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Archie meets the girl next door, and unbeknownst to him, the next few years of his life are rewritten. Except the girl isn’t Betty Cooper. She’s new, smothered in purple flannel when he first sees her, untamed tendrils of hair curling past her shoulders. The new girl watches him unabashedly with guarded eyes, sitting with Betty on the steps to the Cooper residence.
“This is Jane. She’s your new next door neighbour actually,” is about all the introduction he gets from Betty, who sounds mad for some reason, before she drags Jane away.
The next day, he catches up with the two of them before school, and Jane introduces herself again as Eleanor. On the first day, she and Veronica slot themselves in like they had always been there, and he’s fine with that new status quo. Even when he starts talking about football season during lunch and she stares at him like he’s an alien from another planet, he doesn’t really mind.
Except for Reggie - who, for some terrible reason, thinks that Archie and El either have hooked up or should. If he could just get that guy to stop, Archie could see him and Eleanor becoming real friends.
-
Archie may have had a fleeting crush on El, or maybe it was fairer to say she’d intrigued him, but that had been stomped out the night he’d mistakenly tried kissing her in Cheryl’s closet. All she ever talked about was Mike, like her boyfriend hung up every star in the sky just for her. And Archie considers himself pretty good with hints, so he moves on. He does. But he’s also pretty scared of her having alcohol poisoning right now.
He knocks on the bathroom door again, the sound reverberating throughout the corridor in a way it only could in the Blossom family’s gothic haunted house. In that way, it’s actually a perfect location for the Halloween party Cheryl’s hosting, though the rager they turned it into probably wasn’t appropriate. And now that Archie’s winding down from his drunkenness, he can recognise that fact. He never thought he’d be drunk at the Blossom mansion, while ‘Like a Prayer’ was blasting downstairs.
“El? I don’t care if you’re throwing up, can you just unlock the door for me?”
He leans on the wall, expecting to wait there a while, and stumbles back up when the door unlocks, and El stares at him, silent. A frown creeps up on his face as he meets eyes with her. Her hair, with its fresh purple streaks, had successfully escaped the two meticulous braids Veronica had tied it in for the occasion, and was going in all directions. Her red lipstick’s smudged off and he knows for a fact the memory of it has been left on numerous shot glasses downstairs.
If he was Jughead, he would make a joke about how Dorothy might not be in Kansas anymore.
She points her head into the room as a silent invitation to come in, before sitting on the tiles right next to the toilet again. Archie follows her onto the floor. Not before looking at his appearance in the mirror and visibly cringing.
“‘m not throwing up. I just want to sit.” Her defiant, though slurred, words don’t exactly match the faded look in her eyes. She looks at him again, like she’s just noticed something new. “I like your necklace.”
He looks down in confusion before remembering that some of his costume had survived the last few hours. Namely, the ring of fake hay that he’d been forced to wear around his neck.
“Uh, thanks. You know, speaking of, can we tell Veronica no group costumes ever again? No one wants to be the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.” The fake hay is about all that remains, since he and the other athletes had all lost their shirts in some way or the other.
The look on El’s face makes him feel like he just kicked a puppy. “But it was fun.”
“Yeah, you got to be Dorothy, of course you think it was fun.” He likes playing up his reactions for her, especially when he never knows how she’ll respond.
“This is my first Halloween,” she explains. “I did not know it can be like this.”
“First Halloween?” He knows El had missed out on a lot of her education for whatever reason, and that she’d been very sheltered, but the amount of experiences she hadn’t had before her and the Byers moved to Riverdale floored him. She sends him a downcast look and he backtracks. “Sorry. It’s not bad, just surprising.”
He’s deathly aware of their closeness to each other. Their legs are parallel to each other, and his jeans brush the bejewelled tights she’d borrowed from Veronica.
“I wish Mike was here for this.”
“You wish your D&D playing boyfriend was here for your first rager?”
She rolls her eyes. “I wanted us to…” There’s a familiar pause as she tries to gather her words. “Experience this together. I am different from when I moved away and he is not here for it.”
“Everyone changes. It’s not a bad thing.” She lets out an uncharacteristically world weary sigh, slouching further onto the dark tiled floor. “What?”
“What if I change too much?” she asks with worried eyes, so earnestly like it’s a thought no one’s ever had before.
“Your friends won’t care. Betty, Veronica, even Cheryl. You could probably murder someone in front of them and they wouldn’t bat an eye,” he jokes. He watches the stormy look cloud up in her eyes and backtracks. “The point is, you’ll still have all of us.”
She tilts her head. “Us? You too?”
