Chapter Text
It has to be nearly a hundred degrees out. Certainly over ninety. Jughead Jones feels sweat pooling in all sorts of uncomfortable places, but tries to focus.
“So when we get to the festival, we’ll be straight into soundcheck, ok? Then, we’ll probably go back to our rooms for a short rest, but then – hey, are you fucks listening?” Toni asks the assembled boys threateningly, standing at the front of the small, white practice room.
Jughead looks at Fangs, who pales guiltily. If his hunch is correct, he was probably zoning out thinking of lyrics to fit a new song. Toni glares at him, and he clasps his hands together in a joking prayer, but a genuine apology.
Satisfied, she turns her narrowed gaze to Sweet Pea, who is currently spread out on the couch, drumming on his raised legs and also clearly not paying attention. As long as Jughead’s known him, he’s never been able to sit still without fiddling with something.
She throws a pen at him, and he looks up in irritated surprise. “Hey!”
“Sorry if we’re boring you, babe, but the rest of us are interested in not fucking up this opportunity, if you’d like to listen?” she says, with an arch look.
He rolls his eyes, but sits up. “Tone, no disrespect, but it’s too fucking hot to be able to focus right now. I’m sticking to the damn seat.”
Jughead privately agrees, but would not admit it aloud for any amount of money. He likes being alive, mostly, and he’d like to keep living.
Toni rubs her eyes and sighs long-sufferingly. “Lord, give me strength.”
She looks around at them, pulling tendrils of frazzled-looking pink hair out of her face. “Look, sure we all wanna slack off right now, ok? You think I haven’t got better things to do than hang out in a smelly practice room on a hot day with you three guys?”
“Do you, though?” Sweet Pea cracks, and without missing a beat she finds another pen on the desk behind her and throws it at him with perfect accuracy, making Fangs and Jughead grin. This time he grins too, though.
She rolls her eyes, but she can’t help smiling too. “This is a just...a fucking big deal , guys. We play more festivals like this, we can really get out there. And we might even be able to get an actual tour bus instead of our van!”
“Hey, we’d never replace Marjorie!” Jughead cries, a shocked hand flying to his heart.
“She’s part of the family!” Fangs agrees, looking scandalised.
“And you don’t replace family,” Sweet Pea says mock-seriously,
“No, but you can replace friends. As I should’ve. Many years earlier.” Toni snarks, making Jughead laugh. She often acts like she has a very low tolerance for them, but they’ve known each other long enough to know that she doesn’t mean it, and would actually do pretty much anything to help any of them out.
***
“You’re not following what the Google maps lady is saying!”
“Sweet Pea, I swear to God, I will disembowel you with a spork if you keep second-guessing me!”
Toni actually loves this part of travelling, oddly – it might seem like she’s arguing with a friend on an already-long car ride, and she is, but this is part of their tradition. Neither of them are actually mad, but they’re both reactive, and it’s a kind of fun way to let out their built up frustrations.
Fangs is asleep in the backseat, having brought one of those neckpillows people get for sleeping on long fights. It looks quaintly incongruous on someone wearing a sleeveless dark-plaid shirt (all the better to show off his tattoos).
Jughead is listening to music next to him with his big earphones on, and Toni can see him staring out the window in the rear-view mirror, occasionally jotting things down in his notebook. The same one he’s used since they were fifteen, a Christmas gift from his Dad. Maybe that’s why he’s still using it, even though it must nearly be out of free space by now, and it’s battered as all hell.
They had opted to drive to the Festival – it was about two days drive from Portland to San Jose if you were very caffeinated, broke and dedicated – and they really could not afford to fly, so they piled their instruments into the van and drove in shifts.
“Hey, throw something at Jug, I need to ask him something?” She asks Sweet Pea, and he grins.
“With pleasure, Tone.”
Band dynamics often involved throwing of soft, or small-ish hard objects at another member to get their attention, or to annoy them, or to punish them for not listening in a band meeting. It was just how they’d always done things.
“Ow, what?” Jughead says grumpily, even though the object thrown was a small plush toy that no one will admit to owning, so it has taken up residence in the van as a sort of unofficial band mascot.
“Are you good with the set list? You’ve been looking over it for like an hour and a half now,” she asks him nonchalantly.
He nods, looking at his notebook. “Yeah, I think it’s good enough. I rearranged some of the numbering though - I really think ‘Parallels’ should come up later, that one always kills so we should save it, and I’m just going to suggest ”Hitchcock’s Bloated Ghost -”
She cuts him off with an emphatic “No!” at the same time Sweet Pea laughs an emphatic ”Yes!”
It had come out of a bet that Jughead couldn’t write a song with that title that actually included it in the lyrics, and as much as she didn’t like putting it in their professional sets, she can’t deny it’s a surprisingly good song.
