#serious and drunk were both pulled from irritated and modified slightly

[passumstars]

The hot new thing is googling old art memes and using whatever image search gives you

[kurokoros]

one hundred ways to say “I love you” (sweet pea x reader)

#95 “Good luck.”

A series based on prompts from THIS list. They won’t be in order but all are loosely connected unless otherwise stated. Feel free to request specific ones, but I’ll try to get through all of them at some point.

Read all 100 ways.

“Think I should go easy on them?” Sweet Pea jokes from where he’s leaning against the bar beside you, lips brushing against the shell of your ear as his mouth curls into a smile. “Give them at least a little chance?” You follow his gaze across the Wyrm to the pair of pool players from Greendale. They’d showed up earlier in the week looking for a match, and it’s turned into something of a spectacle since.

It’s no secret that Sweet Pea is one of the best billiards players on the Southside of Riverdale, if not the entire town, and ever since that news has spread, there’s been the occasional challenger from out of town looking for a good game. The Greendale men are nothing new, not really anyway.

Except that they’re good. Really good. Especially compared to some of the people you’ve seen in the Wyrm lately. They have nearly ten years of playing on Sweet Pea and Fangs and they’ve won a few local competitions in Greendale and Centerville. Nothing fancy, but it’s nothing to scoff at either.

“Don’t get cocky, Sweets,” you chastise lightly, eyes narrowing at the men. “They’re good.” You glance up at him, tilting your chin to meet his eyes when he straightens beside you, frowning down at you. “Maybe even better than you,” you joke, a grin pulling at your lips.

He rolls his eyes at your teasing, but his irritation of offset by the fond look in his eyes. “Don’t worry, Sweet Girl,” he murmurs back to you thumb absently brushing down your bare arm, “I’ll put my money where my mouth is.” His lips quirk at the edges at the familiar nickname. It’s one you’ve had for years now, and one that started as a joke more than anything else.

Back when you first started coming to the Wyrm, some of the older Serpents started referring to you as “Sweet’s Girl”, a name that’s stuck with you in all of the years you’ve known him. He’s modified the name for himself, but plenty of the Serpents still refer to you by the name. It’s something you’ve gotten used to after being friends with the tall, angry, loyal to a fault Serpent for so long.

You snort slightly. “Oh, I bet you will.” You twist around on your stool, turning to face him directly, a teasing grin spreading across your lips at his raised brow, Sweet Pea’s expression almost offended.

“You don’t believe me?” He leans in closer to you, dark eyes bright with something mischievous. His fingers trail lower down your arm, goosebumps left in his wake. Sweet Pea wets his mouth, his gaze flicking down to your lips briefly before jumping back up, his gaze more questioning than anything else.

Across the bar, Fangs calls out to Sweet Pea, beckoning him towards the pool table that’s been set up when Sweet Pea glances over his shoulder at their friend. A dozen younger Serpents are crowded around the table to watch the games, one of them, Isaac, holding the pool cue that Sweet Pea typically uses. The players from Greendale are already there, watching Sweet Pea from across the room, neither appearing fazed by the jeering of the younger Serpents around them.

Sweet Pea rises to his full height beside you, sobering when he sees how calm the other pair is. “Hey,” you start firmly, catching his fingers with yours and giving him a quick squeeze. Sweet Pea’s gaze flicks back to you, his brows narrowed, though he softens slightly when you send him a reassuring smile. “I’ve seen you hustle the best players at the Wyrm a dozen times,” you remind him, playing with one of the rings on his fingers, “these assholes aren’t going to know what hit them.” Fangs calls out to Sweet Pea again, but he doesn’t react, too lost in you to pay Fangs any mind. “Now go kick some ass,” you demand, releasing his hand and giving him a little shove towards Fangs.

He returns your grin, pushing off the counter though he doesn’t go far. He turns so he’s standing in front of you, sliding up to your bar-stool and slipping between your legs easily as he places his hands on top of the bar, boxing you in as he leans down, breath hot against the side of your neck. The counter digs into your back as he curves into you, pining you between him and the bar. “You gonna give me a kiss for luck, Sweet Girl?” he asks in a low, rough voice that sends a shiver down your spine, your breath catching in your throat.

