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“Some people love Christmas and New Year’s, Jones, I just happen to love St. Patrick’s Day.”
Pushing a small cart around Party City, dragging a grumbling Jughead Jones behind her is not exactly how Toni had imagined the shopping trip for her annual St. Patrick’s Day party going, but she’s certainly not going to carry all of this crap on her own.
“You’re not even Irish, Topaz.”
“Wow, thanks ancestry.com, I had no idea,” Toni rolls her eyes, stopping her cart in front a massive tower of chocolate covered coins in order to pull out her party necessities list.
“Can we just blow the budget on these?” Jughead asks, his mouth salivating at the sight of so much chocolate in one place.
Toni’s about to shut that idea
down
(how on earth Betty keeps up with the copious amounts of food this guy puts away is beyond Toni) when her eye catches on a familiar sparkling spider brooch and hair a shade of red no bottle could ever replicate.
“How are those cheap excuses for a helium filled substance the only St. Patrick’s Day balloons you have? I was under the impression I had arrived at Party City, not the local Dollar General,” of all the hills to die on today, Cheryl Blossom has chosen St. Patrick’s Day themed balloons in a local party supplies store.
Toni feels but doesn’t quite notice the way her breathing shallows at the sound of her voice, her free fingers absentmindedly twirling the end of a faded pink curl as her eyes trail down Cheryl’s immaculately clothed form.
“Earth to Toni,” Jughead’s eyebrow is raised as he waves his hand in front of her face, forcing her attention back to him, “do you mind if we keep moving? I’m not really in the mood to entertain female Hades today.”
Toni tries to nod but Cheryl looks like she’s snapping her purse shut to leave and in a panic, she blurts out, “actually! I was thinking we need some balloons. For the party. Give me like two-”
Jughead’s eyebrows are now furrowed, but before he can interject, his phone buzzes and he quickly answers with a smug smile, “hi babe.”
Toni steps around him, thanking the high heavens for Betty’s brilliant timing, as she casually walks up to the balloon counter, flipping her long hair behind her shoulder.
“Hey, Cherry Bombshell,” she says, a smirk playing on her lips as she feigns interest in the balloons dangling for sale behind the counter.
“Female Serpent,” as if that’s her name and Toni sighs inwardly at the way Cheryl acts as though she’s above actually pronouncing her name, “can I help you?”
“Oh no, I just noticed this poor store manager struggling under your seemingly unwavering wrath about...balloons
...
and thought I’d provide a
distraction
.
”
What Toni thinks is a small playful smile tugs at the corners of Cheryl’s lips for a second before she turns her full attention to Toni, her eyes falling to Toni’s bare midriff before quickly meeting her eyes once more.
The store manager glances between them warily before slipping quietly into the stock room, seriously contemplating whether or not he
actually
needs this job.
Cheryl’s hand is placed on her slim hip, her long red nails drawing Toni’s attention for a second before she shakes her head and glances back at the shopping list still gripped firmly between her fingers.
“Oh...are you having a party?”
Toni almost senses a hint of vulnerability in Cheryl’s tone, the coldness in her eyes replaced by an uncertainty that hadn’t been there only seconds before.
“Oh, uh, yeah actually,” Toni shifts slightly on the balls of her dirty worn sneakers, shrugging, “I host an annual St. Patrick’s day party at my place. It’s my favorite holiday.”
“Inviting only your closest friends, I’m sure.”
She tilts her chin up and glances back at the balloons while Toni finds herself biting back an amused smile at Cheryl’s shallow attempt at indifference, “yes, but if you’re not doing anything tomorrow night, I can give you my address? It’s going to be a really good time-“
“No, thank you. I’ll never be desperate enough to go
slumming it
on the Southside-“
“Oh come on, Cheryl, live a little,” Toni interrupts, her eyes bright with excitement as she uncaps an ink pen left strewn on the cashier’s counter, reaching for Cheryl’s hand.
“Ew! Don’t you dare taint my porcelain Chantecaille moisturized skin with that substandard poisonous ink-“
But Toni’s already scribbling her address across Cheryl’s outstretched palm and Cheryl’s icy words falter as Toni finishes with a small smiley face.
“So, maybe I’ll see you there?” Toni asks, awkwardly setting the pen back on the counter before shrugging as if she couldn’t care less if Cheryl showed up (she could), “by the way, I think the little shamrock balloon is kind of cute.”
She sets out to find Jughead (surprise, he’s deep in an aisle of premade holiday cookie kits), her heart beat only
just
slowing after her brazen move to take Cheryl’s delicate hand into her own.
“The serpent on my jacket is green,
Veronica
, that pinch was for no reason!”
Veronica rolls her eyes, tucking a jet black curl behind her ear, “It doesn’t count if you wear it every day! Do you ever take that thing off, or do you shower with it as well?”
“A Serpent never sheds his skin,” Jughead interjects seriously, taking a small sip of his Bailey’s and green food coloring flavored coffee, making Veronica wrinkle her nose and Sweet Pea shoot him a
seriously bro?!
look.
