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Published:
2018-09-01
Updated:
2018-11-30
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33,401
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6/10
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your hand in mine

Summary:

Maybe they understand each other better than they think.

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The house is quiet as ever. It’s pretty much always that way now, but still.

All that means is when she’s lying on her bed and basking in the darkness from her black out curtains, she has a chance to feel like she’s sixteen again and the movement in the hallway is the heavy-step from her brother and not the squeak of un-oiled wheels.

She’s always loved the dark.

When they were little, they used to hide in the closet and crawl to the back whenever their mother had drank too much or their father was doing shady business, which she obviously didn’t understand at the time, neither of them did.

Jason always made it into a game, which is totally fucked, but they’d whisper secrets and tell ghost stories and when the coast was clear they’d come back out. So it confuse the hell out of her when the kids in her class were afraid of the dark. It was her sanctuary.

When the light snaps on she has to close her eyes for a beat so they can adjust to the new light.

Then she hears a soft, “Oh, Cheryl,” in this mildly pitiful voice, which frankly, she didn’t really think she deserves.

So yeah, the room is a mess, the kind of mess that would give her mother a migraine. There’s clothes strewn all over the floor and she threw a pillow at her lamp sometime in the night when she just couldn’t fall asleep, and maybe she was lying makeup-less and wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts and a ratty old jersey she stole from Jason when they were like thirteen, but hey, she wasn’t expecting company.

“You’re going to be late,” her nana tells her delicately.

She knows. A quick glance at her phone and she sees it’s almost 8:00am and that means she’s definitely going to be late, but why her nana thinks she needs to be coddled, she doesn’t know.

It makes her appreciate her mother for just a second, but then she snaps out of it, because she really doesn’t want to go there .

“I’m installing a lock,” she blinks, and only takes her eyes off the ceiling for a second.

She’s sitting there in the doorway. Cheryl can’t help but notice how tired she looks, and she just knows the old lady remembers everything that’s happened too, even when they pretend like they they don’t.

It doesn’t comfort her, not at all.

So she plasters on a smile, one that’s fake and they both know it, but she says she’s fine and she is. She’s fine. She’ll figure something out, and her nana leaves her to get ready for school without another word.

Her fingers side across her phone, slowly scrolling down through names, in her head she repeats the same routine ‘no’ when she thinks about calling one of them, any of them. But she doesn’t really have anyone like that. So she tosses the phone somewhere near her feet.

She cries when the door clicks shut, the quiet kind, just to get it out of her system.

She has to pinch her arm on the inside of her elbow to make herself stop. It leaves this kind of angry red mark, one that stands out against her pale skin, but she’ll wear long sleeves today and nobody will notice.

She’s a therapists wet dream.

 

 

 

 

 

She’s running just under ten minutes late when she pulls into the parking lot. Everyone's mostly inside already, bar the few stragglers. She almost turns around, but the thought of her mother getting that call keeps her feet moving.

When she gets to the classroom, there’s this itch she needs to scratch, so she pushes on the door a little too hard and when the wood smacks against the wall she’s rewarded with a nice heavy thud that gets most of the rooms attention.

It’s the little things, and knowing people are looking at her, just makes her fucking feel good.

Except there’s one guy who’s looking the complete opposite way. She doesn’t need to see the leather or the neck tattoo to know he’s a Serpent, she can tell by his unkempt hair that’s probably never seen a goddamn comb.

His legs are in her way and she’s not about to climb over them to get to her seat.

Something rises up in Cheryl at that. It bubbles through her chest and she knows it’s going to turn into a slew of insults condemning him and the group of trailer park trash that’s invaded their school and has already cheapened the uniform she’s clad in.

It’s hard to be proud of a school filled with thugs.

But a book comes flying out of nowhere and claps the boy in the back of the head before she can try and articulate the kind of motivational speech her fellow students were accustomed to. It gets a laugh from her classmates and she wishes she’d thought of it first.

There’s a soft chuckle from behind him, and a voice she recognises, “asshole.”

She gets an almost dizzying flutter in her stomach when she spots the girl, and well, gorgeous would be apt when describing her, even with that hideous pink dye job.

