A thought hit Sweet Pea three days into watching Jughead and those little blips of color that he didn't even know he carried around.
How the hell did anyone really know what they were putting on each day?
Theoretically, you sort of did. Clothing companies, along with material content, size, and washing instructions that Sweet Pea never paid any attention to, also put the color name on the tag, to make it easier to shop.
There were some issues with this, ones that had been discussed to death.
One; companies weren't bound by any promise to be truthful. So yeah, a company could just wake up and decide chaos and write all the wrong colors on tags. Unless someone who could see color took the time to call them out, and if you could see color why were you looking at the tags, this system was built on trust.
Sweet Pea didn't trust people.
Two; sometimes, companies got too into it. And they wrote color descriptions that were entirely unhelpful. Like…'ponderosa'. What the hell color was a ponderosa? Or…Razzmatazz.
Whoever named a shirt color 'Razzamatazz' needed to be fired. On the spot. Sweet Pea wasn't even sure that was a real word, let alone color.
They'd all had Color Theory as kids. An entirely depressing class, but it was the same way people took philosophy and duked out what they thought existed. That's how color theory felt.
So theoretically he knew that colors like yellow and purple would look okay together because they were complimentary. And they'd all be schooled on what pants colors looked good with these top colors and that's just how people got dressed. If you cared; that is.
Sweet Pea didn't care. He also solved this problem by staying, usually, to a strict set of colors…grays, blacks, and more black.
Easy, right?
Well, as he caught glimpses of Jughead's shirts, he was hit with the thought that somehow Jughead's clothes matched. And yes, Jughead had quite a collection of just 'black' 'gray', and 'white' in his rotation too, but more than that he had mossy greens, rich browns, and navy blues. And they always looked good together; even when he wore flannels, which could be really difficult because obviously, it had a lot of colors to contend with there.
It made Sweet Pea think about his own outfits in passing. Enough to give him pause and actually read tags as he put his outfit on, something he'd stopped doing in fifth grade.
He didn't want his soulmate to think he was an invalid that couldn't match his own clothes, even if he'd never seen any of his clothing in any hues other than grayscale before.
Selfishly, Sweet Pea was a bit excited to see the items in his life explode in color for the first time; his favorite flannel, his stuffed shark that he'd been given when he was three that sat on his shelf, and his fluffiest pillow.
He'd never thought about how strange it was that he just had…no idea what this world really was, specifically his world.
As he ran his thumb over the tag, reading the colors, he wondered if Jughead read his tags too, or if it was just dumb luck he managed to put outfits together at all.
XXX
Sweet Pea spent the entire next week catching touches of color all over Jughead. It followed him to school each morning. It was in the creases of his clothes, on his neck, and in his hair. The color was everywhere.
"Why do you stare at Jughead so much?" Toni observed.
"I'm not," Sweet Pea hissed, clenching his fists, having realized for the first time via Jughead's shirt what the color 'teal' was.
"You have a crush on him?" Toni teased, "Didn't know you swung that way, but hey, welcome to the club."
"I don't," Sweet Pea said, "I just...he…" He almost told, but instead, bit his tongue back, "I'm just trying to figure the little asshole out."
"If you keep staring like that," Toni advised, tapping his shoulder as she got up from the lunch table, "People will start to talk."
He swore and threw the bird at Toni, but deep down, he knew it was true.
But god, if Toni knew the truth…she would wonder why he wasn't looking at Jughead all damn day.
More than that, Sweet Pea felt like he was playing with fire.
He toed the line with how much he could touch Jughead (ew, gross, not that way) throughout the day, leaving his trace on Jughead so when he went to his friends at Riverdale High, his soulmate among them, they might be reminded that their soulmate was a Southsider.
Jughead knew that Sweet Pea hated him.
Sweet Pea was not subtle.
So it was certainly interesting to see how much Sweet Pea could brush, gently slap, or nudge Jughead every day before he started getting weird looks. Or worse, how long he could play this game until Jughead - who was not dumb- might start to piece it together.
