, which then devolves into a two-hour-long brainstorming session about the cogs and wheels of a real, published newspaper. They fill out lists of potential advertisers, debate over columnists and photographers, and it’s a start when they step away and realize it’s nearly ten.
“Good meeting, team,” Toni says with a smile, and Betty taps her heels together as she feels the warmth of a mission beaming inside of her. “Same time next week?”
They agree, and Betty and Jughead step outside into the crisp September air; she turns to say goodbye, but instead what comes out is; “so we’re really doing this?”
A laugh bursts out of him; surprised and joyful and loud. “We’re really doing this, Betty Cooper. Starting a new chapter of history in Riverdale.” And it’s this that catches her, sweeps her away - the idea that something new is starting, is starting, is starting.
“Walk you home?” Jughead asks, and the offer is different this time - not on an unlit street, not by a stranger - but she shakes her head.
“See you next week,” she says instead, and walks home with the can of mace clutched between her fingers and article ideas racing through her brain.
What happens is this: the Riverdale Advocate takes nearly two months to publish its first edition, but when it does, it’s glorious - the front page article, Lodge Industries Monopolizes Town Debt, has the words By Betty Cooper underneath it. She runs instead of walks to the trailer after cheer practice the day it comes out, and finds Jughead and Toni already there, copies plastered across the walls, ecstatic and giddy and breathless. They forego a meeting that night, instead heading to the White Wyrm where Betty is goaded into her first underage drink in her first bar where she sings along too loudly to the Guns ‘N Roses that comes on. What happens is this: they stay too late, past when she should be home studying, and when she steps out the door and Toni turns the corner, she goes to say goodbye to Jughead.
What happens is this: he kisses her. What happens is this: she kisses him back.
(“let me walk you home,” he asks, smelling like sweat and leather and spiced rum. “no,” betty replies, like always, like nothing’s changed, and runs home in the dark.)
The school year progresses, and as Christmas draws near Betty’s planner starts to get cramped, her handwriting smaller as she pens in her everyday activities. She barely makes it home for dinner most days, instead packing herself a sandwich to scarf down whenever she can find a minute, or foregoing food entirely when she forgets to do so.
“Really, Elizabeth,” her mother said last week when she’d fallen asleep on the couch again in her jeans, fountain pen ink on her hands; “I’d thought you’d finally gotten used to high school. College will be harder, you know.”
Betty doesn’t know if she can imagine that. She’s gotten to the point where she’s rubbing foundation into her palms every morning so the red gouges on her palms are less visible; where every moment she isn’t at school she’s thinking about the Riverdale Advocate, or College applications. Not Jughead Jones. Not the person who sits across a table from her every Monday night, who calls her nightly to talk over new ideas, who hasn’t spoken to her about their not-drunk kiss two months ago.
She cries when the first snowfall comes; the Coopers assume it’s because of their daughter’s relentless Christmas spirit, but in the secret, awful, hidden part of Betty Cooper she’s just already exhausted from walking in the cold.
The first week of December Toni comes down with the flu, so Jughead sends come over to my place instead to the groupchat , with an address, and she walks over Monday night wiping away snowflakes and trying to ignore the part of her that wants this to be different.
She knocks on the door and hears scuffling behind it before it swings open, Jughead gesturing her, uncomfortably, inside.
“Sorry about the mess,” he says, and it’s not much - a few dishes in the sink, his southside jacket slung over the couch - but Betty can tell he’s self-conscious about having her here.
“I would kill to have this be my version of messy,” she replies easily, hanging her coat and scarf on the back of a chair that she settles into. “Did Toni text you the list of article ideas she had?”
“Um, yeah,” Jughead replies, sinking into the chair across from her. They continue the meeting as usual, but there’s something about the silences, the moments where he’s typing distractedly and she just takes in the details - it throws her off.
