Chapter Text
Even though Thanksgiving hasn’t even quite arrived, Christmas decorations in Manhattan have already descended. Latching on like a parasite of capitalism , Jughead had groaned via text on her subway ride home. Usually, this time of year gives Betty a burst of positive energy to push through the tedious weeks of grading and exams leading up to winter break. But this year, the festivity just reminds her of how stupidly much she’s taken on in addition to the usual end of year craziness faced by teachers in the New York Public School system. She’s overseeing the LGBTQ+ club bake sale at her school, thus spending her afternoons baking rainbow cupcakes in the single oven in their high school’s building with ten lovely but distracted sophomores.
Then the theater director asked if she could direct the ballet portion of the Winter Show. The three girls performing are all far more talented than Betty had ever been at dance in high school, but they do frequently bicker about choreography and costumes to the point that they need a reasonable and compassionate adult to sit in on their rehearsals twice a week.
Thus, Betty’s massively behind on grading already. Christmas reminds her that, on top of everything, she’s going to need to make room for dealing with whatever nonsense the Cooper/Smith/Blossom contingent cook up to stoke the already burning dumpster fire of their family drama. She’d skipping Thanksgiving this year—Polly is bearing the herculean effort of hosting her divorced mother and father together with Penelope, her mother in law and their father’s girlfriend.
Betty, with a lot of coaching from her therapist, drew a hard line at that nightmare.
She’ll catch up over the long weekend. She will. And she will eat an entire bowl of mashed potatoes by herself while entering grades and deep cleaning the apartment.
Shuffling down the sidewalk past tourists looking at their phones, Betty sighs, mentally going over the agenda for the rest of today. Meet Archie for his sweet but obvious big news conversation, stay at the cafe and grade, and then take Jughead up on his offer to order two tons of Indian food and watch something she’ll pass out on the couch during. Probably a very dry documentary on the history of Venezuela, he’d hinted. Really super duper boring, I promise. We wouldn’t want a repeat of that one about the feminist movement in Argentina.
Right, when they stayed up until two talking about how gender-based liberation movements have been thoroughly co-opted by neoliberals. The kind of thing that makes everybody leave them alone in the corner of the kitchen at parties. Or if you’re Betty, it’s the kind of thing that only makes you even more miserably, helplessly in love with your roommate.
She’s late, and Archie and Jug are already tucked into a table in the corner of the cafe. Archie is talking with his hands and Jughead has an enormous bite of croissant in his cheek; everything seems normal. Betty gives them a wave and points at the coffeebar—she’s desperate for just a little kick of caffeine.
“Alright Arch,” Betty announces when she plops into the seat next to Jughead. “Out with it. What’s the plan?” She adjusts her ponytail, eternally self-conscious about what it looks like to
Jughead, despite the fact that he’s seen her wear every hairstyle possible, including her post-shower drenched wet dog look or sweaty post HIIT workout.
Archie, adorably, flusters. “How—did you know what this is about?”
Jughead muffles a laugh with a cough. “We might have placed bets, Arch.”
“Come on,” Betty presses. “We all knew the moving-in-together thing was the final hurdle for you two. Do you have a ring? And if so, please tell me it’s not at home. I have it on good authority that Veronica can physically smell diamonds.”
Archie throws his head back and laughs. “God, no one can hide anything from you two.” Betty blushes at the implication. Apparently, she’s been successfully hiding a giant flaming crush on the man beside her for what—two years? Approaching three?
Jughead takes the next line. “We’re happy for you, dude. If you need me to hire private eye so that you have some dirt to come hard against whatever pre-nup she cooks up—”
Betty cuts him off with a glare. “He’s joking. But uh, details, please! If I have to keep this a secret for a while I need to know everything. Or wait,” she hesitates, thinking of Veronica’s all-seeing eye. “Maybe tell me nothing.”
Archie flips through some photos and holds up an image of the ring.
“Jesus, how many public school gym teacher salaries is that worth?” Jughead sputters.
Betty has the same question, but she decides to gloss over Jug’s brashness. “She’s gonna die, Archie!”
He beams. “I’m picking it up tomorrow. Do you think you could hold onto it until the proposal?”
