monsters | riverdale

Quiz Show

"That way, we can't be sued or ceased-and-desisted by my father," Mickey tells him. "So I ask you again, Dr. Beaker, are you a rum drinker?"

✿

Jughead is sitting on the window seat in Mickey's room, gnawing at his thumb nail. He's been quietly sitting there since he got there while she finished her homework.

Mickey glances over at him. Usually he'd be writing or reading or something while they say in quiet together. It's one of their favorite things to do together. Instead, she can see the wheels turning behind his eyes. She closes her laptop and clears her throat to get his attention.

Jughead snaps out of it and drops his hands into his lap. He asks, "How's Luna Rum?"

"According to Dr. Beaker, by making the main ingredient maple syrup, our rum's DNA has changed by fifty-one percent."

"That's awesome," he comments.

"It is." She throws a pillow at him when his eyes begin to unfocus again. "What's on your mind, Jug?"

"My publishers didn't like what I wrote," he says sadly. "They wanted a dark and edgy villain for the book. So I had to come up with pitches in the vein of Zodiac or Hannibal Lecter."

Mickey says, "I'm sure you can do that."

"I pitched them something else and they loved it."

"So what did you pitch?"

"I, uh...okay. It's about a dark and ominous force that threatens the town of Seaport. Uh, an obsessed killer who is looking to expose the hypocrisy and sins of his neighbors. The Baxter Brothers discover that the man unleashing his righteous rage is the father of Bobby Baxter's girlfriend, Tracy True. The killer's name is...the Brown Hood."

Mickey caught on halfway through his explanation, but when he says the name, she gasps. "Jug."

"DuPoint said some of the best literature is based on real life and—"

"Stop," she holds her hand up. "That could be true, but you have to make sure everyone involved is okay with that. Especially Betty."

✿

"Veronica, what did you do?"

The next morning, Veronica is sitting on Mickey's bed with a guilty expression on her face. She says, "We just wanted to show daddy that he couldn't stop us with his sad, tired molasses-based rum."

"Go on," Mickey urges her.

"And we did. We took a sample of our rum to him. Then he showed up at La Bonne Nuit with a raid team during our taste party."

Mickey shakes her head in disappointment. "I should've been there. I should've never left everything up to you and Cheryl."

"We had things handled! And I knew you were with Jughead last night, so I didn't want to bother you."

"You call boasting about our success to daddy handling things? You know how he is, Veronica! You should've never told him!"

Veronica says, "I know that. Now." She fees like she let her sister down completely. "We were caught serving rum, so the speakeasy can't be our base of operations anymore."

Mickey purses her lips to stop from bursting.

"Say something."

"I am going to figure this out, and then after that, you are to make no moves without telling me. This isn't going to be like the speakeasy. You can't control everything." Then her phone chimes and she picks it up to see a text from Betty. With a sigh, she says, "I have to go."