Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/12229980.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Riverdale_(TV_2017)
  Relationship:
      Cheryl_Blossom/FP_Jones_II
  Character:
      Cheryl_Blossom, FP_Jones_II, Jughead_Jones
  Additional Tags:
      Rape/Non-con_Elements, canon_divergent_after_season_1, FP_is_a_bad
      person, Sexual_Violence
  Collections:
      Riverdale_Fic_Exchange, Anonymous
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-10-03 Words: 5256
****** An Acquired Taste ******
by Anonymous
Summary
     She walked in like she owned the place, all legs and hips and searing
     disdain. FP didn’t exactly take to that kind of attitude—not from a
     girl like Cheryl Blossom.
     -
     Cheryl attempts to be a crime lord. Things don't go as planned.
Notes
     Please heed warnings and tags.
     Written for ChocolateStarfish, who basically just asked for something
     with noncon. I had a lot more fun writing this than I expected, so I
     hope you have fun reading it, too!
     Please leave me a comment to let me know what you think! :)
The Whyte Wyrm was just like FP remembered it: rundown, filthy, and filled with
exactly the kind of people his parole officer had told him to steer clear of.
It had only been a year since the trial—a year since the truth had come out,
since Cliff Blossom had hung himself—and by some miracle FP had been released.
A combination of good behaviour and a convenient technicality, according to his
lawyer.
He walked in to cheers and whoops; gruff hugs and offers of congratulations on
his good fortune. But while the atmosphere was jovial on the surface, he caught
a whiff of something not-quite-right in the way his men looked at each other
when they thought he couldn’t see. It was only after a few hours and more than
a few whiskeys that he got it out of them.
Not one month after he was behind bars, Cliff Blossom’s old operation had risen
from the dead, and product had started moving again through all the old
channels. More of it, too, and now “Blossom” was once again the name on
everyone’s tongues.
“Penelope?” he asked incredulously, but the other Serpents shook their heads.
“The girl,” they told him. He remembered her vaguely, from the couple times
he’d glimpsed her and her friends at Pop’s or the drive-in—fierce and
vindictive and cold as ice.
He whistled under his breath. Something would have to be done about that.
                                       *
She walked in like she owned the place, all legs and hips and searing disdain.
FP didn’t exactly take to that kind of attitude, not from a girl like Cheryl
Blossom—pretty and rich, set for life. He said as much, and she balked at him.
“I’ve worked hard for what I have,” she said, gazing at him over the rim of her
vodka cranberry.
A mansion that was nothing more than smoldering ruins. A bedridden mother,
burnt to a crisp. And now a fledgling drug empire, coaxed back to life from the
ashes of her dear old daddy’s legacy.
“I’ll bet you have,” FP said, and drained his glass of scotch.
She looked like a doll, with porcelain skin and round, saucer eyes. Like a
doll, but without the innocence. She always dressed too old when she came to
see him—plunging necklines and skirts so high he could see every inch of her
fine, long legs. Maybe that’s how she was used to getting her way.
That trick didn’t work on him, though, and he told her in no uncertain terms
that he and his men wanted nothing to do with her business.
Only it wasn’t up to him. In FP’s absence she’d wormed her way into their
operation, and now some of the Serpents were reluctant to get rid of her. She
was shrewd, they said; she had leverage.
Mostly that meant her daddy’s money, or what was left of it. Some of his old
connections, too: she’d gotten in good with Hiram Lodge somehow now that he was
out of prison, and the Serpents weren’t keen to get on the wrong side of him
either.
So he let her run her operation. Even let her enlist his men sometimes—not that
he had much of a say in that. At the end of the day, his Serpents were free to
do as they pleased. Still, FP tried to stay out of it—tried to focus on getting
himself back on his feet so his boy could come home—but that was easier said
than done.
                                       *
“What do you get out of all this?” FP asked her one night at the Wyrm.
“You mean besidesa staggering amount of money?”
“Besides that.”
She smiled at him and twisted a lock of blood red hair around her finger.
Revenge, she said it was: revenge for everything that had been done to her
brother. But that didn’t quite figure, seeing as Jason Blossom had gotten
himself killed trying to get away from exactly what she was neck-deep in now.
Maybe, thought FP, it was revenge for everything her brother had brought on
himself. The things he hadn’t done—the things he’d failed at. Maybe it was
those failures that spurred her on now; made her so hard and cruel. Wasn’t
right, he thought: a girl her age shouldn’t be so calloused by the world.