“Of course,” she vows. “As long as I’m not liable. I mean, you got that insured, right? Sorry, I’ll stop.” She doesn’t really want to know the financial details. Being close to Veronica can be complicated; Betty’s had about a decade of experience and still lives rent free in an ungodly expensive Manhattan high rise because of it. Whether the ring was funded entirely by Archie is absolutely none of her business.
(Though she knows she’ll spend the whole ride home on the train with Jughead speculating about it.)
“And I’m going to need some help with the proposal. I talked to some of the dance team at school…”
The mere words dance team give Betty a stressed eye-twitch after her afternoon with the ballet girls. She and Archie teach at the same Brooklyn high school—English and PE respectively. They both started the same year, but they’d even run in similar, if peripheral circles in college at NYU. Archie knows Betty will do whatever the hell he wants to do for the proposal and the dance team at school. Still, her eyelids ache in anticipation.
Jughead must pick up on her flinch, because he takes over, drawing out the details. A flashmob in the place Archie and Veronica had their first official kiss as a couple. It’s adorable, and suddenly Betty’s body floods with a cocktail of adoration and pure, unbridled jealousy.
They’re here talking about Archie and Veronica’s engagement. When Betty has known Jughead for exactly as long as her friends have known each other, considering everyone met at the same time. And Betty and Jughead are decidedly not about to get engaged, as that would involve their relationship inching even slightly away from platonic—despite whatever Veronica insists about Jughead being deeply and secretly in love with her in return.
For example, after Archie bids goodbye, hugs and preemptive congratulations exchanged, Betty and Jughead settle in to get some work done, as planned. Without asking, Jughead buys her another half-sweet vanilla latte, this time decaf. To Veronica, such an act proves his undying devotion. To Betty, it’s just... Jughead. Sure, he doesn’t do stuff like that for anybody. Jughead doesn’t exactly have Veronica Lodge’s social circle. When he finds people he cares about, he learns them. It’s proof that she and Jug are what they are—very close friends. Friends who know each other’s coffee orders, who can tell when the other is having a rough week.
Regardless, Betty smiles gratefully at the gesture and he just shrugs, a little bashful, like he doesn’t deserve any attention or praise.
It happens again on the train—he stands while she sits, leaning over her when a man tries to unwelcomely solicit her attention. It’s happened dozens of times, and Jug just moves closer to her. When they get off, if the man in question is still being an asshole, he puts a hand on the small of her back. It’s more protective than possessive, and of course, Betty never minds when he touches her.
Maybe, she thinks, when he shakes her gently awake after the documentary credits roll and asks if she wants to sleep in her bed, she can count the micro-beat of hesitation in between her slurred joke can you carry me and his wry retort not after eating two orders of naan.
But in the end, it’s always his hesitation that fuels her own.
“I think I’ve got everything,” he announces a bit stiltedly, hovering by the door with his trekking backpack. Jughead is leaving for Thanksgiving at the Andrews, his de facto family. Jughead’s family by law has been fractured by divorce and addiction, much like Betty’s, but pretty much for his whole life. His dad lives in Buffalo now, his Mom outside Detroit, his sister at college in Washington. He makes a trip out west to see Jellybean once a year, but not during the holidays; they each have their second families for that.
Jughead and Archie both offered for Betty to come too; Jug knows how hard to navigate familial waters can be, and Archie has a big heart and a long history of taking in those left adrift. But Betty knew this would be a sacred time for them.
“This is it, huh? The last holiday of… the boys,” Betty waggles her eyebrows because she knows he hates being referred to this way.
Milking his gruff-voice, Jughead launches into a bit. “Ah yes, last day of the men shooting a bird and breaking its neck with our bare hands and placing bets on who will end up with the buckshot in their teeth.”
Betty rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling, too. “It’s okay, Jug, to be sad about things changing.”
He shrugs. “They already have. It’s okay. I like Veronica—though I’ll beg you not to repeat that.” She mimes zipping her lips shut, then wringing her fingers a little at the dismissive mention of things already changing. He could really only mean, this—them living together in the apartment formerly shared between Betty and Veronica.
Living together was always a hypothetical pipe dream, a plan they might vaguely enact once Veronica and Archie took the inevitable step of moving in together. Betty always imagined it would be a swap of herself for Archie, but instead, Veronica upsized and left Betty to live out the rest of the lease here. She didn’t even have to live with someone. Everything was temporary—the lease ends in February.
