"That way."
✿
Firsts usually intimidate people. Not Mickey. Especially not the first day of school. She's a social butterfly, able to talk with anyone and impress all the teachers.
This year is different though. She is under a lot of pressure to find a club or extracurricular to put on her college application or she'd just be average.
"Veronica, I need you to take my shifts this week at Pop's."
Amusement flickers in Veronica's brown eyes until she realizes her sister's being serious. The little light dims. "Mickey, I have to work my own shifts and keep things in tact for Archie when he comes back home."
"Please, Vee?" Mickey pleads. "Look, I'm not like you. I don't have the Vixens or singing on my resume. All I have is a history of drinking. I need this week to find something that will make me memorable."
Veronica stares at her sister for a moment before sighing. She agrees, "Okay. Fine. But that was the last time you use the drinking card for sympathy."
Mickey grins, "It worked, didn't it?"
✿
There's a little extra time before the first bell signals everyone to get to their first class and Mickey decides to go find Jughead.
She stands in between the doorframe of the Blue & Gold's office, watching him stand there, lost in his thoughts. "I thought I'd find you in here." She walks into the room and stands in front of him. Instantly, she can tell something's bugging him. "Jug? What's wrong?"
"Dilton Doiley died," he says hollowly. His gaze remains unfocused. "I found him and Ben from the drive-in in the middle of the woods."
"Oh, my God, Dilton is dead?" She covers her mouth in disbelief.
"Yeah. And Ben—he's barely hanging on. Doctors don't know when or if he's even gonna wake up. Sheriff Minetta asked me to keep the whole thing hush-hush for the family's sake. But, Mickey, what I saw was—" he sighs, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "It was like a ritual site. Their lips were blue," Jughead recalls. "There were these chalices that were filled with poison or something. Animal bones were in a circle. The tree had markings on it. There was a winged totem with a skull and branches." He was using his hands to make animated gestures.
Mickey scratches her chin as she mulls over the details. "So, was it a murder or a suicide-pact gone wrong?"
Jughead snatches his beanie off and throws it on the table behind him. He rakes his fingers through his hair. "I have no idea. I saw Ben and Dilton. They were playing this weird game at Pop's. Dilton was raving about someone called the Gargoyle King." He locks his arms over his chest. "I was also thinking that maybe I could investigate this, for old times' sake. Or at least until there's a new lead with Archie's case."
Then an idea sparks as fast as lightning. "How about I help you?"
"What?" His eyebrows pull together. "Since when are you into investigating?"
"Since I need something to help me stand out as a future college student," she extends her arms and grabs hold of his shoulders. "How about it?"
"Sure, but—"
She clasps her hands together enthusiastically. "This'll be great! I'll try to see if I can use my mother's new seat in the Mayor's office as a way into the coroner's office."
"Have more romantic words ever been spoken?"
"No."
✿
"Dr. Curdle?" Jughead knocks on the office door. "Oh, you're not—"
"I'm his son," the man states. "We spoke over the phone earlier," he looks at Mickey. "Your mother can be very persuasive. I took over after my father passed away."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Mickey says.
"Do you have the money?" He asks candidly.
She reaches into her bag and pulls out an envelope with the cash she withdrew earlier. It's a little bit of the funds she saved before her father cut her and Veronica off. She has to move closer to Dilton's covered up body to hand it to him. "Wow. That's really a dead body."
Jughead places a comforting hand on her back. "Are you sure you have the stomach for this?"
She nods, looking at the coroner to begin.
"The toxicology report revealed lethal levels of cyanide in Mr. Doiley's blood. I surmise the surviving boy didn't drink enough to finish the job."
"Dr. Curdle, if you had to guess, murder or suicide?"
"Well, the body did show signs of stress." He pulls back the sheet to show Dilton lying on his stomach, the carved symbols exposed for viewing. "Three symbols carved out on his back. Runic, I'd say."
"Would you mind if I got a shot of those?" Jughead holds up the camera hanging from his neck. When Dr. Curdle nods, he takes a picture of Dilton's back.
