A/N: Hello all! Bughead is obviously a bit of a mess in canon right now, so I thought I'd write a more cheerful AU. It came from the prompt "you're the person in the apartment next door who VERY LOUDLY blasts holiday music starting in NOVEMBER and i hate christmas au" by Tumblr user pynchs, so credit goes to them for the idea! I hope y'all enjoy :)
"Are you kidding me? 'O Holy Night' again?"
Jughead Jones collapsed onto his dingy sofa, which squeaked under his weight like a whining dog. He rubbed his fists into his eyes and groaned. He had just returned from the night shift, and he really wasn't in the mood for this.
November hadn't even ended yet, and the girl in the apartment next door was already playing Christmas songs. No, "playing" wasn't the right word. Blaring, maybe. Whatever it was, it was way too loud.
Up until he'd started hearing the songs, he hadn't known there was a girl next door. He didn't exactly see his neighbors much. When he wasn't working his shitty job at the movie theater down the street, he was holed up in his tiny apartment, squinting at his laptop screen and downing black coffee. But now he knew there was a girl next door, and that was because she was always trying to sing along.
"Long lay the woooorrrrllld….in sin and error piiiiiiiiiining…'til he appeared and the sooouul felt its woooooooorrth…"
Jughead rolled his eyes. Didn't this girl know that not everyone was in the Christmas spirit? If he had it his way, he would fast forward through the whole season.
"FAAALLLLL on your kneeeeessss...oh HEEEEAAAARRR the angel VOOOIIICESS…"
He got up and stomped over to fridge, muttering to himself. "I'm definitely not hearing any 'angel' voices." The girl's voice had a hint of prettiness to it, he supposed. It was warm and light, but Jesus, those high notes just weren't in her range. Unfortunately, "O Holy Night" seemed to be one of her favorites.
The fridge was, unsurprisingly, pretty barren. All he had was half of a leftover burger and fries that were now cold and soggy with their own grease. Jughead picked up the Styrofoam box and sighed. He wished he could go to his favorite burger joint and get a brand new one of these. Thick and juicy with crispy lettuce and cheese that melted just right, with some crunchy, perfectly seasoned fries...he would kill to eat that tonight, but he had to stop eating out so much. The electricity bill would be due soon, and he didn't want to face his first New York City winter without any heat.
Resigned, he put the box in the microwave, hoping that it might revive his sad dinner. He had been stupid to come to NYC after he graduated high school, he really had. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. What better place for an aspiring novelist who considered himself very deep and thoughtful? Well, he had pretty quickly realized that just about everybody in the world thought they were deep, when most of them, including himself, were stupid.
He'd been poor back home, but New York sucked up money like no place he'd ever seen, especially with rent. He wasn't rich enough to go to college, so instead he worked minimum wage scrubbing Coke stains off theater seats and picked at the insurmountable glacier of his writer's block. Whatever. At least here nobody paid attention to him, and he didn't have to dodge gang members between classes.
He retrieved his burger from the microwave and walked over to the window. Snow drifted down from the gray sky and freckled the tar below with pure white. Jughead knew that soon, it would turn into frigid, nasty slush. He shivered and rubbed at his fingers, wondering whether his bank account would survive the electricity bill if he turned up the thermostat a few degrees.
Just then, the girl next door launched into another carol, the sound grating on Jughead's ears.
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...Jack Frost nipping at your nose…"
Up until that point, his patience had been running out fairly slowly, like sand through an hourglass. All of a sudden, the hourglass had just been tipped over. He couldn't listen to another second of this. It was rude, it was inconsiderate. Nobody here had asked to hear her warbling, had they? He would be doing everybody on this floor a favor, even if he had no idea who the hell any of them were.
Before he could think about it farther, he grabbed his key and marched out the room. He quickly detected which door the music was coming from. It was to his left and - naturally - had a little holly wreath with two silver jingle bells hanging from it.
He rapped on the door three times and waited.
"Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe...help to make the season bright…"
He sighed and knocked again. Of course she was too absorbed in herself to hear him. Big surprise there.
Don't be so unfair, a voice in his head chided him. Why are you so pissed off hearing another person enjoy themselves?
