Hope you all are excited about this chapter! All I'll say is this is where the 'M' rating actually starts to come in ;)
Thank you to those who reviewed: Sarai Carrasco, victorialexington, Guest, Chloee0x0, Guest, Ava, NameNature, Guest, and serpentgirl226.
Guest: Indeed it is!
Guest: Super, super slow burn. But don't fear, we're finally getting somewhere.
Ava: Spiritual, yes, but not really like the bible. I do feel as though you're getting close to the first step of the puzzle with that question though!
NameNature: Thank you so much! That's the sweetest comment! I love making SP, and making him a softie-nerd is so much more fun hehe
Guest: I hope you enjoy this new chapter!
serpentgirl226: I just love all of the Office, but gdarn Casino Night always makes my heart happy!
The song for this chapter is We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow by Soko, which although this chapter is in Betty's POV, remember it's Sweet Pea picking the song titles, which might give you a peek inside his mind for later on this chapter.
November 25th, 2018
Betty's teeth chattered. She curled her body all the way up, scrunched in a compact ball, twisting herself to wrap the blanket around her shivering form. The hood of her sweatshirt was pulled over her face, the strings pulled taut. Her fingers pressed into her armpits, desperately seeking the warmth they provided there.
Next to her, she heard Sweet Pea shifting.
"Fucking hell, Cooper," He yawned groggily, "I can literally hear how cold you are."
"Go back to sleep, Sweets." Betty stuttered out firmly, snapping down on her jaw to stifle the sound of her chills. She very firmly and specifically was not looking at him, facing the window.
"We can put some wood in the fire-,"
"Are you cold?"
Sweet Pea moved, and Betty could imagine him dragging his hand over his face as he cussed again.
"If you're an icicle, then it shouldn't matter." He argued angrily, "I can throw off blankets."
"Just like I can get another one," Betty said sharply. It didn't make sense to be using up their firewood already, not when she was perpetually cold.
"Yeah, you're moving really fast," Sweet Pea's voice was sardonic. Betty was thinking very hard about getting another blanket, true, but the bed here was so much warmer than the air out there that it was making it hard to convince herself of this. Not that she found the bed toasty warm, her toes were particularly cold, but outside was a whole other story.
"I'll do it," She grumbled, starting to untangle herself from the heavy quilts, mentally preparing herself to step down on the freezing floor, across the hall to their storage. Before that could happen, Sweet Pea was grasping her middle, pulling Betty firmly against him.
"What are you doing?" Betty choked out, feeling her breath shortened.
"Sharing body heat, because you're absolutely stubborn," He growled, shifting as they both found a way to settle their bodies together.
"Jordan…" Betty breathed out, finding all kinds of problems to this, none she dared admit out loud.
"It's either this or we start putting the fire on during the night too." Sweet Pea said firmly. Betty understood he was serious. She weighed the options. Finally, she sighed.
"You win, okay?" She said, pulling her fingers up to puff warm air into them, "You are warm."
Sweet Pea had managed to find a way where he was keeping Betty right up against him, without being crass. She could feel him adjusting their pillows together to create one long log instead of two distinct sides. His forehead pressed into the back of his neck.
"You comfortable?" He asked, sounding drowsy.
"Yeah," Betty replied quietly, though that wasn't the half of it. She wasn't just comfortable, she didn't want to let him go.
"Good. Now please, go to sleep."
December 7th, 2018
By the time that snow blanketed the world, Sweet Pea and Betty had been spooning for nearly two weeks. Even when they started stoking the fire with a few precious logs, they automatically still eased into each other's arms to fall asleep, sharing the heat between them.
Betty thought about how their lives were just pushing them more and more into each other's arms, literally. Nine hours of the day were spent in each other's arms; one hour watching The Office, eight hours asleep.
Sometimes the bed and room even got overheated; Betty would wake up in the middle of the night, her skin damp with half-dried sweat, the sheets around her legs moist . Sweet Pea was just so warm. She'd scoot over an inch, allowing the cool air to flow, but by the morning she was always in the same place she started.
Sweet Pea had never been shy in engulfing her. He, from the first night, curled her up in his arms like a familiar lover. He didn't shy away, but he was careful not to intentionally stray his fingers too far up or down. There were times, in the middle of the night, where his hand would find her hair, and that motion felt just as intimate as though he was kissing her.
