DAMN YOU, BUGHEAD FEELS! They are literally the best thing in my life right now. (Besides my dog).

This is a general one-shot, not based on any particular episode. Just two cuties hangin' out in a booth at Pop's, as one does when one resides in Riverdale. I hope you like it.

Forever

Jughead wasn't looking for love. No one ever looks for love. What they seek is validation and an end to loneliness. If someone comes along who likes you then maybe you're not a total waste of time, right? Maybe it doesn't matter that the mirror tells you your nose is too big and you can't get your wayward hair to behave. Your eyes are the wrong color and your mouth is too stern. If someone else likes you then you can't be that bad. Can you?

So you find what you think is love, but after a while it becomes dependency, jealousy and resentment. From your side or their side or sometimes both. You see, unconditional love is what you get from pets and small children. Realistic love comes with a whole long list of terms and conditions. After the rush is over, the rot sets in. You go back to staring at your nose in the mirror, wondering where it all went wrong.

But Jughead didn't get that with Betty. Betty was nice to be around- she'd always been a bright ray of sunshine piercing through the gloom. Betty, like everyone else, was looking for love in a place where she would never find it. In the form of an affable, goodlooking red haired boy whom she'd known forever. Betty wanted the kind of forever happiness enjoyed by Disney princesses. She had built a whole future inside her head. Marriage to Archie. Beautiful children, a big house and a sparkling family car with which to take the kids to Disneyland.

But Archie said no and her dreams crumbled like an ancient monolith under the ravages of time. Not that Archie noticed, of course. He had already moved on.

Jughead wasn't looking for love, and he still wasn't sure that what he had with Betty was love. Perhaps he was too afraid to call it love, because if he called it love it would vanish like Betty's dreams. She might even start hating him, like he sometimes hated his father. There were too many variables involved. He felt like a cat on a high-wire. What if Jason Blossom's murder was the only thing keeping them together?

Jughead watched Betty across the table at Pop's. She was drinking a milkshake, oblivious to his churning thoughts. He reached across the table and placed his hand on hers without even realizing he had done it.

Betty looked down at their hands and then up at his face and the light in her eyes grew brighter for a moment. He wondered if it was something bigger than love- some kind of connection that she'd always had with him. Something that transcended even her friendship with Archie. He told himself to snap out of such wishful, childish thinking. But Betty's eyes muddled his thoughts, turning his introverted frown into a grin. Way to go, Jones, you dork.

"What?" she asked, flitting those blue diamond orbs over his face.

He half closed his eyes to look more philosophical and less like a lovestruck doofus. "'Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall'." Strike two, Jones, you pretentious asshole.

Betty made a 'pffsht' sort of noise and a droplet of milkshake exploded from her mouth. "Juggie. You speak in tongues."

He rescued himself from the brink of stupidity. Or so he thought. "It's a quote. It means, 'Don't slurp your milkshake or you'll choke'."

She looked at him with amused curiosity, playing with her straw. "It doesn't mean that."

"Okay. It means we will find out who killed Jason." Jughead squeezed her hand. "And we will get justice for Polly." That's right, Jones. Make promises you don't know that you can keep. You're really on a roll today.

Betty lowered her head over her milkshake. To his relief, she smiled around her straw. Betty's smile did things to Jughead that made his neck flush. After a couple of moments the golden haired goddess unwrapped her lips from the straw. She tilted her head in the playful manner that made him glow like burning embers.

"It's from Romeo and Juliet, isn't it?"

His cover blown, Jughead shrugged with an air of nonchalance. "Maybe. Maybe n... OK, yes it is. I have a head full of quotes from all over. You know us writers, always ready with a snappy one liner or two."

"The boy doth protest too much, methinks," said Betty, innocently.

Jughead returned her smile, realized that his body was behaving out of his control- as usual. "Hey. This town ain't big enough for two Shakespeare quoters."

"Oh. Was that from Shakespeare? I thought it was Keats."

Betty put the straw in her mouth again, her eyes twinkling with mirth. Oh, boy. Here we go... the rollercoaster ride is about to begin.

With a great deal of physical effort, Jughead tore his eyes away from Betty and looked out of the window. It was beginning to cloud over. A soda can rattled on the pavement outside, a leaf blew up and whirled in a circle. He needed to stay occupied. He picked up the menu, even though he'd memorized it by now. He wondered whether to order a burger, or buy a sundae for them to share. One bowl, two spoons. Would she object? He fished in his pockets for money, grimacing as rain began to patter on the glass. He didn't feel like going anywhere right now. He wanted to bask in the warmth of Betty's sunshine, forever.

Jughead wasn't looking for love. He was way too cynical for that. But if love was looking for him- well, that was another matter entirely.