They finish the meeting at nine, uncharacteristically early, and Betty begins to bundle back up in preparation for the cold outside. But -
“I’m making hot chocolate,” Jughead says, and gestures to the couch, and when her phone tells her it’s -22 outside, Betty decides to stay for just a little while longer.
“So,” Jughead starts as he hands her a mug and settles onto the couch beside her; “tell me about the great Betty Cooper.”
Betty shakes her head, cheeks flushing. “How about the great Forsythe Jones?”
“I’m being serious,” Jughead says with a smile. “All I know about you is that you’re an amazing writer, a car genius, and the town sweetheart…” he lowers his voice to a newscaster, offering her an imaginary mic; “how does she do it?”
Betty snorts, rolling her eyes. “I don’t sleep, for one,” she replies sarcastically.
“I’ve noticed,” Jughead replies, and her heart stops.
“Sorry - what?” She demands, knuckles turning the same white as the mug in her hands.
“I didn’t mean -” Jughead pauses, lips pursed, then starts again. “You just seem a little bit, you know...overwhelmed. Dark circles, the cuts on your hands -”
The hot chocolate is searing. Betty doesn’t know if it’s spilled on her hands, or if this is always the way it felt.
“Betty,” Jughead says from somewhere behind glass, “Betty, are you okay? Hey, breathe - breathe with me. In, hold, out. In, hold, out.”
At some point, she comes back to herself. The hot chocolate is still in her mug. Her head is still on her shoulders. Jughead is still here, next to her, looking at her like she might drown if he looks away.
“I didn’t mean to…” he swallows, tries again. “You know you’re amazing, Betty Cooper?”
“Yeah?” she responds, her voice hoarse, staring straight down at her knees.
“Yeah. You don’t have to prove to anyone what you’re worth.”
And then he shifts over so their shoulders are pressing against each other, and he starts scrolling through tumblr on his phone, letting her sit in silence until he finds a video she’ll like, or a post she’ll think is funny - until this, here, feels like the only place she’s ever existed; curled up beside a gang leader in a beanie, drinking hot chocolate and watching old vine compilations until her stomach muscles hurt from laughter.
Betty wakes up at 5am to her morning alarm, and for a second everything inside her is calm - until she sees the streetlamp out the trailer window, and Jughead curled into the couch corner beside her, and realizes that she didn’t go home last night.
Everything feels frozen. Maybe she’s dreaming. Maybe she’ll wake up in two hours, at home, in bed. She throws her coat on and wraps the scarf around her neck, feeling the chill of the air even before she slips out the door. She’s only a few steps out, though, when she hears the door open behind her and her name being called out into the frozen air.
She turns around, and Jughead is poking his head out the door, throwing on a jacket and pulling his beanie further down his head. “Wait up!” He calls, closing and locking the door behind him before shuffling over to her.
“Go back to sleep, Jug,” Betty sniffles, wiping away the icy tears that she hadn’t noticed were there. “I just have to get home and study.”
“I’m walking you home,” he says, instead of the usual query, already walking down the street.
“I’m -”
“You’re fine, I know,” he says, and stops to look her dead in the eyes. “You’re always fine, Betty Cooper,” he continues solemnly. “We’re friends, though. Friends don’t always have to be fine.”
They walk all the way across town, and Betty feels awful about dragging him all this way except for the moments when he makes her laugh - when they manage to dredge conversation up through their frozen lips and forget, for a second, about everything except these snow-filled streets.
They stop at her porch, the motion-sensitive light flicking on as they do so.
“Thanks for walking me home,” Betty says, trying for a smile - her cheeks are solid and her hands are numb, so she isn’t certain of its success.
“Anytime, Betty Cooper.” Jughead says with a half-smile of his own. “Talk to you tonight?”
“Talk to you tonight,” Betty echoes, and steps inside.
Alice Cooper is waiting in the kitchen.
“The Prodigal Daughter, returned home at last.” Her voice is clear and balanced, and Betty’s heart sinks past the floorboards. “Would you like to tell me where you’ve been, until 6am, on a Monday night?”