Jughead shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Okay, maybe he was being a little snippy, but she was the one being loud. He was just standing up for himself and his right to not be annoyed.
Just as he thought this, the door swung open before him. Jughead stood frozen.
Okay. Obviously, he'd known there was a girl living next door, but somehow he'd expected her to be less...cute. Beryl eyes stared directly into his. The long, sloping nose gave her a unique look and lead his gaze down to her mouth, which was coated in a rosy lip-gloss. Her hair, shiny like satin and yellow like wheat, was pulled back in a high, tight ponytail.
For a few seconds he simply stood there and stared. Her skin was dewy and clear and she seemed almost to glow, like she was a classic Hollywood actress that had just stepped off the silver screen instead of some random girl living in the same shithole he did.
"Um," the girl said, smiling confusedly. "Can I help you?"
"Don't you think it's too early for Christmas music?" Jughead blurted out. He winced inwardly. Okay, maybe he could've been a little more...tactful about it.
Instead of looking offended, the girl simply raised an eyebrow. "Are you kidding? It's almost December. Of course it's not too early."
That, Jughead could argue with, no matter how dickish he felt. "Christmas isn't until the end of December, though."
She put her hands on her hips and laughed. "So, what? You think there should be a one month window where people are allowed to sing Christmas songs?"
"I think," he said. "That people who don't like Christmas shouldn't have it shoved down their throats."
"You don't like Christmas? Cookies, candles, presents - just cheerful stuff. What's not to like?"
"Well, I - I," he sputtered. "Maybe I don't like cheerful stuff." He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling frustrated. Why did she seem almost...amused by him?
She giggled. "Oh, I see. You're too smart and cool for 'cheerful stuff'. New York is full of dudes like you. Christmas spirit is a waste of time you could spend brooding and writing songs on the acoustic guitar."
"I'm writing a novel, actually." He said, color rising in his cheeks.
She giggled again and leaned against the doorframe. "Well, that's a noble pursuit. Just make sure you can still have some fun." She looked him up and down, her large eyes taking in his worn leather jacket, fingerless gloves, and messy hair mostly hidden by his favorite beanie. She stuck out her hand and smiled at him. "I'm Betty. What's your name?"
"Betty?" he repeated. Who named their kid 'Betty' anymore? It sounded like a name from a fifties sitcom, not from real life.
"Yeah," she answered. "And you're…?"
He looked down at her hand. The skin looked so soft, and her nails were painted baby blue. He looked closer - were there crescent-shaped marks on her palm? Quickly, she took his hand and shook it before he could hesitate any longer.
"Jughead," he answered.
She raised an eyebrow. "Jughead?"
He smiled slightly. He really had no right to judge anyone else's name, not when he was either 'Jughead' or 'Forsythe'. "Yep."
"I am sorry that my music was too loud," she said with a sheepish shrug. "I get a little too into it sometimes."
He suddenly felt very guilty. "Nah, it's okay."
Silence grew between them, and Jughead shuffled his sheet awkwardly. God, he was shit at carrying on a conversation. Betty tugged at the sleeves of her mint green sweater, and suddenly, his stomach let out a deafening gurgle.
"Oh! Are you hungry?" Betty asked, blinking up at him.
Always. "No."
She smirked. "Sure. Look, I'm making some hot chocolate and it'll be way too much for me to drink myself. Do you wanna come in and have some?"
Jughead was on the verge of refusing - if he acted like an awkward weirdo just standing outside her door, how would he handle being in her apartment - when his stomach growled again. He sighed. "Yeah, that would be nice. Thanks."
She stepped aside and let him into the apartment. Like his, it was tiny. The living room and bedroom were essentially the same place, with the bed at the far end of the room. Off to each side was the kitchen and the bathroom, which were also cramped. The difference between his apartment and hers was that hers actually looked...homey. Where his was gray and poorly lit, hers was strung up with Christmas lights, casting a kaleidoscope of colors across the white walls. A memory flew into his head - Mom with a mass of tangled Christmas lights in her hands, asking Dad to help her put them up, but of course Dad was so shit-faced in the middle of the day he could barely stand, and then they were yelling at each other, their voices filling the whole damn trailer park -
He shook his head and fought off a scowl. Right. This was why Christmas didn't exactly bring out the happy in him.
