"You did not drink the last of my beer, kid." Tony turns to pull his head from the fridge long enough to send Jughead a bleary but menacing scowl.

"No." Jughead says, not even looking up from his homework at the kitchen table. "I didn't."

That answer doesn't seem to work for his stepfather, who slams the refrigerator shut before stomping toward him, the action no less menacing for the subtle swaying of his gait. Internally, Jughead sighs.

Here we go again.

"GLADYS!" Tony screams, spit flying from his mouth as his face begins to turn red.

"Hey," Jughead snaps, irritated. "Leave her out of this. I didn't drink your beer, Tony. I never touched it, alright? You probably finished it yourself last night during the football game."

"Excuse me? Are you calling me a liar, son?"

"I'm not your son." Jughead turns and stands then, coming face to face with the angry drunk. It's clear he's already had a few drinks, if the smell of alcohol pouring off of him is any indication. "And no, I'm not calling you a liar. I'm saying you're a drunk who can't even remember polishing off an entire case of Keystone and passing out on the couch before half-time."

Someone who wasn't familiar with Anthony Marino's particular brand of anger would have been surprised by the grin that breaks across his face at that. But Jughead has been going toe-to-toe with the pathetic excuse of a man ever since his mother first brought him home, so he knows what comes next.

"I'm gonna fucking kill you, kid," He says with an almost deranged glee, right as Jughead's mother walks in.

"Wh-Tony!" Her face whitens as she takes in the tension, and the look on her husband's face. She knows it too, although she's never been on the receiving end of what's coming. Jughead has made damn sure of that. "Don't, please, just-" She looks pleadingly at her son, an apology in her eyes, one she can't say out loud, not now. "Forsythe will leave, he'll take the night to cool down."

"Yeah." Jughead kicks the chair back into place under the table, shouldering his messenger bag. "Fine."

For a moment, Tony looks like he might protest, it's been a while since he's gotten to knock the stuffing out of his stepson after all, but he doesn't. His voice carries out into the night as Jughead ducks through the back door, once again complaining about his missing lagers.

Usually in this situation Jughead would go to Archie's. But there's something stopping him now, whether it's the falling out they had over the summer or the more recent tension that's developed between them. Either way, his feet pause momentarily on the grass, not quite sure where to take him. The pitiful state of his domestic life is one of his best kept secrets, from the monster his mother has married to the complicated criminal entanglements that surround his biological father. Not even Archie knows. And it's hard to imagine showing up on anyone else's doorstep at this time of night without raising an eyebrow or two.

He ends up at Pop's, though he knows it's due to close in less than an hour. It's only supposed to buy him some time, but when the man drops the diner's keys on the table in front of him, something he's done a dozen times before, and asks Jughead to lock up, an idea forms.

"Sure," he agrees, giving the older man a reassuring smile. "Will do, Pop."

And then, when he's the only one left, he shuts off the lights and curls up in a booth, jacket draped over himself like a blanket.

It's not comfortable, and he doesn't sleep well at all. He dreams of blonde hair and blood, and the next morning he wakes up with the unshakable feeling that something is going to go terribly wrong.

"She's going to find out, you know."

Archie looks up at Jughead, face blank.

"Huh?"

"Betty. She's going to find out about Grundy." He stuffs another french fry into his mouth, chewing as his friend's expression turns dark. They haven't really spoken about Betty since that night, when Archie came to him for advice after the disastrous homecoming dance. Things seem to have smoothed out between the redhead and the blonde, on the surface anyway, and neither boy has been eager to examine the cracks in that facade too closely.

"How would she? You're not going to tell her, are you?"

Jughead scoffs.

"Of course not," he mutters, though the words stick a little in his throat. It feels like a betrayal, for reasons he chooses to ignore. Archie was his best friend once, and this isn't the first time he's told Jughead something in confidence. But things have changed now, the dynamic of their little trio has shifted, and keeping secrets from Betty no longer feels incidental. "But she's Betty. She's in some kind of weird Nancy Drew phase, and she might not be looking for your little Mrs. Robinson story, but in a town this size it's only a matter of time before she figures it out. She's too smart not to put the pieces together if she runs into them."

