ONE
july 8th, 8:34am
Along with her additional schoolwork, Lea had taken up shifts at Pop's Diner. Early morning till Lunch on the weekends. Her hours there consisted of serving endless plates of pancakes, wiping tables, and refilling Jughead Jones' mug up until the minute she was leaving.
It was rare to see the two talking. They had fallen out of a close friendship in the summer before Freshman year; Lea drifted towards Cheryl Blossom and her clique, and Jughead preferred his time alone. There wasn't bad blood between them, it was just a case of two friends that had simply fallen out of contact. Perhaps the saddest kind of falling out.
Lea's mom asked almost every week about Jughead. At first, she thought it was because she wanted them to hang out again, but as it turned out, Andrea Lawson was ensuring that her daughter was officially losing contact with the boy. Familiar with his gang background, Andrea wanted Lea far away from any of that activity.
Ignoring her mother's prejudices (after all, it was only Jughead), Lea made her way over to the boy, who was frantically typing on his laptop. Her skirt flowed across her thighs and her wedges clicked on the tiled floor; the table was littered with plates, mugs, and brown sugar packets.
Jughead merely lifted his head, giving Lea a closed-lip smile as she refilled his coffee, before returning back to his screen. For a split second, it seemed as though he was ready to start talking with her again - perhaps her prolonged staring scared him away.
Taking a quick glance at his screen, all Lea could see was words upon words. She always knew that Jughead loved to write, but this looked insane. Walking away slowly, she began to consider her options. She could walk away now and serve the half empty diner surrounded by a sense of awkwardness for another two hundred minutes, or, she could join the beanie clad boy for a civil conversation. Before she could even decide, a voice called from behind her.
"Can I ask you something?" Jughead said.
Lea spun on her heels, coffee sloshing in the pot. It was the first thing he'd said to her in months. He had an arm leaning around the back of the chair of the booth, awaiting an answer.
She raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, sure."
He seemed to hesitate before speaking, taking a quick glance around the diner behind her. "What do you think happened to Jason?"
The question took Lea by surprise. She hadn't even thought about the questions surrounding Jason's death. Her main priorities for the past few days had been Luke and Cheryl, both of whom, didn't seem like they needed or wanted her help.
She walked back over to the booth. "Cheryl said he drowned." She shrugged.
"Captain of the Aquaholics?" Jughead scoffed. "Highly unlikely, don't you think?"
After freezing for a second, Lea slid into the bench across from him and fired back. "Apparently he panicked and didn't make it to the top."
He pushed his laptop to the side. "Trying to reach her pristine glove?"
"Well, it's what Cheryl said so surely tha-"
"Do you believe everything Cheryl says?" Jughead sighed, reaching up to pull his beanie further down the back of his head.
Lea's eyes squinted and she sat up straight, crossing her arms. "Why shouldn't we believe what Cheryl said? She was the only one there before Doiley showed up." Her arms were folded as she awaited a response.
"Exactly." Jughead stressed.
Lea leant forward and arched an eyebrow. "It's a witness account. Are you calling Cheryl a liar?"
"I just think that the whole truth isn't being told." He sighed.
The blonde ran the tip of her tongue across her front teeth, switching her gaze between Jughead's eyes, before sitting back in her chair. "If you're going to write about Jason, you're best talking to Cheryl - or even Luke."
"I'd prefer neither." Jughead grabbed his laptop again.
She wasn't sure if she was supposed to have been offended by his comment towards her boyfriend and her best friend. But, she found it amusing. Jughead was the complete opposite of anyone in her friendship group. She knew that he would've rather been caught dead before hanging out with the people she associated herself with; some part of her knew that it worked the other way around, too.
The piercing sound of a bell ringing echoed throughout the peaceful diner, signalling someone's arrival. Lea took this as her cue to get back to work, sliding out of the booth and smoothing out her skirt. She didn't look at whoever had just walked in.
"I can ask for you, if you want." She offered, grabbing hold of the coffee jug.
Jughead's head snapped up from his keys. "Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, that'd be awesome." He stuttered, somewhat amazed by her proposal.
"It's fine, Jug. I'll let you kn-" Lea's words were drowned out by the sudden eruption of laughter and loud talking down the opposite end of the diner.
