Chapter Text
The Good Girl
He stands at the vending machine with a letterman on that hides marks. Her cardigan hides nothing, but it’s threaded with the prayers of her mother and the worry of her father.
They meet here frequently. He’s always a cocky lean on the machine and his hand prints smeared on the glass. His smile usually reflects off her glasses, all his teeth showing at once, confident fingers running through the strands of hair that always fall into his eyes. Hermione knows that he likes it that way, he knows it draws attention to his hair that every girl has whispered about in the bathrooms, the hair they think about at night when they wish that their fingers were wrapped in while he’s between their…
She’s torn from her thoughts when he makes a comment about her lips followed up with some offhand comment about how prayers must be pretty fucking convincing when they’re out of those pretty lips. It makes her pull that cardigan tighter around her waist but there’s a feeling in her that makes her flutter her eyelashes, pout a little more…
It makes her notice the uncomfortable shift in him right in front of her very eyes and the way his once broken arm holds the hand that adjusts his jeans when he thinks she’s not looking.
Before she knows it, her tears fall on FP’s chest and her worries are spoken out loud next to the vending machine that now holds all their secrets. The vending machine holds the kiss that never happened, the confession that he fucked Alice Smith on more than one occasion and now they barely even talk. It holds the secret that FP thinks he’s in love with Gladys Swan. Possibly. Probably . He doesn’t really know what love is, he’s never seen it. That now, he’s going to be the Serpent King if he doesn’t get the fuck out of Riverdale, whatever the hell that means. The vending machine holds her secrets too. That she never told Mary what happened between her and Fred, and she’s scared that maybe one of the people who do know will tell her and she can’t afford to lose her best friend. That Hiram Lodge’s eyes always seem to be stuck on her. That she needs to get out of Riverdale before she ends up like her mom and dad, raising a bunch of daughters whose dreams get lost amongst the rosaries. That she doesn’t know what to do when her parents work so hard but there’s barely enough money to get food on the table.
His eyes are glassy, worn and overworked. “I’m saving money to get out of here,” he tells her with a hand full of her flesh, the other awkwardly stroking her hair and the light of the vending machine shining on his skin. “I could help you out.”
Hermione wipes tears from the corners of her eyes, listening intently to FP’s soft murmur. “You could?”
“What do you know about drugs?” He asks, a menacing tone running from his tongue.
“Nothing”
“Good,” he murmurs with his shoulder against the glass. “The less you know the better.”
She clings on to her mother’s prayers. With a guy like FP Jones, she'll need them.
When he doesn’t look, she blows a kiss to the wind. For the hopes that something bigger than Riverdale could help her out. That maybe the Serpent is that something.
Cecelia Gomez speaks with her hands. They’re dry and weathered and she still wears her uniform from the Five Seasons that smells like bleach and laundry powder. Mom’s hands fly through the air, tears spill from the corners of her eyes and Hermione can’t concentrate on anything but the crucifix that hangs just beyond her mother’s head and the one that hangs around her mother’s neck that she touches every now and then when she overly expresses her gratitude. Hermione picks up some words that her mother speaks, it’s hard to listen when she doesn’t stop her thanks. She thanks God for the gift. For daughters that provide. For the loving home that he watches over, for the food on the table and good health. Her father sits in his chair, rocking slowly, an equally as slow nod of his head with every pitch her mother goes up in tone. She continues thanking God and God watches Hermione from the wall.
‘You’re so sweet,’ Hiram Lodge had whispered to her earlier that day in biology. His breath was warm and smelt like bubblegum. His expensive cologne smells like tobacco and sandalwood and the soft feel of the fabric of his shirt that brushed against her arm didn’t itch the same way her plaid skirt does on her thighs. Mary had squirmed in her seat next to her as Hermione’s skin crept up hot. ‘He thinks you’re sweet…’ Mary had whispered like a broken record of Hiram’s voice. Kind of. Not really. She might as well have screamed it at the front of the class.
She hates feeling sweet. She hates that her parents are so proud for everything she does for them, for the help with her little sisters, for being the best daughter that God could have given them. For Hiram Lodge knowing she’s the good, Catholic girl that she is. For the way his eyes sit on her skirt and on the cardigan on her shoulders. That the smile he gives her is so tight lipped and courteous.
“I pray that you’re safe always, mija,” her mother calls to the air, clutching at the cross that hovers around her neck.
Hermione thanks her parents for all that they do for her. Mom takes the money that Hermione had placed on the table earlier, a pile of fifties, her parents had stopped asking where it was coming from, convincing them that working overnight shifts at Pop’s wasn’t hard when the power bill came in and the twins' school fees.
“I pray that your shift goes well tonight!” her mom says, kissing her on the cheek before she lets her out the door. “Glory be…”
Hermione hates the prayers, but she keeps a few safe inside her for when she needs them most. She tucks them deep down, in the corner where her heart tightens when she’s in a panic. For when she’s gone too far and she needs saving.