Mickey leans over to get a look at Dilton's face and the first thing she notices are his lips. "What caused, uh, the blue lips?"
"The cyanide was mixed into a sugary drink called Fresh-Aid." Dr. Curdle adds, "Blueberry flavored."
Jughead moves from beside Mickey to stand on the other side of the table. He continues to take shots as Dr. Curdle speaks.
"There's something dimly familiar about this. But if you asked me before if I thought this was murder or suicide. I'm not sure what it is, but whatever it is, it's darker than what happened to Jason Blossom. Or what the Black Hood did. No, what we're looking at here, I believe, is the true face of evil."
Jughead and Mickey share an eerie glance.
✿
"Hi, I'm checking in on the status of a friend of mine. Ben Button? Oh, wait, he's out of the ICU? That's great." Betty flips open to a clean page in her notebook and holds up a pen. "Uh, what time are your visiting hours?" She scribbles something down, probably the hours. "Uh, thank you."
Mickey knocks on the wooden table when Betty hangs up. This gets the blonde's attention.
Betty looks over her shoulder with a displeased look on her face. "Mickey, what're you doing in here?"
"I had a feeling that you wouldn't be able to resist looking into Dilton's death and I was right."
"I heard you were doing your own little investigation. Dr. Curdle said Jughead stopped by with a brunette in expensive shoes. Tip? You might want to wear something more reasonable."
"Hi," a girl walks into the room, interrupting their conversation. "I'm Evelyn. And you're," she points to Betty, "Betty Cooper?"
"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Betty narrows her eyes curiously.
"Well, not exactly. We almost met through your Mom and your sister," Evelyn comes further into the room, standing by the bookshelf with her hands behind her back. "They're studying with my Dad."
"Edgar Evernever," Betty whispers.
"Yeah. That's right. Hi!" Evelyn turns to Mickey, "You're Mickey Lodge!"
Mickey glances at Betty before looking back at the strange girl, "How—"
"Anyway, I go to school here now, so I just wanted to say hi, and to check on you after the other night, Betty."
"What are you talking about?" Betty questions wearily.
"Well, your seizure, of course," the ginger leans on Betty's desk.
"I really didn't tell anyone about that," Betty says through gritted teeth.
"Oh! Sorry," Evelyn looks between the two girls. "I thought you two were friends."
"We're not," Mickey clarifies and the same words come out of Betty's mouth at the same time. "I'll leave you two alone to chat it up. I have to go visit a friend in the hospital."
"It was nice meeting you!" Evelyn calls out.
✿
"Sorry I'm late!" Jughead furrows his brows when he sees Betty standing a couple feet away from him and Mickey. "What is Betty doing here?"
"She has been investigating too," Mickey tells him. "She insisted on talking to Ben's mother."
"Really?" The corners of his mouth curve slightly. "I'm not surprised."
Betty joins the two of them, "Are we doing this or not?"
Mickey rolls her eyes at her and turns to Jughead. "It's better that we go as a united front instead of bombarding Mrs. Button two separate times with the same questions." She nods in the direction of the deputy leaving her post outside the room. "Let's go now."
With ease and without being detected, the three of them slip into the hospital room. Mrs. Button straightens up and looks at them with knitted brows.
"Hi, Mrs. Button? We just wanted to see how Ben was doing," Betty says politely.
The blonde woman has her hand over Ben's chest and her face is tear stained. "How do you know my Ben?"
"Uh, from school," Jughead answers. "And he and I used to work at the Twilight Drive-In.
"How's he doing?" Mickey asks.
"He's stabilized, but he hasn't woken up yet," Mrs. Button answers.
"Do you know what happened in the woods, Mrs.
Button?"
"No. Ben's always been a bit of an odd duck, you could say. Kept to himself. Especially after his piano teacher was murdered. But this summer, he became friends with—"
"Dilton Doiley," Betty finishes.
"That's right. It's like he became a different person," Mrs. Button's voice becomes full of distress. "Secretive, sneaking out at all hours, having these horrible nightmares."