There's a desperation on his friend's face now, Archie's fingers drumming loudly on the tabletop. Their voices are hushed, just in case any of the other patrons at Pop's have any actual interest in this discussion, but Jughead can practically hear the panicked scrambling in Archie's mind.

"Jug, she-she can't. She'll hate me."

"Betty?" He raises an eyebrow. "That's not really her style." He's not sure why it sounds a little bitter when he adds "She's loved you since we were in elementary school, she'll get over it."

Archie's gaze drops to the table at the mention of Betty's feelings for him, something like shame colouring his features.

"I hate that I hurt her, man. And if she finds out about Geraldine it'll just…it's only going to make things worse."

"For you, you mean."

"No." Archie glares at him. "For Betty. She'll think Ms. Grundy is the reason I can't be with her and that's-"

"Is that not the reason?"

Jughead likes to think he knows things about the people of Riverdale, that his deductive skills have served him well after years of silently observing the residents of the small town. But he's never quite figured out whether there are any hidden feelings under Archie's oblivion when it comes to Betty. And now that they've been brought to light…

"No! I mean…I don't…it's Betty." Archie flails a hand helplessly in the air, as though that should mean something to Jughead.

"Right." He nods, then adds, "I don't know what that means."

Archie sighs, sagging in his seat.

"We're best friends. We've always been best friends. I've never really thought about anything more than that."

"Uh-huh…" Jughead leans forward, fixing Archie with an appraising look. "So what your saying is you don't have any feelings for her. Non-platonic ones, I mean."

"I don't-I don't know, okay?" The redheaded boy's voice cracks a little, like there's an admission in his words that wasn't supposed to get out.

Jughead blinks. He isn't even sure why he's pushing this, but there's something inside him that suddenly needs to know. A rapidly amplifying voice that wants to grab Archie by the shoulders and shake him until he decides exactly where he stands with Betty.

"Yeah," Jughead sits back against the booth. "Okay."

And that's that. But now he's aware of that voice in the back of his mind, the one that can't stop thinking about the possibility that Archie will come to his senses and proclaim his love for Betty. He sips at his cola, chasing it with another handful of fries. He hopes this strange preoccupation with all things Betty Cooper will pass once things in their group have settled down a bit.

It doesn't.

"Jughead," Betty groans, dropping her head onto the desk in front of her. "We've been over this. You can't just break into the Blossom's house to snoop around. That's illegal."

"It's only illegal if you get caught." He's sitting on a desk a few feet away, legs crossed underneath him, chin propped up on one fist.

"No," She rolls her head to the side so she can frown at him, cheek pressed against the desk. "I'm pretty sure it's technically illegal either way. And it's not that I'm morally opposed to this-"

"-yeah, right-"

"-But everyone is so on edge right now. If you were to get caught-"

"-I wouldn't-"

"-It would be really bad. The Blossoms are out for blood, and so is Sheriff Keller. It's not worth it, Juggie. We'll find another lead."

"I'm a minor," he scoffs. "-They're not going to put me in jail, at worst I'd get community service. And who's to say I'd get caught anyways? I'm wounded at your lack of confidence in my stealthing skills."

Her lips quirk, but the moment of levity is shadowed by her following grimace.

"You don't know that. We'll find another lead," she repeats, using a tone Jughead has come to recognize as meaning this conversation is over. It's a little chilling in it's reminiscence of Alice Cooper, but he would never tell her that.

"Remember when I was promised complete creative freedom?" He wonders, hopping off his desk and striding over to glare down at the blonde who's once again face down on the tabletop.

"No." Her voice is muffled into the wood. "I don't believe I ever actually promised that."

He narrows his eyes, though she can't see it.

