#and another test thursday i'm going to have to restudy all over for

[soyforramen]

I can have an AU of my underground witch  and vampire AU, as a treat.  (Or, @sullypants told me to.)

Betty hissed and turned her head away. It didn’t feel like what she’d heard; it was supposed to be a soothing wave of calm and giddiness. Instead, this felt like two very large, very angry mosquitoes were jockeying for the best position to her veins.

“Fidgeting just makes the pain worse,” Jughead mumbled.  His lips ghosted across her skin, sending a flight of gooseflesh up her arm that made the urge to squirm worse.

Instead of thinking about the vampire currently attached to her, Betty bit the inside of her lip and resolutely stared at the peeling paint and rusted tools around her.  It was better than noticing just how very unsexy her first time was.  

Veronica had swooned when she described the first time she’d allowed herself to be bitten by a red haired vamp.  And Betty didn’t really want to remember all the gory details Reggie had relayed to her about his tryst with a vampire moonlighting as a boxer.

This hurt.

At least it took away from the boredom of trailing Honey and Weatherbee.  For the last three weeks they’d found nothing out of the ordinary.  The routine of diners, bars, and bowling alleys was nothing out of the norm for two consummate bachelors who may or may not be selling organs on the black magic market.

Of course, if they weren’t trailing the pair of allegedly upstanding citizens around town, Jughead would never have been foolish enough to have forgotten to eat for three days.  

A small part of her wondered whether he’d really forgotten, or if perhaps he was drawing another line in the sand between them.  The strange dance they’d been playing at for almost a year was still at a standstill.  Despite Betty’s hints and practically outright flirtation, Jughead maintained his aloof, Victorian sensibilities.  

(Damn him for propriety, and damn her for going for the Byronic, colicky types.)

It itched too.  Whatever it was about him, this was ten times worse than a mosquito bite.  She wondered if it would be impolite to ask whether he was done, but then again there were those overtones of the spector-like relationship between them.  

(Perhaps she should ask Cheryl what was in those drinks at the Vixen club.  That came far too close to love potions, though, and Betty was certainly not desperate enough to turn to those.  Those she’d leave to her sister.)

A wet, warm thing drew across her arm, and Betty realized with a start that Jughead had just licked her.  He apologized quickly and wiped his coast sleeve across her arm.

“It helps the skin mend better,” he mumbled looking as apologetic as a dog that had just been stepped on.  

“Oh.”

She hesitated.  What did one say after being used like a blood filled Capri Sun?

“Well, you didn’t miss much,” Betty murmured.  She shifted in her seat and drew her arm towards her face.  In the dim neon light she could see that the skin was indeed healing; only two light pink points were visible on her arm. 

 “Honey-Bee still hasn’t gotten past the entree.  At least you finished quicker than I expected.”

Jughead flushed and turned away from her.  Betty realized too late just what she’d said and couldn’t help the undelicate snort that echoed in the space around them.  As weary as she was growing of this canyon of space between them, moments like these, where the Victorian propriety proved to be as anachronistic as a rotary phone, were amusing enough for Betty to keep him around.

“Thank you,” he said when his pallor returned to it’s normal bleached bone color.  “I’m sorry if it hurt.  I was as gentle as I could be.”

Betty shrugged and leaned her arms against the windowsill.  “I’d say it was just uncomfortable.  Though I did miss the fireworks.”

He quirked an eyebrow.   

“Veronica said the first time she’d been bitten it was the best high of her life.”

“Well she can’t be right all the time,” he said darkly.  

Betty hummed and they went back to their stake out.  

“Do you think they’ll get pumpkin pie this time, or split cherry again?”

“Cherry.  Definitely,” Betty said.  “They had pumpkin last time.”

Thus went one more night in the life of a private investigating duo.

xxxx

Toni’s body shook with laughter hard enough that she almost fell out of her seat.  Cheryl steadied her, a board grin on her face. 

“You mean our resident Burton-esque Lothario didn’t charm you first?”  Cheryl asked.  

Betty shook her head, wary of her tone.  Cheryl leaned back in her seat and chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” Betty asked.

Toni gasped in a breath of air and brushed tears from under her eyes.  “I knew he liked you, but I didn’t realize he was in this deep.”

Betty’s brow wrinkled and she leaned forward, carefully avoiding the large coffee in front of her.  “Liked me?  Lately he can’t stand to be in the same room with me.”

“Please,” Toni snorted, “if he didn’t want to be near you he’d have bitten and charmed you long ago.  It’s like the greatest -” she paused and glanced at Cheryl.

“Trust.  Or rather, intimacy.  Both things he’s the absolute worst about,” Cheryl said.

Toni nodded.  “When you bite someone, you normally send them into a trance state to keep them from realizing what’s actually happening.  It’s an evolutionary advantage to make sure prey don’t try and fight you off.  Like a drug to keep prey busy while nature takes its course, only the drug keeps them coming back for another.   But when two people share blood and both are aware that it’s happening -”

“Oh.”  

Oh.  

“Who knew our grungy Mr. Cullen could be so vulnerable?  Especially around a witch?”  Cheryl asked in a sing-song voice.  

Her thrill of the revelation was radiating off her in waves and Betty watched as two strangers shifted closer to each other and struck up a conversation while their eyes made promises of later.  Even Toni, mostly immune to Cheryl’s pheromones, shifted closer to her and laced their hands together as she raised her hand in answer.

“But why doesn’t he do something about it?” Betty asked.  Frustration wouldn’t even begin to cover this one, though desperate exasperation might.

“Because he’s old-fashioned,” Toni said.  “Things were much different back then.  One didn’t go about things that would dishonor a woman’s virtue.  Not if you were trying to keep her social standing intact.”

Betty huffed and crossed her arms.  “That’s just stupid,” she muttered.  

Toni snorted.  “Look, if you want to wait for him, we’ll all be dead from the heat death of the universe.  He’s not going to make a move until he knows for certain you love him, and even then it will be more chaste than a co-ed math-letes convention.”

“It’s the new millennium, baby cousin,” Cheryl said with a pointed look.

“Which means I’m -”

“- going to have to take charge,” Cheryl and Toni said in eerie unison.  

xxxx

Another night spent on stake-out.  Only this time, Betty couldn’t keep from sending glances Jughead’s way as she tried to figure out the best way to approach this.  

Eventually, his own curiosity got the better of him.  “Is there something on my face?”

No, but there should be.  

“Did you feed already?”

His eyes narrowed, the cogs in his brain working overtime to decipher a simple question.  

“Yes.  Why do you ask?”

“Good.”

With more convinction than she felt, Betty leaned over and kissed him as hard as she could manage from her perch on the plastic vegetable crate.  Jughead kissed her, a ravenous hunger she hadn’t felt in almost a year.  

“Betty …”

He spoke her word like a glorious sin, and it was all she could do to keep from crawling into his lap. 

“I don’t want -”

Betty pulled back, icy chills washing over her.  She chewed her lip as she searched his face, but found nothing more than restrained longing.

“I know it’s a different century, but I don’t want you to think I’m overstepping any boundaries.”

Leap over them, you idiot, was what she wanted to say, but instead she leaned back and took a breath. 

“Look, Juggie.  I appreciate that, I really do.  But is that the only reason?”

He nodded.  A lock of his hair fell into his eyes, and Betty brushed it back behind his ear.  She left her hand on his check and he moved his head to kiss her palm.  

“Do you love me?”  

Jughead’s lips curved into a soft smile.  “Most ardently.”  

This time, the kiss was slow and sweet, a final revelation in the light of neon lights.