Cheryl’s seen her before a few times, she remembers the hair, and the attitude, and has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself looking for more reasons to remember her.

She’s friends with Jughead and that says it all.

It’s annoying how their eyes kind of lock together and she doesn’t know if that look is out of amusement or what, but she doesn’t look away, even after the guy with the legs has turned a full 180 and her path is clear.

The girl smiles and it totally catches her off guard. The teacher clears her throat in an obnoxious way and Cheryl snaps out of it pretty quickly after that. She rolls her eyes and all but stomps to her seat.

She feels a pair of eyes on her as she makes it to the back of the classroom and her cheeks feel warm, and it’s stupid, but it makes her feel a little stabby.

The rest of the class is boring and predictable. And Cheryl doesn’t do anything stupid like acknowledge the gorgeous stranger at all. But Veronica is in her fucking ear and she learns her name. Toni Topaz . She wonders if it’s short for anything, and she hates that her mind goes there.

She’s distracted and completely blanks on a question and like, she’s usually better than this. She gets thrown by every tap of someone’s pen and the messenger that pops her head in the door to pass their teacher a memo. She can usually ignore all that, but not today, apparently.

She also can’t ignore the way Legs smirks at her when class finishes, because what’s up with that?

 

 

 

 

 

It’s like, really, really cold outside, but they’re having practice by the football field anyway, because the janitor got their schedules mixed up and the courts freshly waxed and while she'd love watching the girls slide around, the injuries wouldn't be worth it. 

They try to get her to cancel practice, but Cheryl isn’t letting them off that easy.

She gets called a masochist for that.

They’re all wearing warm-up pants, their skirts over the top, but they’re still freezing because she won’t let them wear jackets. It’s not uniform and she likes the power of telling them no.

She can tell by the look from Josie that maybe it’s a little harsh, but oh well.  

It’s a pretty difficult routine and they’re executing it well, bar the rather crude interpretation that Betty is completely botching. It’s not really her fault, they’ve only been running the routine for the last two days, but her steps leading into the cradle is mediocre at best and the rest of the girls are waiting on her to move onto the next part.

The girl is a pretty talented cheerleader, actually, for someone lacking the formal training that she has and they could totally steal the show at the next pep rally if they get this down.

Basically, she knows there’s no way Betty wants Cheryl’s help, and well, today she doesn’t really want to give it but that’s never stopped her before.

She’s determined, sue her.

So she goes over and stands in front of her, and she gives Betty some credit because she doesn’t crack under her gaze and the last run through is actually better than any of the others from the last 45 minutes. But it’s still not perfect.

She needs this. She needs something to make her feel like she’s the one in control here.

“What, Cheryl?” Betty asks. Honestly, there’s a tone to her voice that tells Cheryl her dear cousin is having just as bad a day as her. She almost lets it drop, but she’s already made the first move now and her itch is back.

So she executes the move Betty’s been messing up, and she can tell from her eyes the blonde wants to hit something. It’s amusing and just like that, she feels better about herself.

“Your hips shouldn’t move that much, don’t be sloppy. And your foot, you should…”

“I know the steps, Cheryl.” Betty snaps and it’s endearing to see Veronica inch closer, ready to jump in between them.

Her back straightens, hands firm on her hips, “do you?”

She can almost hear Betty’s teeth grind together to keep herself composed.

There isn’t much time left before she’s supposed to call practice for the day, so she rolls her eyes and kind of laughs. “Get the move down by tomorrow, or you’re the new spotter for lifts.”

Betty’s face just stays blank, and their eyes stay locked, and she knows she’s ruined her cousins plans for the rest of the day, which is enough.

When she turns around she hears one of the girls whisper something and she’s pretty sure she was just compared to fucking Stalin . It stings, but she’ll get over it.

She lets them out five minutes early and packs up the gear herself so she can breathe for a second.

 

 

 

 

 

When she’s finished and ready to head for her car, she realizes they’ve had an audience for god knows how long and up on the bleachers Toni, Legs, and another guy whose name she doesn't know are all watching her. She had tunnel vision all practice, apparently. 

