His Sleeping Beauty

Chapter 11- A Peabody

"Sweet Pea! Stop staring down or waitress!" Toni whisper shouted to him from across the table.
"What! I'm not doing anything wrong!" He growled back.
"Dude, you are undressing her with you eyes and mind fucking her!" Fangs laughed, she started walking towards her table with the food.
"I didn't you liked girls with glasses," Jughead whispered as she walked over. She went through the orders giving each of them the right order.
"Can I get you guys anything else?" She asked the table briefly locking eyes with Sweet Pea.
"Yes, that knuckle sandwich you mentioned earlier, would that be made personally by you and if so can I get it to go?" He smirked at her.
"Do you always treat your waitress's like this?" She glared at him.
"Only when they're as pretty as you are, I mean those glasses just make you... irresistible." The smirk grew as Jughead smacked him in the arm, she just looks flustered about all of this, but ended up rolling her eyes and walking away.
"Seriously, what is wrong with you?!" Toni kicked him in the shins.
"I'm hungry and tired, plus it's fun to see a Northsider get all flustered like that." Sweet Pea took a big bite of his breakfast.
"Is it that the girl who almost broke that kids arm? The one that threatened you when you woke her up?" Fangs asked, Sweet Pea looked at her a little more and gave a fake puzzled look.
"Well, I think that is my Sleeping Beauty. Normally I never get a good look at her face, but damn, that uniform on her is the most distracting thing,"
"Didn't she also fix up your bike for you?" Toni asked, "She looks different with glasses, wow."
"Yeah," Sweet Pea smiled, she looked damn good in those glasses, but her smile will not be overshadowed by them.

********

The Whyte Wyrm was still a foot with accusations and random theories about who cut-off Pickens head. Mostly though, the Serpent and Southsiders there were pissed. The Sheriff had posted eviction notices earlier and they were all scared they were going to lose their trailers and Sweet Pea was no exception. His trailer was everything he knew since his dad left him for the army, Sweet Pea doesn't resent him he actually still wears his dog tags. Sweet Pea's fear only got worse when a skanky blonde ex-serpent with a wild look in her eyes walked through the door with Tall Boy.
"Sweet Pea! Gather everyone up! Toni get FP, Penny here has something to tell us all about the Serpent Prince." He looked at her, Penny Peabody the embodiment of pure evil. Sweet Pea was no stranger to her manipulation, he had a deal with the snake charmer that he would never forget. He rounded them up all around a table, but not before he felt a tug on his arm.
"Hey there Sweet Pea, miss me." The charmer looked towards him. "I guess I'll add assisting Jughead in that little stunt to your debt to me. I'll think of a way you can repay it.''
"We'll see about that," he grumbled down to her, they all stood around the table where the three older Serpents Tall Boy, Penny Peabody, and FP Jones sat.
"What do you two want?" FP asked.
"I think you know why Tall Boy brought me here." She looked at him, her angry, distrustful eyes me his sad one. "To save Sunnyside Trailer Park and tell you what your son really is."
"Who? Jughead?" He scoffed to her, there wasn't a worse time for Jughead to walk in.
"All right order of the Orphidans!" He shouted into the Wyrm, placing a flyer on the bulletin board.
"Jughead Jones." Penny glared at the teenage boy with enough hatred that if looks could kill Jughead would be six feet under right now. "Did you really think you'd see the last of me?"
"What's the Snake Charmer doing here?!" Jughead yelled across the quiet murmurs of the Serpents in the bar."Dad?"
No, I brought her in, to help us." Tall Boy interjected the two loving the chaos he let step through the doors of the Whyte Wyrm.
"We don't need Penny's kind of help!" Jughead exclaimed, Sweet Pea couldn't agree more. He never wanted to go back to owing Penny again, when they forced her out of Riverdale he could finally breathe, but now he's back to holding it if he stays.
"You don't get a say anymore. Since you broke Serpent Law and hurt one of our own kind. Penny was about to tell her dad." Tall Boy grumbled, their misgivings against a teenage boy, Jughead, actually amused Sweet Pea. "Show him, Penny. Show'em all."
For once the Whyte Wyrm was silent, no one spoke. They all watched as Penny started to unhook the clips on her jacket and pull up her sleeve. It reveal a huge, pink, scar, not completely healed yet. The pink almost rectangle was where Penny's tattoo once resided before Jughead cut it off. Sweet Pea recalled how she was so confident until he and Toni held her down while Jones cut the tattoo off.
"That used to be my Serpent tattoo, until your son sliced a chunk out of my arm leaving me in a ditch in Greendale." She paused for a second while FP put his hands to his face in disbelief. "But, I'm still willing to help the Serpents. Tall Boy showed me those eviction notices. They're legit. Luckily, I can think of about 41 different ways to stall the process and I'm talking years"
"What's your price Penny?" FP questioned, he knew how the price with Penny went, he even enlisted Sweet Pea to help him.
"Blood for Blood." She stood up over him, "An eye for an eye. I want back in with the Serpents and I want him kicked out. Oh yeah, one last thing... I want his tattoo carved off. And I want to do it myself. With a dirty knife."
The Wyrm erupted into a wild frenzy of talking, no one could figure out what it was that they wanted. In the chaos he saw the two that created it looking around and the world they made. It sickened Sweet Pea to think that Penny might be brought back in. He will have to go back to puppeting around and who knows what that would do to his Sleeping Beauty. He locked eyes with Penny and gave her a hard stare, she only smiled her deviant smile, she knew that the Serpents would rather pick safety and a home instead of the Serpent Prince. Even if it did mean they were forever her puppets afterwards.
"That's enough I want all Serpents under 18 out! That includes you Jughead! GO BACK TO THE TRAILER!" He yelled above the crowd. Sweet Pea didn't need to be told twice he didn't want to be in the same room as Penny anyways. He walked out of there so fast he probably smashed Usain Bolt's record.
"Hey Sweet Pea!" Toni called out, "How has Hot Dog been? Did he give you any trouble last night?"
"Hot Dog?" He thought back to last night when he jumped into his spooning with Jess. She went ballistic petting and kissing Hot Dog. "He was great, jumped into bed with me last night."
"What should we do with the rest of our day now?" Fangs asked with a bored expression on his face.
"Hmmmm, why don't we study for the test tomorrow?" Toni suggested, Sweet Pea just laughed.
"Yeah, no. I've got a flute lesson in the music room later." His answer caused the two other Serpents to laugh.
"I forgot about that!" Fangs bellowed, "Why the lesson are you actually committed to being in the Riverdale High Band?"
"It's that band director man. He told me basically that I suck and need to a lot of help. So he asked one of the top band kids to help me. Apparently they've mastered like six other instruments and if I felt like switching, chances are they will help too."
"Wow. Can't wait to see your concert" Toni laughed.
"Flutes are upfront." He grinned at her, he had been having trouble with it. There was this saying that they said in band that was really stupid. 'You don't choose the flute, the flute chooses you.' And the flute definitely wasn't choosing Sweet Pea anytime soon.