Their heads snapped towards the source of the noise. Lea's eyes immediately locked down on the swirling pattern embedded on the back of the black leather and denim jackets. They looked like bad news. The kind of people she made a point to stay clear of. Some part of her was angry that they even had the decency to just waltz in -
"A bit early for Serpents, don't you think?" Jughead muttered, knocking Lea from her thoughts. His eyes flickered back and forth between the girl to his right and the gang; the Southside Serpents.
"It's always too early for Serpents." Lea spoke, her words quiet as she watched the table closely.
It was no secret in Riverdale that Lea Lawson was no fan of the infamous Southside gang, the Serpents. Some believed it was to do with her boyfriend, Luke. Luke Summers was a jock, a good student, and an avid Serpent hater. He targeted the Southside any time he could in an excuse to show off the pristine Northside. It was also no secret that Luke loved a fight, much to the distaste of his girlfriend. Many thought that his own hatred had spilled onto Lea, since, before Luke, she didn't appear to have a hostile bone in her body.
On the other hand, it was believed that that was just how the Lawson family were. As one of the town's founding families, the Lawson's were rumoured to have been antagonistic with the Southside for decades. It would explain her mother's distaste in Jughead Jones, after all. No one questioned her father's lack of opinion on the situation. For, everyone believes what they want to.
They chose to believe that it was Luke's influence. They chose to believe that it was in her blood. At the end of the day, they would always take her side, anyway.
"Are you gonna kick them out?" Jughead questioned, eyebrows raised in interest.
Lea sighed. "No. They haven't done anything." She fixed her hair and straightened her back. "What I am going to do is serve them like the amiable person that I am."
With that, she flicked her curls over her shoulders and plastered a on smile before walking towards the group of Serpents with a spring in her step. Jughead continued to watch from afar with humour in his eyes.
The table quietened as she approached, all three members turned to look towards Lea, unaware of her current inner, quite unpleasant, monologue.
"Hi, welcome to Pop's. What can I get you?" Her sickly-sweet customer service voice seemed to slice through the tense air. One of the guy's chuckled under his breath, ducking his head down to look at the table.
"One chocolate, two vanillas, and a strawberry milkshake." A softer voice spoke. "Please."
Lea's eyes scanned the table before they landed on a small girl with pink streaks in her long hair. The Serpent sent her a strained smile. The blonde muttered a quick 'thank you' and scurried away from the leather-clad group. After handing in a small list with her handwriting scrawled over it, she turned back around to face the diner from the comfort of being behind the counter.
Sneaking a glance over at the Serpents table, she caught eyes with the tallest. His dark hair was messy, with strands falling across his forehead. Silver dog tags were worn around his neck, and his head hung high as his piercing gaze held her own. His shoulders were broad, and his face even held a sense of innocence that she would've believed if not for the embroidered snake he wore on his back. Before frantically looking away, Leas eyes caught a glimpse of a serpent tattoo on his neck. Nothing about the boy's appearance frightened her, but after returning back to her work, she felt a sense of uneasiness in her stomach.
The bell rung from the open window to the kitchen, signalling that the order was complete. She turned around and began to busy herself by piling the milkshakes onto the tray. The scraping sound of a bar stool behind her caused her to spin around, expecting to greet a new customer.
Instead, across from her, at the bar, sat the same Serpent. With arms folded across the top of the bar, he watched her with a strange sense of innocence etched across his smirking face. Lea squinted her eyes slightly, attempting to keep a neutral stance. This staring match lasted mere moments, before she straightened up and spoke with confidence.
"Your drinks are on the way." She said, eyes not leaving his own dark ones.
He paused before speaking. "Do you always look at customers like that?"
"Like what?" Lea asked, walking forward and pressing her palms against the counter, leaning forward.
"Like you want to kill them." He chuckled, taking out a straw from a nearby container. He began to play with it in his hands as he awaited her answer.
Eyes drifting from his ring clad hands to his face, Lea answered, without missing a beat. "Only when they have a snake on their back." She tilted her head. "Or neck."
He scoffed. "Ouch."
"Don't take it personally." She turned back around, grabbing the tray of milkshakes. "It's not the first time and it won't be the last." She walked past him, avoiding his gaze, and towards the table occupied by his friends.
Holding the tray in front of her, she grabbed one of the two palest glasses. "Two vanilla?"
A boy with shaved sides and a short quiff nodded, waving slightly.
"Both of them?" Lea asked. She wordlessly placed the milkshakes in front of him after he shamelessly shrugged. "Okay, strawberry?" She glanced towards the girl, who smiled as politely as she could.
