They became boyfriend and girlfriend almost without trying, which seemed to be a recurring theme in their relationship. They weren't looking for each other, or anyone else for that matter, but their connection, when it arose, was effortless and natural and they were helpless against the tide, not that they wanted to resist. It was a surprise though, for both of them, and then it didn't seem like a surprise at all, just something that had been staring them in the face all along. It happened something like this:

They were all sitting in the student lounge, her and Veronica making plans for Polly's baby shower, and the rest of the gang occasionally pitching in suggestions. The two of them were sitting together on the loveseat and she could feel the heat from his body, the slight brush of his leg against her, the comforting weight of his presence by her side. They seemed to have claimed the small couch as their own during group hangouts and she was totally not opposed to this development, not in the slightest.

"I'm not expected to come to this thing, am I?" he posed the question to the air.

"You're Betty's boyfriend," Veronica replied bluntly before Betty could get a word in, "Of course you have to come."

Betty froze. They hadn't exactly discussed it, although they fit every definition of what the word implied. In a sense it was freeing, that he didn't really care about labels, that he just cared about her, and she was hesitant to put a stamp to something that was so new and so cherished. At the same time, she was aware of society's expectations and it wasn't like the labels themselves were a big deal. Just something they hadn't discussed. Yet.

He didn't seem to be having the same qualms. He just raised his eyebrows at her in a silent Am I?

And she hid a small smile that said something like Aren't you?

He sank further into the couch, brushed his fingers against hers once, and told Veronica, "Fine, I'll be there."

And that was that.

He knows it's real the first time he sees a picture of them on her walls. His heart swoops low in his chest, his eyes almost missing the tiny change, but then gluing on it with such intensity, his entire body comes to a halt.

The first time Jughead had been in her room, his eyes had almost instantly latched onto the small collection of images littering her walls: the majority of them with Archie, one with Polly, one with Kevin, and then a tiny polaroid of half of their class as kids, the only one that featured Jughead himself.

The second time he was there, she had swapped the picture of her and Archie on the nightstand with a group picture, featuring her and Veronica in the middle and the three boys by their sides. There was another picture too, a new one tucked in the corner of her vanity, just of the two girls in their cheerleading uniforms, mid-laugh as they screwed up a routine. Jughead felt a small flutter of something when he had seen the group picture; something that felt a lot like a sense of belonging that he didn't want to think about.

He didn't know how many time he had been in her room when he saw her newest addition. His mouth felt dry, his heartbeat picked up. The picture was secured nicely in a frame colored in stripes of pastels, a small pink heart stuck to one corner. It sat comfortably on one of the places on her bookshelf, right in his line of sight, so bright and sharp and vivid-

He didn't know when it had been taken. It was simple. Soft. They were sitting at their usual table during lunch, just the two of them, him dressed in his usual blues, her wearing a blinding shade of yellow. They were both looking at each other -he didn't even remember that specific day or what they were talking about- but they were both smiling. Smiling like they were happy, smiling like they were in love. Her eyes were crinkled at the corners and their hands were almost touching on top of the table and Jughead felt his chest contract with something that felt too tight, too big for his body to hold.

There was an intimacy in pictures, he realized. A permanency in something that had been developed and framed with the sole intent to capture a memory, to capture something that held importance. For the first time since he had climbed into her room and taken her face in his hands, he knew that whatever they were doing, whatever that was happening between them, it was just as important to her as it was to him. That it was real.

"What?" she asked, when she noticed his sudden silence. Her eyes followed his gaze, noticed what had him so transfixed and then asked again, with deeper purpose, "Juggie?"

His mouth felt dry. But it was Betty and he could already feel the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips. His eyes flickered downwards to his feet and then met hers again. "That's a good picture," he said, simply.

She smiled, grabbed his hand and started to lead them out of the room, "It is."

The crescents on her palm were mostly gone the first time he noticed them. They were sitting on the same side of the booth at Pop's, legs touching, feet brushing occasionally, with Archie and Veronica sitting opposite them, all of them talking about something or the other. He had taken her hand in his sometime after they had finished eating, playing with her fingers as they all chatted. He liked touching her –something he never thought he's say about anyone, ever. But in the week since they had been together, and even before, he found himself doing all sorts of unlikely things. Comforting her through touch, tucking her hair behind her ear, placing his leg in her lap. It was just something about her, about them, that made him feel so comfortable that he didn't even think twice about a gesture that he would never have otherwise done.

