Disclaimer: Not mine, just letting them out to play.
Warning: There's sex and well… angst. Be warned. They're out of character, but I think it works.
Changes: nothing can ever stay the same
Part 1: Cause and Effect
She sat alone, the noisy music falling on her uncaring ears, the party in full swing around her, her only company in that moment being her, overly strong, drink. But in the moment that followed her company expanded to include her host, a slightly drunk Reggie Mantle. "You are not having fun. As host, it is my duty to tell you that it is a party rule. Fun must be had."
She rolled her eyes, ignoring the amusement that she felt at seeing him so carefree, she wasn't in the mood to feel the joy that he, when not being arrogant, often brought her. Right then, she only wanted to feel the hurt that ran deep. Looking away she finished her drink with was grimace. "Then go have fun." She stood, wanting to get a refill, when his hand and his words stopped her:
"I heard what happened. Want to talk about it?'
She laughed. "With you? So you can gloat?" She scoffed when he looked taken aback. "Since when did you start caring about anybody but yourself?"
He swallowed hard, standing over her, trying to fake that what she said hadn't hurt him. "Hey, it happens once and awhile. I just don't advertise it. I DO have a reputation. So, how bout it? You know, before I decide against it and do a happy dance at your misfortune instead?" She shot him a look. "Sorry. Well?"
Raising an eyebrow she looked around the noisy room. "Here?"
He led her to the table that held a variety of alcoholic beverages, grabbed a case of coolers and led her to his room. "Better?"
She looked around as he sat on the bed, watching her. "You took down all the pictures of yourself?" She turned to him, amazement lacing her tone. She had known him before he had become self obsessed, but, over the years she had believed that that boy had long before disappeared. It seemed she had been wrong about him. She often was when it came to him. He wasn't the villain everyone wanted to paint him as. He just readily took on that role.
He shrugged, opening the case of cold bottles. "Well, I discovered that girls are more willing to put out when they think you aren't conceited."
Taking the offered bottle she sat beside him on the bed, glad for the moment for the distraction. "How's that working out for you?"
"You tell me." He wagged his eyebrows at her. "You're the first girl I've had up here since the change." He looked at his drink, turning serious. "So… Archie said that you told him you weren't going to date him anymore. I thought you… cared about him. Why the change?"
She wanted to cry, and she could already feel the hot burning in her eyes, and the tightness in her throat and stomach. She looked away from him. "Because, I love him. And I know, I've always known but have been so blind to realize, that he will never love me back. I'm not blind anymore, I'm not some hopeful little girl willing to wait, and I'm not stupid, I can't fane being naive anymore. It hurts too much. I mean, I've tried to make him love me, and I've tried to fight for him, MAKE him see me as the woman of his dreams. I thought it was a testament to how much I love him, the lengths I would go to… but it isn't. It's just hurting all of us involved. Me, him, Veronica.
"No one can choose who they love, and they actually love each other. Its not fair to try and stop it, its not fair to them. And it's not fair to me. I deserve to be someone's all, not their second string. I love Archie, I really do. And I know I always will but that doesn't matter."
"You gave up on him?"
Looking into his eyes, confused and caring, through her tears, she smiled. "No. I let him go. How sad is that? I love him so much, enough to let him love somebody else."
He inhaled deeply, looking into her eyes, at her face and her lips, lips that he wanted to kiss, to make smile, to watch as they told him he was the one she wanted to be with. He wiped her face dry. "It isn't sad. It just proves you have more heart than any of us."
She closed her eyes, focusing on the warmth in his hands matching the warmth that she found in his voice and eyes. Warmth that she then wondered if he as capable of in his heart. "What does it say when mine is broken into a million pieces?"
"That you're only human. You're not the flawless woman everyone believes you to be. You're better. You're real and perfect. You have flaws, and pains and hope and dreams, just like the rest of us."
"And what, Reg, are your hopes and dreams?" She smiled through the tears that made her eyes glisten, tears that no longer wanted to fall. He had surprised her. Then again she always knew that there was more to him than he let show.
"To make it out of here in one piece. Survive Riverdale high, the town, and leave as someone whole. But," he grinned, "For now, I would settle for another drink."