Betty woke up first in the mornings, as previously established. She did her best when she went to sleep to angle her body slightly away from his, but it was a lost cause. He always pulled her flush against him. Because of this, more than once, Betty had woken up to feel his hard-on.
She didn't hold it against him; it was a natural bodily response. She also didn't assume it was because of her. She was only flustered about it when she thought about it in regards to her own personal fantasies.
Usually, she just slid out of the covers before he woke, no problem. Sometimes, though, as she began to stir, he would as well. Mostly asleep, he'd start to rub up against her, just a few sleepy motions. Betty was always so torn, wishing he'd do more and wanting to escape as soon as possible.
She always was more responsible. She peeled herself off him, shook out her dirty thoughts, and started her day.
December 11th, 2018
Veronica's birthday falls early December. She can't describe it, but somehow having an icy birthdate seems appropriate for her sly friend.
Sweet Pea knows. She has all of the important dates— birthdays and anniversaries — saved in Sweet Pea's iPhone, in the calendar section. He filled in his as well, and despite Betty only getting a chance to glance at it on few occasions, she remembers the dates well. She knows that Toni's birthday is near Christmas, so that's coming up too.
Betty has been working on Veronica's stone in her spare time. She hesitates to call it a headstone, for that alludes to a death, whereas she is sure that out of everyone, she'd list Veronica in her top three for surviving this. Cheryl and her own psychotic father brings up the other two. Sweet Pea mentioned once he'd assumed Hiram would have done well, but Betty disagreed. If not for the fact that he was unquestionably dead, he was too much of a villain to have people not come for him. It's like the Purge, you know? Even Sweet Pea, as soon as society fell apart, went looking for blood.
"What 'bout your dad?" Sweet Pea questioned.
He was good, Betty argued, most of his life. Or, people thought him good. After all the news came out, half the town shunned the Coopers. The other half were still staring in slack-jawed disbelief, arguing that Hal Cooper couldn't possibly be a serial killer. Not Hal, who cried at Polly's first communion, or who organized the block party every year, or who was at more of his children's events than their mother. People who argued that they had the wrong guy, how Hal obviously was coerced into giving the Sheriff a victim.
Betty had hated those people more than the people who had egged her house. She'd looked into her father's eyes, she'd seen the evilness there. Someone could be good and bad all at the same time, and her father embodied that more than anyone else she'd ever known.
So no, not a lot of people went looking for her father's head first. If he survived the first few days of chaos, managed to get out of Riverdale or the surrounding cities, he'd be okay.
Betty was still struggling with what she'd do if she ever saw him again; hug him or kill him herself.
Betty thinks that, like her dad, Veronica is just the right mixture of good and questionable to survive this harsh world. She thinks that Veronica might be able to extend this grace to others, that she might have been able to keep Archie alive. Oh, how she hopes.
Next summer, she'll do Jughead's stone justice. She'll paint it just as brilliantly as she does Veronica's. She's not a great artist, she knows, but she's tried. She's covered the entire uneven surface of the front in purple flowers, pears, and a lace pattern with the many cans of paint from the garage. She copied a beautiful font from the front of a book, Veronica's name looking regal where it's printed.
"Don't stay out too long, it's super cold," Sweet Pea says as she bundles up to go outside. Hat, expensive arctic coat, gloves, scarf...the works.
"I won't," She says, her voice muffled by the scarf over her lips. They go out once a week to check traps and hunt. Today they'd opted to stay inside because of the chill. The thermostat is quoting a frigid 18 degrees, but with the windchill, it has to be worse.
To go out and dig the snow out to place Veronica's stone in the hole she's already dug will take ten minutes, tops. She's not going to talk today. They just don't have the time.
It's snowing outside. Betty flexes her fingers to keep the blood flowing through them.
The tree looks sad with no branches, having shed it's summer cape long before now. It looks twisted, like bony fingers, stretching out to greet her.
Betty sets the rock down on the snow next to where she thinks the hole might be and starts to dig.
It's not there, which means that her perspective is out of whack, or somehow it got filled back in. She had taken a little plastic beach shovel with her into the snow, but her hands are already starting to numb.