He turned his attention to the picture frames perched on various surfaces, containing Betty with a raven-haired girl, a brown-haired boy, a pretty blonde who had to be her sister, a redhead boy, or a combination thereof. Jughead found himself staring at a picture of the boy with the red hair, in which he was wearing a football jersey. A jock would be just the type of guy a "Betty" would date, he thought to himself. But what did he care?
He squinted a little closer. That boy looked familiar. Or maybe he was just imagining things…
"Come in here!" Betty said from the kitchen.
He entered, ducking his head to avoid the low doorway. Even the kitchen looked pretty, with a pastel calendar clipped to the cupboard and a tiny plastic Christmas tree on the two-person table. Jughead whistled.
"You really are crazy about Christmas."
Betty shrugged. "What can I say? There's no time of the year quite like it."
Yeah, there's no time of the year as aggressively consumerist and overly happy, he thought, but he decided to keep his mouth shut. Laying on the snark was no way to treat someone who was offering him a snack. Speaking of, it smelled delicious.
Jughead inhaled deeply, rich, sugary scents filling his nose. He moved closer to Betty to see what she was doing, and his eyes widened.
"You make hot chocolate on the stove? I thought this was going to be a microwave type of deal."
"No way. This is going to be the best hot chocolate you'll ever have, I promise."
"Well, I'm more of a milkshake person myself, but I can't say no to that."
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Along with the smell of milk and chocolate, he detected something more - a hint of spice and violets. He quickly realized that it was her perfume, and two things ran through his mind. One, that he wouldn't have expected such a dark perfume on such a peppy, Christmas-loving girl, and two, that he was close enough to smell her perfume in the first place. His eyes fluttered open and he swallowed. The heat from the stove enveloped him like a blanket, and he found his gaze drawn towards the curve of her neck. She had hair on the back of it like peach fuzz, and her ponytail rested on the neckline of her sweater in an immaculate curlicue.
Oh my God. Why was he noticing things like the smell of her perfume and the perfect ringlet of her hair. If it weren't for the strangeness of fate he wouldn't even be here right now. Guys like him and girls like her weren't supposed to be anywhere near each other. It was just the order of the world.
"Done!" she said, snapping him out of his thoughts.
She turned around with two mugs in each hand. He hadn't even noticed her finish the drinks. Jughead was feeling increasingly like he needed to get the heck out of there, because clearly something in the air was affecting his brain. But his hunger hadn't gone away, and he reached for the mug.
"Thanks," he said. He looked down and furrowed his brow. "Uh, what kind of hot chocolate is this…?"
"A new recipe I'm trying out. It's got white chocolate chips, milk, crushed up Oreos, and peppermint extract. You and I will be the first to taste it." She clinked her mug against his. "Cheers."
"Cheers," Jughead said, somewhat amazed by the creativity. Who had time to dream up new hot chocolate recipes? Clearly, he and this girl had very different priorities in life. But it did smell amazing.
In unison, they each took a sip. Jughead could hardly believe all the flavors that were on his tongue right now. Damn...this really is the best hot chocolate I've ever had.
"What do you think?" Betty asked.
"It's...fantastic. It really is." He answered. Home-cooked anything had not exactly been a staple of his childhood, much less hot chocolate. Northside kids were the ones who ate things like homemade gingerbread cookies and fruitcake. He and his sister got those pre-packaged sugar cookies that may have been frosted like Santa but were as hard as rocks.
"Good." Betty took a long sip of her drink, looking satisfied.
The two of them stood in silence for a minute as they drank the hot chocolate, but the silence was less awkward this time. Jughead wasn't sure why that was. But he was warm, his stomach was full, and the girl before him seemed much less annoying than she had when all he knew of her was her voice.
"So," he said. "What are you doing in the Big Apple?"
"Going to college." she answered. "I'm a freshman. Journalism major."
He felt a stab of jealousy. College. What he would give to do that. "Why are you living in here instead of a dorm?"
She sighed. "It was either get a meal plan or live in a residence hall. We couldn't afford both, so I chose the meal plan."
