Overture- Chapter 20: Still Love // (Nothing But Love For You)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Better late than never, amiright?
“Do you know what happened?” Joaquin asked Kevin. They were laying in Joaquin’s bedroom, Kevin sitting against the cool wall of the metal trailer, Joaquin laying his head at the foot of the bed with his legs strewn lazily across Kevin’s lap.
“I just know Betty is furious. But I don’t even think she’s mad about what happened. I think she is more mad about jumping the gun and not talking to him.”
“I think we all jumped the gun to be honest,” Joaquin mused. “I mean, we still have no idea what he did in Riverdale. And even though he’s in a gang and entitled to secrets, he’s also our family. More than half of us are in the same gang!”
“Half. Reggie is from Riverdale.”
“You know what I mean,” Joaquin scowled.
“But families do keep secrets,” Kevin said, sending Joaquin a pointed look. “I mean, I didn’t come out to my dad until I was fifteen and he didn’t tell me about the Mayor until they were already engaged.”
“It doesn’t matter, Quin. People are entitled to their secrets.”
Toni wanted to slam Cheryl’s head against the wall, but not in a fun way. Her girlfriend was running around Thornhill flipping out about Jughead and Betty and Toni just wanted her to shut up for twenty seconds so they could have a normal human conversation about the situation.
A situation, mind you, that no one else needed to be a part of.
Cheryl was a meddler, and Toni knew that from the moment she locked eyes with her on her first day at Riverdale. Her eyes were sparkling with mischief as she checked out Toni. But Toni watched her eyes turn stormy as she looked at Betty and Jughead, and Toni knew for an absolute fact that Cheryl was one-hundred percent trouble.
Only two days later, when Toni and Jughead pulled up to Pop’s to find everyone yelling, Veronica in a choke hold and Joaquin pale faced, Toni knew that Cheryl had been part of instigating it.
But when she finally and officially introduced herself to Toni in the parking lot once things had calmed down, Toni saw the sadness in her eyes for only a moment, and also knew, the Cheryl was one-hundred percent human.
“Why are you so grumpy?” she asked as he slammed the door behind them.
“I’m not,” he grumbled, and sunk down into the couch and tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
Veronica walked over to him and slung her legs around his waist and curled himself onto a ball in his lap. She pressed her face into his chest and kissed his neck and shoulders until his arms wrapped around hers and she felt his body relax.
“What the hell happened dude?” he asked her as he kissed the top of her head. She shrugged and inhaled deeply. She didn’t know, but she also didn’t care as much as she maybe should. She didn’t really think either Betty or Jughead was right or wrong. She just thought that they made stupid and childish mistakes, and would be easily fixed.
A communication breakdown was not going to be the thing that split them up.
She honestly thought the real issue was Jughead lying about texting Pea about her. One, it was stupid because it was easily a checkable fact. But two, it brought them into whatever problem Betty and Jughead were having.
But, Betty knew that she wasn’t at Cheryl’s, so not acknowledging his lie was also stupid and childish and brought them into it.
So Veronica wasn’t getting involved.