Shouldn’t be so mean. Shouldn’t be a lot of things.
A girl her age definitely shouldn’t look at him the way she did, or stand so
close that her perfume burned his nostrils. Girl her age should smell like
candy and vanilla, like Jug’s girlfriend. But Cheryl Blossom smelled sharp.
Like amber or liquorice; deep and complicated. An acquired taste.
                                       *
And it took him a while, but he did acquire it. She might’ve been young, but
she was smart as a whip and ruthless. He saw this firsthand once, when a guy
she’d contracted to run some product across the border from Montreal got a bad
case of sticky fingers. FP let her use the basement of the Wyrm, mostly just to
see what she’d do, and wasn’t disappointed when she tied the poor son of a
bitch to a chair and carved her initials into the palm of his hand.
That was a bit twisted, even for FP. But he started thinking about her
different after that. Started thinking that maybe he was glad she’d thrown her
lot into the viper pit with Lodge and the Ghoulies and all the other factions
warring over their shithole of a town. Cheryl Blossom was the kind of girl who
could give guys like FP a run for their money.
After a while, he even started looking forward to it a little when she walked
into the bar. Things with Jug weren’t so good—he’d lived at the trailer after
FP had got out of prison, but FP hadn’t been able to stay off the bottle and
now the kid was stuck bouncing from foster home to foster home again, doing his
best to fend for himself.
So FP’s life felt a little stale, and Cheryl Blossom was a breath of ice-cold
fresh air. He even started giving her advice, not that she ever asked for it.
She bristled when he did that—looked down her nose at him, though that should
have been impossible on account of the fact that even in those ridiculous shoes
she was a full head shorter than he was.
And to his surprise, she took the wisdom he offered. Would’ve been foolish not
to—FP had been around the block more than once, and he knew Riverdale and all
its territories like the back of his hand. Still, it seemed significant in a
way he couldn’t really explain.
They settled into a kind of routine. Sometimes she stayed late at the bar, and
he found himself making excuses to sit and talk with her, even when she had no
business to discuss and he had no advice to offer. She had a mean kind of charm
about her, and he couldn’t help that it drew him in.
Cheryl seemed to realize this. She started playing it up a bit: batting her
mascara-caked eyelashes at him; pushing her chest out when they spoke; dressing
even skimpier than before. It might’ve been a cheap look if she hadn’t worn it
so damn well.
“You gonna do something about that?” a Serpent named Rocko asked him one night.
Across the bar Cheryl was standing with one hand on her hip, surrounded by a
group of Serpents she’d recruited for her latest business venture. She kept
tossing her red hair over her shoulder and glancing at FP, shooting him looks
that lasted just a hair too long to be entirely innocent.
“I don’t need more trouble,” FP said.
“What trouble?” laughed Rocko. “Her daddy’s dead. Mother dearest is a charred
vegetable. What’s stopping you?”
FP took a drag of his cigarette, watching her. For a second their eyes met, and
she held his gaze until he looked away.
                                       *
Besides Cheryl Blossom, FP’s life was business as usual. He drank here and
there and tried to keep his nose clean. Even picked up a few shifts at Pop’s,
for chrissakes, working grill like he used to when he was a kid. That seemed to
make Jughead happy: he started coming by the Wyrm again, wearing the jacket the
other Serpents had given him after FP’d gone away. FP’s old jacket.
It looked good on the kid. Suited his dark, fine features the way it had suited
FP’s when he was Jughead’s age; before he’d gotten older and harder and it had
grown to suit him a different way.
And Jughead seemed to be doing better. Most of the time he was going through
one rough patch or another with the Cooper girl, but they always managed to
come out the other side intact. FP didn’t see her around much, but from what he
could tell she seemed to be adjusting to the new Jughead Jones, who was a lot
like the old Jughead Jones, just a little bit more sure of himself. A little
cockier. A little louder. A little quicker to anger.
In fact, the new Jughead Jones was a lot like the old FP.
And partly it made FP proud to see his boy take after him so much. Wasn’t that
just human nature? It was nice to see he’d left something of himself in the
world—some kind of legacy. Jughead was like him, but without the darkest parts.
Those parts were there, though, or at least the seeds of them; FP could see he
had the same damn chip on his shoulder—the same penchant for self-
destruction—and that scared the ever-loving shit out of him.