“Come on, it’s so fun!” Jughead wheedles, grinning.
She gives him a sideways look. “I can’t believe you, Jug, are advocating for fun here.”
He gives her a more familiar glare. “Only on special occasions. Like playing this song for an actual festival audience. Come on, Toni.”
“Yeah, come on Toni!” Sweet Pea echoes, and then gets smiles devilishly at her. “ Come on To-ni..” he begins singing and she groans.
Jughead smirks at her from the rear-view, and joins in. “ Oh well, I swear well he means,”
She tries to ignore them, cursing them mentally. Busting out Dexy’s to her is an unfair move.
“ At this moment you mean eveeeerythiiiing,” they chorus, smirking, and she fights a smile.
“ You in that dress, well my thoughts I confess verge on-“ Sweet Pea says with an obnoxious wink, for which she would definitely punch him if she wasn’t driving. Not because he would ever in a million years mean it, but it’s the principle of the thing.
“-Ok, I get it, thanks guys,” she cuts them off, but can’t help grinning as well. They’re such dorks. They’re her dorks, though. “I will think about it.”
Sweet Pea and Jughead cheer. She hears Fangs wake with a sudden noise. “What are we celebrating?” he asks, yawning.
“Your friends used unfair tactics to a win a point,” she says, mock-annoyed.
“We get to play the Hitchcock song,” Jughead replies smugly to Fangs. “Maybe!” she calls back.
“Awesome!” Fangs says happily. “Let me know though, I gotta warm my voice up for that one right. All the kids are gonna love it! Did I bring my Hitchcock jacket here though?...”
She shakes her head, smiling, and then Sweet Pea tries to tell her to take a different exit. “I swear I will GUT YOU LIKE A FISH, OK –“
***
The festival has covered their accommodation, in a on-site renovated mid-century motel called The Siren. Their first soundcheck had gone surprisingly well, and no one had thrown a thing at each other, which was a win in her book.
But they’ve allowed a maximum of two rooms. Toni sighs. It’s not that she hasn’t shared grosser accommodation with them, and she’s already sharing a tiny apartment with Jughead. It would just have been nice to have her own, non-guy crowded space for a day or so.
She hands out the keys. “You’re with me Jug, I’m assuming?” She says, turning to him.
He takes his key. “Yeah, otherwise Sweet Pea’s snoring will keep me awake. Though I might hear it through the wall,” he jokes, and Sweet Pea swipes at him.
“I’ll be happy not to put up with you keeping the light on all night to write in your notebook, Jug.” Sweet Pea snarks back.
Fangs smirks at Toni, but throws a jovial arm around Sweet Pea. “Come on, let’s go check out the mini-bar stich,” he says soothingly, leading him away.
“Hey, you better keep it under ten dollars!” Toni calls after them.
*
After she and Jughead have unpacked the essentials, she decides she wants something to eat but cannot be fucked to drive anywhere right now. It’s too early for dinner, but they’re taking a hour to rest from driving before they have a last practice to run through some things.
“You wanna hunt down a snack? I think I saw some vending machines outside by the front office?” she asks Jughead, watching him stretched out on the twin bed writing in his notebook.
He looks up. “I’m kind of onto something here, bring me something back?”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Ok, fine. But you’re buying me dinner tonight.”
“Mm, sure.” He says, already engrossed in his book again.
She crosses down to the lobby, which has a 60s California surfer vibe, but which has clearly been renovated with some money sometime in the last five years.
Someone is speaking to the front desk, in a loud voice that sounds like it’s used to getting what it wants.
“...were told we had two suites, here, and we arrive here at this honestly depressing place and we only have one? Not good enough! Not to mention, the sheets in our room are disgusting! If we had wanted to stay in a creepy roadside murdershow of a motel we would have checked into the first one we saw off the 101!”
Toni freezes, wondering if she can get past this unseen harpy without somehow being dragged into the conflict, and tosses up how badly she needs to eat. Her stomach rumbles in protest.
She peeks around the corner, and sees a petite girl with long red hair who is achieving a level of volume that seems inversely proportional to her size as she berates the manager.
She must be one of the other acts – she’s certainly entitled enough – and Toni feels for the poor man. She’d hate to be in the firing line, not cause she couldn’t give as good as she got, but self-centred, bitchy starlets were particularly tiring to be around.
Then she looks back and searches around for another way out.
***
“I couldn’t browbeat him into getting another suite, apparently they’re ‘booked out’ or whatever, but I did get him to send housekeeping up soon with nicer sheets, so I’m calling it a win,” Cheryl announces triumphantly, striding back into the suite.