“Not true, I’m
very
naked when I shower, Veronica,” Sweet Pea murmurs, tossing her a wink as she shakes her head, fanning herself and complaining about the sudden lack of AC in the trailer.
Seeing her new friends from the Northside mingling with her brothers from the Southside makes Toni that much happier about hosting this party. She smiles at them as she makes her way to the front door of her family’s trailer with a decorated clay bowl of spiked juice, stepping outside to where a few people are standing around a bonfire.
“I’ve never played, actually,” Fangs interrupts Kevin, who’s explaining to him and Josie the most recent D&D game he’d played online. Josie eyebrows are furrowed and Toni can’t tell if she’s truly interested in the conversation or interested in finding a way out of it.
“Never?” Kevin asks, his own eyebrows raised in genuine surprise as Toni sets the bowl on a plastic table she had set up earlier that day, “I can definitely show you how to play...you know, if you’re ever interested in learning.”
Fangs glances at his shoes, smiling to himself before he takes a sip of his beer and softly replies, “I’d be interested.”
Betty is wiping her hands on her jeans, having just added a piece of firewood to the bonfire, her ponytail swinging lightly behind her.
“Can I get you a drink, Betty? This is supposed to be fun, you know?” Toni teases and Betty glances up at her, smiling that genuinely sweet Betty-Cooper smile.
“Jughead said he’s making me a drink, but thank you,” Betty says, moving closer to Toni so they can both gather the warmth from the flames of the bonfire.
Toni nods, feeling a little pang of something unfamiliar deep in her core. The party had started a couple of hours ago and while she knew it was completely stupid to think that Cheryl would show, Toni couldn’t help the hopeful way her eyes kept drifting to the gravel and cement driveway every time headlights flashed.
I can’t believe I forgot to write a time. How will she know when she can come over?
Are you a complete idiot, she can’t even say your name and she referred to coming to your place as “slumming” it!
Okay, yes, she’s obviously got a rough exterior, but I know there’s more to her than that...the way she’d looked when she’d asked about the party...she
wanted
to be invited.
Yep, you’re an idiot.
“I’m sorry?” Betty asks, turning to Toni with a confused expression and Toni immediately winces,
shit.
“That’s a really pretty bowl you brought out here, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Appreciating the distraction, Toni glances from the hand-painted bowl to Betty, the fondness she has for that bowl apparent on her face as she says, “it’s from my late great-grandfather, he used to bring it out during all of our family celebrations.”
“He doesn’t anymore?” Betty’s wide-eyed, innocent curiosity is something Toni has always liked about her. Like a breath of fresh air in the midst of hanging out with the ever sarcastic and sardonic Serpents.
“I told him I thought the bowl was beautiful and he told me when I came of proper age, it would be passed down to me for whenever I have parties, as has been done for many years in our family. I try to bring it out whenever I have company like this.”
“One weird, probably disgusting attempt at an alcoholic beverage for mi’lady,” Jughead interrupts, a bright green sparkling drink in his outstretched hand.
Betty takes it, planting a soft grateful kiss against her boyfriend’s cheek before taking a large sip.
Toni has to fight back a laugh as Betty grimaces, turning her head from Jughead so he won’t see the way she’s slightly gagging.
“What? Is it bad?” Jughead asks anxiously as Toni covers her mouth to stifle another giggle and Betty turns back to him, shaking her head.
“No, no, it’s
so
good, I just took a really big sip,” Betty lies, smiling at Jughead and standing on her tip-toes to kiss him, “thank you, Jug.”
He looks sceptical, but can’t deny her a kiss and Toni takes that as an opportunity to ‘accidentally’ bump into Betty, effectively spilling her new drink all over the patch of dead grass that is her family’s ‘front lawn.’
“Oh my gosh, Betty! I’m so sorry,” she quickly says, taking the drink from a secretly thankful Betty, “let me make you another one. I’m so sorry.”
Jughead rolls his eyes and Betty can’t help but giggle as Toni heads back into the trailer, empty glass in hand, barely hearing Jughead say, “that’s the last time I listen to Sweet Pea.”
She’s adding just a little green food coloring to the gin and tonic she’s creating for Betty (always one to stick to the party theme) when the sound of glass shattering against the side of the trailer makes her jump.
Shit.
Leaving the drink resting on the kitchen counter, Toni rushes outside to find Sweet Pea, Jughead, and Fangs glaring at Reggie Mantle, Chuck Clayton, and a couple other bulldogs she doesn’t recognize.
“No invite to the party of misfit toys? Kind of fucked up, don’t you think, Jarhead?”
Reggie and Chuck grin at each other as Chuck reaches for the clay bowl of green jungle juice resting between bowls of Tostitos and guacamole. Her heart clenches as his hands grip the sides of the fragile piece of her family her grandfather had finally entrusted to her.
“Put it down, Chuck,” Jughead warns, stepping between Fangs and Sweet Pea, whose fingers are wrapped around his pocket knife inside his jacket.
“Gladly.”
The bowl slips through his fingers, hitting the cement and splashing over the sides, cracking the bowl into several jagged pieces.