“After all that talk?” you whisper back, fingers dragging along his chest before curling around his dog tags, dragging him down just an inch closer, hardly any space left between the two of you. You glance at his mouth, Sweet Pea’s expression almost smug as he stares down at you. “I don’t think you need it.” Your eyes snap back to his, peeking up at him through your lashes.

A low sound that’s practically a groan leaves him. “A little luck doesn’t hurt,” he tells you, practically breathing the words back and allowing you to pull him into you. There’s something honest about his eyes, something so sincere that you have to look away and brush it off.

You only laugh, hand suddenly flat against his chest as you push him back. “All right, Casanova,” you tease, smiling up at him as you force him a step back, Fangs calling out again, this time telling Sweet Pea to “hurry the fuck up!”. “The competition awaits,” you remind him.

He looks almost disappointed as you lean away from him, but it’s gone as suddenly as it was there, so you brush it off as a mere trick of the light. He glances back at Fangs sighing as he pushes off the bar top, leaving you for now. Sweet Pea takes a step back, but stops again, looking down at you. “You’re going to be watching, right?”

You smile. “Don’t I always?”

You bite your lip to hold back a smile as Sweet Pea sinks another shot, his eyes never once leaving yours as he does. He’s showing off, you know, making the game look easier than it really is. He’s always been good at making 8-ball look easy, which is how he’s scammed so many of the new initiates over the years you’ve known him.

Sweet Pea winks at you and you roll your eyes, shaking your head slightly. It only makes him grin wider, Sweet Pea wetting his lips as you cross your legs, your skirt hitching higher on your thighs. His dark eyes snap away from yours for only a second, darting down to the bare skin of your legs before jumping back up. He swallows, cocking his head to the side as he plants his pool cue on the floor, leaning against it as he watches you.

His dark eyes trace your features, his expression wolfish in a way that sends a shiver right up your spine, a pleasant tingle spreading and tugging low at your gut.

“Are you two done eye-fucking each other, or would you like us to clear out so you can bang on the billiards table?” Toni’s voice from the stool beside you snaps you back to awareness. You break eye-contact with Sweet Pea, practically ripping your gaze away from him to look at the smirking girl beside you.

You roll your eyes, used to her comments at this point. “We are not eye-fucking each other,” you deny, even though you can feel his gaze dragging over you from across the room, drinking you in with long, slow looks.

Toni snorts loudly, taking a drink from the glass in her hands. “Well someone needs to tell him that, because he’s practically undressing you right now,” she muses. You don’t dare look at him this time and it only makes Toni smile wider. “Which is some seriously awesome duel-concentration, considering he’s also kicking ass at pool.” She frowns down at her drink, eyes narrowing. “Granted, if Sweet Pea is good at two things, they’re hustling people and getting girls to take off their clothes,” she murmurs, words slurring slightly, and you bite back a laugh. “Not that you’re any better. We all know you don’t even like pool, you just like the view of Sweets’ ass as he’s bent over the table,” she continues, making you choke on your laughter, “but seriously, when are you guys going to get over yourselves and just bang already?”

You frown back at her, watching as she squints and takes another long drink from her glass. “Toni, are you wine drunk?”

“I’m wine tipsy. And that’s beside the point.” She turns to you, leveling you with an utterly serious look that’s offset by the way she almost slips from her seat. Her hands settle on your shoulders, forcing you to meet her stern expression. “Listen, Honey, I love you. I do.” You nod along with her slowly, unsure where this is going. “And I love Sweet Pea. We all love you guys. But the overwhelming sexual tension that appears whenever you two are in a room together is kind of disgusting.”

You have to force back a smile. Drunk Toni is always surprisingly ridiculous. “I appreciate your honesty.”

“So why aren’t you going for it?” She asks it like it’s obvious, like it’s inevitable that it’ll happen. “You’re obviously desperate to get some,” she continues, ignoring the offense that flashes across your face, “he barely takes his fucking eyes off you, and you guys were practically making out an hour ago in front of everyone. Go fucking get some, Girl.”

You sigh as you shift out of her grasp, leaning back against the bar, suddenly exhausted. You and Sweet Pea have been playing a game for some months now, flirting more than you should, teasing each other, but never getting closer than you were earlier tonight.

Maybe it’s because you’re both cowards or maybe you just know better.

