Anyway @thebibi was talking about Adam gifting flowers to his skating partners and I was going to rb the post but what I was adding had nearly nothing to do with the post and was just my ML brain kicking into overdrive.

Sooooo-

All I want in life is for Adam to try and give Joe flowers prior to a beef and Joe presents Adam with a seperate bouquet of flowers "I can't allow you to steal my title. So a toast to my... admiration for you and the purity that is our love," coupled with a wink and delicate carnations that honestly don't seem to suit either of them. Their fans still go crazy about it, but Adam is quite honestly frozen for a moment.

I just want flustered Adam okay!!! Him being at a loss of words for just a moment??? The ego boost it would give Joe.

Strawberry Chapter 2 The Devil in Red

Red Dead Redemption Fanfiction

Arthur x OC

action/romance/mystery

The largest hotel in Strawberry was by far the most magnificent iron and brick structure in the town. On a rainy day such as today many people had flooded inside to shelter themselves with drinks, food and entertainment and the place was roaring with music. Lady Rosalyn Bush was trying to lead Mr Arthur Morgan to the hotel but was having a hard time getting through the mud. Even though she was sticking to the edges of the grass along the main road. Her long blue dress bundled up underarm as the thick brown mud caked up to the ankles of her black heeled leather boots. Arthur watched with amusement as she gracefully yet slowly made her way trying her best not to fall or dare not look like a lady walking in the muck. They were nearly there, and the stubborn woman despite her sweating and panting would not give up even as the rain began to pick up once again. Rosalyn stopped suddenly when her foot became stuck, a few people hanging around staring to glance over as she has a face people pay attention to. Arthur threw his jacket off his shoulders and tied it around his waist by the sleeves and walked up beside Rosalyn. The cowboy held out his hand to the Lady as she threw her weight into tugging her foot free. “Madam?” He asked her offering his help. “I guess my legs aren’t fit for the countryside just yet.” She laughed out of breath and took his hand and leaned into him trying to pull her leg free. Except once Arthur took her gloved hand he placed it around his neck and scooped her off her feet pulling her out of the mud and into his arms as she let out a yelping laugh. 

“Oh, my aren’t you a strong one.” She said as he carried her for the rest of the walk sick and tired of the slow pace she was taking to get to the hotel.   “Well I can’t just watch you and that pretty dress get ruined by the nasty weather now can I,” Arthur replied and set her down on the bottom of the wooden staircase to the hotel. A few men and woman were smoking at the front door who stared over at them curiously as they made their way to the door. Rosalyn standing upright in a fit of giggles with an infectious smile on her face dusted off the water and let her dress fall straight once again. “I owe you again, seems like I’m going to run up a debt with you real quick.” She said as Arthur untied his jacket from him before stepping under the shelter of the awning of the hotel patio. “You are a mess, my friend,” Rosalyn said as Arthur took off the white jacket and shook it off over the edge of the patio. Deer's blood, mud and god knew what else staining it now. Rosalyn handed a white handkerchief it to him so he could wipe his face. Which he did before throwing his coat over his arm and giving it back to her. “Probably should order a bath then,” he said as they walked inside. “Well, you will have a long time to wait if you trying to do that here. The place is booked, solid sir.” A boy at the door with a clean dress shirt and black vest saluted them both. “Good afternoon Ms Rose. Welcome back, your party is in the yellow lounge waiting for you.” He said kindly. “Why thank you, William, would you kindly ask the owner to make room for my friend here. He will be staying on my tab tonight.” “But Miss I just said...” “I heard you loud and clear my boy, you can put Tracy and Sally together I’m sure they will be just fine sharing a room. Now go on, make it so and don’t forget he gets a bath too.” She said and shooed the boy. “Y-yes, mam,” William said and ran off inside. “Now come on cowboy, “ Rosalyn waved Arthur to follow and pushed open the gate and entered the lobby of the hotel. All sorts of people were gathered inside, soaked on the shoulders, muddy around the shoes and the floor was a mess of caked mud, spilt beer and food crumbs. At the front desk was a man watching the room sitting behind a desk where the office had a locked up cabinet of keys under his guard.  Few keys remaining inside the chest as most of the rooms looked booked. The soft song of a baritone-voiced man filled the room accompanied by an acoustic guitar and fiddle. His sweet song rocking the place as a few couples spun and danced in a cloud of cigarette and cigar smoke.