He wasn't a hugger, or god-forbid, a cuddler. But with Betty Cooper smiling at him with her bright eyes and pink lips, he turned into a goddamn sap, straight out of a teen rom-com movie. He liked kissing her, he liked hugging her, he liked sitting so close to her that their sides were pressed entirely together. He was right on the road to losing all the dark-and-brooding street-cred that he had managed to culminate through his school years. And he didn't even care.

Not too interested in the drama filled gossip that the group was currently indulging in, he started playing with her fingers. Her nails were painted bubblegum pink and he ran his thumb over the smooth surface. It was then that he noticed the scars in the middle of her palms, barely noticeable if it weren't for the bright florescent light flickering at the top of their heads. The scars were small and fading, and he wouldn't have been able to tell that they were nail marks if they weren't four crescents that were lined perfectly in a row.

He frowned but didn't say anything in that moment, just ran his thumb over the marks and returned his attention back to the conversation.

It was a few days later that the concern came back. She had had a particularly vicious fight with her mom and he could tell that she was a bit undone. He sat beside her on her bed, an arm around her shoulders, gently rubbing his hand across her back. A few seconds ago she was ranting loudly but now she had suddenly gone quiet. To an outsider, she wouldn't have looked any worse for wear, but he could see the unnatural stillness about her, he could see her hands that were clenched so tightly, her veins were popping out of her skin.

Gently, he took one of her fists and pried it open. She seemed to come out of wherever her head had taken her and blinked at him, almost owlishly. Her open fist in his hands, he saw the small crescent scars that she had burst anew and something in his gut tightened painfully.

Seeing what he had seen, Betty immediately snatched her hand away, embarrassed. She didn't meet his eyes and he realized that he hadn't just seen scars, but a vulnerable, hidden side of her that she never showed anyone.

"Betts-" he started, something fragile in his voice.

"It's nothing," she tried to smile at him but failed, rubbing her palm against her jeans, trying to rub off the blood.

"Betty," he said again and this time when she looked at him, her breath hitched in a sob, eye watering despite her best efforts.

"C'mere." He murmured, holding out his arms.

She latched onto him, a shudder traveling through her body, burying her face in his neck, nails digging into his shoulder.

The next time he saw her digging her nails into her palms, she stopped before he could stop her, flexed her hand once and reached over to grab his hand instead.

It was a quiet night. Riverdale's small-town craziness seemed to be taking a backburner for the weekend, not that he was complaining. The only sound in the diner was the clacking of his keys as he typed out another chapter, and the quieter chatter of a small family that sat in the far corner, snacking on multiple baskets of fries. Betty sat opposite him, earphones plugged, pen twirling in her hands, attention immersed in her homework. It was so freakishly comfortable that he felt like any second now the lights would go out and invisible hands would start to dissemble the diner like props in a changing scene of a stage play.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he returned to his novel. It was easy to get completely engrossed in the story, with the words trickling out of his fingers like streams of a river flowing home. It was a luxurious escape, the only one he could ever afford. Taxing but so, so satisfying, with the word count increasing with every small word, the blank pages filling and filling with something he had created himself, something that belonged to him, and something that he knew was good. He sometimes wondered what would've happened if he had just been a terrible writer –he had enough confidence in his abilities to know that he was good one- and he had come to the conclusion that that would've perhaps been the greatest tragedy of his life, not his absent parents, not his former loner status in school, not his empty pockets and worn clothes. But the absence of this talent, the one thing that he had found for himself.

He paused after he had typed out another paragraph, flexing his fingers, ready to dive back in. His eyes flickered to Betty to find that her gaze was already trained on him, head cocked slightly to the side, pen flicking against the table as she observed him intently. Despite his faux bravado, he found himself suddenly self-conscious under her gaze, which was ironic because he had once worn a pair of jeans to school that were three sizes too small and hadn't cared.

"What?" he asked. "I know I'm good looking Betts but I didn't think you'd stoop to blatant staring."

She rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips. "Nothing. I was just wondering, you know. About your story. "

He quirked an eyebrow, "What about my story?"