As she's walking to the left, thinking maybe she switched Veronica's location with Archie's or Polly's, she trips.
It takes a second too long, a terrifying second, to realize it's not that she tripped so much as she has been tripped.
A withered hand grasps at her ankle. Betty's face is full of snow and sort of stings. As the snow melts and the air hits her cheeks, it actually sort of hurts. Or maybe she's scratched herself up.
There's tugging on her ankle, and until Betty turns around, she thinks she's really shoved her foot in a root. The utmost feeling of fear that stops her heart, and then sends it beating unreasonably fast, overwhelmed her. She screams, kicking her feet, hoping to dislodge it from the walker. From the snow, like a spirit rising from the dead, the walker snaps its jaws close to her leg. In her shoving, her pant leg has been pushed up, exposing her flesh. It bites far too close for comfort, Betty only managing to move her leg at the last second.
She's scrambling backwards. Trying to kick the head, but having no success. Her kicks are frantic, imprecise. She has the plastic shovel in her hand and shoves it forward. It lodges in the chest of the walker, but when Betty tries to tug it out, she finds it stuck.
Panic grips her as the walker shakes off the snow. It can't walk great on the snow, but it has enough mobility to be gaining on Betty. In the interim of shoving herself back and the walker advancing, Betty uselessly fumbled with the zipper of her pants, where a box cutter is or a switchblade is always housed, for instances like this. Her fingers are too cold to open it, and she realizes that she's out of options.
Last ditch, and probably stupid, Betty's fingers dig around the snow around her for help.
She brushes against Veronica's stone.
Just as the walker is snapping above her like a rabid dog, Betty takes all her strength to bash it's head in. It collapses on top of her, the stench of death piercing through the sharpness of the snow. She keeps hitting until the head is brownish-black sinew on her chest, until she is sure it's dead.
The rock, once so beautifully painted, is now impossibly smeared with walker guts and basically ruined. But, it saved her life.
Betty doesn't realize she's sobbing, laying in the snow, until she feels a tightness on her cheeks as the tears crystallize into ice. With all the effort left in her limbs, Betty pushes the walker off of her. It's blood is everywhere on her face, gross skull and mushy brain bits in her hair. She figures that this noise would have brought more walkers up from them ground, if they were there, so she's safe.
There's a tear in the chicken wire near the tree, a place where a falling tree branch has left a nice open door for any unfriendliness. Betty cannot fathom fixing this right now, in her current state, so she trudges up back to the house.
Sweet Pea is already meeting her halfway, coat half-way on, eyes wide.
"You never came back," He breathed out, "Betty, what-,"
"The fence is down," Betty said simply, "I'm going to go take a bath."
"You take care of that, I'll go fix the fence." He says without question. Before Betty slips past him, he grasps her, pulling her against his chest.
"You'll get dirty," she weakly protests.
"Fucking hell, you think I care? I'm just glad you're safe."
He holds onto her for way longer than normal, but Betty just feels numb. Numb cold and numb emotionless. She just stands there.
When he pulls back, there's a moment of unsureness in his posture, as though he's not sure what he wants to do next. There's a jolted movement, one where Betty thinks he maybe was going to kiss her- not her lips, but her head or her cheek or give her some reassurance. However, he ends up just stepping back completely, wiping an ungloved hand over her cheeks, rubbing away some of the scum there. She feels like she should scold him, or give him her oversized gloves, since she won't need them in the house. This thought only hits once she's already inside and she turns back, watching Sweet Pea zip up his jacket and stuff his hands in his pockets, his breath clouding in front of him.
Betty goes straight for the bathroom. She strips off her dirty clothes and jacket throughout the house, leaving them like a twisted crumb trail to herself. Her feet drags mud, blood, and water through the carpets, onto the hardwood floors. She stands naked in the master bath, staring at the splattered pattern across her face, the tendrils of she didn't even want to know what hanging from her hair. She took the effort to heat bath water, despite the misuse of the resources of water, time, and firewood, but something inside her was very close to breaking and she didn't know why.
She wipes most of the guck off before even submerging herself in the water. She uses a towel and a bucket of cold water to take off as much as she can. She waits until the water is steaming, almost too hot to be enjoyable. She fills it up so that if she lays in the master bath, she'd be nearly completely submerged.