(Strawberry Roan by Marty Robbins for your pleasure)

Rosalyn and Arthur ascended the stairs at the back of the main room and headed up to the private party rooms on the second floor. The music and chatter were so loud that Arthur could barely hear the Lady trying to chat with him as she marched quickly up the stairs and towards the back. A small painted sign hanging over the curtained door speaking out ‘yellow lounge’ caught his eye as Rosalyn stopped in front of it. She pulled open the curtain and inside was a gaggle of girls crowded inside. Teenaged girls, older ladies and young adults all dress in well-kept dresses and fancy wear. Some wearing gold earrings, rings and lacy hats. The amount of money flashing in his eyes inside the room as the temptation to rob them all blind struck in his mind as they sparkled and glittered in the low light. “Ladies, I would like to introduce you to Mr.... you know I just realised you never gave me your name,” Rosalyn said standing in the middle of the room amongst 13 or so Ladies inside. “Arthur Callaghan, at your service,” Arthur said giving his fake name and tipped his hat to them all.   “Mr Callaghan here stepped in the middle of Bella’s spat outside earlier. Let’s show him a good time as a thank you to his bravery and generosity.” “Ah, Ms Bush you give me too much credit.” “Please call me Madam Rose, I am the mistress of these girls there wishes are my commands and their care if under my charge. Tonight you are our honoured guest and saviour from those who dare swindle us so far from home.” The blonde said and picked up a bottle of wine from the table and two glasses. As drinks were poured and the room filled with chatter once again Arthur was pulled onto the couch with some of the other Ladies who started asking him twenty-one questions about himself, where he was from and how old he was. All of which he carefully dodged with pure lies by avoiding details. “So Mr Callaghan, what brings you to Strawberry?” A Brunette in her late teens asked wearing too much makeup and a low cut dress too mature for her age. “Just stopping for the night before I go hunting up in the mountains, looking to see something rare and shoot something rarer.” He said sipping the wine. Wouldn’t Dutch be jealous of him now, wining and dining with the face and creator or Bush’s Cooked Kidney beans in maple sauce? To be surrounded by what seemed to be enough ladies to run a whore house in the city. His confidence had never been so high, knowing that his gruff disposition in life still had a certain charm to the ladies. Though even with the drinks, the conversations and laughs, deep in his chest he felt empty. No matter where or what he did, the ghost is his mistakes wounded him gravely, and a deep sadness was buried within his grin, these parties were shallow attempts to flaunt wealth and power from desperate people who wanted the world to notice them. Ms Roslyn being a true shining beckon of such a fact. She had left Arthur in the company of a few Harlots who wanted to peel him out of his clothes for money, and very quickly he was learning more about these people. They were indeed whores within the group, a few overly painted girls had disappeared as the night went on, escaping to their rooms with men they met in the dining hall. After about 2 hours of conversation, eating and drinking. It was only him, Lady Rosalyn left at the dining table still trying to enjoy their dinner. "So, Mr Callaghan. You were telling me what you did for a living." Lady Roslyn asked sliding her chair closer to Arthur only halfway through her tomato bisque. "I hunt." He said simply. "What do you hunt?" She asked "Large game, Rare creatures..." He tried to continue eating his steak and potatoes, but she had him in a staring contest. "People?" She asked with a grin. Arthur's eyebrow raised in concern with the husky tone she spoke with. After the fourth or fifth seconds of silence between them, a pair of angry boots was heard stomping down the hall. Catching Arthur’s attention away from the threatening blonde and he hand rested on his side on his pistol out of instinct. A  woman wearing men’s clothes marched to their table. The woman in the mud was clean as a whistle as her cherry red hair was still wet and cascaded down her back in curls her pale white face was clean except for the freckles which speckled her face. She was beautiful, and now her face was clean she seemed familiar too, but this was a different familiarity. Her face made his chest tight, and the hateful glare in her eyes sent a chill up his spine, unlike anything he had experienced before. He recognised the shape of her ears, the bridge of her nose and the colour of her eyes like he would his own. As she entered the room, he stood up quickly to greet her as Rosalyn followed suit. “Izzy!” Rosalyn called out fondly as the blonde trotted over to her and Arthur's head snapped at the nickname and he looked at the blonde. “Would you mind tellin' me why I just got kicked out of my room?” She asked with an angry tone dropping a bag of clothes on the floor at her feet. “You gave my room away?” She asked ready to punch to blonde with her fists clenched on her hips. The well-dressed woman in red was now this spitfire of a woman, with muscled arms and chiselled features she was healthy and lean like an acrobat from the circus. Her thick thighs were too much for the masculine cut pants, and they clung to her like they were painted on. Everything about her silenced him, and he could only watch s the two met face to face. “Oh dear, no one listens here. Sally and Tracy are to be sharing a room tonight. I'll make sure one of them of you gives you a key. Or you can always share with me." Lady Rosalyn rubbed the other's arm trying to soothe her. “So who took my room?” She asked demanding an answer. “Why our new friend Mr Callaghan, I believe you owe him a thank you. Since he did save you from getting bludgeoned to death by a bucket,” Rosalyn said equally giving some sass back to her friend.