“I was -” at an Advocate meeting, at a friend’s house, I accidentally fell asleep. None of it sounds plausible.
“That boy you were with. FP’s son, right? The local gang leader?”
Betty breathes in deep, already feeling the warmth where her nails are cutting skin. “He didn’t - nothing happened, mom.”
“I should certainly hope not.” Alice’s words are acidic now, past any pretense of civility. “A serpent, Elizabeth? I knew you weren’t putting the time into you schoolwork that you needed, but of all the things to take time out of it for, to throw your life away for -”
“It’s not like that!” There are hot tears spilling out over her cheeks, a pounding in her head, maybe this is a dream maybe this is a dream maybe this is a dream. “We’re working on the paper together -”
“Is that what you call it these days?” Alice laughs humorlessly, and takes a single step closer to Betty. “You’re more naive than I thought if you think this fling will last. You think you’re going to go anywhere, dating a glorified drug dealer? Whatever you’re trying to do, fucking a serpent boy, it ends now. If you miss curfew again, or if I see you with that boy, no matter the excuse you come up with, you’re out of this house. Do you understand?”
Maybe this is a dream. Maybe this is a dream. “I understand.”
“Good. Now get ready for school. You look awful.”
Betty goes upstairs and changes into a knitted grey top and dark blue jeans, and then she texts Jughead.
wanna play hooky with me today? she asks, except it isn’t a question; because she knows the answer before he responds.
always. meet you at your place?
pop’s please. see you soon
The walk is cold but short, and Pop lets her in even though the closed sign is up. “What’s wrong, kiddo?” He asks after one look at her tear-stained face and red eyes.
“Can I borrow a booth?” Betty asks quietly, and Pop nods with a smile.
“Do you one better, kid. I’ll get you a milkshake, too.”
Jughead shows up less than ten minutes later; she wants to ask were you waiting for me? But this friendship is astoundingly new and terrifying, and she doesn’t want to jinx anything yet.
“What happened?” He asks her, even though she thought she’d cleared the evidence of tears from her face.
“Is it that obvious?” Betty replies, looking down at her hands clasped atop the table.
Jughead sighs. “Your mom has...kind of a reputation, around Riverdale. And so do you. If Betty Cooper’s missing school, there’s got to be a reason.”
Betty breaths in, out, in, out. “She wasn’t happy. She basically - has this idea, that we’re dating. And that I’m ruining my prospects. And so she said if I don’t...if I see you again, I can’t - I won’t - I’ll be homeless.” Homeless . She tries not to sink into the hole opening in her chest; presses harder on the already broken skin on her palms instead. “I mean, I wouldn’t really be. I’m sixteen. They’d put me in foster care, or something, and I’d probably move, and never see Polly or my dad again -”
Jughead reaches out and uncurls her hands, pressing his own palms against hers. “You’re not going into foster care. Okay? Do you hear me, Betty?”
She nods, and takes in a shaky breath, and squeezes his hands.
“You’re going to graduate without losing your mind, and you’re going to escape your crazy mother, and in ten years when you’re off reporting in war zones or something, you’re going to look back at the Advocate as the tiny paper that got you started.”
“War zones or something,” Betty says with a breathless laugh. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“So,” Jughead says, faltering for the first time, “if this means you need to quit the paper -”
“ No. ” Betty replies vehemently, pulling her hands back. “No way in hell, Juggie. They only sell it on the south side right now anyways, and my mom wouldn’t be caught dead there. As long as I’m home by curfew, she won’t know any different.”
A smile finally bursts through on Jughead’s face; bright and blinding and full. “That, Elizabeth Cooper, is the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”
So things go on. They move the meetings to Tuesdays, so that Betty can tell her mom that Eleanor needs extra help in Trig, and the papers continue to be published. Only small things change: Jughead shows her how to make hidden files for her articles; she changes their names to Moose and Midge in her phone; and every once in a while, she will let Jughead walk her most of the way home.