"What's your problem, man?"
Ah, today, it was not even lunch, and Sweet Pea had hit his daily 'touch' limit.
"What's your damage, dude?" Sweet Pea rolled his eyes, playing it off.
"You've been poking me all week. Is this hazing? Is that it? For the Serpents?"
Fangs guffawed, "Oh, hazing is much worse than just poking, Jones," He said, snorting.
"Just trying to piss you off," Sweet Pea said, shrugging, packing up his English Class materials, giving a sly smirk.
"It's fucking working," Jughead snapped back.
"Didn't know you were so easy to rile up. I'm disappointed," Sweet Pea said, and took a chance as he passed, hoping his shoulder would leave a nice imprint for whoever was seeing these colors after school. He wondered if she was playing this game too, leaving color for him.
It had to be someone Jughead liked, otherwise he would have stopped them just like he stopped Sweet Pea today.
It certainly narrowed down the options.
"I'm in a pissy mood. Fuck around and find out," Jughead said, shoving back.
Sweet Pea, who had a track record of getting into fights, considered how satisfying it would be to kill two birds with one stone. Give whoever was seeing Jughead a glimpse of what his face looked like, albeit slightly bruised, and get the opportunity to punch the jerk.
Toni, who saw the look in his eyes, pulled him away.
"Sorry, Jug. Sweet Pea's just being dumb." She said, sending Sweet Pea furious looks as she tugged him out of the classroom.
"Do you want to start a fight? Get suspended?" She demanded.
"Well, actually…" Sweet Pea shrugged, rubbing his chin.
"No. The answer is no, Sweet Pea!" She threw her hands up, "God! Since he arrived here, you've been acting really weird."
"I start fights all the time."
"Not with Serpents," Toni hissed angrily, "Whatever deal you have with Jughead…figure it out, draw a map to it, build a bridge…and then get over it. I'm saying that as a friend."
Sweet Pea sucked in, watching Jughead follow Fangs to the lunch room, trying to ignore how his beanie shone a colored gray under the lights. His jaw twitched.
Toni followed his gaze.
"You really hate him."
"Yeah," Sweet Pea growled.
"Why?"
"We don't have the time in the world, Toni," He said, but in reality, he wasn't quite sure how to explain the jealousy that his soulmate got all of his attention, and he still didn't have a single clue who she was.
xxx
One week into Jughead at his new school and Betty was pretty sure she was going insane.
Two weeks in and she was absolutely sure.
Here's why.
In the first week, she began to wonder if her soulmate was sending her messages.
Not letters slipped into Jughead's bag, as romantic but also supremely messed up as that would be. No, that would be too…obvious.
She's pretty sure he's sending her messages on Jughead's clothes, little brushes of his body to light Jughead's shirts or jackets or bag up like a Christmas Tree.
It's almost romantic. Like…like he's sending her little gifts home every day.
Okay, so it's still really fucked up.
He's using Jughead as an unknowingly consenting mule to reach out to her; to send messages to his soulmate on the back of her current boyfriend.
Which begs a question; does he know that his soulmate is Jughead's girlfriend?
She asks Jug if any of the Serpents know about her.
"Sides my dad and maybe Tall Boy?" Jughead squints, thinking, "Naw. I mean, we're not 'Facebook Official' or any other stupid social media thing like that. I just don't talk about you. Not because I'm embarrassed," He adds quickly, "But…I like them not knowing. I like that I don't have to share the best part with them."
Betty is warmed and her heart thuds, of course. Despite all this, she does still love Jughead.
Love does not just turn on and off when one wishes it. Even with the knowledge that her soulmate is out there, and very close, she still desperately feels things for Jughead that she can't imagine her soulmate ever taking over.
So her soulmate must be deducing that she's somewhere within Jughead's circle of close friends, and hoping, maybe, she'll see.
She knows if she were to tell anyone, they'd tell her that thinking he was sending messages because Jughead's hat had a splotch of color on it was a ridiculous assumption.