She turns as she’s outside the front of her house, waiting for father to turn off the kitchen light and then the bedroom one on. There’s a small beat that sounds in her mind when she knows it’s safe and she can start down the road.
The first few steps are slow and steady, the others after that are faster with her ripping her Pop’s apron off and shoving it in her handbag before messing her hair and slowing down next to a beat up pick up.
There’s smoke wafting out of the windows, Pall Mall red, the smell burns her nose. The window winds down and eyes run over her with a cocky, lopsided smile and a toothpick between his teeth. “Ready to roll, Princess?” he says with a smoky exhale.
‘God’s always watching, mija,’ she hears in her mind all concerned and promising in her mother’s voice.
FP Jones revs the engine as she slides in next to him. He pushes his foot to the ground in a way that makes her glasses slide down her nose. When she’s with FP, she knows she’s not sweet. She clings on to those prayers that her mother places over her. She lets God watch her all the way to Greendale and back.
She blows a kiss to the wind, to the flickering street lights, to the God who’s watching.
To the boy who’s driving with a passion in his eyes.
The runs are easy. He doesn’t tell her much about them and she gets money for simply riding around with him. She doesn’t understand it, but she doesn’t want to. The less she knows, the better. At least she doesn’t feel like she’s lying to her parents.
She’s sweating in the nighttime remainders of summer sun. Feeling the breeze still on her, the heat of the day and the smell of the trees and drying grass. The seating of the old pick up is leather and it makes the backs of her thighs stick to them. The truck smells like cigarettes and cheap florally deodorant and there’s traces of Gladys through it. Her pencils that Hermione simply knows are hers because they’re bitten down to nothing. The deodorant was a dead give away and there’s little baggies with tiny skulls stuck onto them that is a sign of the Ghoulies. FP, no matter how hard he tried, couldn’t keep away from Gladys. Hermione notices everything, and she hears everything too. She knows enough to know that Gladys the Ghoulie shouldn’t be around FP the Serpent half as much as she is.
The warmth of the summer sun still flutters through the air even though it’s late at night. When Hermione closes her eyes, she can almost feel it. She feels her mom’s prayers on her as FP cruises slowly down the highway and she knows what’s in the back tray of the pick up. They never talk about it - they barely talk at all - but they both know that the back tray holds their entire lives in it and one wrong turn could ruin everything forever. Not talking about it makes it feel like it doesn’t exist.
Who wants to talk about the amount of drugs they’re running between Southside and Greendale when they could completely ignore it?
When she thinks about it too much, in some cloudy inbetween, the drugs in FP’s pick up make her cling on to those prayers of her mother’s. And on Sunday when she’s on her knees, she’ll thank God for yet another week of safe passage. And sometimes, she prays for FP too. Just in case. ‘Everyone needs someone to pray for them, mija…’
Hermione’s torn out of her thoughts, eyes snapping open and her heart stuck in her throat when FP says; “Sometimes when you’re in the car and you’re all zoned out like that, I think you like coming on these rides…”
There’s a humour laced in his words. He thinks he’s funny, sometimes he is, she thinks. But she can hear the nerves running through his words too and maybe he’s just as scared as she is. “Why do you let me come?” she asks.
She can feel his mind ticking. In the small space of the car, she can almost hear his thoughts. “I know what it’s like to have no money,” he shrugs, hands tightening on the steering wheel. “And I needed a side kick.”
Hermione can feel the blush spreading over her cheeks. “I’m not some charity case, FP,” she mumbles.
“And neither am I, yet you don’t want me to look like some fucking weirdo loner and so you’re joining me… looks like a charity case to me too.”
She smiles down at her hands, grateful that he doesn’t make her feel stupid. Desperate. Needy . He wears his Serpents jacket with pride when he’s in front of her. He always seems to have it off when he’s in front of Fred and Mary would skin him alive if she saw him with it. But when he’s with Hermione and he’s hanging out the window of his truck, he’s every single bit of the Serpent he tells her he hates. “Why don’t you take Alice with you?” she murmurs.
There’s an arrogance he has when he sighs, she almost likes it. There’s something that makes her clench her thighs a little tighter on the leather seats when he laughs with his head thrown back, swirling his toothpick around his tongue. A shitty little trick that makes her stare at him from the corner of her eye. His laugh shakes the seat. “Alice got out of this. No need for drugs when Hal Cooper’s got her. He’s got her entire heart and soul, Gladys tells me. All I got of her is her Serpent kutte to give back to my old man…”
She watches FP’s hand tighten on the steering wheel again, the same one Alice had told her he’d smoothed up her thighs and into… she stops herself. “I thought you liked her.”