A shallow gasp escapes Toni as she rushes to where the pieces lie scattered, immediately trying to place them back together as the boys laugh behind her.
“Oh no, guys, she’s upset! Are you gonna cry, Southside slut?” Chuck grins, high fiving one of the guys behind them as Toni feels the heat pooling behind her eyes.
Sweet Pea steps forward, knife drawn, at the same time that Toni attempts to get up, her pain regarding the broken dish colliding with her anger towards her classist peers, but the sound of a car door slamming and gravel crunching beneath a stiletto heel draws the attention of the entire party.
Cheryl Blossom is standing in the short, narrow driveway adorning a tight cap-sleeved black dress with dark forest green floral accents, voluminous bouncy curls accentuating her deep red lipstick, and a white ribbon leading to a little glittery shamrock balloon clasped daintily between her fingers.
Toni feels as though time stills as she slowly stands, holding Cheryl’s gaze for a beat too long before Cheryl’s eyebrow arches and she breaks the contact to glance around the party.
Chuck and Reggie break into huge grins, feeling more empowered by the presence of a fellow Southside-hating Northsider, nodding towards Cheryl, “Blossom, you made it just in time-”
“Silence, ogres,” she snaps, eyes flashing in their direction, effectively wiping the arrogance from their faces. She takes in the trailer behind them, the gravel and cement somewhat makeshift driveway, the bonfire barely ablaze, Toni’s arms wrapped around a broken dish, and she feels the heat rise to her cheeks, suddenly embarrassed of her home under Cheryl’s judgmental eyes.
But Cheryl says nothing, turning back to where the boys stand, head tilted just slightly cocked to one side as she states, “I’m presuming none of you were handed an invitation to this exclusive celebration of the beloved patron saint of Ireland.”
Sweet Pea glances at Jughead whose scowl is slowly being replaced by a confused grimace. Betty is standing between Veronica and Kevin, eyes wide as she looks from Cheryl to the Bulldogs to Toni.
“This is riveting,” Kevin whispers, already 64 characters deep in a vague tweet about the situation.
But Toni is bracing herself, waiting for the joke to be over, for the other shoe to drop. For Cheryl to break into that dazzlingly fake smile and join her usual comrades in belittling the Serpents and, more specifically, Toni.
She’s not sure when these feelings for Cheryl had begun to stir, when she’d started actively looking for the warmth beyond her cold exterior, but she wished she could stop.
“I’m only going to say this once because my breath is
precious
and I hate for it to be wasted on human trash,” Cheryl says, stepping closer to the Bulldogs and specifically to Chuck, whose eyes are now filled with a puzzled bewilderment, “if you ever refer to Toni as a ‘slut’’ again, I will personally puncture your microscopic ballsack with the spiked heel of my fave pair of Manolo Blahnik’s, effectively abolishing any opportunity for you to
disgrace
our cherished town-with-pep by reproducing.”
Jughead is the first to break the weighted silence following Cheryl’s threat, turning to Sweet Pea and covering his mouth to stifle a laugh. Sweet Pea, an amused grin crossing his face, flicks his pocket knife closed and glances towards Toni, whose lips are slightly parted, eyes never leaving Cheryl.
Chuck’s eyes are also fixated on Cheryl, his mouth set in a firm, perplexed line, before he snaps, “whatever, this party looks lame, anyways.”
The boys are forced to walk around Cheryl, grumbling something about a “crazy ginger bitch”, as she refuses to move out of their way, her chin tilted up in a physical metaphor of defiance.
Soon enough, Reggie’s Chevy Silverado is peeling out, leaving a mess of gravel and dirt behind as they leave.
Veronica walks over, wrapping her arms around Sweet Pea’s neck in a tight embrace while berating him for bringing out a knife in the first place.
“Cretins,” Jughead mutters, tugging a cigarette from his pocket and wrapping Betty in a protective hug with his free arm, “you okay, Betts?”
“I can’t believe your tweet is already blowing up,” Josie’s saying to Kevin, who’s grinning proudly, “I’m impressed, Keller.”
Fangs is looking over Kevin’s shoulder at his tweet and Kevin turns to smile at him, his eyes flicking to Fangs’ lips when he notes how close they are.
But Toni is still staring wide-eyed at Cheryl, her heart pounding as she grips that damn cracked family heirloom tightly in her hands, sticky juice dripping between her fingers. Cheryl offers her a small smile, slowly closing the space between them, the little balloon trailing in the air behind her.
“Hi, Toni,” her voice is soft and a warmth runs through Toni’s veins as she notes Cheryl has said her
actual
name twice in the past ten minutes, “it’s tiny and inexpensive, but it’s the only one you mentioned liking so...”
Cheryl’s offering her the shamrock balloon, her fingers outstretched, but Toni steps past her extended arm and the balloon, the close vicinity of their friends falling to the back of her mind as she presses her soft pink lips against Cheryl’s deep red ones.
Cheryl’s hands move to cup Toni’s face as she kisses her back, apprehensively at first, but then with a bit passion, the forgotten glimmering shamrock balloon drifting to the sky above them.