And Jughead wasn’t the only one with a chip—wasn’t the only one who felt put
upon. So it probably shouldn’t have been such a shock when FP walked in the
Wyrm one day to find him deep in conversation with none other than Cheryl
Blossom.  
“Well, isn’t this cozy,” FP said, and Cheryl turned slowly on her barstool,
surveying him with heavy-lidded eyes.
“Hi dad,” Jughead said. He sounded guilty, like he’d been caught with one hand
in the cookie jar.
“Ready to go?” FP asked him, not taking his eyes off Cheryl. FP had managed to
get his hands on an old motorcycle—a hand-me-down, of sorts—and they’d made
plans to take it out for a spin.
“Yeah,” Jughead said.
“I’ll meet you out back.” FP waited until Jug was out of earshot before he
rounded on Cheryl. “What business you got with my son?” he asked her, and she
raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, you know... homework, The Blue and Gold, trafficking heroin. The usual.”
“Ha ha,” FP said humourlessly. “You know he’s got no part in this. If you let
anything slip—”
“Relax,” Cheryl purred. “I’m not going to corrupt your protégé.” They were
standing close that no one else could see the elegant finger she trailed down
the front of his jacket. “Besides,” she went on, and her eyes flicked up to
meet his; “you’re doing a perfectly good job of thatall on your own.”
                                       *
It wasn't long before FP found out just what exactly Jughead had looked so
guilty about.
He was sitting at the bar nursing a Jack and Coke when a commotion outside made
his head snap up. He heard engines, frantic shouting, and then doors of the
Wyrm burst open. The guys who came pouring in—his guys—looked rough as hell,
all bruised and windswept, and in the middle of them all was Jughead, half
unconscious with blood pouring down his face.
They brought him into the back room, and FP did his best not to start breaking
teeth as they stitched him up and stammered out an explanation. Of course, it
didn’t much surprise him to find out that Cheryl Blossom was the mastermind
behind the whole thing.
Cheryl Blossom, who’d ignored his advice, gone behind his back, and somehow
managed to convince Jughead that the Serpents needed the Ghoulies on their
side. As expected, the Ghoulies didn’t exactly take to that, so they proposed a
deal: a drag race down the deathtrap that was the old Sweetwater Highway, which
ended in at least one totalled car and a lot of cuts and bruises.
“S’okay,” Jughead said thickly, “we won.” He tried to smile, but all he managed
to do was show his bloody teeth.
FP resisted the urge to smack him upside the head.
                                       *
Cheryl didn’t show her face at the Wyrm till a few nights later, when FP was
sitting holed up in the office above the bar under the pretence of working
through some paperwork. In reality, he was mostly just working his way through
a bottle of whiskey.
He heard her before he saw her. The footsteps stopped as she came to stand in
the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms folded daintily in a way
that pushed her cleavage practically up to her neck.
“Burning the midnight oil?” she asked. She was dressed in red satin, black
fishnet stockings, and a faux fur coat that was about two sizes too big.
FP set down his glass. “You’ve got some nerve showing your face around here
after that little stunt you pulled.”
Cheryl stepped inside and swung the door shut behind her, surveying the office
with a mixture of interest and disgust. As he watched, she shucked off her fur
coat and draped it over one arm, like she was the star of some silver-screen
detective story. “I should think I have nerve,” she said dramatically. “You
should be thanking me.”
“Thanking you?” FP said. He stood and walked toward her, enjoying the way her
confident façade faltered the closer he got.
“I settled your debt with Hiram Lodge,” she said quickly, and he paused.
“You what?”
Cheryl’s back was almost up against the wall. “Hiram needed someone on the
inside, and now the Ghoulies trust us—trust me.I can feed him information about
their business, but only enough to—”
FP slammed his hand on the wall beside her head. “You’ve got no idea who you’re
messing with.”
That made her flinch, but she recovered quickly. “And you’re a coward,” she
shot back.
“I told you to leave Jughead out of this—”
“He doesn’t know anything,” Cheryl snapped. “He did it because I convinced him
it would make a good exposé for The Blue and Gold. And because, I suppose, he
thinks he’s some kind of rebel now.”
FP fought back the urge to hit her. “You’re out of your depth, little girl.”  