When she steps into the water, it stings before her skin acclimates. She crawls into the porcelain tub, limbs shaky like a newborn foal. The water started to muddy, turning a putrid black-red-brown hue that, to Betty, looked like death.
Like she had no bones at all, as she curled up into a fetal egg shape, she tipped and slipped over until she was submerged with just her neck above the water. Her lip quivered for a couple seconds before she couldn't hold it in any longer. She pressed her hand across her mouth to try to stifle her crying, though she didn't know why. She doubted Sweet Pea would be sitting there teasing her.
A certain sadness mixed with anger washed through her.
Back in Riverdale, she always used to sort of judge Veronica. Okay, so she judged people all the time, but she often tried really hard not to judge her best friends, as she knew it was one of her most annoying qualities. She teasingly judged Jug when they were dating, she only judged Archie when he was doing something stupid (but, as they'd gotten older, that was all the time it seemed), but Veronica was often free from her raised eyebrows and disbelieving 'hmms'.
Except when it came to Hiram Lodge.
She thought she'd never understand it. Veronica was one of the few people that Betty felt matched her own intelligence when it came to book smarts as well as practical life skills that wasn't completely insane (read; Cheryl Blossom). She always knew that Veronica could do anything she sets her mind to, rich or poor, she'd accomplish it. She had that sort of aura around her, of someone who people wanted to listen to, wanted to lead them. She had everything going for her...so why did she always try so hard to please her father?
Hiram Lodge was a bad guy. He was a cartoon villain. He was a fucking mob boss and had tried, on more than one occassion, to kill Veronica's high school boyfriend. If any of those previous things seemed totally okay to someone, and they shouldn't have, it was more than that he was just a toxic guy when it came to normal aspects of his life.
Yet, Veronica wanted to emulate him so much. For as many times as she bitched and moaned to Betty about whatever ploy he had going currently, Betty saw her trying to model herself around him...even if she was doing it unconsciously. The desire to make him see her was so deeply ingrained that Betty feared she may never be free of him.
But even when she had chances, she hesitated. When there were times that Betty would have never talked to that man again, as she was firmly settled with her own father (who, when comparing, was equal or less to the havoc and misery Hiram had caused, and that was saying a lot), Veronica hesitated. She hovered. She hemmed and hawed.
She couldn't let her dad go.
Betty used to think her mad. She used to judge her outright, without guilt. It wasn't right. Veronica was wrong.
However…
Whatever skills Veronica had to survive had come from her father. While these skills had been deplorable in Riverdale, they were necessary at the end of the world. The very reason that Betty considered Veronica still likely alive today was entirely thanks to her father, and the ways that he'd taught her to be ruthless and slightly selfish.
Hiram saved Veronica, even if he did not know it. Or maybe, somehow, he did. As much as Veronica tried to cleave herself from him, she'd become him. Hopefully a better version, but a frankenstein Hiram nonetheless.
When Betty and Polly were younger, their father was a hands-on dad. He played dress-up with them, he let them paint his nails hot pink, he was amazed by every shitty drawing they gave him for the fridge. He'd always prefered Polly.
No, prefer wasn't the right word.
He'd always made a bigger effort with Polly. He hadn't needed to with his younger daughter. Betty and Hal simply...understood each other. As child, Betty had always preened when her and her father were consistently on the same wavelength. After it all had come out in the open, Betty had just felt sick to her stomach. She remembered, right after Polly had heard, she'd looked at Betty and just for a second, just for a moment, the way she was looking at Betty was as though she was seeing her father standing before them.
Betty never forgot that fear in her eyes.
Polly was never meant for this world. She was hardly built for the tough knocks she was given in Riverdale. Had their town never made the front page, never gotten tangled up in anything under the board, Polly would have thrived. Her teen pregnancy would have been the most gossiped thing, and even that would have gotten old soon. She wasn't built to survive in the apocalypse.
Alice wasn't, not anymore. At Betty's age, when she was a Serpent, she probably would have managed fine. However, years of living on the Northside with a plush job had likely softened her. Betty had more faith in her than Polly, but not much.
Betty had survived so far, because like Hiram and Veronica, she was her father's daughter. That was something she would never shake. It was an unwavering truth.