She dropped her pen, laced her fingers together on top of the table, "Are we in it?"

He blinked at the unexpected question. "Of course you're in it Betty, you're practically the main character."

Or she was becoming too much of a main character as of late. He found himself writing something about how blue her eyes was, feeling disgusted at his own cheesiness, and then subsequently replacing the line with how she looked perfect even with her blonde ponytail soaked in the rain. And then deleting that too and wondering if his newfound feelings were rotting his brain.

"Not me, Juggie, we," she clarified. "Are we in your story? The two of us?"

He sat back, drumming his nails once on the table. "We, as in, the Blue and Gold detective duo, or we, as in, me sneaking into your room to sweep you off your feet?"

She smiled again and his stomach did that sweep it did every time she laughed at one of his jokes. "Both," she said.

"Both," he echoed, although with less confidence than before. "Both are in my book." He licked his lips, "Although, if you don't want us to be, I-"

"No," she interrupted him, "I want us to be."

"Good," he breathed out. "It's just… we'd really be missing a few good parts if we left that out."

She grinned, "Only a few?"

He glanced back at his laptop, trying to bite down his smile. He simultaneously loved and hated the way she made him feel, like a blushing, stuttering mess with absolutely no control over his feelings and actions.

"Juggie," she started again, more hesitant, "…would you ever consider letting me read some of your story?"

He looked back up to find her looking at him intently, honest and open and maybe a little nervous. He had to admit that it wasn't the first time he had thought of that, of showing her some of his work. It was perhaps the deepest part of him, the part of him that he didn't even understand but came out in how he wrote and what he thought. He had wondered what it would feel like to show her that part of him and he had wondered how she'd react. More than once, he had wanted her advice as a writer but he'd held back at the last moment. He didn't have the guts to show her… but she'd had the guts to ask and that only made his affection for her quadruple.

"I…only one chapter," he conceded. "And you have to give me your honest opinion as a fellow writer."

She positively beamed, "Deal."

Wondering if he was really about to do this, he scrolled his open document to the very top and pushed the laptop in her direction. She nudged one of her foot with his under the table, and he hooked his ankle over hers before she could move her foot back. He didn't want to be nervous but he was.

He didn't look at her reactions as she read, scrolling through something on his phone instead. But his mind wasn't really paying attention, too focused on the girl sitting on the opposite booth, reading thoughts straight from his head. Would she mind how he'd written her? Would she be mad?

He only looked at her again when she was pushing his laptop back towards him on the table. She had this look in her eyes, something contemplative yet intense, like she had discovered something about him from that one chapter that he hadn't managed to discover through his sixteen years. She reached over the table and grabbed his hand, intertwining their fingers. His heart contracted pathetically in his chest. At least he knew she wasn't mad.

"But there were really only three people at the table," she said softly, eyes blazing, "Why did you write that?"

It wasn't the first question he was expecting. "I…" he swallowed, completely at lost, but then she squeezed his hand and he continued. "Because I felt that way, at that time." He looked straight in her eyes, and he thought it was amazing how much emotion you could convey in a single glance without even saying anything, "But I don't feel like that anymore."

"And about Archie?" she asked, "About him being the luckiest guy in the world?"

He gave her a wry smile, "He had a great dad, and football and a good social standing….and he had friends like you and Veronica." Jughead paused. "Especially you."

In front of him, she seemed to melt. All the intensity simmering down to something soft and warm and malleable. She brought his hand to her mouth and pressed a kiss at his knuckles and that little peck somehow felt more intimate than other people's entire relationships. "Well, now you have friends like me and Veronica too. Especially me."

He grinned at the tabletop, "What about the rest of it?"

She didn't even miss a beat, and he knew she was answering truthfully, "It's wonderful, Juggie. I can't wait to read the rest of it someday."

His reply was entirely too honest when he said, "You'll be the first one that does."

Hi! I wrote this in a day and I don't know if its actually good or just shabby? Anyway, hope you liked it. I love Bughead; I think their relationship is so cute and well-done and I've already shamelessly read every fanfiction about them on the archive. I don't know if this is a oneshot yet. I might add to this story as the show progresses but I usually don't have that much time to write and this is just a fluke lol. But I hope you enjoyed!