Jughead wished he had a meal plan. It would be nice to know just how many meals he might eat in a week. But it was interesting to know that she wasn't an ultra rich girl who could afford anything she wanted.
"What about you?" she asked. He was once again struck by her large blue eyes, which focused on him intensely. He was very used to people looking through him but not at him - his teachers in high school, the customers at the movie theater, his father when drunk. "What do you do?"
He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Oh, I work at the movie theater down the street." He said.
"And you work on your novel."
"That, too."
"What's it about?"
Jughead suddenly felt embarrassed. As important as the novel was to him, he found it hard to talk about. But something about the way Betty looked at him...well, he found it even harder to refuse. "Um...it's based on true events. Just some stuff that happened in my hometown."
Her eyes lit up. "Sounds interesting. What happened?"
"It's...kinda dark. Not exactly cheery stuff."
"I don't mind." She said. "Hey, I may love Christmas, but I can like 'dark' stuff, too."
Jughead found himself smiling at her curiosity. "Well, basically the quarterback at the high school across town washed up from the river with a bullet in his head. Nobody ever found out what happened to him."
Betty looked shocked. "Are you serious?"
"I told you it wasn't happy."
"No, I mean…" she stared at him and then crossed her arms. "Where are you from?"
"Uh, this little town called Riverdale. Why?" he asked.
"Because that's where I'm from!" she gasped. "Oh my God! You're writing a book about Jason Blossom?"
"You're from Riverdale?" Jughead stared at her. Northsider. Definitely a Northsider. He suddenly realized something else. "That's why I thought I recognized that ginger boy in your photos!"
"Archie? Yeah, he was my - um, my best friend." Betty said. "But how did we never come across each other?"
"Maybe we did. But, uh, I went to Southside High."
"Oh, I see." Betty said. She nibbled at her bottom lip. "But then how you would recognize Archie?"
"He's a football player, right? I probably saw him at a game at some point."
She arched an eyebrow. "No offense, but you don't look like you enjoy football games."
He rolled his eyes. "I don't. But I was one of the only kids on the school newspaper, so I had to go sometimes to get the scoop."
"I was on the school paper too!" She leaned back against the counter, looking amazed. "Wow. I didn't think I'd ever meet someone from Riverdale again, much less someone right next door to me."
"Me, neither." Jughead replied, suddenly looking at Betty in a whole new light. This girl had been in the same town as him for years, and somehow they'd ended up living right next to each other thousands of miles away. It was like the universe had maneuvered them together on purpose. "This is crazy," he said, almost to himself.
"I remember being so interested in Jason Blossom back in the day," she said. "I kept hoping the police would figure it out, but they never did. I almost wanted to investigate myself, but…" she sighed. "I was only a kid."
"Yeah, same. I wanted to know what happened so badly." He thought back to that summer, when Cheryl Blossom first told the story that her brother had drowned. That had shaken Riverdale badly enough, but things really started spinning out of control once they learned that Jason's death had been no accident. Riverdale had never felt the same after that. It had never been a perfect, idyllic place. Jughead certainly knew that, living on the Southside. But after Jason's murder, a sense of tension and fear had wound through the town like venom, and it had never really left.
Betty smiled sadly. "Hey, if we'd known each other, I bet we could've solved it." She said.
He smirked. "You like solving mysteries?"
"Yeah, I love that stuff. I was definitely one of those Nancy Drew kids." She laughed. "I really did try to look into what happened to Jason, but I only had so many resources, you know? And my friends weren't interested in helping me out. They thought I was crazy."
He shrugged. "Well, in your friends' defense, it does sound crazy for high schoolers to go after a killer the police haven't caught."
She pointed a finger at him. "You don't look like the type of person to not do something just because it's crazy. Am I right?"
For the first time in - well, longer than he could remember, he laughed out loud. "Yeah, you're right." He answered. And she was. Hell, he had gone to tell off a stranger over Christmas music and ended up drinking hot chocolate with her. That was crazy.
"That's the type of person I needed on my side when Jason Blossom got killed. But I couldn't find anyone," she sighed. "I don't know. Sometimes I can have a one-track mind, I guess. When I want to figure something out, it's all I can focus on."
"I totally get it," Jughead said, shocked at how much he did. "I'm the same way."