She may hate it, she may want to vomit at the thought, but it was true.
She could have died today. She could have easily met her end, as she had nearly done time and time and time before.
The world was cruel enough before the dead walked the earth. Now? It was ruthless. It was not built for the faint of heart.
She could despise her father but take what had been given to her. She would survive, she had to.
It was in this moment that Betty truly felt like a member of the Southside Serpents for the first time in her life. She counted back, realizing that as time had molded her, it had shed her skin in different ways, making way for the person reflected in the bathwater today.
She had started as Elizabeth Cooper; a young child, innocent, unaware of the darkness that lurked in every inch of Riverdale. Then, she'd become Betty Cooper in elementary school; still young, but finding her way, forming that bond with her father as the pair of them stayed up late watching campy horror movies and fixing cars. She'd also formed her first friendships with Archie then, stepping into a role that people followed. Then, in highschool, Betts, when she was with Jughead. She'd broken laws, twisted lies, scrapped and climbed and never let the truth get away before Betty had her hands on it. She'd faced unimaginable trials, and come out alive. It was the first time that she had realized that terrible things could occur and she would survive.
And now? Now she really 'got' what it meant to have a Serpent nickname. It wasn't just a cute little title. It was her armor holding everything in and facing outward. It was the culmination of everything in her past leading her up to this very moment, and everything she'd need going forward to make it another day, and then a day past that, and then a day past that. It was accepting her father as her blood, as part of her life.
It was like he'd taught her to do with old, junked cars; take what is useful to you, don't look back on what is not. She would reap the parts of her father that made him survive, like a goddamn cockroach...maybe leave out the megalomaniac that decided it was fair and just to kill people he'd known his entire life that, mostly, hadn't done much wrong. There had to be a balance somewhere, Betty believed this wholeheartedly.
Her bathwater had long grown cold, and to be honest, was just unpleasant now. Betty sat up, grabbing the soap sitting on the counter, rubbing herself down. It was the cleanest she'd felt in weeks. She felt reborn, squeaky-clean and new. She rubbed until her whole body was pink, until no one would have been able to tell that she'd been in a fight with a walker earlier this morning.
She felt better. She felt stronger.
It was not Betty Cooper who stepped out of that tub. It was Arainrhod.
December 15th, 2018
It's not as though she was entirely a different person now, it was just that she felt as though she understood what it meant to have a nickname. It was easier to curl up inside yourself when you had protection; a leather jacket to keep people from hurting your physical body, a nickname to keep people from getting too close to you.
She practiced this from time to time, closing the Betty side away and watching her expression in the mirror change. Her skin didn't ripple unnaturally, her face didn't morph, but when she was Arainrhod, she was markedly different. She could only think that Sweet Pea was a master of mapping his mind, because this shit was hard.
She wasn't Arianrhod all the time. She could see it being useful if they came across others, or if they had to venture out again.
But when she was just here with Sweet Pea? No, when she was just here with Jordan? There was no need on either of their parts.
The Office continued to be a favorite nightly activity, even if Betty tried very hard to ignore that kiss. Whenever Pam and Jim did something, it did make Betty's stomach churn, since she now tied the fictional relationship to her own with Sweet Pea, whatever it actually was. Still, the antics of Dunder Mifflin were soothing enough to relax Betty and Sweets before bed. Sometimes, it made her a little sad to look on this show and remember that the world didn't exist like this anymore, but it was a strange feeling. Sort of like watching the Harry Potter movies and mourning that Hogwarts didn't exist. The universe that The Office existed in felt fictional to her, which was crazy, since before this whole apocalypse, walking dead would have been straight out of a horror movie and nothing more.
Mid-December, they were lounging on the couch with practically sixty blankets over them. Or, that's how it felt. Around the start of the episode, the wood in the fireplace had started to feel less warm. It's only finishing this episode now that they realized how chilly the room had gotten.
"I'm cold," Betty whined.
"Well damn, Betty, I can't control the weather," Sweet Pea tilted his head back against the couch edge, "You think we could find a box set of That 70's Show for next winter? We are in Wisconsin, it would be appropriate."
"I'm sure someone here has to have it," Betty chuckled, "But seriously," She whined.
"I was serious too. I'm super comfortable right now."