Only once does she ask about what her mother said, that night.
“Why the serpents, Jug?” She asks one night, when they’re sitting a block away from her house talking after he walked her home. “Why a - a gang? When you could have so much more?”
Jughead sighs; like he knew this conversation was coming. “It’s not just - just guns and violence and drugs. They have my back, and I have theirs.”
Betty sits and waits, until she musters up the strength to say; “but...it is some guns and violence and drugs.”
“Yeah.” Jughead runs a hand through his hair, and doesn’t meet her eyes. “But we keep it manageable. We keep it as safe as we can.”
They make it all the way to March before the penny drops; before Betty, caught on a wave of spring productivity, pulls on a string that lands a story in her lap that she always should have expected.
“The serpents are smuggling serious drugs again? Are you fucking kidding me?”
She slaps the folder down on Toni’s kitchen table; but they don’t need to look inside to see what she’s found. They knew. Of course they knew.
“Betty -” Jughead;
“We didn’t -” Toni;
“Don’t.” Betty.
“Let me explain.” Jughead, again, always trying to fix things. To make things better. To make her feel like something she was doing actually mattered, for once.
“I don’t need explanations, thanks.” Her voice is ice cold, and it matches the rest of her - she feels numb. She is numb. “It’s been going on this whole time, hasn’t it? You know, I thought I wasn’t a total idiot, because I always sort of knew - I figured it was just weed. Maybe some LSD. Nothing that could hurt people.”
“We aren’t hurting people,” Toni pipes in. “We make sure it isn’t laced -”
“You make sure it isn’t laced? ” Betty is horror-struck. “It’s cocaine, Toni. It’s heroin. Good for you! There’s no fentanyl in your shit! Just squeaky clean diamorphine for someone to OD on!”
“Betty -”
“Stop, Jughead. Just - just stop.”
She leaves, and there’s too much running through her head. How he’d given her ideas of what to run. How him and Toni had always covered certain stories. The southsiders are looking for a news outlet a little less...monopolized.
Her head is spinning so fast, she doesn’t have her mace. Doesn’t have anything to help except her voice, when someone grabs her from behind and stuffs a cloth over her face; when everything wallows into emptiness and her thoughts are finally gone.
When she wakes up, she’s in room 305 of the Pembrooke; she knows this for sure, because sitting across from her is Hiram Lodge.
“Mr. Lodge?” Some part of her still isn’t registering the ropes on her arms, the softness of the carpet, the scent of chloroform still surrounding her. “What are you - what’s going on?”
“Elizabeth Cooper,” Mr. Lodge says softly. “I have to say, I’m not usually a fan of the cloak-and-dagger abductions, but in your case, I thought this might be the only way to get your attention.”
“Is this about the article?” Betty’s thoughts are finally falling into place; fragmented, wrong. “Because that was - that was months ago. Threatening me now won’t do anything about people reading that article in November.”
“That article was an annoyance, yes,” Hiram agrees amiably, knocking back a cup of whiskey. Betty doesn’t know how many he’s had already, and against her volition her hands begin to shake behind her back. “But what I’m here to talk to you about is more recent. People around town have been telling me that you’ve been sticking your nose in all the wrong places. Betty Cooper, Betty Cooper, popping up from the strangest people’s mouths. Really, you should have been more careful.”
Betty grips her fingertips together. “You’re behind the drugs. The serpents are, what - your envoys? Your cover story?”
“Something like that. You see, I spent some time behind bars in New York. If I were to end up back there, it would be...unpleasant. Someone had to take the blame, if folks were going to come looking - and what better to trade with than the serpent’s homes, their businesses, their lives.”
“But I wasn’t looking.” Betty’s voice is an echo. She thinks she knows what’s coming, now. “I thought it was the serpents.”
