Jughead would like to believe he's not avoiding Veronica but he knows he is. Change is not a sensation he likes and changing his routine to avoid her seems like the lesser of two evils. Well, okay, maybe not evils but lesser of two inconvenient things he would prefer to not have to deal with. He's nothing if not pragmatic about his own ability to compartmentalize
He's very comfortable in his pining for Betty. It's a system he has down and any routine changes are just as likely to throw his world into chaos as they are to make anything better. He watches from afar (or up close, he's really not very picky), he daydreams, he thinks about how Betty might get over Archie one day, he feels bad for Betty every time Archie takes out a new girl, it's a process he's found a niche in. Veronica Lodge, however, seems like just the sort of thing to come along and shake the entire foundation of the bed he's made for himself to lie in.
Which is why he's a little more than mildly uncomfortable when he finds himself sitting with his two best friends and two over observant interlopers at lunch three days post-Veronica. Kevin Keller and Veronica Lodge are the team up nightmares are made of. He thinks about damage control and how to play it cool like nothing ever happened but he's not a great liar in the first place so just staying quiet seems like his best bet.
That's if he's lucky and they let that happen. Which means, of course, that there's no way that's going to happen.
As he sits in quiet contemplation of the pretty pink sweater Betty is wearing that is doing wonderful things for her eyes he can feel the heat of Veronica's stare.
"Can I help you, Veronica?" he gives in and asks. A terrible decision in retrospect but he's not known for his decision making abilities.
"Why yes, Jughead, yes you can. As I said, had you been listening and not been thinking about whatever it is you think about, you'd know I've decided to throw a get to know everyone party this weekend. I was simply asking if you could take time out of your busy schedule to attend," Veronica says to him, wearing the same scary look that made him unable to eat his muffins from the other day for at least twenty minutes after receiving them. A true crime, he thinks.
"Yeah, see, parties aren't my thing. Plus I have to work on the weekends."
"You don't like parties?" Veronica asks with a skeptical look.
"Large groups of people I've known since I was five only to have made friends with two of them over the course of a decade? No thanks, Veronica, I'd rather sit through Betty making me watch Mama Mia again, which was terrible enough-."
"Jughead Jones, you liar. First, it's a well known fact you cannot be in a bad mood while ABBA is playing- don't roll your eyes at me! I don't make the rules, Jug, these are just facts. And also, I saw you smiling. Like, three times," Betty interrupts with a shocked and dismayed look on her face.
"You got Jughead to watch Mama Mia, Betty?" Kevin asks with a laugh.
"Of course! Okay, yes, I had to bribe him with food but in the end he watched it and despite what he will say, he liked it."
"Doubt it took much bribing," he hears Veronica say to Kevin under her breath as Kevin looks on in rapture of the conversation.
"First of all, it was Pop's so basically it was as good as giving me actual currency. And second, while I admittedly watched it, I also almost died having to listen to Pierce Brosnan sing so really, Betty, I think you still owe me," Jughead tells Betty with a shudder of reliving that part of the movie.
"Almost died, really?" Betty scoffs at him.
"Yes, I felt the very light of my soul being sucked out with every syllable I was forced to endure."
"So dramatic, Juggie."
"While this argument is cute and I will be tucking it away for posterity, this has nothing to do with my party and Jughead's attendance," Veronica interjects, waving a fry between them to bring the subject back to her.
"Oh, yes, it does," Kevin says, with what Jughead would classify as a Look towards Betty.
Oh god no, Jughead thinks to himself. If only the world would swallow him up and let him perish in peace. That sort of luck is reserved for, well, anyone but him, he assumes.
"And what does that mean, Mr. Keller?" Veronica asks.
"It means the only person who can get Jughead to do anything is Betty. It's always been that way, ever since we were kids. We even had a fight once when he insisted Betty be allowed in our boys only tree house," Archie responds before Kevin can. "If I remember right I threw mud at Jug for it and then Betty threw mud at me in his defense."
"I can't believe you were going to exclude me, Archibald!" Betty exclaims, still offended years later. "I'm not even sorry I buried your GI Joes after that, by the way."
"That was you?! I looked for weeks for them. Uncool, Betty."
"Yes, it was me. And I'll never tell you where they are now, either," Betty tells him, offended for her younger self.
"How did you even get them?" Archie wants to know.
If Jughead could become invisible at this moment, he would. This is ammunition Veronica and Kevin simply do not need. The fact that he smuggled Archie's GI Joe's out to a weepy and red faced Betty in pigtails with a need for revenge is something they agreed to take the the grave. There were pinky swears and brownies consumed in solidarity. That sort of secrecy simply can't be broken.
"That is not important, Archie. The point is that I hope you mourned them because you're never getting them back," Betty says with a look of disdain.
"Poor Ghostrider. What did he ever do to you?" Archie questions, a sad look on his face.
"He was a casualty of war, Archie. Sacrifices had to be made," Betty intones with a passive look on her face. Jughead is trying to fight the smile that wants to overtake his face but he knows he's got an audience and out of sheer force of will he manages to hold it back. "Anyway, Veronica, if Jughead has to work, he has to work. I'm sure he's sorry about missing your party though."