Lea held the tray under her arm as she held the final milkshake in her other hand. "I'll assume chocolate is your frien-"
"Thanks." The taller Serpent grabbed the glass from her grip before climbing over the back of the seat to sit next to the window. Speechless, Lea watched as he comfortably placed himself on the bench, tipping the glass towards her with a wink.
A moment passed before Lea composed herself.
"Okay, any problems, let me know." With that, she walked back over to Jughead's booth with quick strides.
The boy, who had watched the whole scene unfold, clapped as she sat down across from him, holding her head in her hands.
"Well done, Lawson. For a moment there I thought you were gonna choke." He commented.
Lea sat up at his words. "Lea Lawson doesn't choke." She spoke.
"Ah, yes. The only thing Lea Lawson chokes is a Serpent." Jughead chuckled, sipping his coffee.
"What are they even doing here?" She blurted out. "Are there no places to eat on the Southside? Is it too hard for them to stay down there?"
Jughead attempted to ease her out of her rage, even if he was growing annoyed at how she spoke about the Serpents.
"It's a free town, Lea. You can't take that away from them." He sighed.
"But we don't go to the Southside! Why should they come up here?" She argued as quietly as she could. The last thing she wanted was to be knocked out cold in the middle of Pop's.
"Northsider's don't go to the Southside out of their own choice. The same reason the Southsider's sometimes come to the North." Jughead shrugged. "It's their choice."
With that, Lea became quiet. She sighed and sat back in the booth with crossed arms.
"Well -" She struggled for words. "Good for them. They better leave me a tip."
Jughead shook his head. "Back to Jason. How are you gonna go round asking Cheryl and Luke?"
"I don't know." She said, looking out the window, observing the parking lot.
"Well, is there anything that you maybe already know?" He asked, fingertips hovering over his keys.
"No, I don't think - wait." She sat up straight suddenly, her blonde curls falling forward. "I went round to Cheryl's house yesterday."
"And what?" Jughead asked.
"Which photo are you thinking of using?" Lea asked softly, holding an old Blossom family photo album in her lap.
On the page in front of her held photographs of Cheryl and Jason when they were around ten or twelve years old. They were both grinning wildly at the camera, arms wrapped around the other. Both, of course, dressed from head to toe in a deep cherry red.
"Something a little more recent." Cheryl said from her space at the bottom of the bed. She too, held an album full of memories.
Lea turned the page to find that she was included in the next few pictures, much to her surprise.
"Oh my god!" She gasped. "This is when you let me ride one of your horses and I almost fell off. Jason caught me and pushed me up just before I slipped!"
Clearly, in what was meant to be an incredible photo of Lea riding one of the Blossom's horses, was a picture taken at exactly the right time. A twelve year old Lea was mid-slide, hanging onto the horses reigns for dear life. The back of Jason could be seen, just coming into shot. His hands gripped the side of Lea, pushing her back upwards. It was truly a picture and a half.
"I didn't even know that I was in your photo albums, that's crazy -" Lea's rambling was cut short at the sound of soft crying.
Her head shot up from looking at the pages to find Cheryl's shoulders shaking.
"Cheryl, are you okay?" She threw the book to the side, back into the bed, before shuffling forward to meet the red head.
As Lea took her place next to her, she wrapped an arm around her best friend, rubbing her shoulder. In front of Cheryl was a page that held two baby photos of Jason, with one huge school portrait on the other side.
"It's okay, Cher." Lea near whispered, pulling back her red locks to tuck behind Cheryl's ears.
"I just miss him, L." She choked, tears streaming down her face. "We've never spent this long apart."
The comment was strange to Lea, as it had only been three days. Of course, the death of a brother is an awful thing to endure, but she was almost positive that Cheryl and Jason had spent weeks apart before this. Jason was always going on football retreats, and Cheryl was always round at Lea's house.
"I'm sure it feels like forever, Cheryl. It's still fresh, and it's alright to lose track of time." She said.
"It's okay." Cheryl said, sniffing slightly. "I'll see him again, soon."
Alert, Lea pulled back slightly. "What do you mean-"
"Oh, no, not like that, L." Cheryl's dark eyes finally met her best friend's in a sudden realisation of what she said. "I just mean, one day, we will meet each other again."
It broke Lea's heart to question Cheryl, especially in such hard times. So, she pushed her queries to the back of her mind and did her best to continue to comfort her friend.
"I still don't understand it." Lea said, wrapping her hands in her hair.
