Work Text:
Betty wasn’t in the mood for a Christmas party for numerous reasons. Firstly, she was way behind on shopping for the gifts for her family. She knew that leaving it until the last minute was a mistake, but there had been some unexpected development in her life, which made her do so. This lead her to the next reason why she dreaded attending the party - she just got out of a long relationship and the whole thing was really messy; they fought for a week straight and then she had to pack all of his crap, because if she didn’t, he would have probably never left her apartment. So she was in no mood to socialise and to see people - in fact, she was in mood to curl up in front of her TV with ice-cream and wine and probably fall asleep crying.
But feeling literally the worst was no excuse for her boss, Veronica Lodge. Her Christmas office parties had always been mandatory; she actually included them in the contract of employment, stating that if you failed to attend, she would just fire you, no questions asked.
And that’s how Betty found herself in a room full of her coworkers, most of whom she disliked because they were either too pretentious or too lazy, thinking about how unacceptable it would be for her to get too drunk of the spiced eggnog they were serving.
She quickly found out, that after her third cup, she just stopped caring.
The thing about the office parties was, that people could also bring their friends or significant others, which resulted into Betty hating this party even more - just seeing all those couples kiss under the mistletoe by the entrance made her stomach clench. That could have been her, if only she hadn’t dated a cheating idiot.
After an hour, Betty had just enough of the party, so she headed for the balcony to take a breath of fresh air and clean her mind a bit. (Okay, it was mostly to drink her eggnog peacefully and alone, without having to pretend to enjoy herself.)
Yeah, the party would certainly suck less this way.
The city was beautiful during this time of the year - even though their offices were in the centre of Manhattan, she could still see much of the famous New York’s skyline. During the day, that view never failed to take her breath away - but now, with the darkness all over the city and soft snow falling slowly down, it looked magical. If her life didn’t suck so much right now, she would even say that it looked like a fairytale.
“Mind if I smoke here?”
A husky voice behind Betty asked, dragging her out of her thoughts and back to the cold reality. She spun on her heel to see who else was trying to sneak away from the terrifying crowds of the party, only to see Jughead Jones.
He was a fellow editor of their paper, one of the few people whose ideas were worth a second thought. She didn’t know much about him - just that he knew Mrs. Lodge personally (some people insisted on the theory that two of them were dating) and he apparently worked here for ages (some said, that he had been here since the beginning of the paper). He always wore that silly hat on his head, even during summer and nobody seemed to question it. And he was pretty good looking. Especially now, leaning against the glass door in a warm denim jacket under which peaked something that resembled a Christmas sweater.
While Betty was with her ex, she hadn’t paid much attention to Jughead - he was not much different from her other co-workers. But now, she was freshly out of a relationship and with three cups of eggnog circling through her veins, there was something to him. Something under that beanie, something hidden behind his signature half-smile he always gave her, seemed more attractive than ever.
“Betty? I can go downstairs should the smoke bother you.”
What? Oh, she should probably answer him.
“Oh, sorry, no problem. You can totally smoke here, I don’t mind. Go on,” she said, basically word vomiting on him.
Instead of answering, he just lit his cigarette and took a long drag. Betty watched him carefully - she observed how the cigarette was held delicately by his long fingers, how the muscles of his face moved when he exhaled the smoke. How his lips smirked and a silent laugh escaped them.
“You know you are staring at me, right?” he asked which took Betty by surprise.
Was she? No, she just quickly checked him out, she wasn’t staring. But if she was, it could be easily justified, because he was looking like a real snack.
“No answer and continuing to stare. Where are you manners miss Cooper?” he asked her teasingly.
The breath she was about to take in got somehow stuck in her throat and the only way she could think of to push it down, was to take a big gulp of eggnog. Is this what it feels like to be drunk of milk?
“Sorry, what did you say?” she had to ask, because she suddenly couldn’t remember.