The fact that she (as much as she tells herself this is not why she's become more touchy-feely with Jughead of late) sends him little colors returned certifiably damns her to the nut-house.
But the reason why she is absolutely certain of her theory and why she's even crazier to think so is the second week on.
There are no more colors on Jughead.
Almost specifically no colors.
Here's what Betty is thinking. If it had just been someone accidentally brushing against Jughead or casually touching him, with no thought to the fact he was leaving marks, Betty would brush it up to the universe being very cruel to her. But that's just it. All those marks could have just been a coincidence. But for them to abruptly stop appearing, cold turkey, as though someone is purposely trying not to touch Jughead?
Betty is more sure of what was happening and the fact that it's not occurring now.
With this in mind, Betty pulls out her diary and opens it to a clean page.
As a journalist, she prides her own skills in investigating and analyzing any situation. Why can't she do the same here?
She knows a few things about her soulmate.
One; he is a Serpent.
Two; he is around her age.
Three; he is aware that his soulmate is someone who hangs out with Jughead.
Four…
She thinks of the dogs on Jughead's shirt last Friday like someone was poking him, and she thinks of the shitty mood Jughead had been in when he arrived home. And she remembers how there had been no more colors since. Thus…
Four; He is someone who is daring and takes risks…almost foolishly
And lastly, Five; He is someone who Jughead likely doesn't enjoy very much.
It could be easy. She could ask Jughead to list off the Serpents he wants to punch in the face. If Jughead's in a bad mood, he'd say all of them. If she caught him in a good mood, he might answer seriously.
Yes, there might be more than one, but at least that would narrow it down significantly, wouldn't it?
She looked at her list with caution.
She could figure this whole thing out by the next Monday if she just appeared at Jughead's school. Why drag this out? Why not just make it easy?
Her own horror snapped her back to reality.
With a harsh slam of her diary, she closed the list away along with any lingering, stupid ideas.
If she loved Jughead enough, she didn't give a shit and certainly didn't care about finding out who it was.
There were be no more sleuthing, no more detecting, and no more traitorous ideas of confronting this head-on.
So the matter was put to rest.
But it never stopped her from wondering.
XXX
Betty paused, about to knock on the door of Jughead's trailer.
Until she heard laughter from inside.
It sounded…it sounded like a girl's voice.
Anger and betrayal swirled deep inside Betty. She knew Jughead had seemed distant, lately, but my god…he knew she was coming over. Was this her plan? Have her break up with him so he didn't have to do it himself? Like a coward?
She would not open that door. She would not see Jughead in a compromising positing with someone else, she refused to.
You have your soulmate waiting anyway, A voice whispered to her, and with a flutter of hope, she wondered if she might run into him now that she was at Sunnyside. She usually arrived at Jughead's trailer and stayed cooped up the entire time, but now she fancied herself a stroll around, just to get enough time to track down a hint of color and, like tugging on a loose thread on a sweater, untangle the whole thing and let it lead her to him.
She had convinced herself of this plan just as Jughead opened his door.
"Betty! I thought you were late and I thought, 'damn, Betty's never late'. I was almost worried." He said, smiling, grasping her wrist to kiss her.
"I didn't want to intrude and interrupt you and your…" She pursed her lips, searching for the right word. She could go very cruel and call the girl a whore, but she wasn't brave enough for that. So she just settled on, "Female friend."
"Why would you be interrupting us?" Jughead asked, scratching his head. At Betty's furious expression, he winced, "Ah, babe, remember, I told you about Toni."
Betty stayed solidly on the threshold of the trailer, "Yes, you have." Was it worse that he was being so open about who it was? It would make sense. They spent a lot of time together at school. It was only natural, perhaps, for a romantic connection to form.
"You know…the photographer for the newspaper I'm trying to get off the ground?" He asked slowly. Betty blinked. She had known that, somewhere, but her brain had jettisoned it out at the first sight of possible heartbreak.