They lapsed into silence once again. He watched as Betty got lost in thought and nibbled on the edge of her fingernail. Right at that moment, she was the most interesting thing in the world to him. On the surface she looked like a preppy, stainless little suburban girl with her head in the clouds and sugar on her tongue. And yes, she was those things, but she was more than that - she was intelligent and analytical and she had just a touch of crazy, just a little bit of darkness. How many girls did he know that dreamed of personally catching a murderer?
They were standing very close to each other - they had to, in this tiny kitchen - and the heat was thick in the air and he was distinctly aware of his heartbeat, all of a sudden, and how it beat like an electric pulse flickering to life. Darkness. And then light.
He looked at her - at her honeycomb hair and the blush in her cheeks and - oh. He was well and truly screwed, wasn't he?
He wasn't going to be able to get her out of his head for a long time.
Betty, seemingly oblivious, took another sip of the hot chocolate, Jughead's eyes clinging to her small fingers as they wrapped around the cup.
"So," she said. "Forgive me if I'm being, um, intrusive, but would I be correct in assuming you're not going home for the holidays?"
Jughead blinked. Why did she care? "You would be correct." Calm down, Jughead. She's just making polite conversation. Jesus.
"Me, neither." she said.
"Why not?" he asked. He hadn't been expecting that. Why wouldn't Betty have a loving, normal family to return to on the Northside?
She sighed. "Oh, my parents are just...nutcases. They try very hard to control my life, especially my mother." She chuckled. "And I don't mean that in a bratty teenage way, I swear. She really does...cross boundaries."
Jughead decided not to press any farther. Controlling parents were not something he had any experience with. That was on the entirely opposite end of his spectrum of parental issues.
"Yeah, my parents, uh...aren't exactly the best either." He said. He wondered, briefly, why he was telling her this. Feelings weren't really something he shared, much less feelings about his family. But this girl had a strange way of making him want to bare parts of himself he usually didn't. "My dad had, or I guess has, a lot of issues with alcohol and just...getting into trouble," he said, deciding to gloss over the Serpents for now. He was sharing a lot, but the gang thing was a major sore point in the Northside and Southside conflict. He wasn't sure how she felt about them. "And my mom couldn't take it anymore after a while, so she skipped down and took my little sister with her. I've only seen them a handful of times since."
"That's awful, Jughead. I am so sorry." she said.
She sounded genuinely sad for him, like she really connected with his pain, and he felt it like an ember that had landed on his skin - startling and sore and warm all at once. He hadn't heard anyone speak to him like that - like they really cared - in a long, long time.
"I love my dad," he said. His voice caught for a moment, but he quickly pushed through. "And I love my mom. And I think that deep down they love me, too, but they can't seem to show it like they should."
"I understand," Betty whispered. "Completely. I know my parents love me, but then they belittle me and pressure me and it's just - so hard to even be around them sometimes. So, I'm staying in New York for Christmas. Getting out of that town and coming here has been so good for me, I'm afraid that if I go back, even if only for a few days...my mom will just get in my head again."
"What about your friends?" Jughead asked, jerking his head in the direction of the main room. "The ones in your photos?"
"Archie's still in Riverdale, doing some classes at community college before applying for university. Kevin - that was the one with the brown hair - ended up at school in California, and neither of us can afford to fly across the country. And Veronica, the girl with the black hair, actually lives in New York, too. She's from here, but she moved down to Riverdale the same year Jason died. As soon as we graduated she moved back here and whisked me along with her," Betty said.
Jughead stirred a spoon around in his hot chocolate and felt another twinge of envy. "So...spending the holidays with Veronica?"
Betty sighed and said, "No, actually. Her parents are Cuban-American, and they're taking her out to the tropics for Christmas. She really wanted to stay here, or take me along, but her parents said no."
"Oh," He said.
They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, but to Jughead, those seconds seemed to lengthen and slow like a movie. He took in her milky skin and bright, tantalizing eyes with an acute, overwhelming feeling like a growing flame. The room was so hot, and she was so close, and so beautiful - and was anything so simple and yet so profound as that?
"Jughead," she breathed. Her face was flushed and her cheeks looked like honeycrisp apples. "Would you spend the holidays with me?"