"And I'll drink to that!" She smiled at him as he opened two more drinks. Music soundly faintly in the background as they talked for what felt like hours, about friends, growing up, about the future…
They fell laughing against the pillows. Betty on her back, grabbing at her aching sides at memories she had long thought forgotten, Reggie on his side, propped on one elbow, looking at her with a euphoric expression. "Remember when Moose slipped on those papers Archie dropped and fell on Dilton? I laughed for a week. That was how long Arch wore that cast for after Moose beat him up for making him hurt Dilton. And Dilton and Moose became best friends. Or the time Veronica's dress split down the back…"
"Because of one of your pranks!" She finished with a laugh. It felt good, the alcohol making her feel light and her heart warm. She was forgetting and she liked it. She wished it could stay like that, that feeling, being warm and fuzzy. She wanted to touch, to feel, to fly, to be reminded of what she never knew and to never touch the ground.
Inhaling deeply the booze making her brave, she looked at him. "Reg, if I ask you something, will you promise not to laugh?"
"Nope. I never promise anything I can't fulfill. But I CAN promise that I will try."
She licked her lips. "Will you kiss me?" She waited for the laugh, for him to say no. When she heard neither she looked at him. "You're not laughing?"
"It's not funny." He slid closer, looking at those lips again, now so attainable. "I want to kiss you. But I don't know if I could stop it at a kiss." Brushed her hair from her blushing face, allowing his fingers to caress her lips, unconsciously licking his own. "But I don't want to cause you any more hurt. Tomorrow you are going to not want me to have kissed you."
She swallowed hard, fighting her growing blush to no avail. She looked down. "What else do you want to do?"
He smiled, countless thoughts and fantasies flickering across his mind. "I want to hold you, cover you with kisses, I want to see you, feel you, be with you," he was moving closer watching as her eyes drifted shut, listening to his words, knowing that, in that moment, the only one he cared to know, she did want it, and she did want him, everything else could be damned: "In you…"
He kissed her, hard with need, feeling her respond with a moan, pulling her tight to him, under him, running his hands over her trembling body, wanting more. As quickly as he could without breaking contact from her delicious mouth for long, he took off her shirt and bra before showering her breasts with attention.
She arched into him, hands in his hair, a moan escaping her throat as she bit her lip, wishing not to call out for more of the torture. Her eyes were closed, a slight smile on her lips when he again kissed her, making her giggle. It died halfway in her mouth when his tongue began its dance with hers and his hands freely over her exposed skin before he paused, breathless, o remove his own shirt.
Her hands, fired by want and made brave from the drinks, roamed his chest and back freely and hungrily, never realizing before just how in shape he really was.
He didn't wait long, his need firing his movements, before ridding them both of the remainder of their clothing. He paused then, and looked at her, naked and blushing and flawless with her beauty he then fully realized, her hair loose and falling over his pillow. He knew her then to be his angel. He kissed her.
"Are you sure?"
Smiling despite her growing nerves, she nodded before kissing him again, entrusting him to know what to do.
It hurt, burned in a way that she never expected, more than she thought, and he had hoped that it would. She hissed, holding him close, her nails almost breaking the skin, as he paused, giving her a moment to get comfortable with the new sensation. Easing it by a readily accepted kiss. It didn't take long before the burning dimmed into that of an enjoyable sting, one mingled within pleasure; and she was enjoying something she had always tried not to think about.
She opened her eyes and saw brown ones meeting hers, ones that she had noticed time and time again often mirroring her own. They held a constant pain, even in that moment, beneath the pleasure, and she wondered as he came, what the cause of that pain really was.
Warmth encompassed her as she started to wake, just beginning to become aware of the pain in her body, the hazy memories as well as the weight on her hip and the warm pressure against her back, making her feel, through her tired confusion, safe. Her breath caught as she looked down at herself. She was naked, and realization of why and how she got to be in that state was hitting her hard.
Somewhere between being asleep and fighting being awake, he felt her stiffen: the action firmly pulling him towards the latter. When his eyes, already feeling the pain of the light, opened, he saw her, even just the back of her, shrinking into the mattress, the mattress that still held the scent of the previous night's activities.
She regretted it.