But then Jughead surprised her and pushed the issue. Well, we always said we would have each other in the wake of the great Andrews-Lodge union. Betty thinks it had more to do with a few months of free rent and a trial period of being roommates with someone besides Archie. (Though she does think, all secret-desperate-romantic-feelings aside, that Jughead enjoys living with her. She’s extremely clean, has read a book in the last ten years, and stress bakes—three enormous steps up from Archie Andrews.)
“You’ll be okay on your own, right?” He asks, even though he’s already asked. It touches that nerve, the one that wonders if he moved in three months ago just because he felt bad for her living by herself. Jughead knows the nitty gritty of her mental health history—a fact that usually makes Betty feel very safe.
Her smile is undoubtedly wincing ever so slightly, and she prays that if he sees through it, that he’ll ignore it. “I have like, six pounds of potatoes. What else does a girl need?”
“Someone to wash dishes,” he quips before pulling her in for a quick but tight hug. As always, Betty steps back as soon as possible in order to to avoid latching on and not letting go for too long. “Don’t wallow if you get lonely, okay? Just call me. I’m sure Fred and Archie would be delighted to play some games via Facetime.”
Before she can overthink it, Betty flirts, “What if I just want to fall asleep to a documentary with you?”
Jughead swallows and smiles, clearly pleased. Betty feels warmth burn all the way down her spine.
It’s nice to have the place to herself for a while. The grades get done, the potatoes mashed with herb-and-garlic infused cream and butter. Over the course of the weekend, a glut of cheesy Christmas rom-coms that Jughead would judge her for are consumed alongside an entire pumpkin pie.
Despite her original intentions, Betty resists calling Polly out of guilt. Following her therapist’s advice, she texts her mom, dad, and sister together in a group text, ensuring that none of them will respond. Happy Thanksgiving! Nothing else. No apologies for not attending the bloodbath. It’s growth, Betty tells herself, stomping out the ballooning guilt.
As further distraction, she dusts and catalogs Veronica’s items via text—pack, sell, donate—a task she volunteered to take on for the sake of the “gradual move out” and well, her own free rent.
Every morning she makes too much coffee and texts a picture of the pot to Jughead. Habits die hard.
He texts her back a black emoji heart (the only one he sends on principal), and her flesh-and-blood heart palpitates, even though he’s almost certainly being wry. This, Betty thinks, is why after years she cannot handle the idea of outright asking him if he has any non-platonic feelings for her.
She plays these scenarios out in daydreams—on the subway, in the shower, laying awake when she cannot quiet her brain. Even constructing the words she would say feels impossible, like her brain is a giant blinking cursor. Jug, you know I love you. But I actually love you. She can imagine that word hitting him with recoil, like the collar of an itchy sweater. Love is one of the things they don’t discuss. Betty knows Jughead cares for her very deeply, but if that’s true, wouldn’t he have done something by now?
Or is he just as stymied as her?
She’s tried non-outright tactics. The first was a classic middle school move: ask Veronica to ask Archie, but her best friend shut that one down on the grounds of not being blamed for miscommunication. You’re an adult, B. Talk to him.
About a year ago, she made up an elaborate story about giving anyone who asks her out at least one shot, if they were a friend—as if there were hordes of friends trying to date her. Jughead never bit.
So finally, asking him to be her roommate was meant to test the waters, but that backfired, too. After all, perhaps it was an easy yes because he’s not interested in her.
So Saturday night, once the pie plate is licked clean of graham cracker crumbs and left to dry on the dishrack, Betty decides to be a little more forthright, and calls him.
“I take it you’ve burned through the latest sappy holiday movies on Getflix,” he greets, somehow accomplishing a dig at both Betty and himself.
“Hey,” Betty defends. “I only cried once, so there. That’s growth.”
“Or,” he counters. “The narrative is growing dull. It takes something novel to evoke an emotional response.”
Betty haughs. “And what would you know about an emotional response?” It’s not a particularly good segway into flirting, but whatever.
“Hey—I have cried at a film before. I just wouldn’t dare give you ammunition like that.”
Betty scoffs. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” There is some noise in the background. “Where are you?”
The noise intensifies for a second—it sounds like a train. “Oh sorry, yeah, I just got off at Grand Central.”