The boys are sharing a cigarette and she can’t roll her eyes hard enough when they wave their stupid fingers at her.

But then Toni’s looking her way, and her breath kind of catches when their eyes meet, but she looks away a second later, pushes the gym bags further up her shoulder and tries to pick up her place.

 

 

 

 

 

When she gets home there’s music playing and it's the kind that only teenagers or strippers use to set the mood. The curtains are drawn shut in the living room and she knows her mother is entertaining.

The thought leaves a foul taste in her mouth.

Her family name once meant something important, and now all it represents is a tragedy that makes strangers look at you on the street, with either judgment or pity. And god did she hate pity. She didn’t need to see those sad eyes when people remember her brother was gone and her father the same. She was reminded of that every day.  

She doesn’t want to go inside. There’s nothing inside for her. But she does, because she gets that same sense of dread every time she steps through the door and she has nowhere else to go.

Cheryl stops in the doorway and imagines what it would be like to come home to parents that were happy to see her, they’d ask about her day over the diner table, she’s complain about homework and it would be nice. Her mother wouldn’t walk past her, hand in hand with a perfect stranger and tells her to stay out of the way.  

He’s paying too much, whoever he is.

The older Blossom looks over her shoulder as they climb the stairs, and gives her a look as if to say ‘you did this’ and Cheryl backs out. She almost trips over the steps.

She goes straight to her car and doesn’t think to look back.

She drives for long enough to run out of gas on the wrong side of town, and isn’t that just a fucking kick in the teeth.

A small part of her debates calling home, but it’s late and she knows only her nana would pick up and what good would that be? She has nobody else, so she just walks. She’s still in her stupid cheerleading uniform and she’s completely regretting her earlier decision about jackets because she can’t feel her fingers and she can see her breath when she breathes.

She’s going to die of hypothermia or at least get sick.

It’s a harsh reminder of the lake and she has to pinch her arm again to get that memory out of her head.

She’s debating calling the police station and asking for a ride when she hears an old car approaching and now she’s trying to get her phone out a little faster, because this is not how Cheryl Blossom will die.

“Hey, Red.” the guy shouts, and she can’t make him out until he gets a little closer, but fucking hell .

Legs.

She keeps walking, counting every good deed she’s ever done and hopefully it’s enough to counteract ever minor infraction, or ethically ambiguous decision. Karma can’t be this cruel.

The guy continues to tail her, driving alongside with this annoying smirk like he’ll never get bored and when she looks over her shoulder she knows he’s staring at her ass. And it would be a confidence boost if the circumstances weren’t so shady.

“Do you not have anything better to do?” she scoffs and wraps her arms a little tighter around herself.

Her feet hurt and she just wants to go home.

The Serpent actually laughs, and just taps his fingers on the outside of the door, his leather covered arm stuck out the window. “Get in the car, before you get yourself kidnapped for ransom.”

She whips her head around, and looks at him incredulously, “isn’t that what a kidnapper would say?”

He just smiles and shrugs, “wouldn’t know.”

She can’t believe she’s actually considering it, but the wind hits her in a way that almost knocks her off her feet. She feels a growl in the back of her throat when she stops, the car does the same a second later and she’s yanking the door open.

He presses a button and the windows shut by themselves and she can’t believe anything in this piece of crap is automated, but she keeps that thought to herself, because she’s finally getting warm.

“Why do you always look so angry?” he asks, and she’s confused because that isn’t the questions she’d ask if she picked up a stranger on the wrong side of town.

So she answers, because anything is better than answering that , “I don’t.”

He goes to say something else but she’s shivering and leaning into the door, and she can feel her throat getting all tight. She will not cry.

“I could’ve left you out there,” he tells her, and she’s wondering why he’s saying that, but when she looks over he’s using his knee to steer the car so he can take off his jacket.

She’d reach over the grab the wheel herself, but it’s late, the road’s empty and she’s really tired.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he says, before throwing the jacket over her and she’s about to throw it back and shout something about how she doesn’t need his help, but she doesn’t. The jackets warmer than it looks and it smells nicer than she pictured. Legs turns the music up, so he wouldn’t hear her anyway. It’s not like she’s grateful.