“Are you drinking Veronica’s eggnog?” he asked her suspiciously and took three long steps to get close enough to her to be able to peak into her cup.
“Maybe,” she answered shyly, trying to hide her drink, but it was too late as he already managed to see the contents of her red plastic cup.
“Oh, you are going to have the worst headache, trust me,” he chuckled, “she doesn’t know there’s a recipe for it, so she puts equal amounts of rum and milk in and then, after she adds the eggs and spice, she pours even more rum, to even things out.”
That’s probably the reason why she was getting tipsy after three cups.
“Are you dating her?” Betty blurted out, “Mrs. Lodge?”
She didn’t mean to ask him that, but she couldn’t keep herself from wondering if maybe, just maybe, there was a possibility that two of them were something more. They often arrived together at mornings and then left together after work. He was the only person who wasn’t afraid to get into argument with her and did it more often than not, causing Betty to think that he either had a death wish or he just couldn’t get fired.
“She sleeps over a lot in my apartment,” he offered, not confirming but not denying either.
The look on his face was enigmatic - not telling her anything more than what he said. Or maybe that was the eggnog playing with her ability to read people.
“Uh ,” was all that Betty let out to show her disappointment. Not because he was being all mysterious and cryptic, but because this just confirmed her fear that they were, in fact, dating. Or at least something.
“But that happens when somebody dates your roommate, I guess,” he added with a shrug.
Oh. So there’s a hope. She opened her mouth to ask him more, but his hand covered her mouth before she could let out a sound.
“No more questions about Veronica. I am more interested in why you are out here alone. And drunk.”
His hand on her mouth felt warm, the kind of warm that you feel when sitting by the fireplace in your favourite pyjamas, drinking hot chocolate with few too many marshmallows. It smelled nice as well - a bit of cigarette smoke, but she could sense hints of peppermint as well. It reminded her of the candle she had on last night while she was taking a calming bath - there was the warmth again.
The coldness of air quickly replaced his hand as he took it away, probably in a home that she would answer his question. Yeah, she should probably do that.
“Seeing all those people inside, kissing under the mistletoe made me want to get drunk, so here I am,” she motioned around herself, trying to show him where exactly she was.
“Are you telling me that mistletoe triggers you so much that you needed to get drunk?”
This time, he didn’t just chuckle, he laughed wholeheartedly, as if she just said the funniest thing ever.
“What? I just couldn’t watch them; I wish somebody threw that stupid twig out.”
He continued laughing, which made Betty furrow her brows. She was still able to talk straight, she wasn’t that drunk right?
“Wait here a second,” Jughead said and disappeared back into the office.
Okay, so she scared him off. Was it because she was staring again? She was pretty sure she wasn’t, but she had been pretty sure the first time as well. Was it something that she said? She didn’t say much. Maybe that was the problem. Or was she too drunk for him to be around?
Her mind would continue to spiral for hours probably, if the door hadn’t opened again and Jughead hadn’t stepped out onto the balcony. She didn’t scare him off after all.
“You mean this stupid twig?” he smiled and waved with something in front of Betty’s face, but it was too quick for her to register. Once he slowed enough so that her eyes could focus, she squealed with happiness.
In his hand, he was holding the mistletoe from office. The same mistletoe she was cursing just minutes ago for making her watch all those cute couples professing their undying love.
“Yeah, this stupid twig,” Betty nodded.
“Are you going to really tell me what bothers you about it or what?” Jughead asked.
He looked deeply into Betty’s eyes, as if he was trying to reach her soul for an answer. She had never noticed this before - maybe because she had never stood so close to him - but the blue of his eyes was at the same time as deep and dark as the ocean but also as calm and light as the sky on a summer day. His breath tingled her on her cheeks, warming up the air between them just enough so her face didn’t feel like freezing off anymore. She could feel heat radiating from his body and suddenly, she felt her knees melting, as if they were made from chocolate and he was a bonfire, burning bright and hot.