FP turns his head and eyes her, raising his eyebrow in a way that makes her feel childlike, obsessed with crushes and boys and girls things. “ Liked her?” he sniggers. “Baby, she’s one of my best friends, but…” he shrugs as he trails off. “You win some, you lose some. She won Hal, I lost a friend… such is life.”
Hermione beads her eyes as she thinks of the words that came out of his mouth, not convinced. “That doesn’t sound like you at all.”
He laughs, looking at her sideways again. “You’re right. That’s what Gladys told me. But she’s right. No point in worrying about it, it is what it is and shit.”
“And shit,” she repeats quietly, picking at her nails.
FP clicks his tongue, lifting his arm to elbow her in the ribs. “Ah, you’re not the moral police, are you? Some of us don’t believe in God you know. He’s not gonna come down and smite me for having a bit of fun… if he does, he’s coming for you too, Princess,” he laughs loudly. “How long are you gonna lead Freddie on for, huh?”
His eyes are menacing. They also feel like they’re tearing at her skin, burning everything in their path. She pulls her cardigan further up her shoulders. She thinks too much about Fred. “I like Fred…”
“You sound like me - “
“Bite me, FP,” she groans, folding her arms across her chest, done with the conversation.
“You tell me where.”
There’s a lingering in his voice. Or a longing . She’s not sure, but she feels the words on her and they make her ache. She knows she shouldn’t feel this way, or maybe that she’s reading too far into them but the way his eyes shoot to her before darting back onto the road makes her believe that maybe she wasn’t. His words are sharp, precise and whip like. She enjoys the feeling of them in the air. “He and I… we had fun. But my mom says that if you can’t commit to someone wholly, then you shouldn’t at all.”
FP grimaces. “You always listen to your mommy when it comes to people you fuck?”
His words are thick and layered, like they slid slowly off his tongue. The way he swears makes Hermione shift in her seat, her cheeks redden, her heart beat so fast it was beating out of her chest and her own nervous fingers in her hair feel like they’re fumbling. “I - we... “ she slows down. “We didn’t fuck… ”
He clicks his tongue several times in a row this time, twisting his fist on the steering wheel so she can see his scarred knuckles under moon and street lights. “What do you call it, then?” he replies slowly. “Because Fred told me you tasted like candy canes and quite frankly, I don’t believe him…”
She lets nerves drown her. She opens and closes her mouth, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and the heat that creeps up her neck is starting to burn. Fred was all kinds of attentive and sweet, he was gentle and smiled kindly against her skin. He whispered quiet praises and let the happiness get the better of her.
She left feeling like she was floating on air, but she didn’t love it. She wanted more. It was all too soft, laying in his gentle touches. “We made love ,” she announces, turning her nose up, tightening her arms across her chest.
“Huh,” FP replies, sounding somewhat matter-of-factly. “Only Freddie would make someone feel like they made love… yet you didn’t tell me you loved him.”
“What do you do then?”
“What do you mean?”
Hermione purses her lips before saying; “With the girls.”
Again, his sardonic laugh echoes through the truck. “What do I do with the girls?”
FP Jones was always so sure of himself. She knows it by the way he always runs his tongue across his teeth, how he stands in front of people with his entire ego on display, how he always chases after Gladys and he got Alice to do what he wanted because he was bored. Mary’s words, not her own. Hermione wonders what it is that draws them in, what it is that he wants.
And maybe, if she thinks about it, maybe she’s being drawn in, and maybe it’s her that he wants.
“Yeah,” Hermione shrugs, faking casualness.
FP bites his lip before running those fingers that she watches all night through his hair. “Sounds like you’re interested.”
She bites her own lip the same way he does, rubbing her palms over her skirt, wishing her heartbeat would shut the hell up. “Maybe…”
He sniggers. “No you’re not, Hermione,” he answers quietly. “You’re interested in something else.”
“Oh yeah?” she snaps. “And what is that?”
“Hiram Lodge,” he replies, eyes dragging on her again. “But if you’d ever take my advice, Princess, you’ll take a couple steps back from him.”
This time, she turns to look at him, waiting for his eyes to meet hers. “Why?”
His eyes darken and he swallows loudly, turning to meet her. “Because not even your God could save you if you get in with him.”
“Can he save me from you?” she challenges.
She’s met with a smile this time. “Trust me, Hermione,” he almost whispers. “I’m not the bad guy around here.”
They arrive in Greendale, when they get to the back tray of his truck, he tests the product out with a quick sniff and an offer to Hermione that she declines. Slapping her ass, he then leans into her ear. “You convince them to pay extra, I’ll hand the product over and then we’ll go home.”
She sucks in air through her teeth, trying to suck up confidence. She nods and she practices the fluttering of her eyelashes all the way to the car waiting for them.
Hermione blows a kiss to the wind. For money. Because she loves it.