"You've gotten kind of wily Cooper," he remarks, with more than a little pride in his voice. "I think I like it."

She giggles then, craning her neck to smile up at him.

"Well," he shakes his head. "The girlish giggling is kind of ruining the image of a hardened newswoman, but my comment stands."

The smile falls off her face, and for a moment he thinks it's something he said, but then she looks away, smoothing a hand over the curls of her ponytail.

"Jughead…" Her voice is suddenly so wistful that he thinks he might get whiplash from the jolting change in mood. "You know how you said you didn't think you and Archie could ever go back to before?"

"Yeah," he says carefully, leaning up against the filing cabinet behind them.

"Did you mean that? I mean…do you still feel that way?"

He doesn't answer right away, taking a moment to consider her question.

"Uh, yeah. Like I said, Archie and I are fine, but…things are just different now. I think he'd agree, if you asked him about it." Not that she would. He's noticed that for all Betty has been insisting things with Archie are great, he's not the only one whose friendship with the redhead has taken a turn for cooler temperatures.

"Because you guys have changed," she murmurs, almost to herself. He nods. "Juggie…what about us? Do you think you and I will ever go back to how we used to be?"

He stares at her. As sweet as Betty has always been, as caring, he always suspected that she didn't actually put too much stock into her friendship with him. He was a byproduct of her relationship with Archie, and she'd accepted that with grace. But there's a vulnerability in her voice now, a tenet of genuine fear that has his heart slamming into his ribcage.

She cares. And it's been so long that he's felt something even remotely like it that for a moment all he can do is stare at her as her cheeks turn pink.

"No," he finds himself saying. Her mouth drops open slightly, eyes darting away from his, but not before he sees the hurt in them. "I mean," he says hastily, already noticing the way her palms are flat against the desk, ready to push to her feet. "I think maybe we used to just be friends because of Archie. And maybe now we have some other stuff in common."

Some of the tension fades from her shoulders, and she settles back into her chair. There's a thoughtful expression on her face that has him wishing desperately he could see inside her head. It wasn't exactly a proclamation of love, or even really a particularly sentimental assurance that he values her friendship, but his response leaves him feeling uncomfortably exposed. Jughead Jones doesn't really do emotions, but she caught him off guard.

"Like the Blue and Gold." She offers, an olive branch, and a path away from the sentimentality that has him so uncomfortable. "Or a slightly obsessive interest in what happened to Jason Blossom."

"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat. "Like those things." Or others. Like being raised by parents who have no concept of healthy love, and subsequently growing up to be completely inept at determining what a functional relationship should look like. But he thinks bringing that sort of thing up now might ruin the moment.

"I, um, I think we should look into Ms. Grundy."

Whatever he was expecting her to say next, it wasn't that.

"Ms. Grundy?"

"Yeah," she bites her lip. "After what Dilton said…I know we haven't really talked about it, but if Archie was there too-"

"Betty," he says warningly. He can't keep this secret from her forever. He warned Archie about this, and maybe he didn't think she would figure it out so soon, but if she starts down this path he won't be able to do anything about it. She'll uncover the truth. And while he's fairly certain that she'll come out of this firmly on Archie's side, trying to protect him, he's not quite as convinced that she'll so easily forgive him for lying to her.

The thought bothers him more than he expected.

She shakes her head.

"I know it's kind of weird to even consider it but…what if they were together? What if she's…like, taking advantage of him? What if he needs us, Jughead?"

Guilt coils, hot and sticky, in his stomach. He tells himself that he tried to talk Archie out of this bizarre fling, that as a friend he did his best.

But the truth is those conversations were always more about convincing Archie to come forward about that morning at Sweetwater River than getting his friend away from a potential predator.

Some friend he is.

And Betty, bless her, has put all judgment aside, solely focused on making sure Archie is alright. That he's not in trouble. That sadness is back in her eyes, the same darkening of her sky blue irises that he noticed the day after the dance at Pop Tate's. It's breaking her heart, he realizes, thinking about Archie with their music teacher. But it doesn't matter, not to Betty. It won't stop her from doing the right thing, from making sure the boy she loves is safe.