"Mrs. Button," Jughead starts from by the door. He holds up a talisman. "Do you know what this is or how it got here?"
"Maybe that nice girl left it."
"Someone else came to visit Ben?" Betty questions suspiciously.
"A-Another friend from school." Mrs. Button is quiet for a moment, trying to think of who left the little gift on the door, but comes up with nothing. "I don't remember her name. She wore a bow in her hair."
Before any of them can get another question in, the door swings opens and the Sheriff steps in. "Jughead, Mickey, Betty. Look, I don't care how Keller ran things when he was sheriff, but I won't let a couple of teenagers compromise an active murder investigation."
Jughead doesn't back down. Assertively, he says, "If this is an active murder investigation, you might wanna start by letting the rest of the town know."
The deputy on watch appears with a frantic look on her face. "Sheriff Minetta?"
"What, Henderson?" Minetta snaps while keeping his eyes trained on the three teens.
"An Adventure Scout's parents called. They haven't seen him in two days. We've got a missing kid, Sheriff, and he was a part of Dilton Doiley's troop."
✿
"Why are we in the woods at night?" Mickey steps over a puddle of mud. She got a call from Jughead asking her to meet him around Foxfoot Bridge. Now they're here and she has no idea why.
"Apparently Ethel and Ben were dating," Jughead indulges. "They use to meet at Dilton's secret bunker this summer. Ethel promised to show us the bunker if we met her at night and kept it a secret."
"How did you get her to agree?"
"I threatened to sick Sheriff Minetta on her," he laughs quietly.
Mickey follows him in the darkness. "Well we can't get caught. I already got an earful from my mother about getting involved with police business."
"My Dad too, but I can't just stop. Something weird is going on, Mick. I can feel it. Dilton came to me for help and I feel like I disappointed him. I owe him this."
She stops walking and grabs his hand. "Jug, you don't always have to put all this pressure on your shoulders."
He tries to smile, but it's not convincing. For the next few minutes, they walk in silence with their flashlights pointed ahead of them. Then he asks, "How romantic is this? A stroll in the woods? It's like all those romantic movies we've watched this summer."
"You asking me to investigate a double suicide-slash-murder is as romantic as I expect you to be. Did I ever tell you how much of a turn on it is to see you in detective mode?"
"Don't get any ideas like in the dark room. I almost messed up my pictures."
"What? The red light was kind of romantic." A sound from a few feet away catches both of their attention. "That's probably Ethel, right?" She points her flashlight at the dark figure and her heart drops. She can feel the blood drain from her face. "Jug, do you see that?"
He points his light at the figure and then to its bloody face. "Yeah, I do."
"Okay. Run!"
✿
Jughead and Mickey ran all the way to Pop's. It takes a few minutes for both of their breathing to return to normal.
Jughead manages to draw a picture of whatever the hell was in the woods before he forgets. Then he sticks a toothpick in his mouth and slides the piece of paper over to Mickey.
"This is what we saw," she tells him.
"If I had to hazard a guess, yeah. Behold the Gargoyle King. Luckily for us, it doesn't run very fast."
"No, but really, it was too tall to be Ethel, I think. Unless she was on stilts, which is a possibility because she's not answering her phone. Is there anything on Dilton's map?"
"You mean, what we should've checked in the first place? Uh, yeah." Jughead places the map on the table and opens it up. He points to a drawing in the corner, "Right here. This is where I found Ben and Dilton. And this is the foot bridge where Ethel wanted us to meet, but this—what does that look like to you?" His finger is placed on a symbol.
Mickey shrugs. "I mean, I was researching Runic symbols earlier. That one didn't show up."
"What if it's not a symbol? What if that's the drawing for the hatch?
"That leads to the underground bunker?" She scrunches up her nose and narrows her eyes, "You want to go back into the woods, don't you?"
"I mean, if this map is halfway accurate, I'd say that that's right around the deadfall in Fox Forest." Jughead takes the pick out of his mouth and leans back in his seat. "I think we can find this, Mick. Are you with me?"