Bella, or Izzy... Arthur was getting confused, but she looked at him for a long hard moment, her green eyes like a hungry cougar prowling through the grass. Arthur could feel his chest tighten even further, did she recognise him. Did she remember him? How could he not remember her but know her so fondly like this? "Thank you, Mr Callaghan. My name is Isabella Morningstar." She introduced herself and turned away from him and walked away. That moment, he was stunned. It had been Ten... no thirteen years maybe. As if time had stopped for a moment, Arthur had remembered her as the colour fell from his face.

Isabella Morningstar was the first woman he ever robbed.

For a moment he hoped Isabella would recognise him even with all the trouble that would come along with it. They had met when he was a teenager and had become close friends those many years ago. Yet now she could look him in the eye and not remember him at all... and it hurt. She turned on her heels taking the keys from Sally and grabbed her bag heading out of the room once again leaving Arthur feeling relieved yet empty at the same time. He put his hand to his face feeling just how long his beard had gotten over the past few weeks and looked back watching the redhead stomp down the hall. “Don’t mind her, that’s Isabella Morningstar for you. They don’t call her the red-headed devil for nothing.” Rosalyn snickered. As Rosalyn returned to her dinner, William entered the room with a set of keys in hand and darted up to her. “Here you are mam room five is ready and a fresh bath awaiting for your guest.” He said as it looked like someone had thrown him into a water barrel as he was soaked from head to toe dripping all over the floor. “Arthur why don’t you go get tidied up and meet me later for some poker. Go on go on, the girls and I have business to discuss.” She said and shooed him out of the room where William lead him to the bathhouse.

After a rushed bath where he scrubbed himself as clean as possible Arthur rushed to set himself up in the hotel room. It was minimal but cosy enough with a freshly made bed and grooming supplies available to him. He gave himself a full shave and put pomade in his hair and looked at his reflection realising he just made a terrible mistake. “My god you are old. She didn’t even recognise you. She's.... different.” He shook his head at himself and got dressed in some of his more higher end clothes. His fancy black dress shirt and fancy brown pants with a red and black paisley vest on top. Was he trying hard? Entirely since that flutter in his chest had not stopped. Once he was dressed and clean, he sat down to his journal and began writing quickly.

“Of all the places in the world to Run into Isabella Morningstar I would have never thought she would come back to the west. Let alone be shopping for expensive jewellery. I believe it has been around thirteen years since Dutch, Hosea and I found her on the trail when I was a just a kid running with them. Of all my regrets in life, watching her leave on that boat to Washington after taking her coin purse is by far closest to the top. I don’t know what to do, I have come across a group of ladies with more money then the bank and could easily sneak off in the night with a good score. But I want to stay and see if there is a chance Isabella remembers me and what she would do when she did? Is she angry with me? For once, I wish Hosea was here to give me advice, and he isn’t.”

He closed the book after making a quick sketch of Rosalyn and Isabella and stashed it into his satchel. He marched out of the room onto the patio to light up a cigarette to clear his head. The night had come, many of the patrons had turned into their rooms for the night, and the rain had turned into a full downpour. The streets flooded as the hoof prints in the mud filled with murky brown water. As he deeply inhaled the smoke, he combed his wet hair with his fingers and tried to think on what to do.

After he chain-smoked three cigarettes in a row, he left his hotel room and headed down to where the poker table was, cleaned up an presentable and no longer hidden behind a beard. "I should have left a moustache on." He said quietly to himself as he reached the table seeing the red-headed woman sat with her back to him at the table with Rosalyn and two other gentlemen. "My My My, Where did this handsome cowboy come from." Lady Rosalyn said catching his sight first.   "I get it I was dirty," Arthur responded in jest taking a seat at the table and looked to Isabella, whose green eyes were focused on him like daggers this time around. /she knows./ Arthur thought to himself as he could feel the scalding hot fire which was her gaze on him. Never before had he felt so vulnerable and guilty, let alone it is caused by a mere look of her emerald eyes. "So what's the buy-in?" He asked. "Five Dollars," Isabella said sternly. "Oh Ho! We playing for real tonight?" Roslyn asked excited and took out her flip book of bills and placed it on the table as she was handed the chips. "That's a little rich for me ladies." One of the gentlemen stood up from the table and took off. "Sounds like a good time to me. I'm in!" The other said sapping his money down mostly in change. "Oh, Charlie I didn't know you had that kind of money to lose," Rosalyn said with a grin. Arthur looked at Isabella who was waiting for him to put his money in, he knew why too.  "Alright, I'm game." He said and casually added five dollar bills to the pot. Isabella without a word, placed a full five dollar bill into the pot and collected the cards and began to shuffle to start the game as Rosalyn handed her set chips.  

