Author's note: I don't own "Riverdale" or its characters, or any other version of the "Archie Comic" characters.

Reviews and constructive criticism are loved, of course. :)

Milkshakes and Shakespeare

She really started to understand why Jughead loved this place the way he did.

Not just for eating or for meeting your friends, but also to work, to read or write in here. The thought of being locked in here forever and having to spend your entire life in the "Chocklit Shop" wasn't as bad as one might expect. The loud beeping of the fryer and the rumble of the milkshake machine was like comforting music in the back of her head. That red and pale blue neon light was painting the most interesting pictures on everyone's skin.

They didn't look like normal small-town people any more, they seemed arisen from a 50s comic or a street lighted movie sequence, set in Venice or London, perhaps. The Choclit Shop's light suddenly seemed to be the light where world-shaking thoughts where thought in, and in which the limits of imagination blurred.

"Do you think this place looks just the same in other dimensions?", she sleepily murmured, against his neck.

"What?", he answered, sidelong looking down at her head on his shoulder.

"I was just thinking... Isn't this the kind of place that should stay exactly the same, wherever you are at? It's so nice in here, it should be a constant in the universe, or something...", Betty explained, dreamily looking around the room.

Jughead chuckled. "You sound a little drunk, Betty. Like a poet, but also like a drunk one..."

"I barely drank anything tonight, Jug! I'm just a little tired.", Betty said, resting her head back against his warm neck with a smile. It slowly dropped off from her face, as another few minutes of pensive silence spread between the two of them.

Jughead stroked the inside of her hands once again. His thumb softly grazed her palms, where his fingertips had met her skin so often before and where her own would carve into it whenever she felt abnormally insecure or hateful.

"Does it still hurt?", he wondered, gently touching the little scars.

Betty sat up, eyeing him.

"No, not really."

She lightly reached for his cheek, a few inches below his very own new injury. "Does this?", she asked, observing it worriedly.

Jughead smiled a little grimly. "Not really, too."

The blonde sighed and leaned back against the hard cushion.

"Sorry for ruining your birthday, Juggie."

He needed a moment to process her words, so open and regretful this time.

"No Betty, you really meant well, it's just..."

"I know, Jughead. You're not made for big groups of people and all that shindig. I should have known you much better. Or rather, I shouldn't have ignored the fact that I do, just to get my way or to have something distract me from that whole Chuck-thing..."

Jughead's eyes widened slightly at this, the bruised one as well as the normal one.

"Really, Betty. Why didn't you tell me all about it earlier? About... that darkness inside of you, and about how that... douche bag.. being here freaked you out this week?"

She took another sip from her vanilla milkshake, before biting her lip, uncertainly. "Well, for the same reason you didn't tell me about your Dad being a "South Side Serpent", Jughead. I wasn't sure how much to tell you because this is … embarrassing. And horrible, and … I just didn't want you to think less of me."

She shrugged, pulling away slightly and not really meeting her boyfriend's eyes. (Well, at least he still was her boyfriend... It was more than an implicitness, after such an evening like that...)

"Nothing about you is horrible, Betts.", he said, his voice raspy and soft at once, and as she met his gaze again, it held nothing but worry for her.

She sighed. "That's exactly the thing, Juggie. I don't really know if that's true.. Chuck was right. I really don't know myself that well, I don't know what's going on with me, and..."- she gulped - "I also don't know what would have happened that night under different circumstances... without Veronica stopping me at time. I might have...- I mean,...-" Betty's lips started to tremble and her eyes began to sting.

In the matter of seconds, his arms were around her. Like they always were.

"Shhh. Betty, stop this. You weren't yourself that night.", he softly muttered against her hair.

"Either that, or I was myself. My horrible, dark self, starting to escape, or something.", she whispered, voicing her most intimate fear. "Perhaps, all that "Perfect Girl Next Door" cliché, that everyone likes to keep reminding me about, is just the facade here, Juggie."

He pressed her tighter to his chest at this. "That's not true, Betty."

"It would make perfect sense though, wouldn't it?", she quietly sobbed. "Chuck appears, and I start to plan a big birthday party for you, like a perfect Girl Next Door would do for her boyfriend... My parents are kind of crazy, throwing bricks through windows and constantly scheming revenge plans against the Blossom's, out of some kind of centuries-old blood feud. And whenever I feel totally lost, this weird old OCD kicks in, out of nowhere..." Betty finished, nodding towards her injured palms.

Jughead stared at her, concern visible everywhere around the red spot on his face.

"So what?", he exclaimed, fiercely taking her hands in his again. An expression of surprise appeared on Betty's desperate features, and he lowered his voice a little. "That doesn't make you horrible or dark, Betty. You're human, damn it. Have you heard Chuck tonight? Now, that's a horrible person. Cheryl Blossom is. You might be the definition of the Girl Next Door, sometimes, and yes, you're ridiculously perfect, in a way. But not because of the things you're doing to preserve that image, Betty!"

He abstractedly ruffled his hair with his fingers, the black strands such an unusual view, without his hat covering them. His eyes held a forceful glow in the diner's neon glimmer.