"Oh…" She said slowly. But wait; that didn't mean a damn thing. It still-
"I texted you. And asked if you'd be okay with her going over some picture choices with me here. Easier to just walk across the street than wait for school. When you didn't answer, I assumed it was okay. I can ask her to go."
Betty fished her phone from her pocket.
Yes, she did have a text. A text she hadn't felt in the fabric linings of her bomber jacket.
She felt stupid. She felt like she was the traitorous one; so ready to jump ship and go find that person out there that fate apparently said she was meant to be with.
Betty steeled herself, forcing a smile, "I overreacted. No, it's fine. I know how much you care about the paper." She said sincerely.
"Awesome, thanks," Jughead said, kissing her cheek, "Come in! Grab a drink. I just ordered pizza." He said, waving her into the house.
"Hiya!"
There was a bright, chirping voice from the couch.
Betty spun to see a girl with a wide smile and bright eyes with a spread of photo stills in front of her. She was welcoming, and Betty pushed down the twinge that wanted to snap that she had no right. Betty was Jug's girlfriend, and she should be welcoming people into his space.
"Hi…" Betty said hesitantly, blinking at her.
"Jughead, you've been holding out!" Toni called after Jug, who was finding his wallet in his bedroom for the pizza when it arrived, "She's fucking beautiful, man!"
"Hey, hey," Jughead called back, at ease, "Stick to your own lane, Topaz!"
"You know I drive on both sides of the street, Jug," Toni teased, and winked at Betty, "No one even knew old Jughead here had a girlfriend until he told me two seconds before you arrived. But hey; I'd want to keep her locked away too. We can be a bit rowdy." She giggled.
"I'm happy to meet one of Jughead's new…friends," Betty said, forcing herself to make an effort, sitting down in the armchair, "Gosh, those are gorgeous!" She said, catching the photographs.
"Not my best work," Toni said, "I really don't mean to like…be that person, but I'm serious. I think I could do better in the next article. Fingers crossed we get it running again. I was so jazzed to be on the journalism team until I got to Southside and found out it closed a year before I started high school." As Toni talked, she reached for her scrunchie holding it in a messy bun on top of her hair, and as it fell in tresses down her back, Betty saw it.
Bright, electric, punk pink highlights.
And as Toni is leaning over, explaining what could be improved upon on this photo and this composition and this lighting, Betty sees it…color splashed all the way down her back and over her shoulders.
She is drenched in little bits of color.
Everywhere.
"You okay, girl?" Toni asked, tilting her head.
"Your hair…" Betty whispered, the words tumbling out before she could stop it, "I…uhm…who cuts it?" She said, catching herself at the last moment. If she said anything about the pinkness of it, it would be a dead giveaway.
And then Toni would probably freak out because soulmates were a big thing, and she'd ask Jughead why he didn't say he saw color.
Then…the whole ugly truth would come out.
From there, hell, it wouldn't take long. How many men touched Toni Topaz's hair and lived to tell the tale? Betty guessed not many.
Yeah, that would be a way to find him…if Betty wanted to implode her entire world.
Err; no thank you.
"My dad cuts it," Toni said with a strange laugh, "I'll send him my regards."
Betty nodded, pulling into herself, closing her eyes, and swallowing back jealousy.
This had to be fate, right?
If her soulmate had to watch Jughead appear with color everywhere every day, Betty had to be tortured similarly, by knowing that whoever she was fated to be with had a pretty casual friendship with Toni.
She seemed like the type. Not a whore, like Betty had thankfully not blurted, because she didn't deserve that. Just someone who made friends with guys easily. Sure, Betty had Archie…but they grew up together, that didn't count. And Kevin also didn't count. No, Toni seemed like the sort of person that effortlessly just glided into a group of guys, as shown by her already easy relationship with Jughead. It had taken far longer for Betty to crack him, the kid she'd known all her life than apparently, Toni had.
And in this, she did feel a bit upset.
