Chapter Text
Another semester, another sixteen weeks of whiney college freshman throwing excuse after excuse at their professors to try to talk their way out of low grades. He swears if he hears, “I never learned that in high school” one more time, he’s going to lose it. Why Jughead Jones took a job teaching English at Greendale University, he’d never know. Every so often, he’d have one student who wasn’t a complete waste of time, but mostly it was entitled kids who were only attending class because it was a requirement for their bullshit Social Media Management degree.
What was the Serpent King doing teaching a few towns over, anyway? Mostly, he was bored. He was tired of wrangling wayward teens, trying his best to show them the right path in life, only to have them disobey him to run drugs and guns behind his back. Jughead was getting really sick of being the King to a motorcycle club that wouldn’t leave his father’s rule. He’d established the Whyte Wyrm as more than just a Serpent den early in his reign — after the passing of Hogeye who had, for some reason, left him the bar in his will — and it was doing well enough that it didn’t need his attention around the clock.
So, he took the job at Greendale, after earning his Bachelor’s and Master's degrees in a record four years.
The night before classes started, Jughead Jones looked at himself in the mirror, staring at his soulmate marking. He had been trying to figure the thing out since the day he got it twelve years ago, but to no avail. Right over his heart sat a frilly, pink, strawberry milkshake complete with whipped cream and three cherries, sitting atop a white doily. He’d only ever let three people see the marking: his father, his sister and his second in command and best friend, Joaquin DeSantos.
The marking did not match the rest of the dark scrawls of ink he’d gotten in his thirty years of life, and he hated it. But more than hating it, he was confused by it. He had never met anyone that could possibly suit this kind of perfect pink confection — everyone he knew was morally ambiguous and borderline sinister.
He met Joaquin at Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe for their usual weekly debriefing. It was fairly busy, but they took their usual back booth and ordered their usual meals. Before their food arrived, the diner was nearing capacity and the booth next to theirs, that usually no one dared sit in, was occupied by a bubbly blonde and her perfectly put-together friend.
“Can I get a vanilla milkshake?” the blonde asked politely to the waitress, but the rest of her order was cut off by another waitress placing their plates in front of them.
--
Betty Cooper watched them carefully from the corner of her eye. They were just as terrifying as people said they were - all leather-clad and rough around the edges. She wondered for a moment whether the snake marking on her upper thigh was for either one of them, but she brushed it from her thoughts. She’d never had a reason to talk to them. She didn’t even know their names, only that they were the most feared people in the entirety of Riverdale.
Her mother had told her to stay away from the Southside, that nothing good ever came out of it. She’d never personally known anyone from the Southside and she was sure it was going to stay that way.
Riverdale was too small for her liking, but after her family was killed in an accident, she couldn’t tear herself away. The youngest daughter of the well-to-do Cooper family was now alone in that big house on Elm Street. After getting all of her affairs in order, talking with the lawyers and dealing with the banks, her father’s fortune (by extension, a Blossom fortune) was left in her name, which she immediately put into an account that she couldn’t access until she was 25.
A few months later, Kevin and Veronica had moved in with her, both having had enough of living under their parent’s roofs and ready to finally begin their lives as college students. They’d all put off going to college, deciding to travel the world first — three best friends running from reality on a European adventure until they couldn’t anymore.
Before she knew it, her first day of college was upon her, and she was met with one cancelled class that the professor didn’t bother to email the students about and her journalism class. She was actually looking forward to that one. English had always been one of her best subjects, and she was excited for the opportunity to write again.
She sat up front, in the center of the classroom, and took out her spiral bound notebook and black fine-point pen. With her hands clasped on top of her desk and her back straight, she waited for the professor to come in. Her classmates straggled in, all taking seats to fill up the back row before someone eventually sat next to her.
A few minutes before class was set to begin, a tall, dark-haired man sauntered into the room, a black sport coat with green elbow patches thrown over his messenger bag.
“Good morning. I assume we’re all here for Journalism 101. If not, there’s the door,” the professor said, pointing behind him.
One student got up to leave, but the professor didn’t spare a glance. He sat at the table directly in front of Betty and looked at her skeptically, like maybe he knew her, but she didn’t let it phase her. She was always told that she had one of those faces.
He took out a stack of papers and flopped them on the desk of the student next to her. The sudden slap of paper against the plastic of the desk startled Betty, but she kept her composure. She watched as the professor paced the front of the room, waiting for the students to finish passing around the packets . “I am Professor Jones. My office hours and contact information are listed at the top of your syllabus.”
He went through the basics of his self-introduction and what was expected out of the course. “I want you to think about what it really is you want to be writing. It takes more than good writing skills to be a good journalist. And if you’re taking this class as an easy elective, I’d drop it now.”
He ran his fingers through his slicked-back hair before pulling another stack of sheets from his bag.
“We meet three days a week, so I’m sure we are going to get to know each other fairly well. You respect my time and I’ll respect yours. That being said, I have two spots open for an advanced descriptive writing seminar that begins mid-semester. It is one night a week for the second half of the semester. This flyer details what I’m looking for, so if you’re interested, stop by and grab one,” he said, holding up the sheet. “I’ll see you all Friday.”
The class filtered out, but Betty stayed behind.