Isabella dealt the first hand as Rosalyn and Charlie added their blinds to the pot, Arthur glanced at his hand as a mere 2 of hearts and 10 of hearts sat in his hand. He put 10 cents to the centre to play the round and sat back in his chair ready to play a very high stakes game of poker with the Devil in Red. "So, You're the Red Devil Isabella Morningstar? The famed gunslinger who caught the Bayou Bandit." Charlie asked like he was talking to a celebrity. "Yes." She replied still glaring at Arthur as she added her 10 cents into the table to play as well. "She has caught much more than that murderer. She saved the lives of my girls in Washington and in Mississippi too. Hell, any riff raft who thinks a whore is an easy target for murder should beware of her." Rosalyn said and folded her hand. Arthur was confused, he had never heard these stories before and his confused face sparked Roslyn's attention while Isabella was distracted revealing the flop. A queen of hearts, a three of hearts and jack of spades. "Have you never heard of the devil in red Mr Callaghan?" Rosalyn asked. "No, I haven't, I'm from the countryside, but please do tell. I'd like to add a small wager first." Arthur said and added 25 cents to the centre.   "Well! There was this killer you see, he would hunt down carriages going through the swamp road of the Bayou and kidnap ladies and daughters from their wagons on their way into or out of the city." Charlie started the story as Isabella silently put her money in and Charlie followed suit. "About 12 girls had gone missing altogether, only 4 were found in pieces in the swamp where the gators lived. You see he would kidnap them, rape em then drag them out into the swamp after beating them. Tie them to a sandbag and throw em in the water for the Gators. Alive!" Charlie exclaimed. Isabella flipped the next card revealing a 2 of clubs to the flop. Everyone checked in response to it. "You see my carriage was on the way out of the city, I had plans to meet with a buyer of my whore house in St. Denis. I had come into a hefty sum of money when my father passed away, so I wanted to close them all down and bring my girls away from the life of whoring and give them a chance out west to find husbands and find better lives than being the pleasure tools of men in the city." "That's very admirable Ms Bush, What happened on the road?" Arthur asked as Isabella flipped the last card. A 5 of hearts on the table completing his hand with a flush of hearts. He slid a full dollar worth of chips across the table into the pot. "I was kidnapped. That's a bluff if I ever saw one though." Rosalyn said pointing at his bet, so people were not too distracted by the story to notice his technique in playing. Isabella silently slid her chips into the pot as well. "I don't trust it," Charlie said and folded his hand.   "Well, what happened?" Arthur asked Rosalyn. "Ah ah, show us your hand." Isabella finally spoke almost barking at him. "Whoa, What's gotten into you sugar, you're all a fire tonight," Rosalyn said intrigued on Arthur's cards. The table went quiet as Arthur's flipped his hand over revealing his heart flush which made Charlie hoot in relief. "That's a good hand," Rosalyn said as Isabela threw her cards in. A pair of Jacks the best thing she had. "I got lucky on the last card," Arthur said with a shrug of his shoulders and collected his chips still glancing back at Isabella who would not give up the staring contest she had challenged him to. Rosalyn collecting the cards and dealing the next hand. "So, you were kidnapped by the Bayou Bandit." Arthur continued the conversation after quickly folding this hand one once he saw a two of clubs and a three of diamonds in his hand. "Yes sir, snagged me with a rope from the driver's seat and dragged me off into the swamp off the back of his horse. He didn't notice Izzy here was saddled up on the other side of the carriage talking to me with a rifle in hand and gave chase after us. He dragged me behind that horse for I think 3 minutes before she shot me free of the rope. I lost sight of them after that, but once I ran back to the carriage, she came back with him hogtied on the back of her horse bloody and beaten. We took him into the Sherrif, and they gave us a huge reward. He was hanged the next day." Rosalyn looked to Isabella with a sweet smile and placed a bet which Authur wasn't following. "You hired me to protect you Ms, and I intend to do so where ever you go and to protect you from everyone you met," Isabella replied to Rosalyn but gave Arthur a dirty look at the end of her sentence. "I've never heard of a female bodyguard, are you sure you're tough enough for the job out here in the west?" Charlie asked "Care to challenge me to find out yourself?" Isabella gave Charlie a hint of her scornful look at like a mouse he shrank in his chair under her gaze. "Play nice deary," Rosalyn said and folded her hand leaving the win the Isabella who pulled in the chips.