Cheryl scoffed. “I’m not afraid of you or your gangbanger goons,” she said. Her
breath was coming faster now, and FP could see a wild, defiant glint in her
eye. “You should be grateful I decided to grace this dump with my presence in
the first place instead of putting you and your low-life pals back in prison
where you belong—”
Hot anger flared in FP’s chest, and before he could think better of it he had
seized Cheryl by the arms and flung her back against the wall.
“Jesus Christ, do you ever shut up?”
She looked up at him in shock. “Let go of me,” she said, still trying to
maintain the authority in her voice.
“You went behind my back,” he spat at her. “Nearly got my boy killed—”
“I—”
He tightened his grip. “You made me look like a fucking fool.”
“You’re hurting me,” Cheryl said frantically. With her arms pushed back like
that, the soft curves of her chest were even more prominent. In spite of
himself, FP’s eyes travelled downward, tracing the sharp line of her collarbone
to the plunging neckline of her dress. He licked his lips.
She saw him looking, and something in her demeanour changed. “Please,” she said
again, squirming in a way that made her hips rub up against him. He knew the
silky edge to her voice was just another trick, but god damned if it wasn’t
getting his dick hard.
“You think I’m gonna let you get away with whatever you want cause you shove
your tits in my face?” FP breathed. They were so close—her lips looked like
candy: red and wet and pillowy soft.
“I don’t—” she started, but before she could finish, he kissed her. The shock
of it made her tense, and her mouth opened in surprise. He took the opportunity
to slip his tongue past her lips and press her wrists against the wall.
He could tell she hadn’t thought this plan through, because after a few seconds
she started to struggle. She wasn’t strong enough to free herself from his grip
but she kicked her legs, managing to gouge the inside of FP’s shin with her
stiletto heel. He swore, and Cheryl glared up at him when he drew back,
breathing heavily.
“Shouldn’t start something you can’t finish,” FP said.
“Fuck you,” she spat, so he slapped her across the face. The impact radiated
down his arm. It felt like a release, and in the stunned silence that followed
he clapped a hand over her mouth before she could say another word. Cheryl’s
eyes were wide, rimmed in white, and for the first time he could see real fear
in her face.
“Know what happens if you scream right now, sweetheart?” FP asked. Her breath
was hot and damp on the palm of his hand. “Absolutely fucking nothing. Those
guys downstairs? My friends?The ones you’ve treated like dirt since the day you
walked into this joint? They don’t give a shit about you. Nah,” he went on,
leaning in closer, “only thing that happens if you scream right now is that you
piss me off even more than you already have. You got that?”
Cheryl hesitated, then nodded.
“You gonna be good?”
Another nod. Slowly, he took his hand away.
They stared at each other.
“You’ll pay if you hurt me,” Cheryl whispered shakily. “If you so much as—”
FP kissed her again.
He didn’t waste time with gentleness; he brought one hand up, tangling his
fingers roughly in the back of her hair to stop her turning her face away. Her
breath came in shocked little gasps as she squirmed against him, and FP slid
his free hand inside her dress and squeezed. He pinched her nipple, rolling it
between her fingers until she until she gave a muffled cry and tried to twist
out of his reach. Her fingernails were sharp on his wrist, frantically trying
to pry his hand away.
“Thought you were gonna be good,” he muttered, and gave another sharp pinch.
“Get your filthy hands off of me,” she gasped. FP softened his touch, trailing
his fingers across her chest and back up to her throat.
“Better?” he asked. She shivered and shook her head mutely. “Ah, well.”
Cheryl yelped when he seized her roughly by the hair and dragged her to the
desk in the middle of the room. He bent her over the edge and kicked her legs
apart, and then she really did scream.
In the back of his mind, he thought dimly that the fact the sound only made him
harder was probably a bad sign. Then again, if he actually gave a shit about
being a good person, his life would look a lot different than it did.
Besides, this wasn’t just about what made him feel good, he thought as he hiked
up Cheryl’s skirt and pulled down her stockings and underwear (red; lacy). It
was about following through. It was about making sure Cheryl understood that he
was more than just talk—that if she pushed him far enough, he wasn’t going to
be nice anymore.
“Shh,” FP said softly as he ran a hand up her backside. To his surprise, she
quieted, though he could still hear her sniffling.
FP smirked. As much as Cheryl Blossom wanted everyone in this town to believe
she was some ethereal goddess, wise and fierce beyond her years, she was really
just like any other snot-nosed teenager who figured the world owed them. She
thought she was smart, but she wasn’t; she thought she was bulletproof, but
that only left her more vulnerable. And as much as she wanted to be the one in
control…
Slowly, he let go of her hair. She didn’t move, and he leaned back, admiring
the sight of her round ass and the blush of dark red hair between her legs. He
spat in his hand, and Cheryl’s breath hitched as he ran his index finger along
her slit.
