Play with Fire || c. blossom

7

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Archie was sitting on a bench outside of school as he waited for David to exit. He was going to walk home with him after school, but he was beginning to hate suggesting it.

     After giving the name of David's old school to Betty, he started to feel somewhat responsible for his cousin. He thought if he showed David some kindness, it'd give him an opportunity to open up about anything his records may contain before they were discovered. Archie was all for Betty's investigation; even though it won't clarify anything David had with Cheryl in the past, it might just shed some light onto what brought David back to Riverdale.

     The doors opened, and Archie looked up to see a rather somber looking David Andrews walking out of the school.

   "Why're you so late?" Archie asked. "We were supposed to walk home together."

    David looked his cousin up and down. Gesturing to Archie's letterman, he said, "Didn't you have football practice?"

    Archie shook his head. "Which is why I offered to walk to and from school today."

    David sighed. "What about Betty?"

     At this, Archie rolled his eyes. "Betty has other means of transportation besides walking with me."

     David smirked. "Does that make you jealous?"

     Archie narrowed his eyes at David. "You are avoiding my question; why'd you come out so late?"

    David groaned, "I don't want to talk about it. Besides, I'm sure your pal Mantle will fill you in soon enough."

      This confused Archie as the two of them started heading home. "What does Reggie have anything to do with this?"

     David scowled. "Well, since you're not going to drop the subject, I'll tell you."

     Archie almost wanted to laugh; what made his cousin late isn't exactly the information he wanted David to spill, but this made him hopeful. If Archie can manage to get him to open up about something minor, he might just squeeze out other secrets.

     "He and his basketball team were having practice, and I was hoping I could still squeeze into the team, even though I've missed their initial tryouts."

     "I didn't know you liked basketball."

     "I don't. I'm just good at it, and it helps to let off steam."

      At the last part, Archie gave his cousin a quick glance. He started wondering what kind of steam it was that David particularly needed basketball in order to let it off. Anger? Sexual frustration? All of the above?

     "Also, I was on the team at my last school. Anyway, I made a bet to beat his team and get at least one shot into the hoop in order to make it onto the team. So the whole team against me. I managed to get one shot, only for Reggie to tell me it was an unauthorized practice."

     Archie nodded. "The coach wasn't there."

     David nodded. "Exactly. And because of that, the whole thing didn't work out the way we made the bet on."

    Archie glanced over at his cousin, trying to gauge what was going through his head. He seemed genuinely upset about being tricked like that. David always struck him as the type to lash out when angry, however he was just disappointed, and not even acting on it.

    "Did you fight Reggie?" Archie asked.

    David scoffed. "No."

     Archie noted this and prepared the next question. "Did you ... want to?"