"Are you absolutely sure about this?"
Jughead stood in front of the entrance to the building, his body blocking Betty from it. Her pink coat looked nice - like something people wore to church or a fancy restaurant. She seemed too beautiful and unreal for a place like the Wyrm. Too good for it, even.
Betty took both his hands in hers so she could wrap herself in his arms. "Absolutely sure."
Jughead nodded, not convinced that he was ready for it. He thought of what she'd see - the glassy leers of drunk Serpents, the layer of grime dulling all the light fixtures. The pole on the front stage. For the first time in his life, he felt ashamed of where he came from and what that entailed.
She was about to meet his father for the first time in a bar, partly because it was cleaner and less depressing than their trailer. It was also the place F.P. had chosen when Jughead mentioned that Betty wanted to meet him. Something about business was F.P.'s offered an excuse, but Jughead could hear the slight hesitation, maybe even some embarrassment of his own, in F.P.'s response. Even though F.P. was an adult and the leader of Riverdale's most prominent gang, he would not chance judgment from a pretty girl from the Northside in his own home.
Jughead could explain so much of his life away, be the picture of the boyfriend she deserved, if he didn't show Betty much behind the curtain. But she wanted to see it, wanted to know all the parts of Jughead that no one ever thought to question. She wanted him, good or bad, and it left him unmoored yet equally compelled to accept this unthinkable love.
He kissed her, slow and soft, before reaching behind him and holding the door for her.
The air hung with used nicotine, and Jughead could feel the back of his neck begin to burn as Toni's eyes fixed on Betty as they crossed the bar. Jughead had no intentions of introducing Betty around before she met F.P., and it was some kind of divine providence that Toni was the only person to take notice of him.
He ushered Betty toward the office, and to his surprise, F.P. was standing in the door's frame. Any other time, F.P.'s office required a knock, a signal that he would need to clear the room of any associates and evidence out of what he was into. People often underestimated how savvy Jughead's dad could be, but F.P. knew how to run a business, albeit illegal.
"Jug. Come on in." Jughead noted a clean shaven face and the smell of… sobriety. His father was damn near presentable, passing for a normal parent. It was almost unthinkable to Jughead. "This must be the Betty I've heard so much about."
"Hi Mr. Jones. It's nice to meet you." Betty's hand shook firmly in the exchange, her smile so bright that it almost hurt Jughead to see it wasted.
F.P. nudged a chair out, offering to take Betty's coat. Jughead cringed inwardly when he saw the ragged seat cushion and the way its frayed threads barely held back spots of filling. Betty, however, made no notice of the shabby decor. She just smiled and slid her chair closer to his.
"You guys want something to drink?" F.P. popped open a small fridge that sat in the back corner of the room. Today, bottles of water and soda replaced the usual contents of assorted beers. All the stops had been pulled out and Jughead felt, even if minutely, exactly what he meant to his father.
Betty took a water with thanks, and F.P. sat across his cleared desk from them, a cold can of soda in hand.
"When Jug told me about you, I was a little surprised that you two were friends. I knew your mom when we were growing up and she couldn't get out of the Southside fast enough."
Betty's forehead creased in confused amusement. "Wait… my mom lived on the Southside? She never told me that."
"Oh sure. Your mom was a Southie like the rest of us. It's funny that I tried to hide it more than she did. She kind of liked people knowing who she was. Kept them in line and out of her way." F.P. through back a heavy swig of soda, Jughead wondering if the gesture held up as a behavioral substitute. "Alice Smith. Man, she was tough. But cool."
Jughead saw something… moony in his father's eyes. F.P. was emotionally expressive about very little, but taking a hard right into his high school entanglements wrote a very clear, much unrequited story on his features.
"Really? That's… not how I imagined her." Betty leaned back in her chair, her own expression taking on a disillusioned quality. "We're nothing alike."