Hermione feels out of place when she’s lying in Mary’s room, books scattered around them. Amongst the chem notes are scatterings of Fred’s name with love hearts dotted next to them. Mary talks about how much she wants a strawberry shake, how it most definitely doesn’t have anything to do with Fred’s shift at Pop’s and how much she can’t stand the way he smiles on one side and not the other.
She hates that he over cooks fries, how he begs her for her trig notes and how he begs for her to go to his games but she simply doesn’t have the time.
Mary plaits Hermione’s hair, she slowly takes her glasses off the bridge of her nose and powders her cheeks with the blush that Alice gave to Mary for her seventeenth birthday even though Hermione knows for a fact that Alice and Gladys stole that alongside the glittery glosses from the drugstore. Mary fumbles around in the birthday hamper they’d put together with the stolen goods from Alice and Gladys, the curled ribbons by Penelope, the handmade card from Sierra and the necklace all pretty in pink that Hermione had bought with the help of FP on a saturday morning after their friday night run. Mary’s fingers run along the necklace before she unscrews the lipgloss, smearing it on Hermione’s lips and then kissing her cheek. “Have you put much thought into Prom?” Mary asks.
It’s like whiplash when she thinks about Prom. It feels an entire lifetime away, but for once she feels like she’s excited for something that’s bigger than the drowning she usually feels. Mary mumbles on about chem and how she doesn’t need to do it, but the demands of school are more important than her general disdain for the subject. Hermione smacks her lips together, she smooths her palms over her skirt and she enjoys the way the gloss makes her lips look kissable. Maybe Mary thinks it does too, because she kisses Hermione’s cheeks two times before telling her that she should wear the gloss to prom. “Hiram won’t be able to say no…”
She doesn’t think she has the guts to ask Hiram. She knows that FP wants to spike the punch but he doesn’t know how he’s going to achieve that when he doesn’t want to go at all. Gladys declined his advances so lately, he’s been a quiet, silent mess in the truck during runs. She hopes that Hiram will ask her, so she asks Mary if she can borrow the gloss. Mary claps her hands together excitedly as she tucks the gloss into Hermione’s bag.
“Maybe he’s going with someone else…” Hermione whispers, pretending to flick through a textbook.
Mary’s nose is buried yet again in her books after allowing herself her allocated thirty minutes of free time. She pops her head out just long enough to say; “You guys would be perfect together,” before reading her own scrawl of chem notes.
Hermione’s not convinced at all. Hiram is pure confidence, he smells rich, his smile is perfectly straight and pristine. He’s excelling in all his classes, he’s part of the wrestling team and Tom told her himself that he’d get places if he works as hard as he is now. He’s a Lodge and they rule the heart of Riverdale.
Her hair is sometimes too oily, it clings to her neck. Her glasses were Cece’s and the only reason why she inherited her sister’s glasses were because she didn’t want to take them with her to university. She’s doing okay in her classes, but she could do better. She didn’t have time to be in the Vixens now that she works at Pop’s and does runs with FP. She’s a Gomez, and she never, ever wants to be part of Riverdale.
“Maybe,” Hermione whispers, burying her own nose in her notes.
When she walks home, she blows a kiss to the wind. To become something and someone in this bloody mess of a life.
They stand in the hallway of the english block, Hiram has the keys to his car swinging on his index finger as he walks towards her. “Well,” he starts. “Running late for english too?” he asks.
Hermione looks both ways before realising he was talking to her. Looking down at her feet, she twists the ball of her foot before answering. “Something like that.”
He steps towards her and she instinctively takes a step back, books almost spilling from her arms. He laughs lightly, taking them from her and holding them to his chest. She feels his gaze on her own chest, right where the buttons start on her blouse, just where half the letters of “best friends forever” dwell from Mary. Where the crucifix from her parents would live if she bothered to wear it. “I get the impression that you’re always running from something…”
Hermione doesn’t know what he means, but she gets the impression that people aren’t always on his level, so they’re both observant of something in each other. But she knows he’s right, she is always running from something. From small town feels, from prying eyes, from expectation . “It’s funny to see you without Hal at your side,” she says, pouting her lips, oh so aware of the fact that she’s over doing it. She hopes that the way she tries to inch her skirt up her thighs with her fingers secretly clawing and crawling at the band hidden under the one book she didn’t lose to him isn’t too obvious. She loves the way he smells. She’s aware she smells like Gladys’ deodorant and she lined her eyes with Mary’s blunt pencil which she has to remember to wipe off before she gets home.
“Hal’s occupied in the Blue and Gold with Penelope,” he explains, throwing his thumb over his shoulder. “But enough about Hal, you’re a good girl, Hermione Gomez. And it intrigues me that you’d be tardy to such an important class.”
She can hear the hint of amusement in his voice, but Hermione bites her lip when she plays over in her mind; ‘You’re a good girl, Hermione Gomez…’ it makes her rock on the spot, she tucks her hair behind her ear.
She wants him to take it back, she wants to prove to him that he’s wrong.