✿
"That way," Mickey directs after reading the map for the third time since they've been back in the woods. They're both skipping school this morning to find this bunker. She feels a little more at ease that it's daytime.
Jughead smirks at her, "You're pretty good at giving directions." They walk in the direction she pointed and then Jughead grabs her arm. He points to the silver metal cover on the ground with moss camouflaging it. "This is it."
"Well Dilton really was a hardcore survivalist," she huffs after they lift the heavy top off.
"I'll go first." Jughead climbs down the ladder without any hesitation. He helps her jump off when she reaches the bottom.
Mickey points her flashlight.
"Oh, God," Jughead sighs as they walk further into the bunker. "It's like the inside of a Philip K. Dick novel."
She stands by the table in the middle of the space and picks up a deck of cards. "I think this was that game they were playing."
"Yeah, Gryphons and Gargoyles," Jughead moves to a shelf by the wall. "It looks like Ben and Dilton were in pretty deep."
"I wonder if Ethel was playing with them. This was all of their spots." She moves to another wall where pictures are pinned to the wall. She flashes her light on the first picture, "Jug. Doesn't that look like the thing that came at us last night?"
"Yeah, the Gargoyle King. He's also featured prominently on this copper coin," he holds up the metal circle.
Mickey turns to walk over to him. "Look at this. 'Drink from the correct cup.'"
"Blue lips, cyanide," Jughead points to the sugary drink packets and the poison on the shelf. "It was a challenge. It's all part of that stupid game they were playing."
"Pick the chalice that's not poisoned and win, I guess? So it was suicide."
"Maybe. Or something even more insidious." Jughead begins taking pictures of the room.
Mickey continues to inspect around the space, looking for something else. She gets on her knees in front of a makeshift bed and pulls back the sheet to look under it. When she sees someone underneath, she falls back on her butt and lets out a glass-shattering scream.
Jughead appears behind her, helping her to her feet. "Are you okay?"
A kid crawls from underneath the bed and stands there with a scowl on his face.
Jughead grabs him by the crook in his elbow so that he can't escape and flicks on a light. He sits him down at the table. "You're that missing kid, aren't you?"
Mickey leans against the table, "Do you know how worried your folks are?"
"Doesn't matter," the kid shrugs. He opens up a can and dips a spoon into it. "I'm supposed to stay hidden in the bunker until Master Doiley comes back."
"Jeez." Jughead glances at Mickey. "Kid, haven't you heard? Dilton's not coming back."
"That's a lie."
"No, it's not," Mickey corroborates. "Dilton is dead. I'm sorry." Even with the paint covering his entire face, she can see a flash of sadness across his face.
"Were you playing Gryphons and Gargoyles with Dilton?" Jughead asks.
"I was his apprentice," the boy says. "He was teaching me how to play, so I could eventually join the game."
"Ben Button? And Ben's girlfriend Ethel Muggs?"
"Yes, but Princess Etheline isn't dating Ben in real life. Only in the game." The boy narrows his eyes at Jughead and Mickey. "And she warned me two enemies might invade the bunker."
"Okay," Jughead says. "Well, game's over, all right? So, I'm gonna get you back to your folks."
"And then we need to pay another visit to Princess Etheline."
✿
"What's with the nine-one-one?" Mickey sits across from Kevin and Veronica at their table at Pop's. "Jughead and I were on a roll."
Veronica rolls her eyes, "You're still doing that? Why don't you just join the Vixens?"
"Cheryl said there was no way in hell she was letting two Lodges on her squad."
Kevin leans forward, "Sounds like Cheryl. Look, we have bigger things to talk about."
Mickey waves him off, "If this is about Cheryl becoming interim President then you have to get over it, Veronica. You were the First Lady, but it doesn't mean you're qualified for the job."
Veronica knits her brows together, "You're suppose to be on my side! I am taking over your shifts while you—forget it! I'm over the Cheryl thing. She actually told me about Reggie's fake ID business and—"
"Can you get me one?" Mickey perks up. "I've always wanted one."
