c u r s e d ↣ Bughead AU

4

His hands grabbed the tube of coloring hesitantly, squeezing as much of the black goop out as he could. Veronica was right beside him, twirling a wide-brimmed comb in between her fingers.

"I still can't believe you're going to dye your beautiful blonde hair, it glows when it hits the sunlight!" She huffed.

He chuckled, mixing both the activator and color in the plastic cup. 

"It's too boring, y'know. I want to look mysterious, brooding."

"I think the word you're looking for here is Draco Malfoy, you muggle."

The boy gave her a playful look as he tossed the hair color at her with the mixing stick. She screamed in horror and hid behind the shower curtains.

"If anything, you're the muggle, Veronica."

She rolled her eyes. "Try not to bust your brains thinking about us normal folk. Anyways, how was it with Betty?"

The boy's smile grew wide.

"It was...fun."

"Wow. Try not to hold back on me, would ya?" She murmured sarcastically.

"It's wasn't a magical carpet ride. Nothing like that. We just had dinner at her house and talked." He reasoned, motioning for the comb.

She gave it to him and sat on the edge of the tub.

"Well what did you guys talk about?"

Jug's eyes flashed back to that night, his gaze in a picturesque trance.

"All sorts of stuff. Her favorite books, music, hatred towards tomatoes..." He began, listing off a few.

She listened as he continued on, slowly unraveling all of the details of the entire night. He spoke softly at times, and went crazy loud at others. The whole experience made his heart strings pull in opposite directions, and his emotions feel like mush.

"...and then we kissed, and I said goodbye."

Ronnie grinned and brought her knees up to her chest.

"Now, that's what I call a love story. Librarians know the best romances, right?" 

"Oh, shut it."

The blushing boy dropped the comb and wrapped his hair in a plastic bag. 

Once they finished cleaning up the mess he made, the two sat on the couch with JB, watching a Disney movie.  They stove-popped popcorn and took out a few sodas from the freezer. Jughead's new head of hair needed  two hours to ''cook'' inside the bag, so he thought this would be the perfect way to pass the time.

After the film, he went to the shower and washed his hair vigorously, spending lots of minutes and shampoo to make sure all the color was out.

Coloring his hair reminded him of his own mother. When she  would dye her grays, she'd always stay in the shower until there was no more color in the water. 

"If it's still yellow as JB's bed sheets, it's not clean." was what she'd say.

While in the shower, his mind wandered into the world of magic, books, and his stupid powers. 

More importantly, the case if Betty found out.

He knew that she'd find out sooner or later, and so he dreaded the day. 

His secret wasn't exactly like a cheating husband's, but it was still just as shocking. He Imagined himself explaining it to her:

"Hey, so we've been dating for awhile, and I really want us to be open with each other." He'd start off.