“It intrigues me that you’d be caught out here talking to me,” she says, straightening her shoulders. “I’m sure mami and papi would be happy to see their pride and joy talking to a Gomez when they sure as hell make it clear at St. Vincent’s that Lodge’s don’t mix with the Gomez’s.”
Hiram raises an eyebrow, letting escape an; “Ah…” slowly. Rubbing his hands together, he smirks. “I’m an only child, mi amor,” he says with a cocky, satisfied edge. “And I’m used to getting what I want. Whether my parents like it, or not. In the eyes of the Lord ,” he adds thickly. “Or not .”
Her cheeks burn as he runs his eyes over her one last time. Slowly, he lifts his hand and tucks the strands of her hair that are constantly in her eyes behind her ear again and his touch is soft, gentle yet minacious. He can tell he’s getting a rise out of her, it’s obvious in the way she shifts from foot to foot, pouts a little more. Frowns a little deeper. She hates him.
She wants him.
Hermione waits for an entire lifetime, her breath is stuck on the back of her tongue and her skin remembers the feel of his touch even when he steps back. “What do you want?” whispers, kicking herself internally for the weakness of her question.
Hiram chuckles deeply, turning around to walk away. “You’re a good girl, Hermione,” he repeats.
But before she can even come up with something witty and quick to prove to him that she’s in fact not a good girl, a hand smacks on the glass panel of the classroom Hiram’s about to walk into followed by a face smudged against it. “I found them!” Fred calls as he swings the door open, ushering Hiram in. “Kind sir,” he says, bowing as Hiram saunters through.
Hermione feels her breath hitch, her throat close in as she follows slowly behind Hiram. Mr File lays out exactly what’s wrong with running late to classes and the negative effects it’ll have this close to the end of the year. Hermione apologises, partly to the teacher, partly to Mary who’s scowling at her from across the room.
FP kicks Hermione’s chair from behind her, leaning in when Mr File isn’t looking he whispers; “Looks like a cat’s got your tongue,” his breath tickles the back of her neck. “And the cat’s name is Hiram.”
She turns around in her chair, blowing a kiss to FP that he at first frowns at, then catches, slapping it to his face. It’s for his breath on her skin, for the faint jealousy that she thinks she reads in his tone.
For the fact that FP Jones might be the only one who knows she has a little bad in her, no matter how much the good girl shows.
Her mother always complains about the house, but it’s not until Hermione’s sitting on the edge of a single bed with a broken frame that she realises her house may be full of old furniture, the old crocheted throws and the sixties hypnotic accents but it was full of love and it feels like a home . The home that Cece loves to come home to during the holidays and the home that all four of the girls who are still in Riverdale rest easy in.
FP lies on his bed with his fraying Chuck Taylors still on, his Letterman sitting adjacent to the Serpents jacket in some sort of light versus dark battle that Hermione knows he fights internally. His room has peeling wallpaper, holes in the walls that she only notices when she squints her eyes because they’re all covered by three things: Guns n Roses, photos that Mary had developed of FP and Fred and Gladys’ handwriting. Poems. Of people she loves disguised as musicians.
The kitchen had no cupboard doors, there was a steady snoring in the room next to his that hadn’t let up in the entire hour she was there and judging by the amount of beer bottles scattered in what she assumed was the living room, the snoring wasn’t going to end any time soon.
Hermione sits with her knees to her chin, her skirt pulled up between her thighs and cardigan draped over her legs. She hadn’t stopped frowning since she arrived, she hadn’t let go of the tension in her jaw and she didn’t want to.
She enjoys the feeling. It fuels whatever hate she has towards Hiram’s smugness.
“Princess,” FP says without breathing, holding in his draw of smoke. He coughs through his nose for a second before exhaling loudly, shoulders slumping at the same time. A smile creeps on his lips with closed eyes before letting them open slowly, looking at her through heavy lids. “You gonna tell me why you insisted on going anywhere but home?”
Home . Home would be overrun with her sisters screaming for attention. Ana fighting with Mariana, the twins Lucia and Josephine arguing over who gets the luxury of thanking the Lord before dinner. Home reminds her that she’s the good girl that Hiram keeps reminding her she is. She didn’t want to go home.
She doesn’t want to be good.
“What does it matter to you?” she snaps.
FP throws his hands up in the air, blunt still between his long fingers. “Woah, woah, woah,” he says slowly. “Maybe because I give a fuck about you?”
She shoots him a glare, she wants it to hurt. She doesn’t say anything but; “Hiram thinks I’m a goody two shoes. But it still doesn’t matter.”
Even with the high hitting him, his eyes turn serious. “We’re friends, ‘Mione. That’s why I give a fuck.”