They played for many hands for Arthur was playing one of the hardest games of Poker he had ever played in his life. The ladies were hard to read. Isabella was bold with her bets, but it was hard to tell when she was bluffing or not. An attempt to call her out on a bluff ended up getting Charlie busted out of the game when he went all in on a three of a kind to her full house. Rosalyn ended up throwing the game entirely to Isabella in a pathetic hand which ended up with her holding the most chips at the table when it came down to the finals hands between the two of them. The final flop was on the table, the chips scattered across a beer-sticky table as Arthur flipped the last card of the flop n the centre. A small crowd gathered around watching the large pot of Twenty Dollars sitting on the table and these last two players with all their chips in the pot on the previous hand. Isabella, however, still sitting on Six extra dollars but Arthur was sitting with a full house. The two black aces sat in the flop with a king of hearts a jack of clubs and 3 of clubs lined up in front of him.  A pair of Kings lay stacked under his hand which he tried to not nervously play with. He had a damn good hand and not enough money to bluff her into a more substantial bet with. It was his bet, and the game had gone on long enough. He needed to get out of here, his plan wasn't thought through carefully enough, the stories of her wild riding with Rosalyn had him sweating, he couldn't rob the Lady of Beans with Isabella at her side, she was suspicious of him, aware of his outlaw status and had eyes completely fixated on him. "Let's make this interesting shall we, I bet my horse," Arthur spoke with calm confidence, and the room gasped as well as Roslyn who had seen the rare white Arabian in the barn he talks about. "What kind of horse is it?" Isabella asked with a sly smile on her face.   "Mr Morgan I have to insist that's too much." Ms Rosalyn tried to interrupt. "Shhh Shhh Shhh, he's a grown ass adult who makes his own decisions. If he wants to throw his property around so carelessly that's on him. I accept your bet. My black Clydesdale versus your?" "White Arabian," Arthur said and flipped his cards revealing his pair of Kings and the room was a buzz. Isabella's face dropped for a moment, she licked her teeth and pursed her lips to resist making a look at the room chattered.  Roslyn herself palming her face with her hand at the loss of one of her caravan's most muscular horses. Arthur felt victory at hand and leaned forward to collect the chips when Isabella placed her hand on the table stacked neatly. She smiled at Arthur Maliciously and flipped them to reveal a pair of red aces in her hand. "I believe my four aces beats your full house, Mr Callaghan," Isabella stated with a well-deserved air of confidence as the room went up in a roar as Arthur's eyes widened at a loss. The room became so loud with people talking about the game and Rosalyn jumped up and hugged Charlie in a fit of laughter as Arthur had become to punch line of the night, losing his horse to the Devil in Red on a careless bet. Isabella, however, was not up in arm in her victory though she was staring Arthur dead in the eye with a blank expression across her face. Arthur stared back at her as the same empty expression came to his features as well. She stood up abruptly and collected the money on the table and looked to the stable chip he had placed on the table. "I don't want your fucking horse. I want Artex back." She said and spit on him landing it square on his jaw as she walked past him and headed outside into the rain. "Isabella!" Rosalyn gasped at her rude behaviour. "It's alright! I'll take care of it." Arthur said wiping his cheek clean with his sleeve and standing from his chair to follow after her. He pushed open the gate to the front of the Saloon and saw Isabella at the end of the patio trying to light a cigarette under the light of the lantern, alone as the rain showered behind her falling off the roof of the awning like a waterfall.

The Girl From the Journal (Pt6)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 AO3

Jughead hadn’t written in his journal for twenty four hours. That was the longest he had gone without writing in nearly eight years. He felt his fingers twitching and his hands shaking, urging him to pick up a pen and paper and dive into writing about anything he could possibly think of that would bring him any sort of inspiration. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t keep his mind from drifting off to thoughts of Elizabeth Cooper, and the fact that he was going to have to lie to her about writing an article on her ex-boyfriend’s sudden career change.

His mind was cluttered with thoughts and images and feelings that he would have normally documented in the leather-bound book that held all of his most vulnerable ways of thinking and looking at the world through the eyes of Betty Cooper. But without the journal, he found that he physically could not write about her anymore. Not without the journal. 

Sometime after lunch, in his much-too-quiet office in the much-too-pristine building that was home to the Riverdale Register, he was hit with such an intense need to empty the images flitting through his thoughts like one of those fireflies he used to chase when he was a kid, that he had no choice but to sneak a stack of loose leaf paper from the work room and set it on his desk so that he could let the words flow from pen to paper like he normally could. 

But the pen wouldn’t move. The images remained trapped in his own head, screaming at him to release them the way he always had. It was like the journal and his own writing ability were connected somehow. Or at least that was the case when it came to writing about the girl from the journal. 

“Sorry, Betty, but I need that journal back,” Jughead declared, pushing away from his desk and shoving his laptop into his messenger bag. He had an hour before he was supposed to meet Betty at the pavilion, but he couldn’t sit at his desk not writing anything. Maybe some fresh air would clear his head. Or maybe it would just cause the thoughts and unspoken words to become more jumbled. Either way, he had to get out of that office. 