She doesn’t put it on, she just lets it sit there. It’s Cheryl’s way of protesting.

 

 

 

 

 

She almost gets whiplash when the car stops. She gets the breath knocked out of her and she throws the driver the kind of look that would normally leave them unsettled but he only laughs. 

“We’re here, Princess.”

Honestly, she doesn’t know what would be worse, getting dropped off by a Serpent that certainly shouldn’t know her address, or this .

It’s not a glamorous place, she’s heard of the bar, and by the rumors she never expected it to be exactly pleasant. There’s bikes everywhere and she can spot enough healthcode violations that she could get this place shut down in a heartbeat, but probably get the inspector killed just as quickly, so she bites her tongue.

“Why the hell did you bring me here?” Her bite doesn’t have nearly as much venom as usual.

He just shrugs, like actually shrugs, as if this was a good idea. She would laugh, if her life wasn’t flashing before her eyes.

“I didn’t know where else to take you,” he grunts, and they both see an older guy stick his head out the door and give Legs a look that makes them both uncomfortable. She wonders what kinds of things he’s done in his life and if they were nearly as terrible as her father's wicked deeds.

“Who…”

“Nobody,” he silences her, grabbing his jacket and kicking open his door. She feels the cold immediately and she’s also a little insulted. Well there goes his chivalry.

“I can’t stay in here,” Cheryl snaps, but he seems completely unphased.

He just shrugs and slips into his jacket, “then come inside.”

“Not a chance,”

“Then figure out another option, I don’t care,”

And just like that he leaves her behind, or tries to, because there’s like a group of men standing by their motorcycles and they’re all looking at her. Cheryl knows her odds and begrudgingly gets out of the car. She keeps a good five steps behind, though, she doesn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

They get over the threshold and surprisingly nobody really looks at her, there’s a few curious eyes but they look away pretty quickly. Really, she expected more of a fuss. She kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.

“You’re late!” the guy from before calls to Legs and he grins when he walks over.

“Had to save a damsel,” and one of the guys sat at the bar laughs, but the look Cheryl shoots to her classmate gets an even bigger one.

The guy orders and Legs gives a winning smile and she’s surprised, she didn’t really picture this, what she did picture was the back rooms. She pictures the place Jason died, scared and alone, but Legs is looking at her so she digs her nails into her palm, just hard enough to pull her back to reality.

“You good?” he asks, like he’s actually concerned.

“Well it’s significantly warmer in here, and smells better than your car, so…”

There’s a laugh. And she heard it once today already. Toni. She’s appeared behind the bar with a dish rag over her shoulder. 

She won’t admit it aloud, but the pink looks better in this light.

Toni does this thing where she leans against the bar in front of her and she’s still wearing a white tank top with a black bra. And she’s like, annoyingly pretty and she’s pretty sure Toni knows it.

“Come here often?” Toni smiles, and the look makes Cheryl clench her teeth, her eyes flashing.

If she’s not mistaken, Toni looks her up and down, but she really can’t allow herself to think about that.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working, or something?” She sighs and looks incredibly disinterested, but the Serpent girl still looks amused as hell and she feels like she’s under a fucking microscope right now. She should’ve just kept walking.

So she crosses her legs and turns a little in her chair. She can see Toni and Legs grinning at each other as he pour someone a drink and honestly, she doesn’t hate it.

“Do you want anything, a drink?” Toni asks, and she kind of does, but she shakes her head.

Cheryl’s attention has been stolen by two extremely drunk guys playing darts at the back of the room when a glass is pushed towards her.

Toni just shrugs a shoulder and taps the glass, “Cherry cola,” and then she walks away. Cheryl forgets all about the dart game.

She’s in so much trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

The place starts to die around 3.00am and she has no idea when or how she’s supposed to leave. Sweet Pea keeps topping up her drink, and yeah, that’s his name. She learnt it somewhere around the half hour mark when some girls were flirting to get a free drink.

They have school in the morning and she’s starting to get tired. It’s going to be hell covering the bags under her eyes.

She has a lot of questions, but she keeps them all in her head, because she doesn’t actually know these people. They’re not friends.