Hermione doesn’t want to talk about how Hiram makes her wild, shake and want him even more. She feels all enveloped in the cold room that’s only warmed by the fact that FP told her she’s his friend. Maybe the good in her did appreciate the friendship. The bad in her notices the way FP’s tongue runs over his teeth. She smiles softly, kissing her hand, she blows it to the wind. “What is that?” he asks.
“A kiss to the wind,” she tells him, smiling at her feet.
“Why do you do that?”
“For different reasons,” she shrugs. “This one was for friendship. For the vending machine bringing us together.”
He nods. Kissing his hand, he blows it to the wind. “For two people who really fucking want to escape.”
When she’s in his room, she doesn’t see an escape. All she sees is the foundation for history to repeat itself.
Exactly the same as what she sees when she’s staring at the crucifix that hangs above the bed in her own room.
He offers her the blunt that’s between his fingers, and even though the smell is familiar, sometimes wafting through his beat up pick up when they run the powder that pays her, she eyes it suspiciously. “You ever smoked weed before?” The way she stares at it makes him laugh with understanding. “Well, you wanna try?”
Hermione takes it from between his fingers, placing it to her lips, she sucks it in straight, the heat burning on the tip of her tongue. She coughs as it seems to fill her, travelling up her nose, hitting the back of her throat. “Shit!” she hisses.
FP laughs, taking it from her fingers. “Ah, Princess, you’ll get it eventually.”
After a few more tokes, they’re both laughing on his bed, face to face. She traces a scar on the corner of his mouth and he smiles against her touch. Before she has a chance to think about what she’s doing, her lips are on the corner of his mouth where the scar is and his fingers are playing with the bottom hem of her skirt.
He stops and so does she. They both stare at the ceiling.
He blows a kiss to the wind, “For dumb shit when you’re high,” he laughs.
She follows suit. Her kiss is silent. For something in the pit of her stomach that wants the touch that the hem of her skirt felt all over her fucking skin. In the exact way FP’s eyes are all over her skin when she’s on top of his sheets.
She’s met at the vending machine and the light shines a dim glow over everything, but this time, Hiram’s smiling at her with a brightened smile and wide eyes.
His hair is slicked back, the right side of the collar of his shirt is crooked and before she can stop herself, she reaches out, flattening it down. He thanks her with another smile that makes her lick her lips, her knees shake the tiniest bit that she prays he doesn’t notice. It makes the flush over her cheeks feel like it’s burning her.
“I didn’t see you at St. Vincent’s on Sunday, Hermione,” he says so deeply, it makes her shake a little more.
She stands a little straighter, tilts her chin upwards a little more. As if trying to prove that his soft murmurs and sideways smiles don’t do anything for her. But it was a lie and she knows it, even if she tries to push the thought to the side.
Convincing her mom that she had a shift on Sunday even though Cecelia Gomez had told Pop Tate that no daughter of hers would ever work on the Lord’s day was difficult. But Hermione had begged to let her work, that she needed the money and she also wanted some to put away in the shoe box decorated by Sierra that she hides under her bed. The pretty little box holds spare cash she’d worked tirelessly for that would one day get her out of Riverdale. She loves to see it grow.
Sunday was instead spent by Sweetwater River. FP picked her up from the outside of Pop’s and when the sunset, they drove all the way to Greendale and back. Her mother had fallen asleep on the sofa waiting for her. She’d pulled up the fraying blanket to her shoulders and kissed her mother’s cheek, placing cash on the coffee table before silently walking to bed.
“I was working,” Hermione answers quietly, watching the way his mouth curves and the way he leans on the wall, lip between his teeth.
“Ah,” he says. “You’re too pretty to work so hard, you need someone to look after you…”
Before she knows it, his index finger is tilting her chin and her glasses slide down her nose a little before she reaches to push them up. “I don’t need looking after,” she replies, taking a step back.
He nods, straightening the collar of his shirt again at the same time she smooths her hands nervously over her skirt. “An independent woman,” he says slowly. “I like that.” Again, before she can think of anything witty to say back to him, his lips are close to her ear and his fingers tuck her hair behind it. “You’re such a good girl…”
She doesn’t even get a chance to breathe and he’s sauntering out of the room.
Hermione ghosts her fingers over the places his warm touches were. Closing her eyes, she thinks of just how close he was. The heat of him, the smell of him. The way his smile makes her feel under fake lights.
“‘Mione” a voice comes behind her. “Business as usual, eight. Don’t keep me waiting…” There’s a shift in the room that she can’t ignore, the awkward step from side to side so she doesn’t pay too much attention to the ache in her thighs or think too much on the way her hair brushes her neck that’s all too sensitive. A hand reaches from behind her, landing on her shoulder to spin her around. “Don’t you look all hot and bothered.”