“Do you see me going anywhere?” He looks around, at the cold, empty bathroom he’s in just for her. At that, she shakes her head. “What are you so worried about anyway?”
She pouts. “Promise you won’t tell Will. Or Jonathan. Or Joyce.”
“...why would I tell your mom about any of this?”
“Mike doesn’t say he loves me anymore.” The words rush out of her, and they hang in the air that suddenly feels like it’s been sucked out of the room. She looks so guilty once she’s said it that you’d think she was telling Archie she doesn’t love Mike anymore.
“Oh. Shit. I’m sorry.”
“Mike is the same. So if he doesn’t love me, it must be because of me.”
“No!” He says it so forcefully that it takes El off guard. “No, it’s not you.”
“How do you know?”
He chooses his words carefully. “Because I can’t imagine anyone falling out of love with you.”
Okay, never mind.
That wasn’t as neutral as he wanted to sound, and maybe the alcohol wasn’t fully out of his system yet. He does mean it, though not about himself, because he had never fallen in love with anyone. But the effect El had on Riverdale as soon as she’d moved here was palpable. If he was writing a song about it, he’d call her magnetic - so unabashedly strange and a breath of fresh air in the melancholy of Riverdale. Betty acts like she’s a replacement for Polly, and Cheryl seems to think she can groom her to be the queen bee in waiting. And maybe El would love to be a Cooper, or another popular cheerleader, but she just isn’t. She stands out despite herself, and every time she really expresses herself he’s left waiting for more.
Okay, maybe Archie Andrews is in love with Eleanor Byers. Maybe that’s okay.
He watches her eyes soften, lips parting softly as the realisation dawns on her. El is really smart, despite her academic struggles, and it doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines here. He might be imagining their bodies inching closer to each other.
And then she sits straight up, eyes shot open. And before he can react, she shoves her head into the toilet bowl and the bathroom fills with the noise of her retching. He goes to pull her hair back immediately, and his accidental confession is discarded and forgotten. He doesn’t ever bring it up again at least. He’ll never figure out if she remembers, and if she does, nothing changes between them.
-
El’s room is decorated to the brim, with photos of all of them stuck all over the walls, and paper butterflies floating around her bed. Archie takes the time to appreciate her arts and crafts skills every time he comes round. But oh so unfortunately, it seems Eleanor always has an ulterior motive for inviting him to her home.
“You know, sometimes it feels like you don’t even care about the highs and lows of Shakespeare,” he jokes while she traces patterns on his chest.
Their guise was Archie tutoring El in English, which he was still trying to accomplish, even though they got distracted sometimes. A lot of the time.
She rolls her eyes. “I care.” He gives her a look. “I will not want to learn if I am bored,” she argues like it makes complete sense.
He’s lying on her bed, and she’s looking down at him, freshly dyed blonde hair spilling around her face like a halo.
He shrugs. “Can’t argue with that.”
It’s the only permission she needs before leaning in to kiss him. He savours it, slow and cautious like she always is, like she’s determined to learn him. And then it quickens, though her hands stay firmly planted in his own, that are currently positioned level to his head. He tries to get up, and insist they really need to look at Romeo and Juliet, but the movement catches her off guard and takes her off balance. She leans too far towards the edge of her bed, and tumbles onto her fluffy ladybug rug. He falls too, hands still locked together, but catches himself a second before dropping all his weight onto her.
Now he’s over her, hands by her head, and they both burst into laughter.
“El, I heard a thud, is everything-”
Will, El’s brother, (he’s never figured out if she’s older, younger, or if they’re twins) walks in but stops in his tracks at the sight of them. Archie’s not sure he’s ever felt more judged, and they scramble to sit up right. Will keeps staring and Archie realises that his shirt is still on the bed.
“Will.”
“Elev- Eleanor.”
Archie’s eyes go between the both of them. “Uh, sorry, man, I’ll make my way out-”
“You know what,” Will interrupts him, sounding more assertive than Archie has ever heard him before. “I don’t even want to unpack this.” He closes the door on his way out.
Archie wants to laugh again, but it dies in his throat at the guilty look El is suddenly directing at the floor. (Maybe it’s natural, it’s only been a month since she and Mike broke up after all.) She doesn’t speak much after that, and Archie doesn’t stay for dinner.
-
She starts hanging out at his house more. It’s easier than showing up to the Byers’ where the rest of the family gawk at him like the concept of Eleanor being with anyone other than Mike is unnatural. It kind of hurts, actually, but El is either unaware or staunchly trying to pretend it’s not happening. His dad loves her, like Archie guessed he would. There’s always a bittersweet look in El’s eyes when he makes conversation with her though.