“What? You’re already back?” Betty looks down at herself, four days into a no-shower vegetative state— oily hair, bad breath, and an ensemble of leggings, lounge bra, and a loose crewneck that surely need to be burned at this point. Sure, Jughead may see her in pretty much every state of being, but she’s a fraction more conscious of her appearance around him given the ever dwindling hope that he might be inspired to consider her romantically.
“Uh, yeah. Sorry, kind of last minute. I just… It was a nice weekend, but I wanted a day to resettle. And I missed you. I mean—uh, yeah. You’re alone, so...” He clears his throat a little at the end, which he only does when he overshares.
Despite the fact that her skin feels twenty degrees hotter as he trails off, the hitch in his voice makes Betty stop stripping her clothes off and preparing to run the shower. There are a million things stuck in her throat. I’m fine by myself, you know, and I hope you didn’t use me as a lame excuse to Fred, and I missed you, too.
Jughead doesn’t just say stuff like that, and Betty can’t plow on like usual, nor can she stop to draw attention to his vulnerability. She meets him in the middle. “Aww, well, perfect timing, because I’m moving from Lifetime movies to true crime.”
It’s not very forthright, Betty decides as she shaves her legs in the shower. But as she replays the awkward stammer in his voice over and over, she gets lost in the stupid Hallmark montage of her love, taking the train to be with her on the holidays.
He texts don’t hate me but I’m starving and I just ordered a horrifying amount of pizza… and it will probably beat me home while she’s in the shower. She puts her phone down to get dressed in her most ass-accentuating pair of clean leggings and a cute but comfortable mockneck sweater. When her phone starts to ring, she doesn’t think twice about it not being the pizza delivery.
When the person on the other end doesn’t hardly say hello before launching into a tirade, Betty realizes her mistake with a deep (but silent) sigh.
“Elizabeth,” her mother begins, as if already mid rant, “When I tell you that the Riverdale town decoration committee has gone to pieces, I tell you—I’m driving down Main street and these treelights? Absolute budget crap! Half of these bulbs are burnt out. I can’t be the only person upset that we look like small town crap. This is a holiday destination, for god’s sake. I bet I can get a handful of business owners to write in some letters to the editor on this one.”
At least, Betty tells herself, Alice isn’t already digging in on Betty’s refusal to attend family Thanksgiving yet. It’s a small gift that they’ll be warming up to that one.
Her mother barrels on, raging against the new banners on Main, when she hears the front door open. Her hair is still damp and unstyled, but her brain lights up at the smell of pizza. Given the fact that she’s embarking on what will be, no doubt, a forty-five minute conversation, she needs fuel.
Pressing mute, assured that Alice is on a roll for a few minutes at least, Betty meets Jughead at the door. “Bless you for always over ordering,” she praises softly, even though her mother can’t hear.
Jughead snarks, “Jughead, I missed you, and your presence is far better than any combination of dough and cheese— Sorry, kidding, not even I can compare my merits to pizza and expect to win.” His faux-grumpiness dissolves into a smile and Betty thinks: But I did miss you.
They drop the boxes on the counter and dig in. With his mouth full of a first bite, Jughead points to the phone. He asks something in pizza-mouth mumble that Betty translates into, “Is that your mom?”
Swallowing her own first bite, Betty nods. “You should hear this one, it’s good. Apparently the town Christmas decor this year is moving from classy to kitschy and she’s determined to figure out who’s responsible.” Betty turns on the speakerphone.
Alice, unsurprisingly, is still going strong. “Sierra McCoy is always going on and on about sourcing locally and celebrating this town’s ‘industry and artisans,’ but none of this is anything but cheap Glamazon crap! What happened to the glass blown ornaments? What kind of loyalty does anyone have to tradition anymore?”
Jughead is already laughing too hard to continue eating. “You know, as insane as she sounds, it’s a fair point. But I would be willing to bet money that it’s really the fault of—”
Unwittingly, Alice’s voice interrupts. “I bet it’s the Blossoms. They probably pulled their annual holiday gift to the town beautification fund and this is how much this sorry place depends on their patronage. Ugh, it makes me sick.”
Betty can’t help laughing at the look of self-satisfaction on Jughead’s face at his correct prediction. “Betty?” Alice trills. “Are you listening?”