She doesn’t think. Not now. Not when she’s not the good girl everyone insists she is. She’s skin tearing, she’s hot touches, she’s rough bites of skin and hands full of hair and thighs stuck together with the memory of hand prints on her. She’s face to face with FP with his fingers still on her pulse and a darkness in his eyes she can’t get rid of. She hears a breath get lost somewhere in his chest and his wet tongue lick over dry lips. His fingertips walk along her skin, brush on her neck. She can still hear the words in her head. ‘You’re such a good girl…’
His fingers still cling on to her skin, sharp cuticles along her neck and with a step forward, his nose is brushing hair out of the way of her ear, wet lips just above her skin. Nails snagging on her cardigan.
She feels denim grazing on her plaid skirt, his belt cold against the bare strip of her stomach that’s exposed. She wants to feel everything, all at once, all over her. There’s a hand on her tailbone that pushes her closer to him and before she can take a proper breath, his tongue laps on her neck in the place where she feels the blood pulsing in her. “Fuck,” he whispers, dropping his head to her shoulder.
But before he moves away, she tugs at his hand and when he looks up, she puts her mouth to his, running her tongue along his lip before edging it in slowly. There’s no sparks flying as she feels his chapped lips on hers. No birds singing when his hand is a little lower, pulling up her skirt just a little. There’s no stars aligning when she bites at his lower lip or loses her fingers in the mess of hair that everyone wants to touch.
But what she does feel is the breath being sucked out of him, the desperation in her own touch when it’s on him. The need to feel all of her all over him, that maybe she could push him onto his back right here and drown in the pure greed in her.
When they step away from each other, her chest rises and falls so quickly, she doesn’t think her heart will ever catch up and she tastes his strawberry gum and cigarettes on her own tongue.
FP smirks at her, folding his arms, he glows next to the vending machine. Dark eyes, hair a mess from her own hands. His swollen lip being run over by his tongue again. “Hermione,” he says, cocking an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
She knows what he means. He didn’t think she had the guts, the passion the absolute fucking need in her.
Before she has the chance to reply, he blows her a kiss. “For you, Princess,” he murmurs. “For you tonight when you’ve got your hand between your legs thinking of me.”
She wants to kill FP Jones.
It started in silence. He’d cracked jokes all the way to Greendale but she didn’t laugh. She couldn’t. Not when she notices his hands gripping the steering wheel. His jeans are tight and there’s a feeling that builds in her when he tightens the Serpents jacket across his shoulders, the way he stamps out a cigarette when he’s standing in front of the men that buy all the product and run their eyes over her knee high socks, focusing on her lips.
When she concentrates, she thinks she can see FP’s jaw twitching while he watches the men watch her that doesn’t stop until they’re back in his truck, driving all the way home.
They sit in the truck down the road from her house parked at a dead end to not get anyone's attention. “Come on, baby,” he moans, banging his hand on the wheel lightly. “You’ve barely spoken all night!”
“I suggest you take a leaf out of my book and do the same,” she snaps back, rolling her eyes.
He sniggers, clicking his tongue. “You gonna do me like that, huh?... as if I hadn’t already had a shit day.”
Hermione groans, throwing her head to the side, she looks at him over the top of her glasses. “Do you want me to ask?”
FP nods. “Please.”
“What happened?”
Prom’s only a week away and it doesn’t matter how much he begs Gladys to go with him, she keeps declining. Some bullshit story about needing to be there for Alice after her return to school. Women supporting women. The whole story feels weird out of FP’s mouth. Hermione does notice though the slight longing in his voice, the disappointment. She knows how hard he’d been trying to get in with Gladys but she also knows how hard Gladys wouldn’t give a damn. For some reason, Hermione gets it. Hiram had done Hal a favour by agreeing to be Penelope Blossom’s date and she had to force words out of her mouth to tell Penelope how excited she was for her. Penelope said she couldn’t wait to go with him. They both knew the other was lying.
Somehow through the mess of FP’s weed induced high and his mess of words, Hermione’s own anger building in her over Penelope and Hiram’s date. The fact that she knows the Blossom’s will buy Penelope something beautiful, red, floor length that would match whatever the Lodge’s would have paid for for their son and she’d be stuck with whatever her shoe box could afford that she’d have to hide from her parents and pray wouldn’t use all her escape money, she ends up with FP’s hand on her thigh.
There’s a silence that runs through the truck but her mind is so loud and booming when Hermione puts her hand on his, moving it further up her thigh.
He makes a noise when he sucks in sharply through a gap in his teeth. His tongue traces his lips and she can feel his long fingers on the outside of her cotton. Something makes her wish she wore lace, but something tells her that FP Jones doesn’t care about the technicalities of what she wears. He just wants them off.
Soon, his teeth are on her neck and his fingers have pushed cotton to the side. She gasps when he slides in gently, he bites down roughly.
She loves it when he whispers; “Damn, Princess,” against her neck. “So wet for me?”