--

“It has to be here!” 

Betty dove onto the concrete, pushing away the knowledge that millions of dirty shoes had walked these sidewalks as she searched underneath the bench she had used as her bed last night for any sign of the beat-up journal. 

Scrambling to her feet, Betty hurried over to the nearest trashcan, glancing into its foul contents skeptically as she took a deep breath and shoved her hand deep into the pile of garbage. 

“Well, well,” a shrill voice coming from behind Betty caused her to stop dead in her tracks, the judgmental tone all too familiar as she ground her teeth together in annoyance and tried to remain calm. “Elizabeth Cooper digging through the trash like some back alley hobo with zero class and little to no dignity. How appropriate.” 

“What do you want Cheryl?” Betty mumbled, shaking her hand over the garbage as she refrained from wiping her palm on her sister’s emergency backup dress she had borrowed earlier that day. 

“I heard you dumped Archie Andrews to the curb right after he proposed,” Cheryl announced, her silky red hair shining brilliantly as she stepped into the afternoon sunlight. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve always treated him like garbage, kind of like the rubbish you’re rummaging through right this very moment. As it would turn out, that’s something even crueler than what I would have done. Oh, how the tables have turned.”

“You don’t know the whole story,” Betty reminded her, urging herself to keep her voice calm as she gripped the side of the public trashcan so hard that she was sure that she was going to snap off the plastic handle. 

“I don’t need to know the whole story,” Cheryl told her, crossing her arms in front of her chest and raising a challenging eyebrow in Betty’s direction. “All I need to know is that you’re a terrible influence on my young and impressionable niece and nephew.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Jenny and JJ don’t need such negativity in their lives,” Cheryl explained, pursing her cherry red lips in disapproval and placing a hand on her hip. “Not after everything they’ve gone through over the past few years.” 

“You’re talking crazier than usual, Cheryl, which is impressive considering you hardly ever make a shred of sense to begin with,” Betty muttered, glancing away from her brother-in-law’s twin sister, hoping that by breaking eye contact, the conversation would end with it. However, as it had already proven itself from events that occurred earlier in the day, luck was not on her side. 

“Get your shit together, Cooper,” Cheryl spat, stepping so close to Betty that she could feel her breath huffing angrily against her cheek. “You’re acting like a character straight out of a  Susanna Kaysen novel, and I don’t think the school board would appreciate one of their employees expressing such manic behavior when their job is to mold the children of Riverdale into stable members of society.” 

“If you’re threatening me Cheryl, at least look me in the eye and say it to my face,” Betty told her, her voice raising slightly as she felt the anger continuing to rise within her chest. “We’re not teenagers anymore. Anything you would like accuse me of, then just say it. We are adults after all, even if it’s easy for you to forget that sometimes.” 

“So then get your head out of the garbage can and start acting like one, you blonde-haired whack job,” Cheryl’s eyes were blazing with such intensity that Betty was sure they were going to pop right out of her head. Taking a deep breath, Cheryl regained her composure and adjusted her designer handbag hanging delicately over her shoulder. “I will be picking up Jenny and JJ from school from now on. I’ve spoken to Jason and that was what we both feel is necessary at this time.” 

“What the hell, Cheryl you can’t-”

“This conversation is over,” Cheryl informed her, slowly turning on her heel to head back in the direction she had been coming from before she had run into Betty rummaging through the garbage. “Have a great day hovering over the trashcans of downtown Riverdale. I hope you’ve finally found your place in the world.”

Betty’s eyes followed Cheryl’s swinging hips down the sidewalk until she rounded the corner, completely out of sight. Her mouth hung open in shock, having been left dumfounded by Cheryl Blossom for the hundredth time in her life.  

“This day couldn’t get any worse, could it?” 

As soon as the words left her lips, she immediately regretted uttering a single syllable of them.                   

“Elizabeth Cooper!” 

Alice Cooper’s cold screech made Betty’s blood run cold, wondering if it was too late to turn on her heel and sprint in the opposite direction to catch up with Cheryl. 

“What have I done to deserve such cruelty, universe?” Betty mumbled to herself, watching in horror as her mother stomped her way out of the drugstore and over to where Betty was trying not to faint into the trashcan. 

“I’ve been calling you since you left the house last night,” she snapped, her brows drawing together in anger the way they always had when Betty and Polly were kids. “I have never been more disappointed in you, Elizabeth, how could you do that to poor Archie, he was completely devastated I can’t believe you would turn down his marriage proposal when he has always been nothing but good to you and-”

Betty’s cheeks burned red hot as the anger bubbling inside of her finally boiled over and reached the surface with a vengeance. 