She shoots Jughead a look— stop making me laugh— even though at this point he’s just making pompous facial expressions, and unmutes the phone. “Yes, mom, and I am not sure I have anything to contribute.”
Alice sighs. A master of interpreting her mother’s exhalations, Betty knows this one is wearied, disappointed. “Dinner was nothing to miss, dear. Polly isn’t much of a cook, despite her fancy chef’s kitchen. They may be able to afford top of the line appliances, but she doesn’t know how to roast a turkey that isn’t bone dry. And that Jason—god, what a bore.”
Betty mutes again. Jughead chomps on his crust. “Oh Betty!” he mimics. “If only you would move home and have a humbler kitchen but more delicious meal prepared for us! I wouldn’t even mind if you had a less rich husband as long as he’s not in some kind of financial consulting that makes him not only evil capitalist scum, but also kind of boring.”
He’s doing this to cheer her up, but never ceases to make her more confident in her choices, more firm in her differences from her family, to hear him say things like this. In the face of being so imperfectly known by them, she is seen by him.
But her mom is calling for her attention again, so Betty breaks her warm gaze at her roommate. “I’ll be back, I should try to cut this short. Don’t eat my pizza.”
Jughead looks defensive, as if the request is absurd, even though he’s consumed her leftovers an (almost) unforgivable number of times in the last few months. Betty backs out of the kitchen, narrowing her eyes, and turns the corner.
“Mom, boring sounds like a successful holiday for that group of people.” Betty slips into her bedroom and flops on the bed. Alice’s voice cracks in response, filling Betty with the inevitable dread. Things went worse than boring. “I’m—sweetheart, it’s been a brutal week.”
For all her mother’s antics, for all the times Betty wishes for an under bearing parent, it still breaks her when Alice admits she’s upset. It’s been a long road since their session with Betty’s high school counselor, Ms. Burble, and every mental health professional either of them have ever seen since.
“Mom,” Betty coaxes. “What happened?”
Her mom muffles a sniff. “Your father is stealing Christmas.”
Like the Grinch? The spirit of Jughead’s sarcasm fits in so seamlessly into her own thoughts. Not entirely wrong, Betty thinks. Her dad has been in constant battle with Alice during and after the divorce, retaliating for years of feeling smothered and silenced. The whole discourse exhausts Betty—she used to volley back and forth between her parents, the intermediary. Of course Alice was… herself. But her mom had agreed to go to therapy. Betty’s dad called it quackery and pulled Betty off his health insurance at 20 years old. They haven’t been very close since then, to say the least.
“He’s moving in with her. Penelope,” Alice seethes.
Oh, he can fuck right off. “Jesus, mom, I’m so sorry. And I’m guessing he announced this at dinner?”
Alice heaves a sigh, and Betty’s fluency translates this one to yes, that absolute rat bastard and his ghoulish girlfriend. “Yes, right in the middle of the most mediocre pumpkin pie known to man. They will be hosting Christmas and although we are ‘all welcome,’ I would rather eat Polly’s chalky mashed potatoes for the rest of my life.”
God, Betty thinks. The food must have really sucked.
“Now Polly’s going to choose him over me, because Jason already chose Penelope over Clifford in the divorce, and then those babies will only ever know that poisonous part of the family…”
Betty cuts her off, mid-spiral. “No, she won’t, Mom. Sure, Polly’s obligated to the Blossoms, but she would never do that to you. You can take dad’s stupid power moves personally but Polly isn’t doing anything to hurt you. It’s more complicated for her.”
Another broken record: defending her sister’s ambivalence in the mess. Granted, Polly could do more to remind their mom that she does in fact (probably) give a shit, but it’s fine. They all accept their roles within the strain of the family chaos, and Polly’s is producing grandchildren so that the torch isn’t held under Betty’s feet. She’ll take it.
“I just… we have Christmas traditions, you know? Decorating the tree and homemade pizzas and Christmas brunch. And I want Dag and Junie to have that, too. With us.” Alice is swiftly veering into pouty territory, and Betty knows it’s time to jump into fixer mode. Fixing is Betty’s gift and curse, from mediating the film choice for family movie night, to cajoling everyone into vacation activities with at least half a smile on their faces.
