Veronica groaned as the sun hit her face, it was too bright and her head was killing her, she was most definitely too hungover for this morning. She was also stark naked but she wasn't worried about that, there was only one person she would ever allow herself to fall into bed with, even when she was as drunk as she was last night. By his breathing, she knew it was him.
Gingerly holding her head, she pulled the covers over her eyes to block the sunlight and sighed heavily when that didn't help. Slowly with her eyes still shut as tight as she could, she slipped out of bed, squinting for direction, she made her way into the bathroom to attempt to loosen her muscles and brush her teeth, maybe have a hot bath to help her feel better.
She turned the hot water up all the way so it almost scalded her skin and let it sooth her pounding head. She wasn't in there long when he got in behind her and put his hands on her temples, massaging where the pain was.
"Ronnie, this water is burning hot," he said softly, for which she was grateful, and leaned over her to adjust the water to a more manageable temperature. She moaned as his hands pressed the points of pain in her head. "Do you remember last night at all?" he finally asked.
"I remember bits, Archikins," she told him stepping out of the water so he could step under the water properly. "I don't remember how we ended up in this room, and I don't think I know how to explain this to anyone."
"I think everyone was drunk enough last night, to not even care," he told her pulling her back to him and nuzzling her neck. "It's still ridiculously early in the morning, we have time before we have to find them."
"And what do you suggest we do to pass that time?" she asked wrapping her arms around his shoulders and smiling as she teased him by keeping her lips just out of reach of his when he went to kiss her.
"Tease," he chuckled and suddenly her back was pressed against the wall and she instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist, smiling at the look on his face when she ground herself against him. "Ronnie," he groaned, closing his eyes,
"Archie," she whispered back, they had to end this thing that they had going, she knew it and so did he, but God did she want to enjoy him for as long as she could. Her face was so serious for a moment that he paused and look worriedly up at her silently asking if something was wrong and she was too selfish to say yes. "It's ok, I'm ok, you're perfect."
Veronica and Archie stumbled back into the main room later with towels around their bodies, wondering if they'd be able to order clothes instead of wearing their old clothes, which smelled of smoke and alcohol and felt like it needed to be washed or burned.
"This is my room," Archie commented as he looked around to find his suitcase on the floor next to the cupboard. "Well at least we know where we are."
"I am so happy you managed to weasel your way into not sharing a room," Veronica said tapping quickly on her phone, as Archie stepped up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "I am not wearing your clothes and walking back to my room,"
"But you look so good in my clothes," he whispered huskily, leaning in to kiss her, tossing her phone onto the bed. "So, so good."
"I know you think so, but everyone else would be very confused," Veronica whispered, kissing down his jaw, savoring him. "I've asked Josie to bring me something to wear."
"How much longer do you think we have?" Archie asked glancing around to find a clock, they were a secret, only Josie knowing anything about their secret meetings, so Archie tried to spend every moment he could spare with her. "It's still pretty early."
"Archie, last night and this morning was amazing but there's a reason we decided to stop this, I think after I walk out this door today it really needs to be over, we can't keep getting drunk and falling into bed together, I want to keep my friendships," Veronica smiled sadly and Archie closed his eyes and nodded, he understood more than she knew. He leaned down and kissed her again, hoping that it wouldn't be the last time he'll get to but knowing that she was determined and stubborn enough to make it their last morning together.
"I know, me too," he whispered, pressing the gentlest kiss to her forehead. Veronica pressed her lips together to stop the emotions from bubbling up in her, she would be emotional later, when she was alone because she really didn't want to let him go. She dropped her arms from his shoulders and brought her hands down to rest on his chest, watching her hands so she didn't look at his face and break down. "What's wrong?"
Archie was concerned when Veronica's face changed, she looked panicked. Veronica said nothing, she just grabbed his hands from her waist and held them out in front of her, checking his bare fingers. "Oh."
"Oh? What oh?" he asked looking at his fingers to see nothing out of the ordinary, they looked normal enough, he took her hands and looked back up at her confused, they looked fine too, delicate and pretty with those half finger rings she liked to wear with the full rings when they went out.
"I just thought," she started shaking her head and looking at the band on her left hand finger that hadn't been there before. "It's silly never mind."
Archie finally caught on and smiled bringing her hand up and kiss it. "Well we are in Vegas, maybe drunk us wanted Elvis to sing our vows," he said and she tilted her head and laughed, she was so used to rings on her fingers that she only realized when she stared at her hand that there was an extra one. "Maybe one day."
"Stop," she said shakily, they weren't supposed to want this anymore, he was already making her want to go back on all her words and burn her friendships to stay with him. "You should get dressed, Josie will be here soon, remember we're going to the beach today."
"Yeah, ok," he said gruffly letting go of her and moving to his suitcase, he changed quickly and went to grab his watch and class ring from the bedside table, watching Veronica sitting on the bed curled up in a ball and wishing circumstances were different. "Ronnie? I think … is this what you were thinking earlier?"
Veronica turned to him confused and saw him with a sheet of legal looking paper in his hands and furrowed her brows. "What is that?" she asked reaching out to take it from him, there was a knock on the door so she opened it for Josie still reading the paper.