"You're ridiculously perfect because you fight all that crap, Betty. All that fear, and insecurity, and anger! You fight that stuff with an overdose of friendliness and perfectionism, perhaps, but more importantly, you fight it at all! Do you know how many people don't? Look at my Dad. Or the Blossoms, or your parents, or …." his voice had merely become a small crackling confession, by now, " Or, look at me, Betty. Look at how I treated you tonight, just because I was scared about the possibility of this -" he pointed at the air between them, "-.. not working out."

Betty shook her head, brows furrowed and ponytail bouncing in her neck.

"Juggie... Are you really scared about me leaving you for Archie, at one point?"

He nervously looked up at her. "Betts, we don't need to talk about this if you don't wa..-"

"So, you really think like that?", she uttered in shock, eyes wide. "You try to tell me that I'm not a horrible person, but you really think of me as someone who spreads gratuitous hopes everywhere, and who would nonchalantly hurt your feelings, if Archie were to suddenly change his mind about me?"

Jughead gulped. It really was to late already for these kind of conversations...

"Betty, I'm just saying... I know that you had ..non-platonic feelings for Archie for such a long time and..." He became quiet, lacking the right words to voice his thoughts..

Betty just looked at him, shaking her head, smiling some kind of annoyed smile.

"Exactly. I had these feelings for Archie, for a long while. But what you don't seem to get, Jughead, is that I'm really happy to not feel that way any more... Not to be that insecure and confused any more, around one of my best friends, and to be with you instead. With someone I really should be with. I don't want Archie, Juggie, I want to be with you."

"Oh.", Jughead murmured, unsure of what to say after that. What do you say, while your stomach is producing a millennium firework? He grabbed his milkshake and swallowed a mouthful of it, but it didn't efface the tingling flames. "So... You're really not... you now...still interested in Archie, like that?"

Betty adopted her warm-hearted Betty-look. "No, Juggie, I'm really not. You're not a consolation prize, you know?"

Jughead chuckled, looking down slightly ashamed. "Yeah... Just checking."

"But, can I ask you another thing, Juggie?", she chipped in, curiosly. "Just considering one of us really were to be the other one's "project", why would that be you?"

He took a breath, uncomfortably. "Not that now, please, Betty."

"No, listen Juggie, okay? I get that you see yourself as an outcast, and as complicated, and that you prefer to keep your distance, most of the time, but... Haven't you realised how much you did for me, these last few weeks? I mean, really, Jughead. Isn't it always about me, at the moment? You're the one listening to my family problems, and playing detective with me, and defending me in front of others. You're constantly hugging me, being there for me... If anyone here is anyone else's "project", then you surely aren't mine."

She stubbornly smiled at him after her little rant, and Jughead smirked, tiredly eyeing her.

"Alright, I'm taking it back. I don't think that I'm your "project", Betts. No one here is anyone elses project." He took another big gulp of his milkshake, affectionately watching her. "Anything else you want to discuss tonight? It's really getting late.."

Betty resembled his fond expression, before getting slightly uncertain, again.

"Just one more thing... Tonight, you said we were too different to stay together, Jughead."

He hesitated. "Yeah.."

"And you seemed to really think that way all evening, but..."

"But?"

"But...", she reluctantly continued, "..what about that "Romeo and Juliet"-thing?"

"You mean...-"

"You compared us to "Romeo and Juliet", once, that first day you kissed me, remember? And yes, I know, it was just a line, and it didn't mean much else then you forbiddenly climbing into my room like an Elizabethan theatre's character would do, but..." she shrugged, looking at their connected hands, " I don't know, I liked the idea of it. You and me in some kind of starcrossed relationship.. Together against all odds, and everything.. So why do you suddenly describe us as incompatibly different, now?"

That instant, he lifted her chin and kissed her, warm, sugary lips roughly opening hers and tenderly holding her face between his hands.

She gasped softly as their mouths parted once again, and her lashes fluttered up to unblock the view of his warm gaze meeting hers.

"What is that supposed to mean?", she mumbled, cheekily watching him.

"That means: We already made it to the part where our rashness ruins everything, perhaps now we could try to make it better, instead of dying? What do you say, Juliet?"

She joined his quiet laughter, eyes alight, and sleepily examined the empty diner around them. They'd spent so much time sitting here and talking already, that the lovely beeping of the fryer and the beautiful rumble of the milkshake machine had become an inconspicuous melody in the background.

The red and pale blue neon light might have crept deep into their skin, she pondered. Making the adventurous ideas of another universe bloom in their heads as their fears were melting and as the night started to fade.

They weren't normal small-town people any more, they never had been. They seemed arisen from a 50s comic or a street lighted movie sequence, set in Venice or London, perhaps. And they weren't too different or too handicapped by their past to be together. They were just two teenagers, sitting in a magic diner and recently starting to fall deeply in love with each other. No uncertainty keeping them from it, no boundaries too high.

Betty took Jughead's woolly hat from the table, gently placing it on her boyfriend's black hair. His eyes followed her, as she carefully and perfectly adjusted it, like he never did and like no one had that way before for him.

And as her lips gently touched his, one last time, before they would stand up and leave the little diner, but not its atmosphere behind, his hands found hers, once again. Her wonderful, warm hands, that seemed to be made just for that one, amazing purpose, - to be held by his.

And which were perfect, no matter what fears might have injured their surface.