Jughead shot F.P. a look - thanks for breaking my girlfriend. "I don't know. You're both into journalism. That's something."
"And Jones men, so it seems," F.P. piped in, chuckling at his own joke. "You got the better option, no doubt there."
"Jees, dad." In all the ways he could fail as a parent, F.P. gave nothing away in the 'embarrassing his son' arena.
F.P. offered a mumbled sorry, to who Jughead wasn't altogether sure, before a hush fell over the tiny room. Jughead, his discomfort pushed aside, reached around the chair back to massage Betty's shoulder as she worked through something in her head.
"Parents always keep the strangest secrets. Then tell you it's to protect you," she finally said as she picked her gaze up from the floor. "But her past on the South Side doesn't qualify as that."
F.P. scrubbed at days old scruff, a gesture similar to the one Betty saw when Jughead worried at his unruly locks. It looked like discomfort in F.P., agitation at the potential of being parental. "Maybe she just wanted a clean slate. A chance to have a life where people didn't judge where she came from. She wouldn't be the first person." His dark eyes shifted, falling to his son with something resembling hope. "Or the last."
Jughead hadn't expected this meeting to take a heavy, somewhat philosophical turn and he wasn't sure how to respond to it. He'd wanted F.P. and Betty to get along, maybe even like each other. Was this that? He could only trust the idea of it because only his life, even at its most monumental, was this bizarre.
He turned to watch Betty, the bottle of water rolling between her palms. A deterrent, he realized gratefully. "Maybe you're right."
"First time for everything." F.P laughed, cutting through the tension in the room and allowing the conversation to move from the past onto the present. Jughead sat quietly by as his father let Betty talk about school and her work on the paper. F.P. asked questions about grades and plans for college that made Jughead envious of the father he could be when called upon. Was it something he, Jughead, lacked? Or was Betty simply the kind of person who brought the best in everyone around her?
His heart knew the second to be truth and even a conversation lacking in general complexity - 'AP Calculus was my mom's choice, not mine,' - made Jughead's pulse trip. If it were possible for him to fall harder, small revelations like the one he was witnessing would do it.
"I don't mean to cut you off, Betty, but I have a meeting in twenty minutes." F.P. looked at Jughead in the way only a father could, something like hope reading clear on his face. "Down at the Methodist Church on Green Street."
Jughead sat still, stunned. The only meetings that happened at the old church were of the Alcoholics Anonymous variety and F.P. hadn't been to one of those since before Jughead's mom had left. "Okay."
"We'll do dinner at Pop's or something next time." F.P. grabbed up his jacket. "It was nice meeting you, Betty."
"You too, Mr. Jones." She stood up, hands folded in front of her. "Thank you for having me."
F.P. was barely out of the room before the words, "Are you okay?" passed from Betty's mouth.
Jughead didn't have a cohesive answer to that question. He was more confused than anything, but not angry that his father was trying to pick himself up. Even if it was the hundredth time, and even if he was likely to fail. "Sure."
Betty's head tilted, her brow raising ever so slightly. "I like your dad."
"Yeah, he cleans up real nice when he wants to." Jughead looked up from the floor, his elbows balanced on his knees. "I don't mean it to sound so bitter. I'm just trying to keep my hopes under control with him. Today, he's trying. Tomorrow, he could be at the bottom of a bottle again."
Betty's hand smoothed over the back of his shirt, resting lightly against his neck. "At least there's today, then."
And there it was again - Betty making it better by being Betty. The soft turn of her lips into a smile smoothed the rough churn of his stomach smooth out. "Thanks for being here. For everything today. I couldn't do it with anyone but you."
Betty switched from her chair to Jughead's lap, his arm cradling her waist as she kissed him. "I like being that for you, the same way you've been for me."
Jughead let the knowing press and sync of their kiss unwind him. Anything that could have gone awry was behind him and he could spend the rest of the day enjoying time with his girl. It was a small pleasure, but one that he always took great pleasure in. "What do you say to a burger at Pop's?"