Betty stuck out her tongue at him, "Lazy-ass."
Sweet Pea didn't move an inch, "I could say the same to you." He ran his fingers through his black hair. He really needed a hair-cut. She might be able to talk him into one in the next couple days. She'd gotten actually fairly decent at cutting hair, at least her own. How hard could a guy's head be? Not that he wasn't attractive like this. He was always attractive, that was the issue.
"Rock, paper, scissors?" Betty held up a fist on her flat palm. He moaned like she'd just asked him to do something truly arduous, like run a mile outside.
"Fine," He drew the word out like a petulant child, "On scissors or shoot?" He asked, an all important question.
"Shoot," Betty said automatically.
"Damn right," He winked, "That's the only acceptable manner. Now. Rock, paper, scissors-shoot!" They chanted the last bit in unison.
Sweet Pea threw out a rock, Betty threw out scissors. She pouted as he lightly tapped her outstretched fingers.
"Two out of three?" She asked. The dry, flat look he gave her told her she'd lost. Darn it. She looked at the fireplace, which seemed so far away, mentally preparing herself.
"Betty," Sweet Pea teased, lightly nudging her arm.
"Okay, okay." Betty says, staring up at him, starting to shake off the mountain of blankets. He looked more casual than she could ever recall; a pair of joggers that fit his body far too well and a plain white t-shirt. He'd taken off all of his accessories; his multiple rings he used to wear in a box near the bed. The only jewelry left was his dog tags, glinting across the light of the house.
"You don't seem to be moving," Sweet Pea chuckled, and Betty admitted to herself she enjoyed being snuggled up against him far more than she should.
"I'm going," She growled, running her hand through her hair, tightening her ponytail, out of her face. She shoved off all the blankets, much to Sweet Pea's distress, "Hey! If I have to be cold for ten seconds, so do you, pal," She said, purposely and almost-flirily kicking all the blankets a foot away. If he wanted to cover himself again, he'd have to work for it, goddammit. From Sweet Pea's expression, she knew he wouldn't. She set the video player on one side of her. The kitchen was easiest to access to her left, past Sweet Pea.
"Move your legs," She said, patting where his legs have made a very immovable bridge from the couch to the side table.
"Unlikely," Swee Pea says back, slouching down further to show his stubbornness. Something like a rebellion flared inside of Betty. She's not sure why she thought it was a good idea, but instead of getting up and walking around the sofa like a normal person, Betty swung her legs to try to vault over Sweet Pea instead.
Sweet Pea clearly wasn't expecting this. Betty wasn't expecting herself to do that either, but it's like her brain just clicked off for a second. Or like a ghost took hold of her physical form and decided to do something that would only end badly, she considered.
He jolted, causing Betty's mini-leap to stop in its tracks. She nearly fell on top of him, but Sweet Pea managed to grab her before she knocked foreheads with him. The relief of not inducing a bloody nose on either of their parts and her wonderment of why she tried to do this overshadowed her situation, but not for long.
She was basically straddling him. No, she corrects herself, there is no basically about it. Her knees pressed on either side of his thighs and Betty was situated right on his lap. The smart thing to do would to laugh awkwardly about it and just hop off, but the heavy swallow of Sweet Pea paused her.
Fucking hell, it's the way he looked at her.
They both seemed to have stopped breathing at the same second, likely the moment that their hips connected. Sweet Pea's eyes were wide and panicked at first, but after a second they settled into something warm, molten, and wanting.
His hands, which had reached out to steady her, now rested on the skin of her exposed upper leg, where her sports shorts had ridden up. Betty wasn't even sure if he knew what he was doing, but his thumbs started to trace soft patterns over the skin. Like he was following a drawing, a constellation, an invisible line that spiraled all over her flesh.
His movements were reverent, soft, careful. It's everything that Betty completely did not think would happen, and there's something about this that caused her to feel very warm, despite the chilly temperature of the room around them. It's enough to make her momentarily forget her reason for traversing Sweet Pea, albeit badly.
When his thumb brushed up against the lace of her underwear, around her legs, Betty couldn't help but groan a little and rocked her hips forward onto his.
This stopped his movement. She wished he'd continue the ministrations, as although it felt like he had lit flames under her flesh, the lack of he heat left her needing.
