The Serpent and His Girl

He Did This

Whimpering, she rolls over and hits something hard. Archie. She clings to his arm, breathing fast. Her ribs hurt more than usual, and she's still anxious from what happened with Jughead earlier. Fear pulses through her veins, she squeezes her eyes shut, the memory replaying itself.

"What did you just say to me?" Jughead growls, quickly standing over her.

She shakes her head rapidly, not wanting to repeat it. Jughead crosses his arms, an impatient glare taking over his face.

"Look, Princess, I told you before you don't want to make me angry. And I told you again, and I'm only gonna say it. One. More. Time. Do not make me angry, Princess. I can assure you there'll be more than a knife sinking into your arm next time, and don't think I'm gonna ease up on you just because you're gorgeous." Jughead's eyes widen, looking like he didn't mean to say that last part out loud. Betty blushes a little, flattered yet terrified. Jughead sighs, rubbing his fingers through his hair.

"I...uh, I..." He stammers, clearly flustered from blurting that before. Betty giggles, seeing him out of his tough-gang-leader look amusing to her. He shoots her a glare, but his heart's not in it. She coughs, his soft glare sobering her up as his threat bounces around in her consciousness.

Speaking of her arm, it was starting to burn, bad. Whatever Toni and Fangs put on it had worked for a while, but now it was wearing off and fast.

"I..um, if it's not too much to ask..." the blonde stammers, "can someone look at my arm? It really, really hurts." She flinches, like she's waiting for a smack. Jughead mulls over this for a second, brooding. He motions to someone she can't see, who quickly comes in with a med kit. The mystery person leaves as quickly as they came, and Jughead places the first aid kit beside her on the dingy couch.

Betty looks at him, confused. He just gingerly holds her arm, and unpeels the bandage. He sucks in a breath, seeing the damage. It's infected, a problem that needs to be taken care of immediately. He opens the kit, looking for something to clean her cut and maybe stitch it back up. It was pretty deep, and he feels awful. He did this. He takes a cotton ball and rubbing alcohol, gently rubbing it across the cut.

Betty whimpers, clearly in pain. He feels worse. He did this. He takes out a needle and some medical thread.

"Princess?" He looks up at her from his squat on the floor. She meets his eyes. "This needs stitches. It's gonna hurt but not a lot."

Betty nods, unable to speak she's in so much pain. Jughead starts the stitches, working carefully yet fast. Once he's done, he cleans it off again, then places a good layer of gauze and bandages over it.

This whole time, Betty's been leaning her head back, grimacing. Jughead lets his hand slide down her arm, and squeezes her hand once. Startled, she opens her eyes and just looks at him.

"Achem, um, it's done." Jughead gets out, clearly as startled as she is he did that. He grabs her other arm and pulls her up, guiding her to the door. "That's all for right now."

He brings her back to the small room she and Archie share and leaves, locking the door behind him. But, not before poking his head in and saying, "Oh and Princess? You were right about one thing: Fred Andrews, he uh...he didn't fire my dad for no reason. Still doesn't make it right though." He grumbles, muttering something she doesn't quite catch before he leaves and the darkness surrounds her.

She clutched to Archie's arm harder, a realization shocking her to her very core. Archie rolls over, placing a careless arm around her.

"What's wrong?" He mumbles sleepily, an edge to his tired voice, as if he's gonna have to jump up and fight someone. Betty sighs, and rolls over, pressing her back against his chest.

"Nothing," She replies.

"If nothing means falling for the leader of the Serpents, then yeah, nothing." She thinks before shutting her eyes and falling into a deep sleep.