“BUT HE HASN’T MOTHER!” Betty yelled, her voice so shrill that the patrons having an early dinner in the restaurant across the street turned to watch them with looks of curious confusion. 

“I beg your pardon?” Alice said slowly, clearly taken aback by her daughter’s sudden boldness in her attempt to lash out at her mother. 

“I-uh-I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Betty mumbled, the anger fizzling out just as quickly as it had surfaced. “It’s my life. It was my decision. I said no. Can we all please move on with our lives and forget that last night ever happened?” 

“I deserve an explanation,” Alice told her.

“No, Mom, you don’t,” Betty said simply, shrugging her shoulders as if she wasn’t sure what else to say to her. “It’s about time you finally realized that.” 

Before her mother could say another word, Betty backed away from the street corner that had caused more trouble than it was worth, and headed down main street to the road that would lead her to the pavilion by the river. 

“Elizabeth,” her mother called after her, but Betty ignored it. She was tired of having to please everyone all the time. She was tired of having to be this perfect girl in this terribly imperfect body. To put it simply, she was just tired. “Elizabeth!” 

Just as she had wanted to earlier, Betty picked up her pace and began sprinting down the street. The wind whipping her hair behind her shoulders and her heart pounding wildly in her chest, she let her problems stay routed on the street corner where her mother was sure to be furiously dialing Polly to talk some sense into her senseless younger sister. But Betty didn’t care anymore. And she had to admit, that felt pretty damn good. 

--

Jughead watched the leaves blow onto the crystal clear water, the early signs of autumn giving way to a golden hue that coated everything around him. His eyes were closed as he breathed in the crisp evening air that made his skin prickle with anticipation for whatever the rest of the night was going to bring him. A smile crept onto his lips as he heard a clumsy pair of footsteps tripping their way up the small set of stairs leading up to the pavilion and he turned slightly on the bench of the picnic table to meet them with a look of amusement. 

“I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about me,” he told Betty, leaning one elbow against the wooden surface behind him as he met her gaze with an uncertain smile. 

“I don’t think that’s physically possible at this point,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing a rosy pink as she took a few steps towards him, her feet kicking the leaves out of her path and making their way to the other side of the picnic table so that she could take a seat next to him on the bench. 

Betty kept her eyes forward, soaking in the steady flow of the river and refusing to meet Jughead’s eyes. 

“Did you finish it?” Jughead asked after a moment, not wanting to push her to give him back the journal, but curious enough to hear what she had to say about what she had read the night before. 

“I stayed up all night,” she nodded slowly, her hands moving up and down her knees nervously as she slowly turned her head to meet his eyes for the first time since she had stepped onto the pavilion. “If I had anymore doubts about me being the girl you’ve been writing about, they’re gone now, that’s for sure.”

Betty’s gaze lingered on Jughead’s for a moment before she pulled her legs up onto the bench so that her knees were now resting comfortably underneath her chin.  

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Jughead wondered, his brows furrowing together slightly as he struggled to figure out what was causing her so much discomfort. 

“Chaos,” Betty whispered. “Kind of like the rest of my life.” 

“Beautiful chaos,” he corrected her, his voice so honest and sure of itself as his eyes bore into hers with an intensity that made Betty’s heart begin to pound in her chest. 

“I don’t know about that,” she blushed, pulling on the sleeves of her cardigan and wrapping it closely around the rest of her body as she tried her best to suppress a shiver. “I try so hard to make everyone in my life happy that when I do something they don’t like I-”

“You feel like you let them down somehow,” Jughead finished for her, and Betty turned back to him in surprise. “Like you’re responsible for their happiness and when you do something they weren’t expecting, you owe them an explanation for why you’ve caused them unhappiness.” 

Betty’s gaze drifted to the ground, taking in the tiny cracks in the concrete as she sucked in a harsh breath. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, Jughead, so don’t think I’m saying it to be rude or spiteful because I don’t want you to hate me but-”

“Betty, you can tell me anything,” Jughead assured her, and Betty closed her eyes as she tried to muster up the courage to say what she wanted to tell him. 

“I know that this whole thing is bizarre and confusing and just - kind of hard to believe. And I know that you’ve been writing about my life since you were sixteen,” Betty stuttered out quickly, hoping that she was making at least a shred of sense in her attempt to explain herself. “But you don’t actually know me. I mean, not really.”

“You’re right,” Jughead agreed, swinging his legs around so that he was facing away from the river and towards the parking lot. “So why don’t you let me.” 

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Betty asked uncertainly. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m kind of a mess.”

“Trust me, I’ve seen what a mess looks like,” Jughead told her, the smile that was evident on the corners of his lips only moments ago suddenly dropping to a frown. “You’re nowhere close.” 

“You mean your Dad?”