“He’s a player, Toni,” you say slowly, more venom in your words than you intended. The smile leaves you for the first time tonight, and you glance over at Sweet Pea, meeting his eyes quickly. The grin drops from his face as soon as he sees your expression, but you look away just as quickly, releasing a slow, shaky breath. “Like you said, he’s good at getting girls to take their clothes off. That’s how he’s always been.” He’s never been serious about anyone in all the time you’ve known him, and he’s always made it perfectly clear that he isn’t looking for a relationship. “And I’m not looking for a hookup, not with him.” You swallow down the lump in your throat, picking at the hem of your skirt. “I know better than to get my hopes up,” you whisper, more to yourself than to Toni.

She hears you anyway, suddenly seeming very sober as she looks at you. “Y/N,” she murmurs, reaching for one of your hands, voice a little sad and a little disappointed, in you or him you don’t know. You don’t think you want to know.

“Sweets is the best,” you tell Toni, sending her a shrug and a smile that doesn’t even begin to reach your eyes. “I’m okay with how things are.”

Toni likes to joke that it was inevitable that you’d fall for him, like it was destiny. You’ve been attached at the hip since you met, aside from your second year of high school, when Riverdale had gone to shit and your mother got you the hell out of town and halfway across the country. Those were the worst few months of your life, back when you were ripped away from Sweet Pea and Toni and Fangs, back when you weren’t sure you would ever see them again.

It was like being pulled out from underwater when you saw them again, Toni practically sobbing when she saw you and Sweet Pea crushing you in a hug before you could say a word. You haven’t been that far apart since and if you and Sweet Pea have your way you never will.

He’s the one constant in your life and that terrifies you more than you’d ever admit out loud.

“What if he’s not?”

Your head snaps up, something twisting in your gut. “What?”

Toni sends you a sad, tipsy smile. “I wish you could see the way he looks at you when you don’t notice,” she admits, swaying slowly in her seat, the glass in her hand now empty. She gives a heavy sigh. “It’s like you’re the only thing in the room that matters.” You can only stare, wide-eyed as she continues her drunk rambling, barely able to breathe. “He hasn’t even looked at other girls in months and…” Toni trails off, wrinkling her nose. “Sweet Pea practically swallows you with his eyes, you know.” She blinks at you, reaching over to pat your hand, lacing your fingers together comfortingly. “Sometimes, I’m surprised there’s any of you left for the rest of us to see.”

You don’t respond. You can’t respond, unsure how much of Toni’s tipsy ramblings you should take to heart. She’s always been an honest person, even bluntly so, but she has a tendency to blow things out of proportion when she’s had too much to drink. Your tongue feels thick in your mouth, heavy, and when your lips part all that leaves you is a wet crackling sound, your mouth unable to form words.

Toni’s expression is undeniably lucid when she sends you a small, encouraging smile, squeezing your fingers with hers again.

A shaky sound leaves you as you grip her back just as tightly. “Toni,” you breathe, “what—”

You’re cut off by a loud commotion coming from across the room, the younger Serpents speaking to each other rapidly. Fangs looks pale when you catch sight of him in the crowd, and Sweet Pea looks even worse. He looks almost confused as he stares down at the pool cue in his hand, as if he doesn’t understand what’s just happened.

“Holy shit,” Jughead murmurs from Toni’s other side, leaning forward on his stool as he looks at Sweet Pea as well.

“What just happened?” Toni asks him, disentangling your hands in order to twist around to face their other friend. She frowns at Jughead, gaze flicking between him and Sweet Pea in confusion for a moment, before she glances over her shoulder at you briefly.

You don’t return the look, watching as Sweet Pea runs a hand through his hair, pushing the dark strands away from his eyes. The rings on his fingers catch the low light and flash from across the room. He looks more rattled than you’ve ever seen him before, his eyes blown wide and his lips parted slightly. Behind him, Fangs is whispering something, looking more concerned than anything else, and across the table the player from Greendale smiles a bit too widely, obviously pleased about something.

Jughead just shakes his head, almost in awe as he watches what’s going on across the room. “He missed the shot,” he murmurs to Toni, releasing a weak laugh and leaning back against the bar. Jughead runs a hand down the side of his face, shocked.

“What?” Toni snaps, eyes going wide as her head snaps around to look at Sweet Pea. “Sweets never misses a shot!”