“Mom,” Betty interrupts the next string of catastrophizing, thinking quickly. “Listen. How about you get out of Riverdale for Christmas weekend? Come to New York, stay in Veronica’s loft with me!” She’s laying it on thick now, hyping up her tone to cheerful and warm. It’s a long shot, sure, but it will get Betty out of a marathon of suffering at the Blossoms. Besides, Jug will be at the Andrews’ again, and she’s not sure she can face another holiday alone. “We can go shopping, have a nice dinner, see Rockefeller Center… and we can squeeze in some traditions here, too. Cookies, Christmas brunch by the tree… I’ll make it nice.”
Her mom’s voice cracks again. “That… would actually be really nice, honey. I’ve never had a Christmas in New York City.”
Betty heart twists with guilt and genuine love—her mother is annoying, but she’s come a long way. Alice of ten years ago would pitch a fit, demanding they all choose sides, guilting Polly and the twins with gifts and elaborate plans to lure her daughters home—all the things that only served to repel them away. It’s not perfect by far, but it’s sometimes kind of good, even.
(Even so, Betty’s already making a mental list of preparations sure to make the hectic nature of December next to unbearable.)
“I love you, Mom. I’ll be in touch soon, okay?”
By the time Betty emerges from her bedroom, Jughead has transitioned to the couch in the living room, hunched over his laptop, typing with his noise cancelling earphones on. One of the pizzas is mostly gone, but the unopened box is still warm—and it’s pepperoni, her favorite, even though she didn’t get any input in the order. She takes out a plate and drops two giant slices onto it before flopping down onto the other end of the couch.
Betty’s halfway through the first piece when Jughead slides the headphones off. “Wanna talk about it?”
“Huh?” she responds, mouth full.
“You’re rage chewing. I can hear it through these,” he jokes.
It’s silent for a few more beats. Betty feels guilty for immediately launching into her family crap. She never even got to say Hi, how was your trip?
“We don’t have to get into it—the short version is that my dad is being a dick and intentionally alienating my mom on Christmas, so naturally I fixed it by inviting her and a world of woe to New York for Christmas. So, I’m just… already stressed out.” God, she needs this pizza to give her superhuman powers to get through the next three weeks.
“So she’s coming? Here? For Christmas?”
There is a weird, high pitch to his voice. “Oh, shit, um, yes. If that’s okay? Just the weekend. She would probably leave later in the day on the 25th. The paper is more of a one woman operation than ever, so I doubt she can leave for very long.”
Jughead looks uncharacteristically pained. “But, um, it won’t be weird if I’m here?” He must sense the confusion blooming in her brain. “Because Archie is going to Veronica’s family for Christmas. Asking the big man’s blessing and all that good old patriarchal stuff. Anyway, I was… just gonna solo it here.”
Of course, she thinks. Nothing is ever fixed so easily. “Shit. Shit. I mean, sorry—this is my fault. I just assumed… shit. My mom doesn’t exactly know that I live with a boy.”
She’s never felt more like she’s in middle school than calling Jughead a boy. Describing him as a boy sounds childish, as if she has a dumb adolescent crush. For all her immature inability to communicate her feelings, Betty flushes, her crush is certainly quite adult if her occasional sex dream is anything to go by.
Perceiving things much more maturely, Jughead asks, a little surprised, “She actually cares about that?”
Betty sighs. “She was a child bride, basically. Married my dad right out of high school and was delighted when my sister was of the ring-by-spring tribe in college, too. Well, at least until my dad screwed his way into the in-laws. Anyway, it’s one of her more conservative impulses. I doubt she expects that I’m—” Betty stops short of saying a virgin out of pure mortification.
Jughead seems to sense what she means anyway, clearing his throat and redirecting. “So probably not the best, low stress time to break that particular news.”
Betty closes her eyes, annoyed at herself for not just taking a second to think, to ask him, to prevent this snowballing problem. Yet again, she is determined to be the fixer.
“You know what, I’ll just stay at a hotel with my mom! It will be nice, I’ll make it a big, special thing. She’ll love it.”
Jughead scoffs. “You don’t have money for that, Betts. And we already live in this huge ridiculous place, which your mom will want to see at some point. No, I’ll go somewhere else.”
Betty sets her plate down and sits up, devoting her full body to the argument. “You are not spending Christmas somewhere random and alone! I don’t care how much of a Scrooge you try to convince me you naturally are. I can’t condemn you to that.”