He blinked, at first not quite comprehending her. "Me?"
"Yes, you." She chuckled.
He looked down at himself, at his dark clothes and his rough hands. She wanted to spend Christmas...with him? "We've just...I mean...we've just met, Betty."
She smirked. "I know. Do you care?"
He knew, in the same way he knew the sky was blue, that it didn't matter that they'd just met. He somehow felt that their existences had been running parallel to each other for a long time, and that this intersection of their separate lives had been a long time coming. "I really don't."
She smiled at him, and that smile made the world go quiet. He thought only for a millisecond about how the feelings she was giving him really and truly didn't make any sense at all. But although it didn't make sense to his brain, it seemed to make sense on a softer, deeper level inside him.
"We can go see the Rockefeller Christmas tree," she said, gesturing in the air like she was painting a picture of all her plans. "We'll look at the window displays on Fifth Avenue, and then come back and I'll show you how to make gingersnaps." Her eyes twinkled and she strolled back into the living room, crossing over to the radio. "Maybe I'll even get you to enjoy some Christmas carols."
Jughead trailed after her. "You had me at gingersnaps, but I don't know about the carols." He teased.
She turned the radio back on, and the strains of violins filled the air. She held out her hand to him, and slowly, Jughead took it.
"Silent night...holy night...all is calm...all is bright…"
She placed one hand on his shoulder and the other one continued holding his. He felt a brief flicker of panic. He didn't know how to dance. Smiling encouragingly, Betty moved his other hand to her hip. Even though his glove and her sweater made sure there were two layers of fabric between his hand and her skin, he still felt like her Christmas lights had gotten wired through his veins.
They moved back and forth somewhat awkwardly, both of them stifling laughs.
"I'm not much of a dancer," Betty said.
"Me neither. I never even went to prom." He replied.
"You considered it in the first place?"
"Actually, yeah...but it got cancelled because of a bomb threat," he said, smirking to let her know it was okay to laugh.
"God," she shook her head. "Southside High really was a whole nother world, huh?"
"Mhm."
The dance smoothed out, began to feel more natural. Jughead could hardly believe this wasn't a dream. Christmastime had never been happy for him, and so he'd resented it. But now, he'd found a girl who loved carols and lights and dancing, and she wanted him with her. In high school, he'd been hated by the Serpents for rejecting his father's legacy, hated by the Ghoulies for being close enough to a Serpent, ignored by everyone else, unwanted by his mom, and loved but neglected by his dad. But Betty looked at him like he was worth something. Betty looked at him like she understood.
He gazed into those radiant eyes, not caring how goofy he might look right now. There was still so much they didn't know about each other, but he had a feeling that the process of knowing each other - learning her mannerisms, her favorite book, everything that had ever happened to her - might be one of the most worthwhile things he would ever do.
She was looking up at him, her face so open and pure and dappled with the dreamy pinks and golds of her Christmas lights. Before he knew what he was doing, his hands were on her neck and his lips were against hers. It almost didn't feel like a conscious decision, rather a moment as fated as the orbit of the planets. He tasted chocolate and peppermint and smelled the violets in her perfume and she let out a little gasp before leaning into him completely.
"I didn't think I was your type," Betty whispered against his mouth.
He laughed softly. "What did you think my type was?"
"I don't know...like, Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice?"
"I did have a fling with a gang member who was obsessed with serial killers in high school." He rubbed his thumb across her cheek, smiling like a fool. "And let me guess...you dated the simple ginger on the football team?"
She groaned and then giggled. "Am I so obvious? Archie and I dated in junior year, but he was always head over heels for sophisticated Veronica."
"I don't need a Veronica," he whispered. "I really don't."
She ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, smiling like an angel. "And I don't need an Archie."
Their lips met again. Jughead wasn't sure how long they kissed as Silent Night wove through the air around them, but it didn't matter to him anymore. He felt more at peace, more hopeful, than he had in years, and it was all because of Betty.
"This is crazy, you know," she breathed. "What are the odds we end up in NYC, right next door to each other - what are the odds this feels so right -"
"Well," he said, leaning his forehead against hers. "Let's just chalk it up to Christmas magic."
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