Betty grinned. "Only one?" She rose from his lap and reached for his hand. "That doesn't seem like you. Are you feeling okay?"
"Very funny." Grabbing at her waist, Jughead drew her close as they stumbled back into the dark bar.
"Whoa!"
Laughter seized in Betty's throat as she nearly ran into someone. Someone with a face she recognized immediately when she straightened to find it mere inches from her own.
Slash stared back at her, his confusion clear. "Uh. What are you doing here?"
Jughead looked between them, strange déjà vu sending his thoughts in circles. "You guys… know each other?" He looked at Betty.
The room tilted slightly and Betty wobbled on a heel, both boys reaching out to brace her. She couldn't put together who asked if she was okay, their voices barely more than soggy sounds.
But another came in loud and clear. "Looks kind of like your Internet girl, Slash." The boy was tall, with dark hair. And the kind of eyes that felt like they were shredding her clothes.
Slash expression shifted quickly to something incredulous. "I didn't know she was your girl, Jones. Otherwise…"
Jughead said nothing, but Betty could see something dawning in his eyes. The room drew silent, every pair of eyes falling to her, almost as if they could see her shame and disgrace. Like they knew she had betrayed the son of their King with her lies.
Jughead's hand slid from her back in a slow gesture. "We should go."
"Juggy, please. Let me explai-" Betty started, but the hard set of his jaw and the sharp, clear cut of his glare trampled her words. All she could manage in the wake of his quiet seething was follow him out to his truck.
Neither said anything as Jughead drove. Flecks of wet snow pelted the windshield, melting before they had a chance to stick. He finally stopped in front of her house, staring down the length of the road in front of him.
"Yes or no. Is it true?" He didn't really need to ask, but the most naive part of him - the hopeful part - wanted to believe mistaken identity was the only culprit, not Betty. "Are you… 'Slash's internet girl?'"
"I'm not his anything. I never was." Betty's own anger flared briefly, the idea that anyone could see her as property raking her already raw nerves. "He was an outlet. Like exploring this other side of myself that was easier to access with a stranger who I never thought I'd have to meet."
Jughead leaned back against the seat, his temples throbbing at her explanation. He didn't really want to know the details of her secret online sex life. Partly because they reminded him of how typical he could really be when it came to masculinity – he kind of hated the idea of anyone, especially one of his friends, seeing her naked. And it only made him feel worse.
"I was going to tell you about everything. So many times. I just…" Betty put a hand on his arm but he pulled it away. "I didn't know how."
"So instead you lied to me?!" His head jerked toward her, his hurt ringing clear.
Fat tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, whether as a reaction to his feelings or her own, Betty wasn't sure. "I'm so sorry, Jug. Honestly."
"Sorry?" He smacked the steering wheel so hard that Betty jumped. "Damnit, Betty! I don't live in a nice place or know any nice people. I'm just trailer trash from the Southside. And I was scared for you to see that and change your mind about me so many times. But I let you see it. That day at Sweet Water swimming hole when I told you about the Serpents. Today, when you met my dad. You made me believe it was all okay."
Betty withered, understanding the exact kind of acceptance he was describing. It was how she'd wanted him to feel about her past. "I… wish I could take it back."
"I wish you could too. But you can't." He was quiet again, the sounds of her sadness making for an unbearable white noise. "Go inside, Betty."
Her eyes stayed focused on her hands, which were balled up in her lap. He wouldn't reach for them this time, she knew. Her skin would split, exposing new red moons, and she'd feel the ugliest she ever had. "I don't want us to be over."
Jughead wanted to tell her that they weren't over, that they would talk once he had time to calm down and unpack all his feelings. It would have been the mature thing to say. But not necessarily the truth, and he couldn't let his heart take the lead this time.
"I have to go." He leaned over and opened her door from the inside. "Bye, Betty."