Hermione lets him awkwardly move his arm and fingers with the gear stick between them and a strain in his jeans that she can’t tear her eyes away from. When he sucks her neck just so and moves his fingers in rougher, harder, faster, deeper , she shakes with her own hand on his thigh, tearing her nails on the denim and her thighs holding his hand in place.
She slams the door loudly to the truck and he calls out the window. “You really gonna leave me like this?!”
She spins on her feet, blowing a kiss to the wind. For him to think about when he’s got his right hand around himself later on tonight.
Prom wasn’t anything like Cece had promised it would be. Her mom and dad were happy for her to go with Mary. Mary was going with Fred. Gladys and Alice were both dressed in black on Hal’s arms.
Hermione’s disappointment was easy to hide. She was used to it. Never getting what she wants, never truly getting what she worked so hard for. Hiram Lodge had told her she looked so pretty, but she saw Penelope. She was beautiful. Stunning. She could afford contact lenses and so her glasses didn’t fog up the same way Hermione’s did in the heat of the room filled with bodies.
Instead she finds herself worried about what Mary’s thinking and if she’s wondering where she is. She sits at her favourite booth at Pop’s with tulle sticking out from under the table and realising that the purple she wears might be a little too bright for her. She wanted a deep, burgundy but her mother didn’t approve. And Hermione was sick of hiding things from her.
The bell sounds as a Southside jacket walks in, when the form turns, she sees it’s FP who greets her with his hand in the air and an awkward grin. Before she can turn away, trying to hide the red of her eyes that still remains even though she spilt the last of her tears over an hour ago, he slides into the booth across from her. “Are you allowed to wear your Serpents jacket to Prom?” she asks, trying to come across as smug. Appearing shaky instead.
He frowns at her, feeling the tulle with his dirty boots. “This dress is too pretty to work in…”
The word ‘pretty’ irritates her. “Fuck off!”
He raises both his eyebrows, eyes widening with shock. “What’s your damage?!”
Hermione folds her arms. Wishing herself away, wishing him away. Wishing she was out of this hell hole of a town. “Sorry…”
“You don’t need to apologise if you’re not sorry, ‘Mione,” he tells her. “You don’t always gotta do the right thing.” She sits with his words running over her. She doesn’t say anything, she just silently agrees. He has a point, but he doesn’t need to know that. He takes several fries from the basket in front of her, shoving them in his mouth. “Got ketchup?”
She puts on her Pop’s grin. The one that’s all peppy and toothy. “Coming right up!” she says, sliding out of the booth and hiking her dress up to stop it from touching the greasy floor. Hermione gets to the counter but finds the bottles empty. “I’ll check the store room!” she calls.
She gets into the store room, searching for the refill bottles but she hears a voice at the door. “You look too beautiful for you to be stuck at Pop’s in the dress you know,” he grumbles. “And I don’t think Hiram-fucking-Lodge realises what he’s missing out on.”
There’s a silence that followed both of them to the store room and before she knows it, she’s leaning against the bench with her dress around her hips and FP’s laugh echoing around them. He lifts her up onto the bench and she shimmies to the edge, moving her lace to the side.
Hermione whimpers when she’s filled. It’s unceremonious, a little rough and she feels a disappointed sigh escape her lips when he pulls out slowly to run himself up and down her folds.
She rocks her own hips, faster and against him to meet his thrusts. She hears him swallow loudly as he tries to hold on but she needs him deeper and deeper, nails digging into the leather on his back.
She moves quickly, begging for pressure where she needs it, her other hand travels between her legs, rubbing in time with his thrusts. “Fuck, FP…” she moans, squeezing her eyes shut.
His tongue is all over her skin, teeth grind against the chain of the crucifix she wore to make her mother happy, tasting the bitter taste of the perfume she borrowed from Mary and tulle chafing against the patch of his stomach that’s exposed.
It’s fast, rough, unmethodical and careless. She feels it in the mark he’ll leave on the thin skin of her neck and on the purple kisses left all over his jaw but it’s enough for them to come at the same time and have him calling her name through the storeroom. She loves the taste. She loves the ache it leaves on her thighs and the finger marks dug into her skin. They pull apart and he tucks himself back in, wiping the edge of her mouth with his thumb and breathing steadily to try and walk out without suspicion.
After the rest of the cold fries, they find themselves standing outside the door of Pop’s at the top of the steps. “You want to go and get drunk and then go back to Prom?” she suggests, pushing her glasses up her nose.
“Hermione,” FP sighs. “You’re a bad girl… lets go fuck shit up.”
She grabs his hand, dragging him behind her as they walk down the steps of Pop’s. With her free hand, she blows a kiss to the wind. “For fucking shit up,” she murmurs.
FP’s grin is venomous under the faint light of the moon. “For downright fucking bad.”
She likes it. A lot.
It would be the last time she doesn’t get what she wants. She’s ready to fight for everything she dreams of. Even if it means it’s bad. No amount of prayers could ever promise her what she was willing to fight dirty for.