His shoulders drop a little, and Betty feels a soft ache in her heart to see that he would have done it, if she’d asked. It is more than a small miracle that he’s entertaining how to solve her completely solvable problem. Just tell Alice that you live with a man. One you are not sleeping with. Which she might actually hate more than if you were, seeing as it points to all her fears of you dying alone.
That’s when she gets a positively bonkers idea.
It’s Veronica levels of unhinged, really.
Far more logical solutions exist. The hotel. Calling her mother back right now and suggesting a trip outside of the city. Jughead would probably not even mind living as a ghost in his own home, having Betty sneak cookies into his room behind a locked door.
But maybe it’s Betty’s last ridiculous attempt to get Jughead to admit, or discover, or fuel any iota of romantic feeling he might have for her.
“Betts,” Jughead breaks through her internal debate. “What are you thinking right now? You look like you’re in pain.”
Her jaw is clenched extra hard, her fingers balled into fists. She takes a deep breath, relaxing and rolling her shoulders back. “I have an utterly wild, out of the box plan.”
“I can handle wild,” he says, gesturing out with it.
Betty gnaws on her tongue, her stomach churning when she thinks about actually voicing the idea. “It would only be for like, 36 hours,” she caveats.
“Betty, just spill.” He’s moved his laptop to the coffee table, giving her his full attention. Betty starts twisting her fingers in the fringe of a throw blanket, then snatches them back, folding her hands like she’s been scolded in Sunday school.
“So, you can’t be my roommate because my mom will be totally weird about it and make unbearable commentary about me being single. But I refuse to kick you out of your home on Christmas.”
Something in his face softens, and Betty’s chest throbs at the thought that Jughead has so rarely had a sense of ‘home on Christmas.’ The intensity doubles when she realizes that she would do anything to be that home for him.
“I’m asking, Jughead, will you pretend to be my boyfriend for Christmas?”
The proposal is mostly forgotten for the next couple weeks. Betty stays late at school most nights, but Jughead finally decides to learn how to use her fancy pressure cooker, which is excellent not only because he can easily make dinner with plenty of servings, but also because it leads to excellent Jughead hype-rants, some of her rare favorites. “This thing is magic. Honestly, if someone used this as an argument for the benefits of the free market, I would have no retort. Marx didn’t prepare me for this, Betts. I’m also not sure Marx ever had a broccoli cheese soup, because holy, holy fuck. If we lived millenia ago I would build an altar and worship this thing.”
Then, the massive boxes arrive with a voicemail from her mother. “Betty!” Alice chimes. “I’ve had some of our ornaments and decor packaged and sent to you—I’m sure Veronica’s apartment could use some holiday cheer and it will make us feel like we’re at home. See you soon, honey.”
It’s a sweet gesture, but now, on top of everything, there is a Christmas tree to acquire, lights to string, the whole works.
“Jesus,” Jughead swears when she drags the tubs into the living room. “She has no chill.”
Betty sighs. “Where am I going to get a tree?”
Jughead stops typing, looking up from his stool at the kitchen island. “Oh, Trey asked me if we wanted the usual Lodge Christmas services. If I’m being honest, I told him that idea scared the shit outta me, but I’m sure he’ll be up here with a dozen wreaths if you ask.”
Betty shouldn’t be surprised; she forgets all the time that she lives in this building with a staff she could be burdening. Jughead, of course, has a much more extreme complex about it all, which he justifies by befriending all the doormen. Sometimes she sends him down to the lobby to get their food delivery and he’s given away her crab rangoon to Trey or Manuel. Betty makes a mental note to ask Veronica about the Christmas gifts for the staff.
“Okay, okay, I’ll take a tree delivery,” she concedes. Not for the first time, Betty’s stomach swoops when she considers broaching the next matter of preparation. “Beyond decoration, we do have to, like…”
Jughead ducks his head, nodding. “Right. Hide all evidence of my existence.”
They haven’t really gotten much further on their whole fake-relationship plot than Jughead’s somewhat shell-shocked and slightly stammering agreement. “Well maybe I have her sleep in my room. Then you can sleep in your room and I’ll sleep on the couch.”