“You wanna get out of here?”

Cheryl’s entire body hums at the words and she has to lean forwards a little so she can’t feel Toni’s breath on her shoulder. She should say no, but Sweet Pea looks busy and he’s not her chauffeur.

“Sure,”

She thinks it surprises Toni, because the girl laughs softly and bites her lip.

Cheryl slides off her seat and folds her arms and tries not to think about her mouth.

She hears Sweet Pea yell a quick goodbye, and she almost returns it, but she rolls her eyes instead. It makes him laugh. She really doesn't understand these people.

When she gets outside she realizes why Toni was laughing. She's standing by her motorcycle and holding out a helmet like she actually expects her to climb on board. And hell no.

“I'll go slow,” Toni says gently, but the smirk ruins the kind tone.

She's not that fragile and the fact Toni thinks she is, just makes her concerns disappear. So she walks up and snatches the helmet. “If this ruins my hair…”

“I doubt it,”

And Cheryl would be flattered if she wasn't in a pretty compromising position, halfway through straddling a motorcycle, behind a girl she doesn't even know. She doesn't know what to do with her hands and she feels her ears burn when Toni looks over her shoulder and tells her to hold on tight.

The leather feels good under her fingers when she grips onto the jacket and gets a kick of adrenaline when they start moving.

She's sat with her hips right up against Toni's ass, and she can feel the hum of the bike underneath her when it hits her.

This feels good .

She feels good.

Cheryl wonders how long the lecture would be if her mother ever saw this. That makes her smile.

It's a terrible idea, but she drops her head to Toni's back, her cheek pressing against the leather, and she feels the girl relax into her. She realizes, it’s probably not just her that's freaking out here.

She doesn’t know at what point it was decided they’d drive the long way back to town, but she doesn’t oppose the idea. It’s nice, seeing everything so quiet.

Cheryl watches the lines on the road until her eyes get tired and she closes them, just for a second.

It’s more than a second, and they’re pretty close to her place when she feels a pinch on her finger.

“Gonna tell me where you live, or am I supposed to guess?” she hears Toni’s speaking over the bike and she doesn’t feel like shouting back so she just points her finger at the next junction and they carry on like that until they’re parked just out of sight from the Thistlehouse windows.

They don’t say anything. The engines off and they’ve been sat there long enough for Cheryl to get a light set of shivers. She’s still freezing, especially now there’s some space between them.

Toni gets off first, it’s kind of awkward and she has to lift her leg a certain way so she can do it without kicking Cheryl. It makes her laugh and Toni’s eyes kind of snap towards her. The blush on Toni’s cheeks shuts her up.

They know she’s avoiding something inside, but Toni’s polite enough not to bring it up.

Cheryl’s staring at nothing in particular when Toni leans to tap her foot against hers. It’s a small gesture and it makes her blurt out a question she’s been dying to ask all night, “where’s your tattoo?”

It’s definitely not what the Serpent was expecting, she can tell from the way her eyes narrow and the twitch at the corner of her lips, “which one?”

And fuck .

“All of them...”

Toni studies her for a moment after she says it, and then gives the sexiest grin Cheryl’s ever seen in her life, “i’m not telling.”

She definitely shouldn’t be looking at her lips, but she can’t help herself.

Dangerous territory, but she doesn’t hesitate,“Show me.”

They’re staring at each other when Toni whispers, “I really can’t,” and Cheryl doesn’t even have time to process how hot that is, because the other girl takes a step forward and tugs the helmet right from her head.

She suddenly really fucking warm and doesn’t have time to think about how messy her hair might be as she climbs off the bike. Her legs feel a little weak but she finds her step and backs up a little.

“See you at school, Cheryl.” Toni says, and thank god, she doesn’t wait for a reply because she’s hardly functioning at this point.

She’s decided, she really likes pink.

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning Cheryl sees her car in the drive, as if it never left, she doesn’t know how the hell it got there, but she knows who’s responsible and it helps her forget where she is for a moment.

Notes:

This is going to be something of a slowburn so I guess buckle up. In the meantime, enjoy! Feedback is loved.