Jughead woke up the next morning in the Cooper house. It was warm, comfortable, and it smelled fucking good. Betty wasn't in his arms anymore and his legs were tangled in her sheets, but the pillow he had slept on had a scent to it. A girl's scent. Betty's scent.
It reminded him of strawberries and vanilla, but with his palette, it could've been cinnamon-scented, and he wouldn't have known the difference.
The boy buried his face into the pillow they had shared, closing his eyes again to relive their last night's cuddles and conversations, until he noticed another smell in the air that he would recognize anywhere.
Pancakes.
Yawning, the boy grabbed his phone to quickly check if he had any new messages, only to see a few, one of them from Betty. With a frown, he opened it and eyed the picture she had sent him. The photo was a meme about one of their favorite books, directed to a very targeted audience, but he was a part of it, causing him to chuckle.
With a brief text back to her, even though her phone was still on the bedside table next to him, he stood up and quickly made a trip to the bathroom before moving down the stairs.
Betty stood in front of the stovetop, hair bouncing on her back as she nodded her head back and forth, humming to the song on the radio. She looked beautiful, Jughead noticed. With his shirt that she had grabbed from the drier last night and her short pajama pants, she seemed relaxed. He hoped it would stay that way.
"Good morning," he said, making her jump a bit as she turned around, a smile appearing on her face.
"Morning," she chirped back and nudged her head toward the coffee maker. "I know you prefer homemade coffee over the capsule one, but we only have that, so if you wish, you can make some."
He smiled and nodded, walking over to her. With his hands on her waist, tugging her snug against himself, the two grinned at each other and shared a couple of kisses before Betty had to turn around to flip the pancake on the stove.
Jughead grabbed the white mug she had set out for him and placed it under the machine, only clicking a button to make the coffee appear. With another yawn, he leaned against the counter, watching her silently as the black drink filled the cup. Usually, he liked to listen to the dripping of it, but this time his attention was on the girl in front of him. The rain outside didn't help.
Her cheeks were pinkish, lip caught in between her teeth as she stared at the last spoonful of batter she spread on the pan. "Making pancakes?" Jughead asked, and the twitch of her nose was all he needed to confirm his doubts.
"Yep," she said in a shaky voice.
Jughead grabbed his coffee and sipped the hot liquid before placing the mug back down and moving to stand behind her. With his arms around his girl, his mouth pressed a gentle kiss to her bare shoulder, his shirt that she was sporting revealing a bit more skin than it did with him. But then again, her neck and shoulders were smaller and skinnier than his anyway.
"Blueberries?" he sighed exaggeratedly, attempting to pull a smile out of her. "Betts, the only real pancakes are the chocolate chip ones."
With a slight giggle, the girl flipped it around on the pan and leaned into his chest. "We don't have chocolate in this house."
His nose wrinkled, resting his cheek against her head. "Well, then, I guess this is fine too..."
A few minutes later when Betty served the pile of pancakes, Jughead was already sitting in the table, nursing his black coffee. "So, I only have strawberry jelly, and I didn't put much sugar in the pancakes because I wouldn't be comfortable with eating them, so—"
She was cut off by Jughead placing his hand against hers to stop her rambling. "Relax, Betts." The girl exhaled a shaky breath. "This is way better than I could ever do. Thank you."
The blonde nodded and took a seat next to him, smiling when his hand dropped onto her bare thigh. There was something very domestic about this situation. Their knees rested together, his thumb pressing soft circles into her skin... A Sunday morning, with pancakes, with her, and Jughead felt at home, despite the dollhouse designed interior.
(He knew Betty didn't like the design either and always put her on edge so he wasn't afraid to throw a couple of sarcastic comments about it, only smiling as she giggled.)
Thirty minutes after Betty had managed to consume one plain blueberry pancake opposed to Jughead's seven, the two were lounging on the couch, Hotdog at their feet on the ground while Caramel had disappeared early in the morning to go visit Fred Andrews.