One time, while they’re hanging out in the kitchen doing homework, Vegas walks in and El drops her pencil.
“Oh, hey, buddy.” Archie jumps down from the barstool to pet the dog, and looks up to see El frozen in her seat. “Do you not like dogs?”
“I… don’t know yet.”
“That’s okay. Vegas is really friendly. He’s probably gonna start sniffing you, so he can get used to your scent.”
Like he says, the dog walks over and circles the kitchen counter and El’s head follows him as he does.
“Does Vegas… live here?”
He chuckles. “Uh, yeah, he’s our pet.”
“How do you know if he likes it here?” The tone of her voice is deathly serious.
“I mean… we feed him, take him on walks, play ball with him. He’s as happy as he could be, aren’t you, boy?”
“But you don’t know. Because he is a dog. He can not talk. What if you are keeping him here without his…”
“Consent?”
“Yes! Consent.”
Her concern for animal welfare, her kindness, is incredibly endearing, but Archie can tell from the look in her eyes that this is more meaningful than she’s letting on. He sits cross-legged on the floor, and pats the space next to him for her. She steps off of the barstool and joins him on the kitchen tile, as Vegas prowls around, and he takes notice of her immediately. He bounds up to her and El tenses up.
“Look, one sign of a dog being happy is when its tail is wagging. Like Vegas is doing right now.”
El takes notice of the wagging tail, but still seems skeptical.
“Vegas.” She calls his name out, soft yet commanding. To Archie’s shock, he stops moving immediately, and sits down on his hind legs directly opposite El. He watches what looks like his girlfriend and his dog communicating telepathically, before El blinks and Vegas gets up again, moving into the living room. She smiles then, and looks back at Archie. “I believe you. He is happy.”
“Oh yeah? He told you that?”
She shrugs. “Basically.” It sounds like a joke, but almost not.
Archie puts an arm around her shoulder. “You ready to get started on English?”
She groans dramatically, lowering her head onto his chest. Her newly cherry red hair falls around her face like a curtain. “Later.”
-
El gets a nepotistic free pass into cheerleading, courtesy of Cheryl. Archie loves to see her at his games, always equipped with a wave and the brightest smile you’ve ever seen. She rises up the ranks quickly, with her almost supernatural ability for stunts. Though she seems more impressed by the big yellow pom-poms.
“Every time they throw you up in the air, it looks like you’re flying,” he tells her.
They’re both slurping on their milkshakes as they walk back to their street, and El stops in her tracks.
“Flying? That is crazy. I wish I could fly!” His girlfriend is abysmally bad at lying.
He frowns. “Why do you sound like you’re hiding something?” She gives him a panicked look before suddenly seeming really interested in the trees. “Were you, like, a pilot in Indiana or something?”
She snorts. “Yes. Yes, I was.”
“Wow. I can tell everyone at school my girl is even cooler than they thought.”
She thinks for a second, sucking through her straw. “Am I?”
“Are you what?”
“Am I cool?”
Eleanor Hopper is best friends with Cheryl Blossom, and Veronica Lodge. She’s a beautiful cheerleader who’s dating a football player - not the captain of the team, but close. Sometimes the attention she gets is positive, sometimes it’s negative, but it’s not a debate that she’s popular now.
“You’re the coolest person I know.”
They make it to her porch and she stands on the steps, levelling her eyes with his.
“But why?” He looks at her. “Why am I the coolest? Not Betty… or Veronica?”
“...El, don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
She huffs, yellow pom-poms still held by her side.
“I am not jealous. I am confused.”
“Well, I… just don’t like them the way I like you.” Archie tends to be more articulate when writing down his thoughts.
“But why?”
“There’s no why. It just is.” He shrugs. “I don’t like them because they’re not you.” It’s kind of cheesy, but it’s how he feels.
Her eyes soften, and without speaking, she drags him by the shirt into a kiss, one hand making its way into his hair. When they pull away, she gives him a shy smile, looking up through her dark lashes.
“Goodnight, Archie Andrews.”
He can’t control the grin on his face. “Goodnight, Eleanor Byers.”
Her hair, now jet black, is in a messy half ponytail, matched by her dark, smoky eyeshadow and as Archie looks at her he tries to commit it to memory. Every day she’s here, she seems to become a little more herself, and a little more carefree. She beams at him like he is the one who hung the moon and the stars, and the warm lights of the Byers household shine behind her, illuminating her even more. A few years from now, when he thinks of her and this time in his life, he always comes back to this.