With miles and miles to go I guess it's nice to know That I can trust you Though the question still remains... What do you know about love?
What Would You Know
Read on Ao3
Bughead Secret Santa for @paperlesscrown
I hope you enjoy this interpretation of your prompt, (It has been a little daunting writing for such a talented writer, so eeek...)
Betty ran out to the street, her eyes scanning the walkways for her sister, Polly, letting out a groan of frustration as the masses of people blocked her vision. Then she sees a flash of blonde getting into a cab, her eyes scanning the number plate and committing it to memory before it speeds off into the city traffic.
She fumbles for her phone in her bag typing in the number plate into her notes before she forgets it. Before opening up her Uber app and selecting the nearest vehicle with a decent enough rating.
She texts Kevin next if there is anyone in this city with the right connections to track this cab down and find out where her sister is heading it’s Kevin. She stands on her tiptoes looking out for the plate of her driver. What she is not prepared for is the car that pulls up in front of her dressed up to look like a reindeer, a ‘nodding’ reindeer stuck to the dash and Christmas lights dangling from the inside front windscreen.
She does a double-take as the driver rolls down his window. A man about her age, wearing a beanie, leans out the window. His hands raised in question. She checks the number plate again and reads the name of the driver, Jughead. That should have been a warning, but she had been in such a hurry she hadn’t even noticed.
Betty began to question whether this was really happening. Whether this is the final straw and her mind has officially snapped and she is now imaging Uber drivers who drive cars that look like reindeers when the honk of a car horn, snaps her out of it.
“Betty?”
She manages a nod in response.
“Are you getting in?” He calls out from the wound down window, and Betty cautiously takes the back seat. Moving along the Christmas blanket that has been draped across the back seat. Pulling out her phone to see whether Kevin has anything for her yet.
When there is nothing from Kevin she sighs, trying to rack her brain for where her sister might have headed in such a hurry.
“Where to,” the driver asks, adjusting the rearview mirror so that he can catch her eyes, his thumb pointed back at the cars starting to pull up behind them in front of the hotel “they’re going to start beeping me soon.” He shot a look into the side view mirrors, “or give me a ticket.”
“Um, East, someone is texting me the exact address,” Betty offers, looking up from her phone. Polly will want to get out of the city. She knows how crowded the city can feel on nights like this and the need to escape.
She sees the look in his eyes as he shrugs his shoulders, pulling away from the curb.
The drive is largely silent. Betty alternated between playing with the edge of the blanket between her fingers, checking her phone for a message from Kevin and scanning her social media for any hint for where her sister might have gone.
“The car doesn’t usually look like this,” Jughead said to her from the front seat, as they continue to drive, the lights of the city soon becoming duller in the rearview mirror, replaced by quieter streets blanketed in the freshly fallen snow.
“It was my friend’s idea of a prank,” he continues as Betty nods, another glance of the phone.
“Dressing your car up as a reindeer?”
“He’s not that funny,” he adds with a chuckle.
“Right,” Betty answers pulling up the driver’s profile, 5 stars, which is exactly why she picked him in the first place. Jughead Jones. It sounds like a pseudonym, typical in this city. A struggling musician, an actor? No, a writer perhaps. Yes. That seemed much more likely.
“Any address yet, Betty?” he asks. He looks at her from the driver seat, and she looks down at her phone again, a feeling of elation washed over her as she sees she has a text from Kevin.
Hey Princess, Looks like the taxi has been booked to the Hamptons Villa, long trip, you heading there with someone? 😉 Saw your sister’s meltdown at the party. Good Luck, Keep in Touch 😊. Kevin.
Of course, she was heading there. It was so obvious she was angry with herself without being able to come up with it herself.
It was one of the few places where they had been happy. Before losing their mum and dad, before Polly started pulling away from her bit by bit. Maybe this was their chance to finally reconnect.
She’ll be able to make her sister see that she isn’t some little girl anymore who needs protecting from the world, that she can make her own decisions and her own life.
“I need to go to the Hamptons,” Betty spoke up, seeing the confusion cross Jughead’s eyes before he pulled over, putting the car into park before shifting around in his seat to face her.
“Where?”
“The Hamptons, my family has a villa there and-”
“That’s just over 2 hours away,” his voice managed to go up an octave at the suggestion that she wanted him to drive across the state to get to her sister. She imagined he probably thought she was crazy wanting to drive all that way on New Year's Eve as if on the spur of the moment.
“Look me and my sister had a fight, and she’s upset and I just need to see her.” The look on his face doesn’t shift.
“What did you have a fight over that she needs to go two hours away from you?”
“I got engaged.”
“Congratulations,” he deadpanned.
