Chapter Text
They were, in fact, dating now. Betty confirmed it with a smile on her face.
They weren't done with Jughead's thing, though, because that took the rest of the evening to wrap up, and it was very circular. It went like:
"You're moving in with me," Archie said.
"The hell I am," said Jughead.
"The hell you're not," said Archie.
Rinse. Repeat. Veronica found it hard to pay attention, now that she'd gotten her girl. Her girl who knew Veronica's father was probably trying to run the town into the ground, and who didn't care, and who was willing to help Veronica investigate, and who looked incredible in powder blue.
"This thing with you is going to work out," she told Jughead blithely. "I just know it."
"Thanks," Jughead said, but he said it like I wish you would crawl back to New York.
Well, too bad. She was in Riverdale now, town of Serpents and secrets and an extraordinary number of people who mattered.
Even some people who mattered who she didn't like. At some point, while Archie was stubbornly haranguing Jughead and Betty was very rationally trying to explain how they would get Fred Andrews to see reason and also Jughead's gangster father to not enact vengeance on Fred Andrews the second Jughead moved in (Jughead's real concern, because for all that he felt he was an original in some ways he was just as much an adorable cliche as the rest of them), Cheryl walked in.
And helped herself to a seat right next to Veronica.
"What are you talking about? Is it about Jason?" she said immediately.
Everyone stared at her.
"No, Cheryl, it's about me," Jughead said slowly.
"Oh," Cheryl said. "Well how was I supposed to guess that? Because of your dad? Whatever. If you shoot up the school, just shoot me cleanly in the heart. Unless I'm wearing my new Ted Baker dress. Then you can shoot me in the head."
Then she waved down a waitress and demanded a lemon-buttermilk milkshake, which sounded absolutely disgusting and also guaranteed that she was intending to stay.
"You know, contrary to popular belief, I accept that the town is changing, but did our social group have to change like this?" Jughead complained. "It's skewing very heavily in favor of the one percent."
"I'm not one percent anymore," Veronica said immediately.
"I still am," Cheryl said. "Do you really want more poor people? God. This is exactly why -- oh look. There's Joaquin. You can stop complaining."
There was Joaquin. Leaning on Kevin like someone had roughed him up a little, but otherwise fine.
Kevin forced himself into the booth next to Archie, which left Jughead crammed against the window. Joaquin slid into the booth just behind them. He and Kevin locked hands.
"Don't mind us," Kevin said brightly. "We are definitely not on a date."
"Oh, so like every day of your life then?" Cheryl said, but even this couldn't dim Kevin's smile.
Archie tried to turn around in his seat despite there not being very much room.
"Hey, are you the Serpent Kevin's dating?" he asked Joaquin.
"No?" Joaquin said.
"Well, you can tell Jughead's dad that he's going to be moving in with me--"
"Do not tell him that," Jughead instructed.
Veronica tuned them out as they continued to argue about it.
"He really is going to be okay, you know," she told Betty in an undertone. "Jughead."
"I know," Betty said. "We're going to make sure of it."
"Good. Because I need you to focus on me. I'm a very high-maintenance girl," Veronica informed her truthfully.
Betty's turn to roll her eyes. She pulled Veronica in for another kiss. Veronica went completely swoony at it.