AU: Archie doesn't step in to prevent the fight between Reggie and Jughead.
Chapter One: New Beginnings
"It's called necrophilia, Reggie. Can you spell it?" Jughead's smirk faded as Reggie advanced with a sneer. Out of the corner of his eye, Jughead saw Archie take a step forward before hesitating, throwing a glance at the letterman jacket thrown haphazardly over the couch only moments before. Jughead knows this is an important moment, the time Archie truly has to make the choice between his team and the person he once called his best friend.. In the end Archie pauses just before Reggie would have noticed him coming to Jughead's defence, and the Jughead pushes away from the wall he was leaning on to meet Reggie head on. For a second he considers just taking the hit, if only to avoid the trouble that will inevitably grow from his decision to fight back.
And then Reggie is vaulting over back of the worn blue couch of the student common area and Jughead's fist is crunching into the underside of his jaw. Pain flares briefly in his knuckles before he's distracted by the retaliating fist of the football captain. Taking a step back to avoid the hit, Jughead quickly takes stock of the situation. Two other members of the team are moving to join Reggie, and Archie is still standing by the vending machine, torn between helping his oldest friend or his new ones. Debating how long it would take him to get to the door, Jughead realises his only way out of this is to end the fight quickly. Reggie is once again closing the distance between them with a fierce look in his eyes and a bruise forming on the underside of his jaw.
Jughead moves. Snapping out his arm, his next hit to Reggie hits him full in the face. Without pause Jughead turns to face the other two, shoving the one whose name he thinks is Jackson into the path of the other one. They both stumble, giving him time to take a breath before Reggie is on him again, recovering from the last hit. Internally rolling his eyes Jughead lashes out again, feeling the graze of Reggie's fist across his right temple before he closes the distance and gets in his final hit. Stumbling, Reggie walks into the couch with a hand over his face while people watch on, both those who had been in the room before the fight kicked off and those who heard the commotion and stopped to record the action on their phones from the hall.
The room falls silent as Reggie regains his balance. The other two Bulldogs have come to stand on either side of them, but none of the three team members look like they're rearing up for another fight. Jughead stays straight, meeting Reggie's eyes as the football player raises them.
"Didn't know you had it in you, Jones. Where'd you learn to fight like that?" Reggie is appraising him and Jughead relaxes his stance, realises that the fight, for now, is over.
"I'm full of surprises," Jughead deadpans, eyes flitting over to see the shocked, almost guilty look etched across Archie's features. Jughead meets his eyes and doesn't quite shrug, but the feeling is the same.
Reggie nods with an almost calculating look on his face, eyeing the unlaced black boots of the other boy, the worn grey beanie and rolled up sleeves of his plaid t-shirt. The look on his face suggests that he's suddenly remembering that for all his loner, nerdy tendencies, Jughead grew up on the South Side of Riverdale. Sure, Reggie had no reason to believe that Jughead was dangerous, or even particularly threatening (the crown beanie really was dorky). But there was something in the way he reacted to the fight, something in the relaxed stance he took up, the sharp movements he made; like he was comfortable, like he knew exactly what he was doing, like he'd been in the same situation hundreds of times before….
Jughead moves to pick up his discarded backpack, slinging it over one shoulder and turning for the door. No more words are exchanged, no moves are made to attempt to prevent him from leaving. Betty Cooper sits still, forgotten in the corner of the room by all the chaos of what had just occurred. As much as she didn't recognise the harsh lines of Jughead's face as he ended the fight that no one was sure to challenge him to again, it was Archie who really threw her for a loop. Archie, who stood by and watched his oldest friend faced down the biggest football player in the school.
Archie, who stared at her with confusion is his eyes and a staunch denial of having any sort of romantic feelings for her, who spoke about nobody understanding him, no one being there for him as he explored his music, when Betty had always put him before herself, before her work...Before her friendship with Jughead.
Betty clicked the pen resting in her right hand, staring after Jughead as he stomped out into the hallway and wondered, not for the first time, whose fault it really was for the tension in the Archie/Jughead relationship.