“Thanks, it’s just it was kind of sudden, and Polly, my sister, freaked out. Dropped this huge bombshell, and, now I need to find her.”
“How sudden?”
“How-”
“The engagement?”
Betty looked down at her hands, playing with her fingers as she mumbled under her breath, “tonight.”
“And you met?”
Betty shifts her gaze to outside the window, “tonight,” she whispers. “You are engaged to someone you just met.”
She can feel the urge to defend herself and her actions rising, she wasn’t going to let some stranger rain on her parade, “You can if it’s real. If it’s love.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Her stare hard into the rearview mirror, meeting his eyes.
“You can’t marry someone you just met, this isn’t some kind of Disney movie. This is real life. I’m starting to side with your sister,” he said with a chuckle.
Betty let out a frustrated grunt and yanked open the door, making her way out to the snow. She couldn’t stand to be near him and his judgemental look.
Sure it was soon and sudden, but it was love. She was sure of it. She heard the car door slam behind her and he was stood next to her, his breath coming out in a mist, as he tugged down the beanie tighter over his head.
Betty ignored the way the cold wind bit through her thin dress, licked at her bare skin, she should have grabbed her coat before she chased her sister out of the hotel. She could feel him watching her before he shook his head and sighed, opening the car door again, reaching in.
The next thing she felt was the softness of the Christmas blanket around her shoulders and the warmth of the hands that smoother it over her arms, as she clasped it around her body.
“Are you going to help me or not?” Betty asked, her hands pulling the blanket tighter.
“What’s in it for me?” He asked calmly, as Betty willed the frustration not to show on her face, instead casually looking back at the city they had left behind and the lights in the far off distance.
“It’s a busy night in the city,” she tells him, ignoring the roll of his eyes at the obviousness of her statement.
“Which means lots of customers,” he replies, opening his driver side door before she puts her hand on it closing it again with her weight, as he goes to open the door again.
“I need to get to my sister. And I’m willing to pay you to drive across this island to get to her.”
“And ...”
“It’s New Year’s Eve in New York City. People will be drinking, almost definitely drunk,” she adds with a nod, “Some of these girls can’t hold their liquor, and the champagne will be flowing tonight,” as he screws up his face at the mere thought of some socialite in his back seat puking up the contents of her stomach all over his newly detailed car.
“Which would be such a shame,” she adds, looking into the back window as the well-kept interior, "but, hey, your choice, I'm sure I can find another driver. Who is willing to have their entire night’s fare in one trip."
She shrugs her shoulders and pulls out her phone, before glancing back at him again.
Jughead let out a groan, as he looked up at the sky in some kind of silent prayer, “Fine. I’ll do it. Partially because I need the money, and I just got this beautiful car detailed,” he muses as he runs his hand across its bonnet, as Betty eyed him warily at the slightly unnatural love this man has for his car.
“But also because I quite frankly am worried about your ability to make decisions,” he adds.
“What?!” Betty asks incredulously at this man she has just met having the gall to judge her decisions. The man who was driving around New York in a car that was dressed up to be some kind of Reindeer, Christmas on steroids monstrosity.
“Well you’re marrying a guy, you just met. Who your sister, someone you are prepared to drive to the other side of the city with a stranger, clearly has some reservations about. And no alarm bells are going off right now. Not one?”
Betty felt like she had been slapped across the face. She loved Archie. He loved her, he had told her. It made perfect sense on paper. He was the heir to the Andrews fortune, she was second in line to the New York Times. And they had so much in common.
It felt right, but there was a little nagging feeling that told her that she should be careful. But she had been locked away for so long, and Archie was good looking, charming and he liked those little sandwiches just as much as she did.
“What would you know about love anyway?” she bites back.
There is a sadness that clouds his eyes, and Betty almost immediately regrets asking the question.
He smiles at her, though there is little happiness in his eyes, “More than I’d like to.”
“I’m sorry, I-”
“Let’s go.”
She stood to the side as he pushed past her to open the front passenger door, and stepped aside for her to enter. As she was about to give him an earful about how she could open her own doors, her heel slipped on a patch of ice in hidden beneath the snow. A shriek leaving her lips as she lost her footing.
She felt a hand grab her elbow, stopping her fall as he then pulled her against his body until her feet found her place again and she could stand on her own two feet. She gripped onto his arm, his other arm coming to wrap around her as she was face to face with him.
Noticing just how blue his eyes were, and feeling a flush on the back of her neck.
“Thanks,” she managed as he loosened his grip, and she stood up, brushing down her dress as she regained her composure.
He may be frustrating, and may not agree with her but she had a feeling this little road trip was going to be anything but boring.
@bugheadsecretsanta