Instead, Sweet Pea leaned forward, pressed his forehead to hers. His breathing was heavy, like he'd been running, and his palms started moving again. It wasn't the absentminded shapes on her skin, but instead his large hands traveled up and grabbed her ass, pulling her forward. She was like putty, she just let him move her. A part of Betty was scared to even breathe too loudly, lest this all come to a screeching halt.
Very specifically, Sweet Pea moved Betty not half-way off his lap, but right at the center. His hands were still on her backside, and he gave the slightest amount of pressure on her hips to anchor her in place. As he did, he hissed, sucking the air in over his teeth, a sharp inhilation. He bit his lip, just so slightly, as his fingernails pressed half-moons into her skin, his hips rotating upward.
She felt his hardness through his sweatpants.
It wasn't surprising to Betty in the most logical sense. It had been months since either of them had sex. Betty gets herself off the best she can, but even that's only so-so, especially since she knows how the real thing is like. She's sure Sweet Pea feels the same, even if it's something she'd never ask him about. However, as she allowed Sweet Pea to push her harder down on his so he rutted up against her, his head fell to her collarbone and she heard his breathless exhale.
It's just one word. Just...her name.
"Betty."
Not Cooper, not Betts, not Arianrhod. Just Betty. And, when he said it like that, Betty believed that it's not simply the scantily dressed women in a compromising position on top of him, but that it was Betty Cooper herself that elicited such a delicious response. She had never felt so wanted in her life.
"Jordan, oh," Betty replied, as she wanted him to know the same. As horny as Betty was, if she were trapped with Reggie or with Fangs as a survival partner, she doubts she would have wanted them as much as she wanted Sweet Pea.
He seemed to get the idea, because he chuckled, nipping on her neck playfully, just a smidge too hard, and made an utterly sexy mixture of pain and pleasure. Betty half-shrieked, but was even more turned on by it. Her and Jughead had experimented with a lot of very non-vanilla things, and though she'd fantasized, she imagined that Sweet Pea might not be opposed to them either. She remembered the lights in his eyes after they'd discussed how very kinky her and Jughead had been.
Sweet Pea fell back onto the couch, as he allowed Betty to shove herself forward on him. His hands are kneaded the soft skin of her thighs and up to the small of her back, and his urgency wasn't lessened, but he didn't seem as concerned about overstepping a boundary line. She wondered what made him snap, what made him decide to take this. She was so pleased, so honestly, Betty didn't care.
Betty could have stopped him at any time this gets too far, she knew this.
A truth, however? She wanted this. She wanted all of him. She's wanted this since before they found this house, and she'd been tiptoeing around it.
Even a herd of walkers breaking in right now would be difficult to stop them, she thought.
She had pretty good ideas about how big he was, but she was still shocked to feel the fullness of him, and this hadn't helped her urge to take him completely. She restrained herself, though only barely.
Sweet Pea grasped the back of her neck, his other hand pulled the back of her shirt as he forced her down onto him with more frantic movements. He was using her, but that was fine, because Betty was using him too. Still, she felt malleable to his fingers, pressed to his chest and on top of his thighs, as Sweet Pea gyrated up onto her.
"Betty, Betty, Betts," Sweet Pea moaned softly, lips trailing over her neck, sometimes nipping, other times just ghosting.
"So good," Betty whispered back, her fingers under his shirt. She scratched up and down his chest. In kind, his back arched into her.
Betty darted her hand down to position him so that she was receiving the ultimate pleasure she could from this. If this was going to be the only time this was going to happen, she was going to enjoy it. She grasped around him and Sweet Pea made a choked sound. Then, he jolted in retaliation.
His fingers were braver.
They didn't delve underneath her underwear, but they paused in between her shorts and her underwear, a flimsy layer between her wet center and his fingers. Teasingly, he circled light movements over her, which resorted Betty to a panting, pleading mess.
Sweet Pea kept his fingers on that layer, but derived some pleasure in hearing Betty ask this of him so desperately. As soon as Betty was more or less just whispering half-words, he started to press and work Betty to completion. She wantonly ground herself against his hand, her own fingers-having curled around the outline of him through his sweatpants- and started moving.