“You had loose ends,” Hiram says nonchalantly. Takes another drink. “You would’ve followed up on them, eventually. Because, apparently, you just can’t let things go.”
“So you decided to tell me.” Her palms are torn apart, by now. “You decided to kill me.”
Hiram Lodge finally looks her straight in the eyes. As he drinks another shot. “What else am I to do with you, Elizabeth Cooper?”
“You could let me go,” Betty replies, trying to sound confident. “You could trust that I care enough about the serpents to not let their lives be destroyed.”
He laughs. “I don’t think so, Elizabeth.” He presses a button beside him, and the door is opened by a tall, burly man. “Andre, please take care of our guest.” He says, standing. He moves towards the door, but his eyes flick towards Betty and something stops him. Betty recognizes the mixture of alcohol and fury in his eyes - but there’s something else, too; a kind of love for the upcoming violence, that terrifies her down to her core. He leans against the wall. “Now, Andre.”
The man steps towards Betty; pulls a long, thin knife out of his belt. A hunting knife.
“Please,” Betty says, and thinks of what awful last words these will be. “Please.”
And then the wall caves in.
In all the time Betty’s been around the serpents, she’s been terrified, as much as she may try to hide it. But this time, when she sees the green snake curl into the backs of the leather jackets, all she can think is thank you thank you thank you .
They take out Andre. They take out Hiram. She sees Jughead in the middle, lashing and kicking - she spots a blade somewhere in the thick of things, and cries out. And then - it stops. Hiram and Andre are on the ground, along with two serpents. She can’t tell if they’re breathing. She can’t tell if she’s breathing.
“Betty? Betty, look at me. Talk to me. For fuck’s sake, Betty, please -”
“I’m - I’m okay.” She turns to meet Jughead’s eyes. “They were going to - he was going to -”
Jughead slices the ropes around her wrist and pulls her into his chest; she slowly wraps her shaking hands around him. “It’s okay,” he murmurs over and over again, “it’s okay, you’re alright, you’re alright, you’re alright.”
Betty spends the rest of the day in a haze. Sheriff Keller comes at some point, she knows. He brings her back to the station, asks her the same questions over and over and over again until they sound like nothing. Like white noise.
When she finally steps out, her mother is there, and her father, and Jughead.
“Oh, Betty.” Alice says, pulling her in close. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you if you didn’t leave that boy alone bad things would happen. Now, let’s get you home and we can talk about this all later.”
Betty doesn’t move.
“Elizabeth.” Alice Cooper’s voice is like a knife. “Come home with me. You’ve just had a trauma; you need to rest.”
“I’m not - I’m not going home with you.” Betty’s voice is distant in her ears. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“ Elizabeth Cooper .” But here, she has her mother trapped - make a scene, or let her daughter go. As always, public image wins.
“Don’t expect to have a home to come back to, then.” Is Alice’s final blessing, and as she storms out of the sheriff’s station she’s followed by a wavering Hal.
And then they’re gone, and Betty is homeless.
“I don’t know what I just did,” she gasps into Jughead’s jacket as he pulls her closer. “I don’t know - I shouldn’t have - what do I -”
“Hey, Coop. Betty. Breathe. We’ll figure something out, okay?” He weaves a hand through her hair. “We’ll figure something out.”
And they do, sooner than she’d expected. As soon as the news gets out, Fred Andrews is offering up his spare bedroom for her to move into. Betty doesn’t know what to say - can’t accept that kind of unassuming generosity - until Archie pulls her aside.
“I haven’t talked to you in months, and you’ve been next door.” He says to her, with the look that last year would’ve set off a flood of butterflies in her stomach. Now it produces a hollow ache that reminds her of all the people she’s neglected in dealing with her own problems. “I don’t know what’s been going on with you, and with your family, but just...stay with us. Please. I don’t want to lose my best friend anymore.”
“Okay,” Betty croaks out hoarsely, “okay. Thank you.”