"Ok girl, you owe me, I thought all this was over, Betty was in our room just now asking us if we knew where you were and it was an effort for me to lie to her and say you crashed with Val and Midge especially after I got your text to bring you clothes, you're lucky Midge spent the might with Moose otherwise we'd have even more questions," she ranted breezing into the room, closing the door and dropping a set of clothes for Veronica on the bed before looking up to see Veronica and Archie's shocked faces looking from her to each other. "What? Do I have something on my face?"
"We're married?" Veronica almost screamed, turning the paper for Archie to see the writing. "What … but … you-you don't have a ring."
"Urm," Archie held up a gold wedding band that matched hers and smiled sheepishly. "I take my class ring and watch off when I go to sleep, I must have taken it off as well."
"Are you guys serious right now?" Josie asked holding her arms out for them to stop talking so she could process this. "We come to Las Vegas and you guys actually get married?"
"Yes, we're like a couple out of a bad romance novel right now," Veronica gritted out and rubbed her head letting Josie take the page from her. "But we're 17, we're minors, don't we need parental consent for this to be legal? Oh wait, did we use our fake IDs?"
"No this looks like you used legit ID and yes, you're minors, highly intoxicated minors who managed to get parent signature's right there next to the witnesses signatures, how many people attended your wedding?" Josie asked pointing to the page again, Veronica squinted at the random names signed as parents and wondered who they convinced last night to help them. "You could just get your parents to say that they never signed this."
"No," both Archie and Veronica said, they could not get their parents involved in this, not yet. "We'll just go talk to the judge, we'll do this ourselves, I need to change," Veronica said, grabbing her clothes and rushing into the bathroom.
"Are you in shock?" Josie asked the redhead who just stood there and stared at the door Veronica went through. "Archie, how do you feel about this?"
"I …" he started, gathering his thoughts before looking at Josie with a small shrug. "Whenever I think about my future, she's all there is, it might be too soon and we're probably way too young but since I met her, she's just the only girl that I want to marry."
"Does she know this?" Josie asked with wide eyes, she caught them kissing months ago and had covered for them a few times since, she just assumed it was a casual thing, a friends with benefits deal, that's why she was hesitant to cover for them especially knowing the people they could hurt by being together, she never would have thought Archie was in love with Veronica.
"No," Archie said shaking his head and running his hand through his hair. "We've never talked about our feelings, this was always physical, we wanted to save our hearts when it ended so we tried not to let ourselves feel anything."
"You should tell her," Josie handed the license over to Archie and patted his arm. "I'll cover for you guys but there's only so much I can do," she said walking to the door. "Try not to be too long, we're meeting in the lobby in about 2 hours."
Archie barely waited for the door to close behind her before he sprinted for the bathroom and wrenched the door open to find Veronica fully dressed and staring at herself in the mirror. She looked up at him startled when the door opened but remained where she was.
He saw her hands twitch to reach for him but she stopped herself because they agreed that their relationship would only be purely platonic friends who never had any physical contact because if she touched him she'd want more. He couldn't do that, he reached her in two large steps and she felt her resolve fade and allowed him to wrap her up in his arms and make her feel better.
"Is it really so bad?" he asked and Veronica pulled away and looked at him. "The thought of being married to me?"
"No," she said after a moment. "But we can't be married, Archie, we're teenagers, we didn't plan this, we never spoke about marriage, we aren't even in a relationship," she said shaking her head and biting her lip. "Our parents are going to be so disappointed, they already didn't want us to come on this trip and our friends are going to hate us, oh God, Betty is going to hate me."
"Calm down Ronnie," he soothed rubbing her arms when she started hyperventilating. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there, ok let's talk to the judge, maybe it's not legal, Josie is going to cover for us and the rest of the guys are meeting in about 2 hours, yeah?"
Veronica nodded and hugged him tighter before letting him go. "Let's go quickly, the quicker we know, the quicker we can figure out our plan of action."
"Hey, Veronica?" he asked when she left his arms to walk out of the bathroom, she turned and looked at him with a questioning look. "I … I'll meet you outside in a bit."
Veronica stared at him for a beat longer, trying to figure him out but nodded and left him, closing the door behind her.
A/N: This story has been writing itself since I started playing around with this idea of Archie and Veronica married and not able to tell anyone, Josie is my favorite character out of the core four so she has been written in as my buffer lol I adore this story, its been my little project to help me with my stress and it's turned out pretty cute, its got that angsty, sweet, dramatic vibe to it
This idea actually came from a Stelena fic I read forever ago called 'Learning to deal' and I remembered the basic premise for it which is what got me started but the actual story is nothing like it. I have been working on this story since before I started the one shot series, just writing in the breaks I get at work and its written itself a couple chapters in, my muse has been hard at work with this one so I really hope you enjoy it because I am having a ball writing it
Be warned that this will contain alot of references to the original Betty-Archie-Veronica love triangle and so far Jughead has a very small role to play, also there are alot of things in this story that would not happen in real life so I need to ask you to suspend your belief for the story, this is just a writers imagination where she could make up her own rules and laws
Please let me know what you think, another one-shot should be out soon
Until next time (^^,)