Closing his eyes with a silent, painful, curse, he turned away from her, ashamed that he had taken advantage of her. But, also, he felt, in a part of himself that was growing harder and harder to deny, hurt that she didn't feel anything for him. She, the woman whose heart was open to everyone, was closed to him. He exhaled slowly, trying to pretend that he was still asleep so she could have peace as she got dressed, free from the awkwardness he hated knowing was coming. He owed her that much, after everything he did, after what he took, it was the least he could do. But even then, in that part of him he would otherwise deny existing, he was hoping she would stay.
Shaking, head spinning, body protesting, she sat up, holding the sheet tightly around herself, and, wanting to cry but not finding the tears, she looked at herself in his mirror. Her hair was tangled, her eyes swollen from crying and her lips swollen from kisses. The rest of her, while nervous and blushing, looked the same. She had always thought that sex changed a person, at least on some level, and yet, she looked the same.
Quietly as she could, empty bottles bumping as they rolled from out of her way, she moved about the room, getting dressed, not quite believing how far apart everything ended up. She heard him breath beside her, as she reached to get her socks, and closing her eyes tight, she turned away. She wasn't ready to face him, things had changed, she realized then, between them, within her, and she didn't know how to handle it. She didn't want to deal, not then. As she stood, socks in place, she felt her stomach, before dancing with nerves, now turn, before it rose, and she, guided by instinct, ran across the hall, into the bathroom.
As soon as she left Reggie sat up. Putting on boxers, in slow movements, the sound of her emptying her stomach guiding him as he followed her into the room and sat upon the cool, clean surface of the bathtub's rim. Sighing, he reached over and held her hair, her own hands not securing it fully, back, safely, from her face.
Sitting back, glistening with sweat, she coughed harshly, her throat rough and dry, before looking at him as he handed her a towel. Neither said a word as he flushed the toilet. They merely looked at each other, the filling water their soundtrack for everything unspoken but hanging in the thickening air, her blushing, his face blank. They stayed locked in that uncomfortable stare for countless minutes, feeling like hours, before he finally looked away.
"If you want, you can take a shower, to freshen up. I'm going to check the damage downstairs." He paused a moment longer before getting up and leaving, closing the door quietly as he went.
She came downstairs 35 minutes later, feeling slightly better, and mostly refreshed, to find him, dressed in a casual t shirt and jeans, cleaning the mess that his guests had left behind. With a shy smile hidden behind stray locks of hair, having not been able to find her elastic, she grabbed some paper cups and tossed them in the bag he held in a loose grip.
The action, unexpected, caused him too look up at her, his previous thoughts, all about her, forgotten in the face of the real thing. "Hey."
She blushed, her hands instinctively pushing her hair from her face, as if she always wore it down, "Hey." Looking away from his eyes that were deeper than she cared to recall, she cleared her throat. "Any damage?"
"Nothing that can't be cleaned." He looked over her head, swallowing, and he wished that things didn't have to be that tough. "There's juice in the kitchen, if you're thirsty. It will help settle your stomach."
"Good," her hand instinctively covered her stomach, which, to her dislike, was still bothering her. She followed him into the kitchen and sat, with a wince, at the table.
He swallowed hard, hearing the wince, knowing that he had caused her the pain that had brought him much pleasure. And, damned enough, he wanted to do it again. He wanted to sink into her, soak into him her warmth that now that he had experienced it, left him cold without it, and to bring her the same pleasure that he she had brought him. He wanted to hear her call out his name, as she came, as he made her came, he wanted her to want him, for her to curl around him afterwards, his scent on her body, and feel how perfectly she fit against him, and how right his arms felt around her.
But for then, he just wanted to say something, to make all the awkwardness just fade away, but nothing but thoughts of wanting her came to mind. So they just sat there, in their silence for the next few minutes, feeling like hours, until she stood, finally being brave enough to actually leave.
Do you want a drive?" He asked before she got half way to the door. He leaned against the opening to the kitchen, not trusting himself not to fidget.
She shook her head, trusting her voice enough to speak. "No thanks Reggie, really. I think I'd rather walk." She wouldn't look at him, she couldn't.
She again started to go until his voice, working on it's own accord, stopped her dead in her tracks, her hand hovering over the knob. "Betty, do you wish it had been with him?"
Closing her eyes, tears again, despite herself, starting to fall, opening the door, she looked back at him, seeing for the first time that morning, just how vulnerable he really was. "No. And I don't know what that means."
Tell me what you think. There will be more characters in the next parts. Honest.