"We can't put that in the paper," he says hoarsely. "Any of it. If Archie is implicated in a relationship with a teacher-"

She stares up at him, aghast.

"Do you really think I'd do that? I know Archie and I haven't been in the best place lately, but-

"No," he pinches the bridge of his nose, beginning to get a headache. "I don't. I don't know why I said that."

"So…will you help me?" She turns that warm blue gaze on him, and every part of this plan that is a terrible idea seems to fade away.

"Yeah," he sighs. "Sure, Bets. I'll help."

All things considered, Betty takes the atomic explosion which is the Archie/Grundy exposé surprisingly well. Jughead wasn't there when it happened, too busy closing out the Twilight's last Drive-In night to attend what was likely the most embarrassing night of his ex-best friend's life. But Archie tells him all about it the next day.

"I was so pissed, you know. I thought Betty told her mom."

Jughead arches an eyebrow at him, shoving a forkful of pancake into his mouth as he considers the absurdity of that statement.

"You thought Betty told her mom, her mom, that you were having an illicit affair with your music teacher." He's careful to emphasize the parts of that sentence which strike him as particularly stupid. The look he's giving Archie, as he continues to stuff his face with fruit and carbohydrates, is one of amused judgment.

"I know," Archie says, at least having the good sense to look embarrassed. "But my dad came bursting in, with Betty and Mrs. Cooper right behind him, and I just kind of…panicked."

"That's fair." Jughead waves a fork at him. "Panicking at first sight of Alice Cooper is an understandable and rational reaction."

Archie rolls his eyes.

"Right. But then she was yelling something about Betty's diary, and I realized what had happened, and it all kind of-" he throws both hands up in a gesture that apparently is meant to convey pure chaos. "Mrs. Cooper was talking about how I was such a bad kid and she wanted to show Betty what kind of person I was, and then my dad got pissed, and Ms. Grundy was sitting in the corner all quiet, and-"

"Breathe, Arch." Jughead reminds him. He does.

"And then she said she was going to tell everyone."

Jughead wrinkles his nose in confusion.

"Ms. Grundy?"

"No, Mrs. Cooper. And Betty kind of came back to life and said that if her mom did that Betty would tell everyone she broke into Ms. Grundy's car and robbed her, and that she made up the story about me and Geraldine being together, and she…" He breaks off then, looking shamefaced. "She said that everyone would assume she'd snapped. Just like Polly. That what people have been saying about all the Coopers being crazy is true."

For the first time in maybe his whole life, Jughead suddenly loses his appetite.

"She what?" He asks, mouth dry.

"I know," Archie says seriously. "Her mom looked like she was going to explode."

"I bet." Jughead can picture it perfectly. He has some experience with parents like that. "Man," he shakes his head. "I don't know what the hell you did to make Betty love you so much."

"I don't either," he mutters, running his hand through his hair. "I sure don't deserve it though."

"That," Jughead points at him with his knife, "-is very true. Although for some reason she likes you anyways."

Quiet falls following that, Jughead slowly making progress in his not-so-short-stack of pancakes while Archie finishes his toast. Jughead could take this time to mention that he's been living in the Drive-In for the past few weeks, and at various intervals before then, since his stepfather kicked him out. But when he opens his mouth to do so, maybe to ask Archie if he could crash at the Andrews' place for a while since the Twilight is now a demolition zone, nothing comes out.

Archie is too wrapped up in his own post-drama haze to notice Jughead's preoccupation. So the moment passes, and then it's time for school, and it feels like a door has closed on him. He has nowhere to stay. Officially homeless. If only to stave off the first curls of fear licking at his heels, he silently repeats the same words he told his father the day before.

I'll figure it out. I always do.

