The Restaurant - A Bughead Story

Part One - The Shower

The first thing Jughead felt as he woke up was a drilling pain in his head.

"Ow," he groaned, lifting a hand to cover his eyes. He could still see a faint remaining of the bright light pouring into Pop's windows through his fingers and it felt like a sharp knife cutting through his skull.

Oh, he was hungover. Hungover as fuck.

His back was slightly throbbing, sore from sleeping in the vinyl booth. His mouth felt dry, his tongue hurt like sandpaper, and he was downright starving.

So much for that damn festival.

When he finally sat up straighter, he closed his phone that had been ringing for the past five minutes. It was five o'clock, and it was time for him to get his butt out of the Chock'lit shoppe as the usual morning customers would walk in. He threw an annoyed look out to the counter, but Pop was nowhere to be seen. He probably fell asleep in the back kitchen again.

He pulled himself out of the booth with what few force his could muster from his hungover body. An empty thermos was sitting beside the coffee machine. Jughead made a mental note to thank Pop later as he poured the magic beverage in the thermos and dropped a cup of cream in it. The first sip was like a godsend gift – numbing his headache and waking up his sleepy brain.

Still supporting a very hungover look, he grabbed his bag and a muffin on the counter and dragged his feet to the door. He was in cruel need of a shower and it just couldn't be ignored.

He found himself wandering back to his old house – that house. He had made a few steps into the neighborhood when he stopped dead in his tracks. He wasn't going in there. 'It's that damn hangover!'

He ended up in the town's only Fitness Gym, an old building that always smelled of sweat and tears, but at least, they had just renovated the locker rooms and the showers. He got in by expertly picking the backdoor lock.

Let's just say, it wasn't his first time coming there for a shower.

---

All in all, Jughead had had approximately three hours of sleep. After the whole smoke alarm destroying everyone's eardrums at the Riverdale's Annual Festival for what appeared to be burnt caramel in the kitchen, he had walked Betty to her house (with drunk Archie and drunk Veronica) and himself back to Pop's. By then, it was two in the morning. Even though the booth was extremely uncomfortable, he fell asleep as soon as his head hit his bag.

'Betty...'

Memories of last night were a blur because of his various rum and coke and the vodka, but he remembered with acute precision the feeling of her lips on his own.

Jughead Jones always thought of girls as dumb, superficial and annoyingly giggling arm-candies. At least, that was how the girls running after his best friend were.

Archie Andrews wasn't the brightest light out there, and the girls on his arm seemed to be of the same genre, which annoyed Jughead to no end. He liked his best friend and he liked the fact that they were the exact opposite, even though Archie's brain stupidly turned to mush when he saw a pretty girl walking by, but he didn't like the fact that his friend played with girls like he played with his video games. He tried talking to him about it, but it seemed Archie was too dumb to realize anything – and that, somehow, only made it worse, because he didn't feel bad about it. He'd just smile and another girl would fall in his arms.

And that was the way Jughead thought of Betty: as a not-very-smart, giggly and a little superficial arm-candy, pining like all the others after his best friend. But of course, he knew nothing about her.

At least, he gave her credit for being in love with Archie for so long. That must have needed a will of iron.

But suddenly, one day, she wasn't in love anymore. Jughead didn't know what happened, but first day of junior year she walked in class and she had lost the never-ending light of love and hope when she looked at Archie. It was gone and it never came back.

Jughead didn't mean to get so attached to Betty, hell he didn't mean to get so attached to another human being, least of all a girl. He had Archie and it was perfect.

But he did get attached, and after that, all hell broke loose.

It started out smoothly. She ate with him at lunch, instead of Archie and Veronica. He could see she felt hurt when she looked at the both of them managing their on and off relationship, but she did hide it well. When she felt tears, she would swallow them back, smile, and ask him about his day. At first, he was guarded, but he finally opened up. She was peppy and she did annoyingly giggle, but she wasn't dumb and superficial, and she was the opposite of an arm-candy.

And Jughead got attached.

He started looking forward to eating lunch with her. He started looking forward to wandering the halls with her after school. She often stayed back, mostly when she didn't have cheerleading practice, and they would hang in the newsroom or walk down the hallways. He started looking forward to seeing her smile at him in the morning when he walked passed her with his hair damp and his backpack slung over his shoulder.

He started looking forward to simply being with her.

They often studied at school or her house, while her parents were at work, only the two of them. When she stopped talking to Archie and Veronica for a few months, he helped her with her studies and they marathoned their favorite TV shows for days.

He didn't realize he was falling in love with her until he got ridiculously drunk and sat with her on that damn balcony. He poured his heart out to her, he told her things he hadn't told anyone ever, and she told him she would like to kiss him – and instead of being repulsed, like he thought he would be, he immediately felt warm and tingly.

In any other circumstance, and with less alcohol in his blood, he would have never told her he'd like to kiss her too. But he did, and, after a small detour caused by the fire alarm, he finally kissed her under that pouring rain and beside all their friends.

And now, he regretted it so much he wanted to cut out his heart to stop the damn remorse from filling it.