Barchie Oneshots

Oh No! (Part 2)

There's no way to describe how awkward it was at Betty's house.

Jughead moves out of her room and into the guest room.

She does him the courtesy of trying not to be home often, and staying in her room when she is.

She thinks about what an idiot she is. Not only did she lose Jughead, but Veronica as well.

The day after the tapes arrived, Veronica called her. From the very beginning of the call, Veronica made it clear that their friendship was over.

Terminated, was the word she had used, and the clinical, dead feel of it was what made a Betty start crying.

School was tough. Everyone felt terrible for Veronica and Jughead, which Betty completely, sadly, understood. She ate lunch in the bathroom to avoid the morbidly curious looks, or worse, outright hateful glares from her classmates.

Cheryl and Kevin still had kindness for Betty and Archie, but they weren't exactly letting them off the hook. We're not mad, just disappointed their frowns seemed to yell.

About a week after the tapes came out, Archie received a text from Betty. He was surprised; they had been radio silent since she had called him that night, crying.

Meet me in the bunker after school?

Archie twiddled his thumbs for a moment before responding.

See you then.

When he entered, she was already sitting on the cot, staring at her hands.

"Archie," she said.

"Hey." He replied.

Neither spoke for a moment, and the air was heavy.

"What do we do now?" She said.

Archie was startled. No small talk, then.

"Well-well I don't know." He said.

"We can't just like, not do anything." Betty said frustratedly.

Archie let out a dark laugh.

"Hey!" Betty said.

"Look at us! Betty, look at our lives. What the hell is going on right now?"

This time Betty laughed, giggling like she hadn't in a long time.

Archie sat wordlessly next to her on the cot, and the air grew heavy again.

"We're bad people." Betty said quietly.

"We did a bad thing. But-"

"We're still doing a bad thing, meeting up like this."

"This?" Archie looked at her, eyes boring into hers.

"Arch," she said softly, "I-I wanted to talk to you, like really talk about it."

"Okay," he said, swallowing the lump in his throat, "let's talk."

"It was a mistake." She said.

Betty felt her heart break a little when she saw the look in his eyes.

After a while, he responded.

"We shouldn't have cheated."

Betty just looked at him expectantly.

"But I wanted to kiss you," Archie said, gaining confidence, "And I regret hurting them, but I don't regret what we did."

Betty's heart leapt into her throat and her stomach erupted in butterflies. Her eyes flickered down to his lips, and for a second she was sure they were going to kiss again.