Riverdale One-Shots

5.04

I got an idea for a one-shot based on last night's episode. It would take place after the time jump and for whatever reason, Betty and Jug have to sleep in the same house. Betty has a nightmare and wakes up screaming and even though they are going through a rough patch, Jug is the only one who knows how to comfort her.

-zigizi98

☆☆☆

The diner still smelled of grease. Children's fingerprints splattered over the clean windows. The red leather seats continued split at places. Engraved names preserved under the dark wooden tables... Nothing had changed. Nothing but the five friends sitting in a booth they used to visit daily.

Tension filled the air again after Archie had stopped talking. Even though the diner was filled with the sounds of forks and knives scraping against the plates and truckdrivers speaking, silence filled the booth of old high-school friends. None of them knew what to say. None of them made eye-contact.

They had agreed to stay in Riverdale for a few months. To save the town, the small population in it, and open it again for the future generations. They had a mission to restore it to the way it was when they were young. To the way it had been before everything had gone down. Before some of them had even met.

Veronica was the one to break the silence by clearing her throat softly, and she smiled at each of them gently as she grabbed her phone. "I think we all have some calls to make?"

Right after she had uttered those words, her phone rang. With a tight smile now planted upon her face, she stood up. Toni and Archie did the same, and slowly made the raven-haired woman way to leave the booth to have a conversation with the caller in privacy.

"Hey babe," she said cheerily even before she had left the booth, and all four of them looked after her as she walked further away. "Yeah, change of plans; I need to stay here for a while."

Archie's gaze was the last to linger on her, the others having already withdrawn their eyes. Toni looked expectantly at both Jughead and Betty, both of whom were staring at the table in front of them, and chuckled softly. "And you guys?" They met her eyes reluctantly, Betty wearing a soft smile while Jughead scowled. "No calls to free yourselves from your duties for a while?"

When Toni received no answer from either of them, Archie snorted. "Come on, you two. If you haven't been in the war for the past years, you must have someone you have to notify. Work? School? Partners?"

At the last word, both of them stiffened. Betty looked at Jughead from the corner of her eyes, waiting for him to stand up, yet he was already looking at her in the same expecting manner, wearing a sly smirk.

"What, Betts?" he asked, voice full of dry amusement. "No one to notify?"

Now turning her head fully to face him, the blonde arched her eyebrow, a tiny smile on her face. "What about you? I know you're an author, but don't you have to call your agent? Or are you the one who has all the freedom in the world?"

Jughead snorted and turned his head away, rolling his eyes. If only that was the case with his writing. He slumped in his seat for a while, calculating her words unwillingly. And then, a minute later, a feeling, one he hadn't felt in forever, ran into his heart, chest tightening as he turned back to look at her picking on her nails, a soft frown on her face. "You know I'm an author?" he slowly asked.

When her emerald eyes met his, they had a shy glint in them, the blonde biting down on her lip. She nodded, slowly. Jughead, his cheeks flushing, turned to look in the other direction, at Veronica who was prepped up on a table some feet away. Betty knew he had written a book. She had probably read it. And she wasn't stupid. She must have known it was about her.