Jughead isn't really paying attention to the weather, too busy mentally scrambling for some place, any place he can spend the night. Ever since the Drive-In closed he's been crashing at the school, having spent almost two weeks successfully sneaking into the student lounge after the campus is closed and sleeping on one of the couches there. But the school janitor, Sven, has apparently realized that the lock on the window to the boys locker room was broken, and now that he's fixed it, there's no way for Jughead to get back in.

Betty sits down beside him, boots squelching against the linoleum.

"Wh-" He glances over at her, heart sinking when he sees the way her soaking hair is hanging across her shoulders.

"It's pouring," she exclaims, leaning over to wring her hair out over the floor. "I just went out to make sure Kevin's bike was covered and I got totally soaked."

So much for his back up plan of sleeping in the park.

When she sits up straight on her stool, she notices the disappointment on his face.

"What's wrong?"

"I just…I wanted to walk out to Sweetwater to do some research for the paper." He lies. Those have always come easy to him, though lately lying to Betty has been harder than he remembers.

"Oh." She shrugs, dropping her biology binder onto the lab table in front of them. They've been partners ever since that one week where Veronica got sick, and she ended up teaming up with Archie when she got back. Jughead didn't complain, having swapped a B- partner for one who consistently gets A's. Besides he's on friendlier terms with the blonde than he is with Archie these days anyway. "Well you can just do it another day, can't you?"

"Yeah," he says distractedly, staring morosely out the window. "I guess."

"Apparently the boys still have football practice tonight." Betty continues, digging through her pencil case for a pen. "Can you imagine being out in this? What a nightmare."

"No." He says quietly. Outside the window, rain lashes again the pavement, the sodden grass already beginning to turn to mud. A particularly violent gale of wind shakes the glass in it's frame, bending one of the trees lining their walkway nearly in half. "I can't."

There have been more than a few nights in Jughead's life that were spent shivering and miserable in a place that was far too cold to entertain even the idea of sleep. Before Tony, it was a toss up as to whether the electricity bill would be paid on any given month, and after Tony, well. Jughead's squatting stint at the Drive-In this fall wasn't the first. And that projector's booth didn't exactly have good insulation.

But this is a different kind of cold, exposed to the elements, wind blowing rain in and under the tiny plastic roof over the bus bench, pelting his increasingly numb face with drops that feel like little darts of ice. He's soaked to the skin, all several layers of denim and cotton and flannel completely saturated, sucking up the precipitation like a sponge. His backpack is faring a little better, tucked under his head like a lumpy, and in some places, sharp, excuse for a pillow. As many times as he's begun a long night with a very sorry, borrowed roof over his head, it's never left him feeling hopeless. In order to survive, he couldn't let it.

But it's creeping in now, like the cold to his bones, a sense that the day might have finally arrived when there's nothing left for him to hide under. This isn't a roof, it's a lean-to, and maybe tomorrow he won't even have that. With a jolt, he realizes that here in Washington, in the middle of October, there's a very real possibility he could freeze to death. He thinks of Jason, then, and whether his own death would have nearly the same impact on the town.

Somehow, he doubts it.

"Wh-Juggie?"

He turns his head to look for the source of this new voice, the movement jerky from the stiffness of his frozen joints.

"Betty?"

She comes closer, the hood of her canvas jacket pulled tight around her face. It's not doing much to keep the rain at bay, the material already darkening as it soaks in the water.

"What are you doing? The buses don't run this late." Her voice is distorted by the sound of the storm washing between them, making her sound eery and far away.

"I know. I'm fine, Bets. Just go home." He's going for reassurance, but the incessant chattering of his teeth undermines the tone of that. But instead of leaving, she places her hands on her hips, her hood blowing back off her face the moment she lets go of it. The wind rushes through her loose blonde hair, whipping it around her head. He thinks she looks a little like some angry Norse goddess, the image only animated more when lightning arcs electric blue across the sky behind her. Her eyes seem to glow the same colour as she looks down at him.