As soon as he pressed inside of her she started squirming again, so he put a
firm hand on her hip to hold her in place.
She was tight, but as much as he wanted to fuck her right then and there, he
didn’t want to hurt her too bad either. So he pumped his finger in and out
until he felt her cunt give a little and start to get wetter of its own accord.
He spat again, rubbing her sensitive folds between his fingers until she was
slick and dripping. He liked the noises she made—angry little whimpers, like
she was more furious at him than she was sad or scared.
FP worked in a second finger, stretching her open. That made her gasp again,
but at least she’d stopped moving. When he was sure she wasn’t going to kick or
struggle he took his hand off her hip and unbuckled his belt. His dick was
already rock hard and leaking, and he started jerking himself slowly, keeping
her pinned to the desk with the weight of his body. He slid a third finger
inside her, groaning at the resistance.
“Stop,” she sobbed, but FP ignored her. He worked his fingers in and out, and
even though she cried and moaned a little she adjusted quickly to the fullness.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you baby girl?” FP asked breathlessly. She
didn’t answer, and through her tangled mess of hair he just managed to catch
the glare she threw back at him. He grinned. “You’re a cheerleader, right? Bet
you let all the football jocks have a turn.”
“Fuck you,” Cheryl choked out thickly, her voice wet with tears.
FP withdrew his fingers and slicked the wetness from her cunt down the length
of his cock. As soon as she realized what he was doing, Cheryl seemed to snap
out of whatever trance had been keeping her so docile.
“Let me go,” she demanded—she tried to stand up, to flip herself over, to kick
him away, but only succeeded in driving her hips back toward him.
FP managed to hold her steady just long enough to bring the head of his cock to
her opening. He rubbed it along her cunt a little bit as she struggled, just to
make sure she was good and slick. Then in one smooth motion he buried himself
balls deep inside of her with a groan.
She yelped, trying to twist away, and FP saw stars.
“Shit,” he managed. He could feel himself teetering on the edge, already so
close that his whole body felt flushed and his skin crawled with the need for
release. FP had never been one to brag, but he’d always been told he was well
endowed, and Cheryl’s cunt was so tight around his cock he could barely work
himself back out again.
“Goddamn it, you feel good,” he mumbled, because she did. Looked good too, all
splayed out and haphazard like that, satin dress hiked up to her waist and red
hair spilling out across the desk. It was mostly hiding her face, so he reached
out and swept it to the side. She was a mess—smudged lipstick, ugly black lines
of mascara down her cheeks. It suited her.
She tried to fight him off a couple more times, but for all her spit and
vinegar Cheryl was just about half his size and only a fraction as strong.
Eventually she seemed to seemed to realize that the only way out was through,
so she lay rigid on the desk, eyes squeezed shut and hands balled into tight
fists on either side of her head as FP fucked her with long, even strokes. Her
cunt was red and swollen, and the sight of it stretched so tightly around his
cock made his mouth water.
“Good girl,” FP breathed. He grabbed Cheryl’s hips and pulled her toward him,
working himself in even deeper.
“You’re—hurting—me,” she bit out furiously between gasps.
FP shuddered. “Relax, sweetheart,” he said. “Be over soon…”
Fuck, he was almost there. He rubbed her back as he thrust into her—faster
now—but that only made her start struggling again. Still, the more she bucked
her hips, the tighter he held her.
“Don’t,” Cheryl gasped. “Don’t, not inside—”
But it was too late for that. With a grunt FP finally tipped over the edge. He
fucked her hard as he came, emptying himself into her, only dimly aware of the
pitiful way her gasps finally devolved into wracking sobs that shook her whole
body.
When he was done, he pulled out slowly, watching with a possessive kind of
satisfaction as his own come leaked out of her cunt and dripped down her leg.
FP tucked his dick back into his jeans and walked around the back of the desk.
He sat down heavily and reached for his undrunk glass of whiskey, noticing for
the first time how foggy his head felt. He averted his eyes as Cheryl stood
shakily, heels clicking, and pulled up her underwear and stockings.  