The girl kept fidgeting on the spot, despite the fact that she was in his arms, and after a few more minutes, sat up with a huff. "I'll be back," she mumbled. Jughead untangled his arms from around her torso and looked after her as she calmly walked to the bathroom, not thinking anything of it.
When the girl wasn't back in a few minutes, though, he started to get a bit worried. He had heard the water in the sink from the moment she closed the door behind herself, and what he had wondered was just a break to wash her hands and face suddenly became fairly obvious.
Jughead sat up on the couch, gulping to himself as he waited for Betty to come back. He didn't know how to address the topic, and certainly didn't want to make her feel even worse about it all, but he needed to say something.
The girl emerged from the bathroom after a few more minutes, eyes on the ground, and tongue sliding over her teeth under the sealed lips. She gazed at Jughead before approaching him and stopped in her tracks, seeing the concern on his face. With a slight gulp of her own, she lowered her head and slowly walked to the couch, taking a seat at the other end of it.
And so, they just sat in silence for a while, until her nails started sinking into the bandages. He shifted and gently wrapped his arm around her shoulders, his hands opening her fists carefully, thankful for the cloth layer that hadn't let her break the skin.
"Betts..."
"I'm fine." That statement alone came out of her with such force and hatred that for a moment Jughead considered backing off. But then he noticed a red color to her knuckles and knew he had to say this.
"Did you do that yesterday, too?"
After a few moments of silence, she finally shook her head and huffed. "Should've." The girl crossed her arms on her chest and Jughead wrapped his other one around her in a side hug.
"On Friday?"
"No," she whispered.
He wasn't stupid. "Why?"
Betty gulped, glimpsing at him for a moment, knowing fairly well he knew she was lying. "I ate ice cream," her voice said, breaking halfway through.
Jughead's eyes reflected pain as he shook his head a bit and kissed her cheek. "Baby, what's wrong with eating ice cream?"
"It's got sugar. And calories. And I skipped my morning run yesterday and today, and the scale—"
"Hey," he cut her off and gently turned her head, forcing her to look at him. "Who the fuck cares what the scale says?"
"I do," she said in a small voice.
Shaking his head a bit, Jughead sighed. "You need nutrients, Betts. It's not healthy what you're doing."
"I'm not doing anything."
The boy stayed quiet and pulled her to lie down with him. He needed to do some research. But for now, holding her and planting kisses all over her dreary face was the best he could do.
"It hurts me to see you that way, Betty," he whispered against her lips, but that was the last piece of conversation they had that day about this particular topic. And while she didn't mind, he certainly did.
The two teenagers spent the day afternoon playing board games and listening to old music, having abandoned every card game for Betty's sake. Surprisingly, she won Monopoly, and Jughead got the first glimpse of her truly celebrating; she beamed the whole time they repacked the game, and ended up climbing onto his lap, drowning him in kisses.
"Hey, you wanna show me some of your photography?" he asked after, taking Betty by surprise, but when the girl genuinely smiled and took him to her room by hand, Jughead knew she was excited to demonstrate some of her work.
"So, most of it is on my laptop..." Betty mumbled as they took a seat on her bed and she crossed her legs.
Jughead watched at how she typed in the password and closed a few websites before opening a folder. "I haven't had much time to edit the new ones, so most of these are a bit older..." she said and carefully handed Jughead the laptop.
His mouth dropped already in the first photo. Jughead was a movie buff and loved different sceneries and landscapes, so he wasn't a complete beginner and could appreciate the lighting, angle, and many more aspects of different photos. And there was just something about hers...
He kept gawking over the photos until a specific one scrolled itself onto his screen. Jughead stopped moving then, staring at the black and white photography, taking in the lighting, the trees, and what seemed like fog but could've freely been a fruit of the editing.
"I think this is my favorite," he slowly said and glimpsed at Betty who was smiling.
"Yeah... I actually took it the day we met by the river, remember? When you fell?"
She was smirking, clearly holding her laugh back at the memory, and he couldn't help but smile either, rolling his eyes while doing so. "You know you're annoying?"
"Yep!"
"Anyway, talk about this one?"