"Jughead Jones." Her voice is an uncharacteristic steel, sending a chill down his already half-frozen spine. "Neither of us is going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on. So either you start talking or both of us will stay out here until we've got hypothermia."

He stares at her, shocked.

"I…" Like a bandaid, he thinks. "Tony kicked me out. I, uh, didn't have anywhere to go."

The howling wind drowns out whatever noise she makes in response to that. It's hard to tell, through the curtain of rain between them, but he thinks she's gaping at him. Then, before he can blink, her hand is in a vice grip around his wrist, and she's dragging him along behind her. At first he's so shocked that he lets her, the pair of them halfway to her car before he comes back to himself and digs his heels into the mud, backpack dangling from his other hand.

"Betty, what are you doing?"

He expects her face to be full of pity when she turns back around, or maybe embarrassment, but instead he almost has to take a step back at the intensity of her anger.

"I'm taking you home Jughead."

He yanks his arm out of her grasp.

"I can't go home. Hence the homeless, sleeping under a bus shelter thing."

"Not your home, moron, mine." The insult should sound out of place on her sweet tongue, but it doesn't.

"Your-" He shakes his head. "Bets, I can't stay at your place. No way would your mom allow that."

She just snatches his arm up again, tugging him back in the direction of her green station wagon. He's a little alarmed at how strong she is, especially when she opens the passenger side door and forces him inside.

"Betty." He says again, even as she starts up the car and guides it back onto the road. His voice feels disproportionally loud now that the noise of the storm is muffled outside the car. "Your mom is definitely not going to be okay with me crashing at your house. At best she'll drop me back off at my house, which I'm no longer welcome in, and at worst she'll call the sheriff and put me in foster care or something."

"Just shut up Jughead." She replies. He blinks at her with wide eyes, not sure what to make of this suddenly hostile Elizabeth Cooper. She looks mostly the same as regular Betty, but her shoulders are a hard line, and there's a fire in her eyes that threatens to burn him every time she chances a glance away from the road.

"Why exactly," he asks incredulously, "-are you so mad at me? Maybe I'm confused, but I was under impression that I was the victim here."

She makes an angry noise, somewhere between a scoff and growl, and slaps her palms against the steering wheel.

"Jughead why didn't you tell me?"

"I…" he opens his mouth to answer, but can't think of anything that doesn't sound pathetic. "I don't know. It's embarrassing. And I knew you'd get all…Betty about it. Besides, I was doing just fine until the Twilight closed."

"The-" She frowns. "What does the Drive-In have to do with it?"

Shit.

"Um, I may have been living there. Temporarily."

She turns to stare at him, and a few seconds pass before she remembers that she's driving, and hastily snaps her eyes back to the road. When she speaks again her voice is tight.

"Jughead, when did your stepdad kick you out?"

He mumbles into his hand, facing the window.

"I didn't catch that," she says sarcastically, sounding uncannily like the tired mother of a particularly ill-behaved toddler. He sighs.

"The day we talked to Dilton."

She misses third gear as he admits that, the car jerking beneath them as she scrambles to shift properly.

"That was a month ago! And the drive in closed almost two weeks ago!"

"Mmm." He makes a noise of acknowledgment, but doesn't say anything else. He's still waiting for the pity to come, the well meaning sad eyes that will only serve to make him feel worse.

"Juggie-" She pulls up in front of her house, eyes scanning the living room window for her mothers hawk-like gaze. With a sigh, she turns to face him. The anger there is warring with something else now, something soft that he's surprised to see isn't pity. "Come on. Let's go inside and get dried off."

"Your mom-"

"Is staying in Midvale tonight. So is my dad. Seriously, I'm freezing." She unbuckles her seatbelt, sliding from the car, and makes a mad dash through the violent wind for the front door. After a moment, he follows suit.

It's quiet inside, and he has to swallow an irrational anxiety that Alice Cooper is hiding somewhere, ready to pounce at him from around the corner. Everything is soft and floral and pastel, just like he remembers. As he ducks into Betty's room behind her, he raises his eyes at the wave of pink that washes over them.