Jughead just shrugs. “Well, he just did.”

As if feeling your eyes on him, Sweet Pea’s head snaps up, his eyes locking with yours instinctively. There’s an odd look in his eyes, one you’ve never seen before, and you mouth an “okay?” to him from your position at the bar. He gives a sharp nod and a smile, but his heart isn’t in it and you both know it.

He turns back to the game after another minute, but it only gets worse until suddenly Sweet Pea is losing for the first time in years. It’s something none of them have seen in a long time, and soon practically the entire bar is watching by the time the man from Greendale sinks two shots with ease, putting him ahead by a point.

It continues like that for some time. Sweet Pea can’t find the right angle to sink a shot and his opponent only seems to be getting better.

“Fuck,” Toni whispers, “I’ve never seen him off his game before.”

Jughead makes a low sound of agreement. “He’s not going to win the match. He’s rattled about something, you can tell. It would take a miracle to win.”

“Or a lot of luck,” Toni agrees, watching the game in the same way someone would watch a car crash, horrified but unable to tear her eyes away.

Your breath catches in your throat at Toni’s words, remembering Sweet Pea’s words from earlier. It’s stupid and you know you shouldn’t, because it’s stupid, really, but he’s losing and Toni’s words from earlier are still swirling through your head, and maybe you’re tired of being a coward.

There’s no such thing as luck, but if there is, he could definitely use a little now. He’s behind by three points, six balls on the table, including the 8-ball. If he doesn’t knock out the rest of his stripes with the next shot, there’s no way he’ll be able to win.

Sweet Pea leans over the table, lining up a shot—one that might be his last of the game—and without really thinking about it, you find yourself slipping from your stool and murmuring a quiet “fuck it” under your breath.

You tug your skirt back down your thighs as you steel yourself, taking a deep breath before practically storming across the room, ignoring Jughead and Toni calling after you in confusion.

Some of the younger Serpents look up as you get closer, nudging each other and whispering to themselves. You ignore them too, eyes on Sweet Pea only as you slip around the pool table, heels clicking across the hardwood floors.

“Stephen!” you call out when you’re close enough, the use of Sweet Pea’s real name catching more than a few people off guard.

Sweet Pea’s head snaps up at his name, his eyes widening slightly when he realizes you’re there. His grip on the pool cue tightens and he jerks in surprise, nearly bumping the cue-ball unintentionally. Fangs stares at you with wide eyes, looking lost as he glances between the two of you.

“Y/N?” Sweet Pea murmurs in confusion, eyes narrowing. “What are you—”

You don’t let him finish as you cross the small space between the two of you, grabbing him by the collar of his leather jacket and jerking him around. Sweet Pea crashes into you, his big hands grasping at your hips to keep both of you steady, and you yank him down to meet you, lips meeting his in a messy kiss.

His grip on you tightens in surprise and you can hear him inhale through his nose sharply, his entire body going tense beneath you before he suddenly sinks into your touch. One of his hands slinks around your waist, settling low on your back as he presses you to him, as if trying to make you slip beneath his ribcage. He holds you to him, fingers skimming the bare skin of your back where your shirt has ridden up, and you lean up on your toes to kiss him harder, still pulling him down to meet you halfway, though he comes willingly.

A loud, sharp whistle comes from somewhere behind you and you’re suddenly reminded of your audience, though you can’t bring yourself to care as you linger for a moment, drowning in the taste of him.

You pull back a moment later, dropping back to your heels and slowly loosening your grip on his jacket. Sweet Pea exhales against you, his breath warm against your face as he stares down at you, blinking rapidly. There are a million things you want to say to him in this moment, but you’re too breathless and when you meet his eyes each and every thought just disappears. There’s surprise there, confusion, but also something softer, something fond.

Eventually, your mouth moves, forming words through the hazy feeling you’ve settled into. “Good luck,” you whisper, lips brushing against his the two of you are still so close. He shivers against you, looking down at you like you’re something wonderful. You move to take a step back, to let him finish his game, but Sweet Pea’s grip on you is firm and he pulls you impossibly closer, forehead pressing to yours as his mouth brushes against yours teasingly.

“One more for luck,” he mumbles, dragging you back up to meet him.

And if he wins the game it’s only because of luck.