He slow blinks at her. “Betty. If we’re gonna try to sell this to your mom, you’re gonna have to stick it to her a little more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that your mom is a journalist, on top of being nosy as hell. She’s going to want to know how long we’ve been dating. She’s going to go through your drawers to see if I keep any clothes here. And frankly, if she really thinks we don’t ever sleep in the same bed, she’s going to look for holes in the rest of our um… relationship.”
Betty sighs. He’s right, and it’s is why she’s going to be in emotional ribbons by the end of this. “Okay. So we make you a drawer of clothes. Leave some of your stuff out in the bathroom. That will make her buy that you often sleep over.”
“All the furniture in the other bedroom is technically still Veronica’s, so if it’s clean, it probably won’t even look like anything except a guest room. Do you think she’d poke around in there?”
Betty shakes her head. “No, especially not if we don’t give her any reason to doubt it. Us, I mean.” Her whole body feels on fire, realizing this means she’s going to have to touch Jughead a lot . “So we’ll hide your stuff and sleep in my room?” Oh my god, she’s going to sleep in the same bed as him. Twice.
Before she can broach that particular conversation of boundary setting, Jughead is already distracted by his phone. “Oh, damn, Manuel says they already have a tree ready for us. Seriously, what is this place?”
Jughead tilts his head, holding an ornament from the box in one hand and a mug of hot cocoa in the other. “Wow, little Betty is very serious in this photo.” It’s a ceramic Santa with a photo window, and she knows the one. Betty rolls her eyes. “I was so ticked off at Polly because she insisted on wearing blue so I had to wear pink in those photos.”
Jughead nods, faux-somber. “Do you have any with ridiculous Christmas sweaters? That seems WASPy.”
Betty chuckles, gesturing for him to help her with the lights. “No, actually those are not WASPy at all and definitely considered tacky by Alice Cooper.”
Tutting, Jughead helps her untangle. “Figures.”
Betty plugs the first strand in. “Alright, start at the bottom and we’ll wind upwards.”
“Me?” Jughead cringes. “Betts, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m more of a snacks manager.” He gestures to the bodega spread of hot cocoa packets, cheap eggnog spiked with Lodge rum, and candy canes. “But if you style, I can hold the strand. You know, provide art direction.” He punctuates this by sipping from an enormous elf novelty mug unearthed from the decor tubs. Her heart feels like one of the marshmallows in the cocoa, melting slowly.
He’s right—Betty has a much better instinct for the proper density of lights required to deck the tree. Jughead is like a child with the ornaments, commenting derisively on the ugly ceramic angels but boldly highlighting her childhood artwork of popsicle stick and pipe cleaner nativity scenes. It’s endearing, she thinks, knowing that he’s never done a lot of these things purely for himself. Betty doesn’t draw attention to the deficits of Jughead’s upbringing, but it doesn’t stop her from feeling a little emotional when she sees him fulfilling those things in adulthood. His first freelance photography check is saved in his bedside table with his diploma. Betty wonders if he keeps them tucked away because no one will ever understand what they mean to him, not like her degree, which is displayed by her mother in an array with Polly’s and Alice’s own.
When they finish, Betty sinks back into the couch, feeling a little bit of the magic aura of the lights (and the rum in the eggnog) sinking in. “I should probably send her a picture,” she thinks aloud.
Jughead plops down beside her, but Betty waves him up again. “Go pose by the tree. I need to formally introduce you to my mother so she doesn’t have an aneurysm in the doorway.”
He poses stiltedly. “God, just relax. Right now you look exactly like a fake boyfriend.” Jughead’s nervous smile blooms across his face and he backs up just so, making the lights glow across his face. Betty snaps the picture and taps out a message. I have someone for you to meet.
Rejoining her on the couch, Jughead sighs. “Okay, all of this is kind of nice. Especially since it gets dark at four o’clock and if I’m editing at home it’s really, really sad in here.”
Lifting her glass to a toast, Betty says, “To being a lot less sad and definitely less alone.”
After he drains his (fourth?) mug of cocoa, Jughead scoots over, lifting her legs up and sliding under them, letting them drape across his lap. He must notice the tension that stiffens her entire body, because he smirks and clucks his tongue. “Come on, Betts. It’s just practice.”
They watch another documentary. Betty wonders if it’s practice when his thumb draws circles on her kneecap for the entire second half.