It took a pitfully short amount of time for both of them. If this were normal, Betty would be entirely embarrassed about how quick that was. As she reminded herself before, this is the first either has gotten since the start of this. So, yes, her body was tightly coiled, waiting for someone to unravel it.
Betty came first, biting her lip to keep the loud noise that erupted from her throat. Sweet Pea grasped the top of Betty's hand with his own, helping her finish him off too. He finished with a low, throaty groan.
There was a stain that gathered on the front of Sweet Pea's sweatpants. Betty had gotten a little bit on her hand. She wasn't sure if Sweet Pea felt weird about this, and before she could ask, Sweet Pea's naughty fingers ran under the line of her underwear, just for a second, touching her. He pulled it back out in a second, his two fingers sticky from her own come that coated her outer lips.
With Jughead, he'd always just cleaned his fingers on the inside of her thighs or on a tissue. She wasn't sure what she expected Sweet Pea to do. She still sat on him, but now her forearms rested softly on his shoulders. She could have moved, but it was like she was enchanted by him.
Catching Betty's expression, he brought his coated fingers to his lips, licking them off with a carefulness that was very calculated. She way his cheeks were flushed, his hair was perpetually mussed, and the darkness of his pupils- combined with how his tongue flickered over his fingers- was downright evil. Evil in the way that Betty swore to God she nearly came again, right then and there.
After a second, as his hand dropped away, there was a second of awkwardness. As their breathing returned to a normal pace, it was like both had been possessed or something.
Her and Jughead's romance had been a whirlwind. When they weren't kissing, they were snooping for murderers. The stakes had felt so much higher. They hadn't gone from crawling to walking to running, they'd gone from crawling to full on marathon-sprinting. The moments after their first time had been awkward, but there hadn't been many moments of unsure experimentation, moments like this where both had gotten off with hardly any clothes shed.
As though Sweet Pea could feel her doubt climbing back in, and he could likely see it, he pulled Betty forward.
Just one soft kiss.
It was gentle, chaste, and tender. It felt like a 'thank-you'.
Betty did not offer up to forget this moment, as she had with their kiss not so long ago. She was tired to shoving things under the rug. She hadn't wanted to forget that kiss, and she'd be damned if she was forced to put this experience out of her memory. Even if she wasn't quite sure where this left them, she wasn't going to try to smooth it over again.
Sweet Pea didn't offer it up either.
"That was," He paused, struggling for the word, "Nice."
She got the impression that 'nice' was a place-holder, because he'd been searching mentally for a couple of seconds for a term. Still, Betty understood. It had been 'nice', and then some.
"So, well, good news," Sweet Pea's voice was shaky, but light, "I'm not cold anymore."
Betty shook her head, "Me neither."
"You should probably still put another log on," Sweet Pea said, but made no movement to shake her off.
"After that?" Betty leaned back, "After I just rocked your world?"
Sweet Pea's lips quirked, which she was grateful for. It seemed they were going the joking route about this, which she was pleased about. Sure, it still wasn't a heart-to-heart, but it was progress. Progress was good. Betty could work with progress.
"You still lost 'rock-paper-scissors', if I recall correctly," Sweet Pea said, his forehead resting on hers.
"My legs sorta feel like jelly," Betty admitted. She could have probably gotten up, sure, but she was going to try this first.
Sweet Pea bared his teeth, grinning, "Good."
Then, he was shifting Betty off him. She curled back up with the blanket, smirking at her success. Leave it to stroking a male's ego to get him to do some housework, she figured.
He turned back to see her expression, "Minx," He teased.
"You going to complain?"
"No," Sweet Pea said airily, grasping a sliced piece of wood, "I don't think I will."
HOW EXCITED ARE YOU ALL SOMETHING FINALLY HAPPENED?
Most of that stuff about Betty and her father was actually written pre-the last few episodes of the show where this was sorta alluded/talked about. It's funny, I think that this idea is such an interesting concept, if done right, but somehow with all the pieces there Riverdale still somehow manages to botch it. Sigh.
Actually, a lot of this was written awhile ago. And, not sure how, but the smuttiest scene was written between my two places of work. Not sure how that worked out, but it feels like thinking of smutty fanfics in Church. It just made me laugh I suppose.
Anyway, I would really love to hear you're thoughts/inhuman screams about this chapter!