She takes a week off school, just sitting in bed and sleeping; or writing. Jughead visits her every day after school (except for the days when he skips). He helps disinfect and reapply the bandages on her hands; the ones she can’t look at. They hurt too much. They remember too much.
The last week of April, Betty goes to the White Wyrm.
With Hiram Lodge out of the way, Betty made sure the serpents’ stash of anything stronger than weed had found its way to the Sheriff’s office; and she remembers the conversation she had with Jughead about the gang had run through her head on a loop. They have my back, and I have theirs. She’s done with being Perfect Betty Cooper. She’s ready to be Betty Cooper, the writer. Betty Cooper, the mechanic. Betty Cooper, the Southside Serpent.
She grabs the mic. “Members of the serpents,” she begins, and her hands are trembling but her voice is strong. “You’ve been there for me ever since Hiram Lodge’s kidnapping and attempted murder. You saved my life. You’ve stood by my side. I want to repay that.” She looks at Jughead; there’s a light in his eyes, a glimmer of pride. Something twists inside her chest, and she avoids his gaze as she completes her thought. “But I’m not an object. Not a thing for you all to ogle in order for me to become one of you. So I ask that the serpents consider an alternative: I want to take the initiation. All four stages. Unhindered.”
There’s a murmur among the crowd, and she makes the mistake of darting a glance in Jughead’s direction. He’s furious. She knew he would be upset - it isn’t exactly the greatest show of support to undermine the leader’s initiation process - but it seems he’s past even that point.
“Take a vote. I’ll be outside when you’ve made a decision.”
And then she slips out the front door, into the chilly spring air where all she can think about is the look of complete betrayal on Jughead’s face.
She doesn’t have to think about it long, however, because less than a minute later Jughead himself charges out through the doors, grabbing her by her elbow and pulling her around the side of the building.
“What the hell were you thinking?” He asks, his words almost spitting.
“I was thinking I wanted to be a part of this!” Betty fires back. “And I was thinking I didn’t want to be treated like a piece of meat in order to do it!”
“You think - you think I want that? You up there on a pole, with the worst part of every guy’s mind on full display?”
“I don’t know!” She’s shouting now; something she’s never done. Coopers don’t shout. Coopers don’t cause scenes. “All I know is that I tried to find a - a compromise, and you won’t even consider it! ”
“I don’t need to,” Jughead says in a low voice, “because we already took a vote. You get your shot.”
There’s blood rushing through her ears. Her fists are clenched around her bandages; and something is hopelessly, achingly empty. “You don’t want me to be a part of this,” she says flatly. Jughead doesn’t refute it. And this - the possibility that really, he just wanted her on the side; that she’s intruding past the places he’d wanted her - is the final straw.
“I’m taking the initiation,” Betty says dully. “And after that, if you want, I’ll stay as far away from you as I can.”
She leaves, and climbs into Archie’s house ( her house, for now) through the window. She lets the frigid air climb along her skin, and falls asleep with a throbbing headache and tears dried and cracking along her cheeks.
Her initiation is set for next Monday.
She sends Toni telling her that she’ll miss this week’s meeting. That she’ll email in suggestions. That she’ll write some mock articles. Toni texts back, hope he doesn’t scare you off for good.
She cries herself to sleep across the fence from where her parents live, because no one she’s loved has ever wanted her.
Sunday night, a rock hits her window.
She pulls it open, and sees Jughead standing on the lawn beneath the tree. She doesn’t say anything, just waits.
“I’m sorry,” Jughead says pleadingly. “I’m an idiot. Come down and let me explain?”
So she climbs down in her tulip pajama pants, getting stuck on twigs and leaves and branches, and drops down onto the grass in front of him.
“What is it?” She asks, a little more coldly than she should’ve, but her chest is tight and her lungs are caught and all she wants to do is run.
“I’m sorry,” Jughead says, his gaze trained on the blades of grass at her feet. “I shouldn’t have - I was awful. I just...didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“I can handle myself,” Betty replies, and it brings her back to every time he asked to walk her home, every time she said no.
