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"Betty?" Archie blinked a couple of times and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He wouldn't usually have been so surprised to see Betty there on his doorstep, because she often dropped by uninvited - it was the benefits of being best friends and living next door to each other - but it was currently four in the morning. He was surprised that his mother hadn't been woken up by the pounding on the door and his heart was still racing.
"He knows."
It didn't take Archie long to figure out what that meant as he looked the blonde up and down. Tears were pouring out of her eyes and staining her cheeks so there was no question about what exactly she meant. Though he supposed that he was surprised to find that she had beaten Jughead over here. It was certainly something that his best friend wasn't currently knocking him out anyway.
"He…" Archie began but trailed off, casting a glance in the direction of Betty's house and realising that if Jughead did know anything then standing here wasn't a good idea. While Archie was the fighter of the group, there was no way that he would dare takes on his best friend, especially when they all knew that he was, in fact, the one in the wrong.
He took a hold of Betty's elbow and gently steered her inside his house. They were both silent as there made their way upstairs. Archie didn't know what the logic behind those actions was, especially when the whole reason she was even there in the first place was because of the things that they had done the last time they had been left alone unsupervised.
But the next thing that he knew was that she was lying on his bed and he had his body wrapped around her. He wanted to ask questions, to find out just how much Jughead knew, how he had found out, but the words just wouldn't come out. For some reason, it felt wrong to even consider asking, which he thought was ridiculous when this affected both of them.
So instead he just ran his fingers through her hair and let it fan out across his pillow. It was only then that he even realised that she wasn't wearing her signature ponytail, which he supposed made sense considering it was the middle of the night, but he still found it weird and maybe a little unsettling. Betty had always had a ponytail for as long as he had known her.
They lay there for some time in each other's company, Archie just listening to her steady breathing and the sounds of his mom getting up and starting to go about her day. He found himself praying to a God that he didn't necessarily believe in that she wouldn't come in here. He didn't know how he was meant to explain the fact that he had a girl in his room - especially when the girl wasn't even his girlfriend.
It was then that his thoughts even flickered to Veronica. They were both aware that they had been growing apart recently, something that he knew was killing Ronnie, but he couldn't force himself to love someone, as awful as that was even to think. He had tried to make it work, especially because Betty was still in a committed relationship with the Serpent King. Archie would have had to be stupid to actively pursue her, and yet… Here she was in his arms, in his bed.
He gave a soft sigh as he let his head rest on his pillows, his eyes closing as he tried to let himself relax, to maybe even let himself sleep. What they were doing, regardless of how innocent it was, was wrong and their would-be consequences to deal with later. But for now, he supposed that he could let himself just rest and enjoy having the sweet smell of her coconut shampoo fill his nostrils and swarm through his entire body.