Betty bit her lip so hard to keep from blurting out something relating to color, something she knew she'd regret, that she bit right through her lip.
XXX
It took Sweet Pea a frustratingly long time to put the pieces together.
If anyone ever found out, Sweet Pea would explain it away with one very simple explanation. He was sort of dumb.
But no, he knew that wasn't it.
He could be pretty dumb at all the worst of times, true, but more than that…it was a survival technique. A truth he didn't truly want to admit because admitting that would send a tsunami of consequences, realizations, and acknowledgments down upon him
He didn't have time for all of that, you know? Having a soulmate was great in theory, but he was being asked to watch over the son of a man he respected greatly (but hated the kid), while also watching said kid run face-first into totally stupid situations, like the Ghoulies. Plus, the father of this kid was in jail, which jeopardized everything Sweet Pea had built his life on.
There was a reason that few Serpents dated. It was just… time-consuming. And time was a luxury none of them had much of.
On this day, if you asked Sweet Pea how many grudges he held against Jughead Jones, Sweet Pea would surely rival Martin Luther with his list of complaints. And, as he walked into school, he had no way of knowing that there would be one more.
This realization came at lunch.
He was distracted; the soulmate must have helped him pack his meal, or something because Sweet Pea was realizing what the color of a Zebra Cake was for the first time.
Not exciting. Still black and white. But 'soulmate' black and white (always looked fancier).
This meant that zebras themselves, logically, were black and white, which he was coming to grapple with. Yeah, they'd been told that all their lives, but there was a pretty large group of people that were convinced that was a conspiracy and anyone who said otherwise was paid off or in on it.
The idea of zebras being bright orange and puke green with a hint of red undertones wasn't something Sweet Pea really prescribed to, it was more for the meme of it. Still, he hated Jughead on principle for ruining that fantasy of his.
That's not the thing he'd add to the list... or not the big one.
Anyway, he was watching Jughead bite this damn zebra cake, so he was watching how his fingers; dipped all over, like he'd stuck his hand in colored paint, was carefully picking the zebra cake up and bringing it to his lips to chew it as he argued with Toni about what the title for their news article should be.
That's when some neuron fired in Sweet Pea's brain that he could tell what color Jughead's lips were.
There had been the passing through a while ago that the pieces of color on Jughead seemed alarmingly intimate, but then again, he thought about how often he poked and prodded Toni to annoy her, so he threw out that fear, perhaps because he didn't want to think about that.
But not it was undeniable.
Whoever his soulmate was had kissed Jughead recently.
Taking an unpleasant stroll through memory lane, he realized that he'd always sorta known what color Jughead's lips were, a surefire sign that this wasn't just a one-off.
"Sweet fucking Jesus," Sweet Pea hissed under his breath.
"You okay?" Jughead asked, and for the life of him, Sweet Pea suddenly felt ill. Nauseated even. Perhaps it was the idea that anyone wanted to kiss Jughead, or maybe it was the knowledge that his soulmate's lips specifically had touched his damn near nemesis, but in reality, he felt a little twinge of jealousy curl up inside of him, causing him to lock his jaw and stare Jughead down with a fury.
"Nothing," He said, though his scowl and intense glare said exactly the opposite.
Luckily, Jughead was used to Sweet Pea treating him so, and Jughead just rolled his eyes and finished eating the Zebra cake, turning to ignore Sweet Pea entirely.
His soulmate was at best a girl that Jughead kissed here and there and at worse his girlfriend.
Jughead had never talked about a significant other. With the way that he moped about, Sweet Pea assumed he was too emo or asexual and that suited Sweet Pea just fine to think that. But apparently, somehow, neither was true.
This didn't give him a name, but it gave him the most concrete evidence he'd ever gotten on his soulmate before. All of lunch, his stomach churned with this knowledge and he restrained himself from leaping over the table, grasping Jughead by his shirt and demanding he tells him who he'd been making out within the last few days.