“Is there something I can help you with, Miss…”
“Elizabeth Cooper, but everyone calls me Betty,” she said, standing up and slinging her blue denim backpack over her shoulder. “I’m interested in the seminar.”
Jughead holds out the flyer but stares at her silently, like she’s done something wrong. She feels unnerved by the intensity of his glare, but refuses to let it show.
She shoots him a perky smile. “See you Friday, Professor Jones.”
“Applications with completed supplements are due in my office by October first.”
--
Betty filled out her seminar application far earlier than she needed to. But in addition to the regular application form required by the school, Professor Jones had also asked for a 500-word piece from each applicant describing their favorite thing. The only catch was that applicants were not allowed to actually name the thing. If Professor Jones could not guess what an applicant was describing, the spot was theirs.
Simple enough , Betty thought, until she actually tried to write the short essay. She’d wracked her brain trying to think of what her most favorite thing on the Earth was. Her parents, no . Something academic? No, she didn’t want to be known as a kiss-ass already; she was sure that label would come in time.
Finally, in a booth at Pop’s, an idea presented itself to her atop a crisp paper doily. What she’d describe in her application — her favorite thing in the world, however simple — was a strawberry milkshake with whipped cream and three cherries.
Betty planned to finish her application a few weeks later after returning home from class. But when she walked through the door, it seemed her roommates had something else in mind.
“Betty, you work too hard!” Kevin whined. “You never hang out with us anymore.”
“You deserve a little R&R, B,” Veronica chimed in. “Besides, Kevin’s new boyfriend is here. What kind of host would you be if you scurried off to do your homework?”
Betty groaned. “Fine,” she acquiesced. “But I’m not promising I’ll like him.”
Betty followed Veronica and Kevin into the living room, where a leather-clad man lounged on the couch, legs crossed at the knees. He looked vaguely familiar, like she’d crossed his path before.
“Betty, Joaquin. Joaquin, this is my housemate and best friend, Betty.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Betty said, her voice half an octave higher than usual.
Joaquin looked around the living room, his head nodding slowly . “Nice place.”
Betty hadn’t redecorated too much after her family died. She did rearrange the furniture and add her own throw pillows and art on the walls, but the space was still very Cooper-esque.
“How did you two meet?” Betty asked, taking in his full-leather form.
“Preppy is in my algebra class at Riverdale Community,” Joaquin said. “Do you go there, too?”
“Greendale U,” she said, slowly gravitating toward the stairs. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go upstairs and change. It’s been a long day.”
She scampered upstairs, leaving her backpack on her vanity chair, and changed into an old pair of cheer shorts and a tank top. They revealed a lot of her skin — her soulmark was on full display — but she didn’t think anything of it. She’s walked around her own home in less clothing before, and based on who he was dating, she was sure she didn’t have to worry about Joaquin having wandering eyes.
She traipsed back down the stairs to rejoin her roommates in the living room, only to find them gone. With her head on a swivel, she looked for her friends around the first floor of the house, but she didn’t spot them anywhere. Betty shrugged her shoulders, confused. She opened the fridge and grabbed a beer, cracking it up and hoisting herself up onto the kitchen counter next to the sink. She took a swig from the amber bottle and scrolled through her emails until the sound of glass shattering pulled her focus.
When she looked up, Joaquin was standing in front of her, coughing like he took a huge swig of beer that went down the wrong pipe, his bottle broken at his feet.
“I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up. Please don’t jump down here with bare feet.”
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. Must have swallowed wrong,” he said, but she didn’t believe him.
A few hours later, they were sitting for dinner when Joaquin started making idol small talk.
“So, Betty. I didn’t know you were a Serpent. I definitely would remember seeing you around.”
“Oh, I’m not. What would make you say that I am?”
“With that giant snake on your thigh, I just figured that must be the case," Joaquin said, taking a bite of his pizza.
“Oh. Right. Nope. Not a Serpent. I woke up on my eighteenth birthday with this giant green monstrosity and I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.”
She saw the ghost of a smirk on his lips, but decided it would be better not to ask.
--
Joaquin’s presence around the house became a normal occurrence after a while. He was there more than he wasn’t, but Betty didn’t mind. He was a wonderful house guest: tidy, quiet and helpful. The four of them had fallen into a nice routine by mid-September, when Betty blurted out an idea over their game of Uno.
“I think I’m going to get a job,” she said.
“Why would you do that?” Kevin asked. “If I didn’t have to work, I definitely wouldn’t.”
“I’m bored,” she admitted. “And I think I can use it as part of an assignment for class. The professor told us he wants us to come up with an undercover story concept.”
“Concept means an idea, not actually go out and do it,” Veronica piped up.
“Have you met me?” Betty asked, and everyone chuckled. “Besides, aren’t you two always telling me I have to get out of the house?”
“Well, yeah. But like, on a date, not for work.” Kevin laughed, playing a green draw-two card to Veronica.
Veronica glared at Kevin and did as the card prompted. And just as quickly as the conversation started, it was over. Betty made a mental note to talk to Cheryl about a bartending job at her club in Centerville, The Twisted Cherry. If she really wanted to go undercover, she’d need a place where no one knew her as
Little Betty Cooper
.