“Betty, you just got kidnapped.” Jughead finally looks at her, and she can see that fury again that she saw in the White Wyrm, but this time mixed with a sort of desperation. “You almost died . And now you’re just...going to throw yourself into the hands of the Serpents and hope you survive?”
“It’s a beating, Jughead,” Betty replies with ice in her voice, “I’ve survived them before.”
He looks at her with a sort of hopelesness, when he realizes she won’t change her mind. “You realize I’m going to have to be one of the people in that lineup,” he says finally. “I can’t - I can’t protect you. I’m going to have to hurt you.”
“I know.”
He looks down at his shoes, and he walks away.
Monday night comes.
She’s already taken care of hot dog; he reminds her of the dog she had in middle school, and so she’s more than happy to take him walking with her and refill his food bowls every night. And the second - reciting the Serpent laws, out of order, with the howling sounds of drunken Serpents in her ears - is like a test. Like something she’s been studying for her entire life. She screams back at Fangs, and gets every law right.
The rattlesnake is a little more nervewracking. But elementary school Betty had read enough books on rattlesnakes to recognize their body language; so when this one begins to coil up and rattle, she reaches one hand in to grab it behind the ears, and the other to stretch past it with little worry to pluck the knife out of the cage. She holds it up to the raucous cheers of everyone around her; and she prepares for the final challenge.
They stand in a line in the field across from the bar. Betty feels gravel beneath her feet as she pulls off her sweater and tosses it to the ground.
“Don’t go easy on me, okay?” She asks; but she looks towards Jughead as she says it. He doesn’t meet her eyes.
They don’t go easy on her.
She stumbles back and forth; one hit after another. Just as she’s about to take another breath, more blinding pain almost knocks her down. She focuses on walking forward; on keeping her legs from giving out like they’re screaming at her to do. Another hit. Another. When she reaches Jughead, he gives a small left hook that lands on her side - it hurts, but it’s nothing like what they’ve been doling out. She can’t think to decide if this makes her angry or relieved.
She reaches the end; reaches Sweet Pea, who brings his brass knuckles up to her face and asks “ready to quit, Princess?”
Betty spits out the blood in her mouth and folds her arms. “Give me your worst.”
He does, and she falls to the ground. Hears someone say “slow down, Jones,” as she feels the blood rushing through her ears; pulsing through her skin. She’s gasping, but clutches at the blades of grass as she pulls herself up. One foot, then the other. Until she’s standing in front of Sweet Pea, a cocky smile she doesn’t recognize flitting across her lips.
He holds out one hand. “Welcome to the Serpents, Betty Cooper.”
They head back to the White Wyrm for drinks, but Betty waits behind for a minute; she still hasn’t caught her breath, and she kneels down with her hands on the dirt, trying desperately to gulp in full breaths of air.
Jughead sits beside her; places a hand on her shoulder. “Steady, Betty,” he tells her, carefully studying her face. “In, hold, out. In, hold, out.” Waits with her until she can feel the oxygen in her lungs again.
“I did it,” Betty gasps out when she can, “I did it. I’m a Serpent.”
“No shit you are,” Jughead replies, and when she looks at him she doesn’t see any of the anger she was expecting; just worry and relief and...something else. “I don’t think I’ve seen Sweet Pea hit someone that hard, or look that surprised when they got back up.”
Betty laughs, but it sends shocks of pain up through her ribs, and she bites back any more as she winces.
“Betty Cooper?” Jughead says, and she looks up at him; the way he’s looking at her, in her new Serpent jacket; with fresh bruises and unclenched palms, makes her heart stop beating.
He kisses her, and it starts again.
(when they walk into the white wyrm hand in hand, they’re greeted by pounding on tables, cheering, shouting. betty cooper wears her jacket with the confidence she always wanted, and her nails don't meet her palms again.)