Jughead had been listening to her story very intently, writing down almost every detail. He was more suspicious than ever.
"At least that supports my theory." He sighed as the bell rang again. "Your friends are leaving."
Lea turned around in the booth to find that the Serpents were in fact leaving the diner. They didn't cause too much noise on upon their exit, which surprised her. Before she could turn back around to her old friend, she once again caught the eyes of the tallest Serpent, who was already looking at her as he walked out of the double doors.
With a wink and a smirk, he was gone. Lea let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and almost broke out into a run towards the abandoned table.
With the eight dollars left in spare change on the table came napkin that had been written on, placed on top. Her eyes were drawn to the multiple black scribbles around the napkin, before they landed on a small doodle of a snake with its tongue sticking out. It seemed as though whoever drew it had to have a few tries before they finally realised what a snake looked like. Squinting, it took Lea a few moment to make out the writing in the middle of the napkin - it was admittedly neat.
Service with a smile :)
The sound of a motorcycle revving excessively outside caused her to look up from the wrinkled napkin.
The only thing she saw was the three Serpents speeding out of the parking lot one by one. With their helmets on, she could barely tell who was who. She peered out of the blinds of the diner, watching as they sped down the road, past the train tracks and into the distance.
Rolling her eyes, Lea crumpled up the napkin and placed it in her apron pocket before beginning to clean the table. This would be a hell of a story to tell Kevin.
july 8th, 9:12pm
And tell Kevin she did.
Later that night, Kevin Keller came round to the Lawson household for their biweekly sleepover. The two would order pizza (with sides) and talk about the latest Riverdale gossip. She would never admit it, but sometimes Lea enjoyed it more than hanging out with Luke.
Kevin listened intently as she told him the story of the Serpents, almost choking on the crust of the pizza when she revealed the napkin hiding in her back pocket.
He rushed forward, snatching it from her grip. "Oh my god. You kept it?"
"I thought it was pretty funny." Lea shrugged, watching in amusement as he analysed the napkin.
"You don't find stuff like this funny." Kevin said. "I bet you thought it was pretty cute."
"No." The blonde shook her head. "It's funny. Look at the snake. That's hilarious."
Kevin hummed in disbelief. "Have you shown Luke?" He raised a brow, already knowing the answer.
"Of course I haven't shown it to Luke, Kevin." Lea sighed. "You know he would flip."
The boy placed the napkin down before speaking. "Once again proving that he's not a good boyfriend and you both should break up." He picked up another slice of pizza.
Lea shoved him gently with her foot. "What do you mean, once again?" She asked, also grabbing a slice.
"Do you not remember the time when he left you alone at Moose's party a few months ago?" He furrowed his eyebrows. "All he did was joyride around the town with Jason and Reggie in the backseat. I had to walk you home."
"First of all," She began. "He told me he was leaving and I can't control what he does with his car. Second of all, it only made sense for you to walk me home because we were having a sleepover that night."
"That is beside the point." Kevin sighed. "Besides, all guys on the football team are immediately jerks."
"Archie Andrews is on the football team." She pointed her finger. "Archie isn't the brightest, but he's a swell guy."
"Give him time, he'll have his moment." Kevin finished his pizza slice. Lea chuckled at his comment.
"On the topic of guys, how are you getting on in your summer endeavour's?" She asked.
"Pretty good." He shrugged. "I keep seeing this one guy over and over around town. He's cute, I just haven't been able to get his name."
"What does he look like?"
"Long hair, good eyebrows, and an outstanding hairline." Kevin counted on his fingers.
"So, I suppose hair is your main concern." Lea chuckled.
"Not really, his is just noticeable." He shrugged. The two threw their unwanted crusts into the empty cardboard box. "Do you think you'll ever change your drab, blonde locks?"
"Excuse me," Lea gasped. "They're not drab." She got up to shove the box in the trash.
"I'm just saying." Kevin sat up, hugging a pillow. "You need a change. C'mon, it's sophomore year. Spice things up a bit!"
"I'm comfortable at my current level of spice, thanks." She sat back down on the bed.
Kevin sighed dramatically. "You'll get there. I mean, look at you. You're falling in love with Serpents today, tomorrow you're dying your hair blue and calling yourself L-dog."
Lea moved to throw a pillow in his direction, which he blocked with his own. "You have permission to hit me if I ever call myself L-dog."
"Don't worry." Kevin agreed. "I will."