"Okay." She sat up on the bed better, her back straightening, the bun on top of her head bobbing back and forth as she settled in his side. "So, I usually like doing landscapes the most, because they make me feel a bit fuzzy in my chest, and I just love editing it... But, the night before, I had gotten a tough scolding from my mother for something, and I wasn't much in the mood for that. So, I started looking at different angles.
"I was in the thickest part of the forest on my side of the river, and remember that day it was drizzling? The dampness of it all made me relax, strangely, and see," she pointed at the photograph on the screen, "this seems foggy up here, but actually it's the rain. I got a good angle into the sky, and see how the trees are starting to disappear? The scenery was low-key monochrome already, so I didn't have to work the lens too much.
"This was one of the firsts I edited when I got back home. I like how the lighting is minimalistic, and I made it black and white because I guess I got pissed at everyone, including you, treating me bad."
It was a joke, clearly, however, Jughead couldn't help himself but to feel bad. She obviously got a lot of shit at home from her mom, and battled with all the problems and insecurities in her head... And he had just been a dick.
"Sorry for that," he whispered and kissed her temple. "But, hey, at least you got a good shot out of it, right?" With a smile, the girl nodded.
They sat there for another hour, Betty talking about her photos while Jughead observed and listened, once in a while asking directing questions to get her to talk more. She was so animated while doing so, and incredibly passionate about it all, so he didn't mind at all. He kept giving her soft kisses, and she kept smiling at him.
For a moment, it felt as if everything was right in the world.
That night, lying in bed together, both of them giggling at each other's goofiness, Jughead felt like the luckiest guy in the whole world. With the prettiest girl in his arms, constantly pressing her lips against his, how could a man not be living his best life?
Betty told him a few stories about Archie and herself as little kids—mainly the accidents and trouble they had gotten in. They had been reckless, run away to Pop's, only to be taken home by the police later in the day after both anxious Fred Andrews and fuming Alice Cooper had called the sheriff, terrified their kids had been hit by a car.
She told him about the annual hiking trips to the mountains with Archie and his father, both of them having a loud and long laugh as she talked about the first and the last time Veronica had gone with them.
"Oh, Jug, I wish you could come this year," Betty sighed in the end, cheek resting on his biceps, eyes locked with his. "We'd have so much fun..."
The boy smiled and kept stroking her hair. "Yeah, probably. But, you'll have a great time with Archie and his dad, too. You haven't gotten to hang out much lately. I think you'll enjoy it."
"Yeah, I just wish that I could tell people that we're da—" she quickly cleared her throat, "doing this thing together... I just wanna hold your hand in public and not worry about the shit we shouldn't worry about."
"Hey, we're like Romeo and Juliet," Jughead suddenly realized, looking surprised when Betty laughed and nodded.
"You actually called me that once."
"Yeah, I did." He was grinning as he leaned closer and kissed her nose. "About the stuttering which you managed to avoid a few sentences back... What was the word you were going to say?"
He was smirking at her rosy cheeks, and Betty directed her eyes away with a nervous giggle. "Uh..."
"Yeah?" he chuckled encouragingly while also making fun of her.
"Dating..." Betty slowly said, pronouncing the word with such caution as if it were the most precious letter combination in the world.
"And why didn't you use it?"
"Well, I guess I wasn't just sure..." she slowly spoke, observing his reaction.
Jughead smiled and dropped his mouth on hers for a few seconds, both of their eyes still closed as he pulled a millimeter away, lips brushing. "I wanna date the hell out of you, Cooper," he whispered.
With a giggle, Betty closed the miniature distance between them, her hand sliding into his hair to tug him closer and never let go. Jughead though, pushed her away with a smirk just a moment later, the girl's eyes opening in disappointment.
"Not that you've ever had it inside you, though."
She laughed at the cheesy remark, continuing to do so when his lips found hers once more.
☆☆☆
Not very satisfied with this chapter either, but hey, I'm gonna edit all of them once I've finished the writing process anyway, so maybe someday the vocabulary will be better...
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