Betty winced at the words that had just escaped her lips. She wasn’t supposed to know about that. The knowledge that she had been writing about Jughead’s life when she was in high school had not been shared yet, and she wasn’t sure that she would have ever said anything to him at all if she hadn’t just slipped up. Now she had no choice. 

“How did you know that?”

“Oh - I - um. Just a lucky guess I guess,” Betty stuttered, standing from the picnic table quickly and shuffling her feet across the concrete to stand by the edge of the pavilion. 

“No, it’s something else,” Jughead pointed out slowly, pushing off the bench and moving to stand next to her. “Your eyebrows scrunch together when you’re lying.”

“Okay, it’s not fair that you know that yet.” 

“Betty,” Jughead lightly took her elbow in his hands and gently turned her body to face his. “Remember, you can tell me-”

“Anything,” Betty breathed. “I know.” 

“Come on,” Jughead pressed, his voice soft as he urged her to explain what she had been talking about. “Tell me.”

“Well it’s not like I have a whole journal to show you or anything, but - um - it turns out that you’re not the only one who had a stranger to write about growing up,” Betty swallowed hard. She had only ever told Polly about her essays and poems that she kept hidden in a portfolio in her room at her childhood home, and saying it out loud to the actual person she had been writing about unsuspectingly was a strange feeling. 

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“Because I still wasn’t sure if this was real,” Betty admitted, her eyes flitting up to meet his gaze. “To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure that you were real.” 

“What about now?” Jughead took a step closer to her on the pavilion so that there was no space between them, his hand reaching up to rest gently on her cheek. “Is this real?”

“I don’t know,” Betty breathed. “Why don’t you show me.”

Betty could feel the electricity radiating off his skin before their lips even met. She was pulled to him like it was written in her DNA for her hand to slide up his arm and rest comfortably on his cheek. For him to rest his hand on the crook of her hip. For both of them to breath in the other’s scent like they had been waiting their entire lives to be this close to another human being. And as Betty finally placed a soft kiss on his lips, her mind was filled with the most beautiful words ever written, words that she had never seen or heard until that moment. Words that were only meant to describe what she was feeling for this man that she didn’t know, but who she felt like she had known her entire life.  

“I thought you might be here.”

Betty and Jughead both pulled back from the kiss to find Archie Andrews standing at the top of the pavilion, his voice harsh as he ascended the steps and made his way closer to them. 

“Archie, what are you-” 

“Missing something?” Archie pulled the familiar leather-bound journal from his back pocket, tossing it onto the picnic table and glancing up to meet Betty’s gaze. 

“That’s my journal,” Jughead muttered, confusion written in his expression as he turned to Betty for an explanation. “What is he doing with it?”

“He must have taken it when I was sleeping on the bench last night,” Betty explained, her brows drawing together angrily as she stepped away from Jughead so that she could come face to face with the boy she had once loved so long ago. “I didn’t think you were the vengeful type, Archie.” 

“Yeah, well I guess there’s a lot we didn’t know about each other,” Archie shot back, his cheeks turning a deep red as the anger began to flare up within the pit of his stomach. “Kind of like you having an ongoing affair behind my back pretty much the entire time we were dating when you practically crucified me for what happened two years ago!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Archie,” Betty pointed out, frustrated tears popping up in the corners of her eyes as she balled her hands into fists at her sides. “It’s not like that.” 

“Oh really? Then how the hell did he know all this stuff, Betty?” Archie picked up the journal again, flipping through it quickly before shoving it into her arms. “There’s personal stuff about you in here that I didn’t even know about until now. If he’s a stranger, why does he know enough to be able to write a whole goddamn book about it?” 

“I - it - it’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Then explain this,” Archie growled, his voice so low that Betty wasn’t entirely sure he had said anything at all. “Why were you kissing him just now if you don’t know him?” 

“Archie,” Betty squeaked out, reaching out to touch his arm, but coming up short when he backed away from edge of the pavilion. 

“Save it,” he snapped. “I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m getting out of this godforsaken town like I should have two years ago. That way I don’t have to run into either one of you ever again.”

Archie turned on his heel to head back to the parking lot, but stopped short to point a finger in Jughead’s direction. 

“As for you,” Archie hissed. “My agent called about the article. She seems to think you’re the best person to write about my comeback to the game. Well, I think you can guess where I’m going to tell you to shove that article now. Have a nice life together.”  

Betty watched in horror as her life imploded before her very eyes. The boy who had been a constant in her world for so long was no longer a part of it in any way. The boy she had some unexplainable connection with had lied to her about writing an article about the other boy. And to top it all off, she had lied to him about losing the journal. Nothing was working out the way it was supposed to and it was all her fault. 

“I was wrong,” Betty muttered under her breath. “It definitely could get a lot worse.”