And then punching him. Not for her honor, because he was guessing it was consensual, but because it would sure as hell make him feel better.
After lunch, he cornered Toni.
"Jughead's dating someone, isn't he?" He demanded. One of Toni's eyebrows shot up as she scanned her friend cautiously.
"Uhm, hello to you too, Sweets. Yes, I would like you to carry my books to match class." She said, thrusting her stack of textbooks out to him. Grumpily, Sweet Pea took them.
"Never answered."
"Do you care?" Toni laughed but didn't confirm or deny.
"I just…I find it impossible someone could like him! Look at him, he's pathetic."
"He's moody and brooding. Lots of girls find that attractive," Toni said, a weird tone to her voice, "I mean, so I hear," She added hastily when Sweet Pea opened his mouth to comment.
Whether that was entirely true or not, Sweet Paea didn't have the bandwidth for Toni to have a crush on Jughead, so he brushed it under the rug for another day…for the day that dust formed a working mind, became dust bunnies, and then raided the castle that was his inner thoughts to find nothing much.
"Okay, so?"
He nudged.
"Seriously, give it to me straight, Pea. Why would you care?" Toni asked, and he knew his half-excuses and witty jokes wouldn't get him the answer he desired.
But the truth couldn't be said either.
"What does he have that I don't?" He found himself asking, and as the word settled in the air between them, it became true.
What did Jughead have that made his soulmate want to date him, instead of seeking him out? She had to see the colors on him that he carried home in that first week, right? Sweet Pea doubted that she was dumb. Jughead didn't seem like the type to put up with incompetence or stupidity well.
From where it stood, it seemed she had far more information to seek him out than he did. She had to know, definitely, that her soulmate was a Serpent. He only knew that his soulmate was a Northsider.
So…why?
Toni's eyes softened, "They grew up together, I think. That sort of trauma of surviving the Northside prissiness has to count for something." She said with a rueful laugh. An inside joke; for as bad as everyone assumed the Southside to be, he and Toni often argued that growing up like a Stepford Wife must be leagues more damaging to a psyche.
"So he is dating someone," Sweet Pea mumbled, "Do you know her name?"
Toni waffled, "You know…Jughead wouldn't even like me admitting that to you. I think he's protective over her, yeah?"
"Why, because she can't handle big, scary Southsiders?" Sweet Pea snorted his lip curling in anger and hurt at the idea she'd find him dirty or unworthy. Toni laughed, biting her lip.
"Oh, the opposite. I think she could take on all of us and maybe would be a better Serpent than Jughead," Toni said, "I think Jughead just wants some part of his life to stay the same. If he invites her in and drags her into his group here…it's real, then, huh? That his dad might not get out, that he moved from all his friends, that life for him is…different." Toni murmured, "I get it. I sympathize."
"Yeah," Sweet Pea sighed, hating that he totally understood, "Yeah, okay." He sent one last pleading look, "But seriously, no names? We've been friends way longer. I just want to see what sort of girl…" He waved a hand toward where Jughead was going to History, "Finds that attractive."
Toni pulled him into math class, "Nope, not getting anything more out of me."
Sweet Pea knew that if he told her about the colors, that would be the trump card. She'd have to tell him then. And he almost did. The truth, the secret, lingered on the tip of his tongue, just one teensy push from sending it hurtling out and in the middle of his Calculus class until Toni added;
"I'll tell you this though…if she ever wanted to try the other side, I wouldn't exactly turn her down," Toni purred with a wink.
And somehow, this settled and soothed Sweet Pea.
If Toni approved and gave her the very highest stamp of 'yes' which was being attracted to someone, she couldn't be all too bad.
Plus, he had the hope that Toni would get a bigger crush and let something slip down the line.
"You should hang out more, then. With her." Sweet Pea said, hoping she'd pass along information unknowingly or maybe even invite him over once.
"I'm sure you'd love that. Just to piss Jughead off even more."
Sweet Pea, having no other good reason to give, smirked, "You know me so very well, Topaz."