𝐕𝐈𝐏𝐄𝐑 || Sweet Pea ✔️ || REWRITING

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙀𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙏

𝐄𝐙𝐑𝐀 𝐉𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐒.

The Whyte Wyrm was unusually empty, even if it was a weekday there was usually a hefty amount of older Serpents hanging out in there.

As she'd assumed, both Frankie and Toni were working. Both had bombarded her with questions, Fangs and Sweet Pea were...well, who knows.

An hour after her arrival, Betty Cooper had shown up. At first she thought she was spying on for her parents, but then she realised that Betty was borderline ignoring her. Instead she'd perched herself up at the bar, deep in conversation with Betty about who knows what.

By the time she'd made her way to the bar herself Birdie, an older Serpent, was cackling at whatever it was Betty said.

"Can it, Bird." Ezra warned, slapping her hand against her table as she passed by "What's so funny, anyway?"

"I was just tellin' Sweet Valley High that if she wants to be a Serpent, she gotta do the dance."

Ezra quirked an eyebrow as she gestured for Toni to pass her the bottle of water behind the bar "Well, it's a good thing Betty isn't becoming a Serpent."

"But —"

"Unless my dad miraculously decides he's coming out of retirement, this is still my gang, Cooper." The brunette spoke firmly, finger pressing against the bar "I don't know what delusion is going on up there, but this isn't an after school club. The answer is no."

Toni stifled a laugh, pretending to do something behind her so her face couldn't be seen as Bettys mouth opened and closed as she readied herself to protest but didn't know what to say.

"Yo, Zee!" Frankie bellowed from the pool tables, nodding his head towards the door "Got a visitor."

"I mean it, Betty." Ezra reiterated, capping her bottle and putting it behind the bar "No fucking way."

She assumed the worst as she shrugged her Serpent jacket up her shoulders, she couldn't think of any friend of hers that wouldn't join her inside the Whyte Wyrm.

Her fingers wrapped around the cold metal of the switchblade in her pocket as she stepped outside, relieved that the pounding music that was once wrecking her head was now behind her.

Through the dark she could vaguely make out the glint of the light of a motorbike and the screen of a phone, as she drew closer the glow of the phone exposed the owner to be Sweet Pea.

"You couldn't come in?" She asked sarcastically, coming to a halt beside the bike with her arms crossed "It's freezing."

Sweet Pea shrugged, locking his phone and sliding it into his coat pocket "Wanna go for a ride?"

She didn't ask any questions, only got onto the back of the bike and held on for dear life as he started it.

They drove for a while, Sweet Pea had taken old roads she hadn't seen since Gladys was around. He'd driven out of Riverdale and after what felt like an eternity he'd finally stopped on a pier that she recognised instantly.

The photos in his trailer showed Sweet Pea and his mom on this pier every birthday until his ninth, Ezra can't remember ever seeing him as happy as he looked in those photos. She'd been here once before, with his parents and their friends during the summer, but she hadn't come back since.

"How're you feeling?" Sweet Pea asked, leaning back against the railing that didn't look extremely safe.

Ezra shrugged, sitting on the edge of a bench that was in a desperate need of cleaning "Better, I guess. Though it feels like my dad is planning on bubble wrapping me, or never leaving me out of his sight, or both."

"Yeah, well, you can understand why." Sweet Pea nodded "You're good now though, right?"

"So far, so good. It's been, what, three days? I don't want to jinx anything."

Mid-sentence he'd moved to sit beside her, not at all bothered by the dirt "Three days is better than zero, one day at a time E."

The pair sat in silence for a while, it wasn't as though they had nothing to talk about, it was just neither of them knew where to begin. 

"Never did get to take you out, you know." Sweet Pea chuckled, resting his elbows on his knees as he leant forward and turned his head toward her.

"Well," Ezra shrugged, flipping her phone over in her hands a couple of times "according to the Jones group chat Saint Elizabeth is helping Jughead plan a retirement party for my dad. You could take me there."

"Does it quality as a date if your dads there?"

"It qualifies as whatever we want it to qualify as."

Her phone had pinged a handful of times, the group chat with her dad and Jughead asking where she was, when she'd be home, who she was with.

Sweet Pea had noticed too "Time to go?"

"I think my face is gonna be on missing persons posters if we stay."

Once again they'd climbed back onto the bike, this time Sweet Pea didn't take all those long and winding roads, instead he took the main road back into Riverdale. He left her off outside her door, opting not to come inside when she offered.

She wasn't surprised when she saw her father sat on the couch when she opened the door, Jughead was presumably in his room.

"Where you been?" FP asked through a mouthful of a ham sandwich "Oh, Kit Anderson stopped by. Dropped of those fruit packs you like while she was looking for Frank."

"He was supposed to be working." Ezra asked, dropping down onto the couch beside her "She find him?"

FP shrugged "No idea, you know that kid, he needs one of those tracking chips dogs got. Don't worry though, he'll get wind about the party and show up eventually."

"Sounds like Frank." The teen scoffed, giving his location a quick check just to find he was offline "So, a retirement party?"

"I don't want to hear it, kid." FP laughed, holding a hand up in protest "You never told me how that, uh, book for school is doing."

When Jughead and Ezra were dumped in with social services her social worker, Miss Weiss, recommended putting together an academic portfolio if she was serious about becoming a lawyer.

Weiss meant when she was a little older, but Ezra began putting it together the next day.

"No progress, I talked to Keller to see if I could get an internship around anywhere but he says I'm not old enough. I, uh, was also thinking about talking to Miss Weiss. I was thinking of transferring to Riverdale High."

"Really?" Her fathers eyebrows rose at her admission "What did she say?"

"Well, our principal gave me a good recommendation letter and my grades are more than good enough to get in." Ezra trailed off "But if I move the younger Serpents will get up to God knows what."

FP sighed, taking his feet off the coffee table and sitting up "If letting your friends butt heads with one another is all you have to do to get yourself that much closer to Harvard, you do it."

"That'd make me a sellout."

"That would make you smart." FP corrected "Look at me, Ezra. I've been in and out of prison, I've been a deadbeat dad for most of your life, hell, I'm scrubbing toilets in Pops for a living. This is what happens when you stick with the Serpents, this is what I want you to stay away from."

She knew he was right, all she had to do was look at any older Serpent. Nobody that stuck with them got far, her own father should've been enough of an example.

Maybe his retirement was for the best, slowly she'd distance herself, Jughead too, and the Jones' reign of the Serpents would fizzle out. Someone like Fangs or Toni could step up if they wanted, someone smart she wouldn't leave them with just anyone.

Maybe FP retiring was a way out, for all of them.