“Betty? Are you listening to me?” he had to ask again. Did she forget to answer again?
“Sorry, I got lost,” she whispered, quickly averting her gaze from the blueness of his eyes. There was no way she could focus while looking at him.
“So? Why did you decide to hold a grudge against this twig?” he placed his question again.
“I-,” Betty started, not even knowing what to say.
That her boyfriend was a cheating liar and she decided to hate love now? Or that she wasn’t just in the mood to see people? Especially happy couples? Or maybe she could just shrug and say that it is overrated Christmas tradition (which it really was).
“C’mon Betts, use your lips to speak,” Jughead poked her into the ribs. The nickname slipped off his tongue so easily that one would think it had always been there - waiting to be said, waiting to be heard.
There was something about all of this, all of him - the way he smelled of peppermint, which was her favourite Christmas smell by far; the way heat radiating from his body made her feel as if she was at home wrapped in a cozy blanket; the way the skies in his eyes scanned her whole face as if she was a puzzle he was trying to solve; or maybe it was just the eggnog making its way to her brain - something untangled her tongue and made nothing but truth spill from her lips.
“My boyfriend, well, now an ex-boyfriend is a cheating liar, for starters. I invited him to live with me only to find him in MY bed with some hoe, could you believe that? And the worst thing is that deep down, I don’t think I ever loved him - okay, maybe at the beginning I did, but he turned out to be a real dick, so I don’t even know why I kept giving him more and more chances. And you may be thinking - if you didn’t love him, why are you so pissed about the break up? Let me tell you why. Because if I hadn’t caught him cheating, he would be here with me, probably kissing me under that stupid twig, saying how grateful he was for me and I would be happy. Or I would think I was happy, that doesn’t matter. I was naive and stupid and I am trying to move on past that and I still somehow can’t,” Betty sighed.
She hadn’t talked to anybody about the break-up - after all, bottling things inside was a trademark Cooper trait. But the dam had to be broken once and somehow it had to happen while she was slightly tipsy near her very attractive co-worker. It still could have been worse.
“Okay… So let me get this straight,” Jughead said after a while, “does the mistletoe bother you because everybody is kissing underneath it or because you aren’t?”
His eyebrow jerked upwards, scanning Betty’s face once again, looking for an answer before she could figure out her thoughts.
“I guess so, yeah,” she nodded.
“You know that wasn’t yes or no question, right?” he chuckled.
Her gaze dropped to the empty cup in her hand and she felt a blush spreading on her cheeks - once he put it that way, it sounded really desperate. Was she feeling desperate? Was that the reason why she got drunk during an office party? Because she was desperate to be loved after a relationship that never gave her that feeling?
“Well, miss Cooper,” Jughead whispered and took a step closer to her, so close that their chests were suddenly touching. He placed his hand lightly against his cheek, rubbing his warm thumb against her frozen skin.
She felt him with each of her senses - she smelled the peppermint and nicotine from his every exhale, she heard how shallow his breaths were, she felt the warmth of his skin against hers. She saw the insecurity written all over his face, in every twitch of his jaw, in every movement of his eyes. She could almost, just almost, feel how soft his lips were, if only, if only, she just moved a bit closer. Reached a bit higher.
She wasn’t sure if what followed was her doing or if it was the eggnog’s. She saw herself reaching for the abandoned mistletoe on the railing on the balcony and quickly raising her arm with it above their heads; while attempting to hold it as high as possible, she stood on her tiptoes - an action that moved her just a bit higher.
Higher enough for her lips to collide with his.
Higher enough to confirm that they were really as soft as they looked.
Higher enough to make her feel like she wasn’t standing on the floor anymore - to make her feel like she was floating thanks to the butterflies in her stomach.
And maybe, she would have floated away if his arm hadn’t snaked around her waist, holding her grounded, but not to the floor - to him.
Or maybe, they just floated away together; in a blissful, overrated, under-the-mistletoe kiss.