Cheryl often announces things instead of talking normally, and by now Veronica has known her long enough that she doesn’t even look up from where she is lying on her bed, reading.
“Well that’s good,” she says placidly, smiling as she puts down her book. “Did you make him cry?”
“No, he turned out to be very helpful, after he heard what I had to say.” Cheryl says airily, and Veronica smirks.
“I can imagine. Well, he has my respect,” she replies. It’s probably not morally right to sic Cheryl on unsuspecting business owners and workers, but she definitely gets results. It was their understanding that they would be booked two suites, not one with two double beds, but it’s not a terribly bad room. Not their usual standard, of course, but this was the closest accomodation to the festival grounds, a little out of San Jose proper. And, as their tour manager Dan was fond of reminding them, touring was expensive and if festival promoters offered free, close accommodation as a perk, you took it.
Cheryl flops down on the edge of Veronica’s bed. “I am exhausted. Do they have room service here, or will we be expected to brave the wilds of central San Jose for dinner?” she asks dramatically.
Veronica smirks. “It’s not a small fishing town in Alaska, Cheryl, I’m sure they have a few good restaurants.” Cheryl gives her an unimpressed look. “And I’m sure they do room service here, alright? We can stay right here, and go through our agenda for tomorrow. I know you’re dying to tell me what we’re doing.”
Cheryl brightens immediately, getting a glint in her eye. It usually means she has a plan she meant to see out, or a difficult but very good idea she’s still working on. You generally wanted to be on the benefitting side of these plans, because woe betide those who weren’t.
“Ok, tomorrow at ten we have an interview with Scratch That in one of the media tents - I’ve outlined it on the map we were given -”
****
Betty hauls a guitar case out of the back of the bus, and wipes her forehead. It’s cooled down but even after having lived in Los Angeles nearly three years now, her Chicago-bred bones aren’t used to how Californian summers overstay their welcome into the end of the day, sometimes the night, wrapping humidly around you like a clingy boyfriend.
“Do we really have to lug all this into the hotel?” Reggie complains, pushing his raybans onto his head. He wears the heat better, but he always hated the cold more than they did. Harder to show off all your carefully gym-worked muscles when you’re wearing three layers because it’s fifty five degrees out.
“Only the ones we want to use before tomorrow,” she replies tiredly.
“When do you think we’ll be famous enough that we can have people carry our shit instead of us?” He grumbles, picking up a case and a bag.
She sighs deeply.
“I think we do ok, Reg - plus, people might see you carrying these heavy bags. Hot people. Think about it.” Archie points out, smiling and throwing an arm around Reggie’s shoulders.
Reggie brightens, smiling at a blonde girl walking past the other end of the bus. She smiles back. Archie drops his arm to pick up a bag.
“You may have a point, Arch. Well, I’m off.” Reggie says with a smirk at him, and heads towards the front doors.
Archie smiles at her. “All good?”
She can’t help smiling, even though she’s still hot, slightly annoyed and tired. The roadies drove the bus up and are resting in their own accomodation - the hotel was generally only for the acts accepting rooms there - after the five hour journey from L.A, which makes the hour-and-a-half hour flight they took from L.A. seem like nothing, but she’d been up since six getting everything ready. Travel days were always exhausting.
“All good. Just tired,” she says, and he looks at her for a moment like he’s wondering if she’s telling the truth, then looks away, still smiling.
“I’ll need you to keep an eye on him, alright?” she says, as they carry the bags and cases with them. They don’t have many roadies that go with them, but she likes the ones they have and doesn’t want to treat them as servants - so she makes sure they do what they can for themselves.
Archie laughs. “Really?”
She looks at him. “I don’t mean follow him around and stop him from leaving, just keep an eye, ok? Make sure he doesn’t get too wild. You know what he can be like...just, you know this show is important, right?” She says, feeling exasperation building.
Archie looks surprised, but nods, keeping her gaze. “Of course I do. I’m always in this with you. And so is Reg, really, you know he is.”
She sighs again, and smiles at him. “Yeah, I know. Let me know when you guys are ready, and we’ll go over stuff for tomorrow.”
“Awesome,” Archie beams. “We can check out those soundproof practice rooms, tighten a few things up last minute, hey?”
She nods. “Looking forward to it.”
“We’ll be there. Give us half an hour to get unpacked.” He says, dropping his bags at the door to his room, across from hers. The hotel had given her own room, which she appreciated, and was making the boys share. Which she wasn’t sure was a good idea. But they were adults, and her friends, so she left it to them. Whatever it was.
Having dragged her stuff into her room, she flops down on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. Wishing she could stop feeling tired and irritable. Wishing she didn’t spend all her time with the same two guys. Wishing she could take a break from it all.