There is moment where Jughead knows the only one who believes that sentiment at the table they're sharing is Betty. He is not sorry about missing the party. He is thankful he has to work. He is praising the part time job gods that it interrupts this scheduled event he knows would be nothing but torture for him.
"Yes, Veronica, truly sorry for missing your shindig," Jughead says to Veronica in a contrite voice that barely qualifies as almost apologetic.
"Shindig? Really?" Veronica asks with a raised brow.
"It's all the old movies he watches, this is nothing. Wait until he starts quoting Tarantino," Archie tells Veronica. "I've had to google things, Ronnie. Can you believe I actually had to google stuff just to keep up?"
"Oh Archiekins. You are...adorable in a whole new way," Veronica responds with a hand on his arm, making Archie smile. If he doesn't look at her, he won't see the hurt on Betty's face so he keeps his eyes forward and decides distraction is key.
"Listen, Archiekins, Tarantino is the godfather of indie movies, he is a king to be respected for his vision and ingenuity of what he brings to the screen."
"Not Hitchcock, Jug?" Betty asks him, handing him the half of her sandwich she wasn't going to eat.
"Hitchcock was a genius when it came to making movies, yes, but he was a hedonistic sexist douche canoe when it came to the women in his films and that is unacceptable," Jughead says, pausing to take a large bite of his newfound sandwich.
"Well aren't you enlightened, Jughead?" Veronica quips with an entertained look on her face. "Still watch them though, don't you?"
"The man is dead, he's nothing but a cautionary tale of twat-wafflery these days so why deny ourselves access to true cinematic poetry?"
"Can we please get back to the party talk?" Kevin asks Veronica, the boredom plain on his face.
"Yes! I'm thinking Saturday night at my place and Betty, you have to come over early to get ready, okay?" Veronica tells Betty with clear enthusiasm.
"Sure," Betty agrees.
At that, Jughead stands up having finished his lunch and tugs on the strap of the bag still wrapped around Betty's arm and says, "Hey, the Blue and Gold waits for no man. Or woman. Person? Eh, either way, we gotta jet."
Betty nods her head at him and he waits behind her while she says goodbye to everyone. He's tempted to put his hand on her lower back as they walk away but he knows he's had this conversation with his brain before. No touching Betty without explicit permission to do so no matter what the betrayal of biology wants him to believe.
"Are we supposed to just ignore that situation or is this something we can move along?" Veronica demanded.
"What situation?" Archie questions.
"Are you serious? Is he serious? He cannot be serious. Kevin, tell me he can see what's going on," Veronica implores with wide eyes to Kevin's amused face.
"Oh Ronnie. He's serious. Sweetly oblivious is his main state of mind," Kevin declared. "What we have is a classic trope of girl wants boy who wants everyone while other boy pines for girl, waiting for her to wake up and smell the fuckboy."
"What are you guys talking about?" Archie asks them, looking confused.
"Don't you worry about it, Archiekins. It'll be fine," Veronica remarks, "Didn't you say you needed to talk to Coach Clayton?"
"Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me, Ronnie," he tells her, grabbing his bag and heading off towards the gym.
"Alright, with our resident Romeo out of the way, what are we going to do? It's almost painful to watch her be totally unaware while watching Jughead look at her the way I look at Louboutins."
"I think Betty thinks she and Archie are endgame out of habit at this point but we know the best plot twists are the ones no one thinks are coming. Betty doesn't see Jughead as an option because he doesn't present himself as one. He doesn't talk to girls, he's never asked anyone out, he keeps to Betty and Archie. Always has. Even when Ethel tried to kiss him in sixth grade he literally ran off and stood behind Betty for the rest of the day."
"Okay, so we have Betty into Archie, Archie into girls in general but not Betty, Jughead into Betty, and Betty not having a clue about Jughead?" Veronica ponders.
"Essentially. We need to break Betty of her Archibald habit, get Jughead to finally do something about Betty, and Archie needs to, I don't know, become more self aware or something."
"So what do we do?"
"We could make Jughead jealous?"
"No. Absolutely not. Not with a guy like Jughead. Archie? Yes. Jughead? He'd internalize it and probably assume the order of things had finally caught up to him. Besides, I think he sort of lives in a perpetual state of jealousy over her and he's not done anything so far. No, I think he'd do something if Betty were clearly over Archie. He's probably planned it out, waiting for the day. I actually feel bad for him now," Veronica sighs resting her chin in the palm of her hand with a sad look at Kevin. "And that beanie? It's not going anywhere is it?"
"Not unless you're willing to get into witchcraft to separate him from it. He's had it for years. As far as I know the only people outside of the Jones household to see it off are Betty and Archie. Either he's hiding a perfect head of hair which would make me hate him or it's where he keeps extra food and both options are entirely possible."
"We need a plan to make this happen."
"That we do," Kevin says to Veronica with a conspiring smile.
In the Blue and Gold office Jughead sat next to Betty at the desk looking over at the papers she had spread out. If they were right, this was big. It could change everything they thought they knew about their town.
A/N: Man, you guys on here are a tough crowd, it's like crickets for feedback. Well, no, that's a lie, crickets make some noise. Anyway, this story is finished so I'll be posting once a day probably but after that, this'll probably be it since the overwhelming silence seems like I'm the only one who digs my stories being on here, hah.