"How'd you get into clubs in New York without one?" Kevin inquires.
"My looks and my father's money." Mickey turns back to Veronica, "Why do you need a fake ID?"
"Daddy has the warden in his pocket and I won't be able to see Archie. I can't just sit and act like everything's normal especially since Archie was beaten by the guards today."
"What?" Kevin and Mickey gasp at the same time. "Is he okay? Was it bad?"
"From behind the gate, it looked bad," Veronica's bottom lip trembles. "Can we t-talk about something else?"
"Well, I have a big crisis," Kevin frowns. "I joined RROTC. Moose's father is the new instructor and forced Moose to join."
Mickey purses her lips to stop from laughing. "Why would you join? You want to spend time with the in-law?"
"No! I don't want to keep getting blown off by Moose to be with the guys, so I became one of the guys."
"I think that was a bad idea," she tells him honestly. "You don't want to suffocate Moose."
Kevin crinkles his nose. "Like how you're suffocating Jughead? You're an upscale girl trudging the woods just to replace Betty as his partner in crime."
Her phone vibrates before she can say anything and she looks down to read Jughead's message. "Well thanks for your brutal honesty, Kev. I have to go."
✿
"What happened?" Mickey asks as soon as she's in front of Jughead. "Why are we in the hospital?"
Jughead stands up, wiping his hands on his pants nervously, "One minute I was taking to Ethel—"
"Without me?"
"I needed answers and I couldn't wait. Next thing I know she's having a seizure."
"A seizure?" Mickey furrows her brows. "I don't think that's a coincidence, Jug."
"A coincidence with what?"
"Betty had a seizure the other night," she tells him.
Concern clouds his features. "How do you know that?"
"I just know."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"I didn't see why I should've," Mickey folds her arms.
"Mrs. Muggs said that Ethel's resting," he changes the topic. "It sounds like another mystery for us to solve."
"Do you want to check on Ben while we're here?" she asks, trying to avoid giving him an answer. "His room is right down the hall."
Jughead and Mickey walk down the hall, passing staff before making it to Ben's room. Mickey pushes open the door, but freezes when she sees Ben sitting by the open window. "Hey, what are you doing? Come away from the window."
"It's okay," Jughead takes a small step forward with his hand extended. "Everything's okay."
Ben smiles, "I know. I know it is. I'm going to be with Dilton now. We both flipped the coin. He was scared to ascend, but I'm not."
"What about—what about your Princess Etheline, huh?" Mickey tries to reason with him. "Don't you want to see her again?"
"We'll be reunited. In the Kingdom. One day all of us will. It's all part of his plan. You'll see—"
"Ben—"
"—Soon. You'll fly, too."
Jughead and Mickey jump forward as Ben tilts out the window, but they're not fast enough. With a loud landing sound, he's on the street.
✿
"If you're up for it, maybe we can try to connect the pieces of all of this madness," Jughead says. After answering police questions for almost an hour, Jughead and Mickey ended up in his trailer.
Mickey lies there with her head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. It's speeding up slightly. She sits up and looks down at him, "Do you really think crime solving is my calling?"
Jughead sighs, "I know how excited you were to find something to do," he coos. Absentmindedly, his hand rubs up and down her back.
"My father might be a mobster and hearing about it is a lot different than actually seeing it," she shudders. "First Dilton's carved up body and then Ben's body splattered on the street. I don't think I can handle another body, Jug."
"And I didn't want to be the one to say it. Crime solving isn't your thing."
"But it is Betty's." Mickey raises a skeptical brow. "Is that why you let me help? To prove you work best with her? You could've been straight up with me."
With an indignant frown, he groans. "This was never about Betty. Regardless, I'm working on this investigation alone. You keep making it about her. I just wanted to support you in finding your hobby."
After a long, hesitant silence, she leans forward and kisses his cheek. "I'm sorry. You really are becoming quite the romantic."
a/n: what do you think will be Mickey's next hobby?