FP drained his glass, and by the time he was done the rush of the whole thing
had faded; all that was left was a hollow, vague kind of nausea. He looked up
at Cheryl then, really seeing her face for the first time since he’d bent her
over the desk.
Red. Blotchy. Eyes rimmed in black and lipstick smeared like blood across her
face. A welt blooming across one cheek where he’d hit her, and more marks on
her arms and wrists that would probably turn into bruises. They stood out
sharply on her ivory skin.
Cheryl took a deep breath and brought herself up to her full height. Squared
her shoulders. Pushed out her jaw and held her head high. She wiped the twin
tracks of mascara from her cheeks and fixed him with a cold, blank stare.
“Are you done?” she asked flatly. There was something about her tone that
stung—like he was a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, and she’d just been
waiting for him to tire himself out.
“Far as I’m concerned, we’re even,” he said, like that might make her hate him
less.
Without a word, she straightened her dress and turned to leave, stooping to
pick up her faux fur coat from the floor as she did. She glanced back over her
shoulder, and for a second, their eyes met.
“You’ll pay for this,” she said, and then she was gone.
FP didn’t doubt her for a second.
                                       *
Cheryl Blossom didn’t stop coming around the Whyte Wyrm. She didn’t stop
dressing in fishnets and satin, either, and she didn’t stop playing double
agent for Lodge and the Ghoulies. No; after that night, she was even more
determined to crush anything and everything that stood in her way.
One of those things was FP.
It didn’t take long for her to spread discord among his men. Didn’t take long
for her to get them suspicious—to stop telling him things altogether—and before
he knew it, FP was on the outs. He was a little bitter about it, but he was
also kind of glad, because a big part of him was sick to death of the whole
business. Cheryl was more than capable, anyways.  
What FP couldn’t forgive her for, though, was how she seemed just as intent on
destroying Jughead’s life as she was FP's. 
It happened a few months later, late one night when FP was half asleep at the
bar. One minute all was silent, and the next Jug was staggering in, white as a
sheet, sobbing and shouting about how he’d lost the one good thing in his
life—how Betty had finally left for good, how she was never coming back, and
how it was all his fault.
The bartender poured Jughead a drink before FP could intervene, and FP watched
him knock it back in one go. The sight gave him the worst kind of déjà vu.
“I fucked up,” Jughead groaned, rubbing at his chest like there was a knife
lodged in his heart. “S’all my fault…”
It was a while before he’d calmed down enough to explain exactly what had
happened: how Cheryl Blossom had sidled up to him one night at a Southside
party; how they’d got to talking and figured out they had a lot in common; how
she’d kept pressing drinks into his hand, and when she’d kissed him he’d been
too fucked up and too stupid to stop the situation escalating.
“I screwed up,” he moaned.
“A kiss doesn’t mean much,” FP said, and Jughead looked like he might be sick.
“It wasn’t just a kiss.”
“You tell Betty?” FP asked grimly. That earned him an indignant glare.
“Of course I told her,” Jughead said. Then his eyes clouded over in pain, and
FP had to put a hand on his shoulder to keep him on his feet.     
So FP blamed himself a little for that.
The worst part wasn’t Jug losing Betty, though—it was how Cheryl took the
opportunity to weasel her way into the kid’s life. From a business standpoint,
it was a practical move: the other Serpents had grown to trust Jughead, and
that trust still held even if their trust in FP didn’t. And from a personal
standpoint, she must’ve known how deep it cut FP to see his kid so messed up.
Both ways, it was a win-win for Cheryl.
Still, FP supposed the two of them probably didhave a lot in common, especially
now that Jughead was free of his last remaining connection to the wholesome
life he’d always dreamed of. In a way, he and Cheryl made sense. FP saw them
around sometimes, and whenever he did, Jughead looked a little more hardened. A
little more closed off. He’d always been good at building walls, and now Cheryl
Blossom was there passing him the bricks.
So Jughead stopped coming by the Wyrm so much. FP started drinking more. He did
his best to keep to himself, but every now and then Cheryl sauntered in, slid
onto the barstool next to him, and they settled back into something that was a
lot like their old rhythm, just a little more circumspect.
She was a phoenix, she told him one night when they’d both had too much to
drink. Every time she got burnt, she rose again, stronger. She looked half
crazed when she said it, eyes alight with a fire so bright that he couldn’t
decide whether he should be afraid or in awe.
At any rate, it made sense to FP. And, in a way, he was proud of her.
After all, doesn’t every super villain need an origin story?
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