#bugheadsecretsanta

“Now, I get absolutely no pleasure in taking hard-earned spoils from a stand-up young man such as yourself, but one must do as one must.”

Jughead nodded, taking the proffered slim stack of cash handed to him out of the hundreds that comprised what had been once his share of the money. Fred’s words rang in his ears — You don’t belong in that world — when he spoke: “One more job, and I’m done.”

“One more job, and we are straight,” corrected Hiram with a pleasant smile and cold eyes. “Now, I must go, but remember—” 

“You call, I answer. I know.”

.

.

It was a memory that had impelled him to leave the apartment and walk the city streets aimlessly until he found his way into a corner booth of a quaint, quiet diner with its old-fangled furbishing, obsolescent jukebox, and straight-out-of-the-sixties aesthetic, but it was The Girl that had inspired him to stay. 

Jughead noticed the girl who would soon become The Girl first by looking outside the window next to which he sat and noticing glimpses of her sharp silhouette through the tilted venetian blinds. He watched, transfixed, as she walked in, cheerful and smiling, a crisp autumn wind at her back and a skip in her step, like she was goddamn Audrey Hepburn on the set of Funny Face, his headphones blasting The Tremeloes’s blithe here she comes now, walking with a love, with a love that’s oh so fine into his eardrums and searing the moment into his memory. 

“Hi,” a perky voice chirped above him, pulling Jughead out of his reverie and making him realise that he must have been staring into the distance for some time because she was right here before him, bouncy, blonde ponytail, beatific smile, and all. “What can I get you?”