"No jokes about the decor," she warns him suddenly, head swivelling round to glare at him, as though she can read his thoughts.

"Me? Make fun of you?" He claps a hand over his heart, feigning hurt. "I would never."

She just rolls her eyes and wanders back into the hallway, reappearing with a stack of towels. He takes one gratefully, pulling his beanie off to scrub at his sopping hair, before pulling off a few rain soaked outer items of clothing.

"Uh," he frowns down at the bundle of wet denim and flannel is his hands. "What should I do with these?"

"I'll throw them in the wash with some of my stuff," Betty decides, grabbing them from him and once again disappearing from the room. Jughead takes that opportunity to quickly change into a dry pair of jeans and t-shirt from his backpack, feeling almost like himself again without the wet clothes weighing him down. Thinking he might as well ask Betty to add them to the load of laundry she's already doing, he makes his way down to the basement. It's been years since he was down here, and there's something creepy about it despite the finished walls and soft cream carpet.

He rounds the corner to where he's fairly sure they keep their washing machine; and spots Betty standing a few feet away, dumping the clothes in the top-loading washer. She's stripped off her wet pink sweater, leaving her in a white tank top that's gone completely translucent from the rain. It's sticking to her back, doing nothing to cover the lacy pink bra underneath. Her jeans are gone, presumably already in the wash, and she's changed into a pair of black leggings.

"Oh." She jumps a little when he comes up behind her, but makes no indication at being embarrassed at being caught in her current state of undress. He wonders if that's due to years of Kevin's constant presence in her bedroom, though he's not sure he likes what that says about the way Betty thinks of him. "You scared me."

"Sorry." He holds up his own wet shirts. "Can I throw these in?"

She nods, stepping back to let him at the machine. The dark material lands with a wet thud on top of her pastels, and his eyebrows go up as he turns to look back at her.

"I'm no laundry expert, but aren't you supposed to separate lights and darks?"

She strips off her tank top, throwing it too into the machine before pressing the lid closed. He takes a few seconds too long before averting his eyes, knowing the image of her pale skin and soft curves will be stuck in his mind for days. It's not supposed to be like this with Betty. She's supposed to be sunny and perfect and a distant, happy relic of his otherwise sketchy childhood. But now she's standing in front of him, dripping and half naked, and his heart is beating a little faster than is strictly appropriate.

"Not when you have to get laundry done before your crazy mother gets home," Betty says, pushing a button and prompting the machine to life. She starts up the stairs, and he follows, trying not to let his gaze linger on the sight of her bare back.

"Speaking of that, what exactly is your plan? I'm sensing from the whole rush on the laundry that you're not going to tell her I'm here."

"Yeah, no. I don't think that would go over very well." They come out on the main landing, and she detours through the kitchen. She grabs him a plate of leftover chicken parm from the fridge, throwing it in the microwave and turning to frown at him. "I think it would be best if we just…kind of…hid you."

"Hid me?" His eyebrows disappear into his messy black hair. "You do realize I'm a person and not a rabbit. Where exactly am I supposed to hide?"

She catches her bottom lip between her teeth, staring off into space as she thinks.

"I think-you can sleep on my floor, and if you're quiet she won't notice, and if she comes in you can hide under my bed, or-"

"Betty." He sighs. "It's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not sure that's going to work."

"Well you can't sleep in the park, Jughead." Her soft nervousness is gone, replaced with that same resolve she was wearing earlier, when she found him. "It's practically a hurricane out there. And I haven't asked why you're not staying with Archie, because I'm assuming you have a better reason than 'because it would be awkward'. But unless you have a better idea, you're staying here."

His mind scrambles for something, anything. But she's right, he can't go back out into that storm. And he's not ready to face Archie with this. Not yet.

So he huffs a defeated sigh, and shrugs.

And hopes he's not murdered in the night by a scandalized Alice Cooper.