Chapter Text
Betty Cooper was in over her head. She was filling in as a waitress for her friend Veronica who’d jetted off on an Alaskan cruise with Archie, but the menu was different and nothing was where it had been when she’d worked here last year. And the new boss was a real bitch. Buffy Summers handed her four menus, “Table 12 needs some service, Betty.”
“On my way, Buffy,” Betty gritted her teeth into a smile. She thought she was going to be cut after a night of asking the wrong follow ups to orders,
“How would you like your salmon cooked?”
"Well, that salmon is wrapped in bacon so there’s only one way it can be cooked—until the bacon’s done,” Buffy said as she strode past.
“I’ll just have the panini.”
bringing food to the wrong tables,
“Table 5 is by the window,” Buffy scolded.
“It used to be by the door!”
“Well, now it’s by the window.”
and even uncharacteristically dropping a glass of wine…on a customer.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! Let me grab some more napkins.”
“At least it was white…” She could hear Buffy’s eye roll.
So when 10 o’clock rolled around and her last customers hintingly placed a credit card at the end of their table, Betty thought she’d do some side work and go home. She’d just started polishing the silverware when Buffy handed her those menus.
She approached Table 12, where two young men sat with a middle-aged woman and man, and began handing out menus. “Oh, we’re just going to have coffee and dessert,” the woman said, handing the menu back.
Coffee and dessert—every server’s nightmare. They’ll sit for an hour and a half and she’ll only get a $5 tip…if she’s lucky.
As Betty brought over the dessert menus, she did the math in her head ‘Four $8 desserts is $32 and four coffees is another $12…twenty percent of $44 is $9, which isn’t so bad.”
Two freshly brewed decaf coffees, one freshly brewed regular, one made-to-order herbal tea, and a goddamned shared chocolate mousse later and Betty picked up her $3 tip with a sigh. The hadn’t even left 20 percent.
Everyone else had been cut by now. Even the kitchen was clean and the dishwashers went home. Betty just left the last of the cups in the dish bin and started taking off her apron. She poked her head into the manager’s office at the back of the kitchen.
“Hey, I’m heading out.”
“Uh huh,” Buffy said, not looking up from her paperwork. She’d unbuttoned the top buttons of her crisp, white shirt and Betty noticed a small gold cross around her neck. Weird. Buffy didn’t seem like the religious type when she was telling Betty off for bringing the wrong side dish to Table 8.
“Okay, then,” Betty said as she walked away. “Bye.”
Outside, the air was chilly and humid. This summer in New England had been a wet one, with high temperatures, thunder storms, and an unrelenting wet-blanket feel to the air.
Betty walked up the alley from the service entrance, feeling around in her purse for her cell phone. Jughead would still be up and she wanted to vent about her night, even though she’d see him when she got home. She heard a noise behind her and turned to see that nice middle-aged woman she’d just served an herbal tea flanked by the two younger men. It was hard to see in the dim light of the alley, but it looked like there was something wrong with their faces.
“Are you lost, little girl,” a voice crooned into her ear from behind. Betty jumped away, pulling her phone out like a weapon, as she wheeled around to see the decaf coffee man.
“What the hell,” she yelled up at him, sensing the rest of the family closing in behind her. From here she could get a close look at his face—wrinkly in a way it hadn’t been in the restaurant and with sharp-as-hell teeth that definitely hadn’t been there when he was spooning mousse past his lips.
She started to back up, but there was nowhere to go. As a hand grabbed her from behind, Betty shrieked like she was being chased by the black hood on prom night. She made a break for it, but they were on her and she was yanked back off her feet and into their growling—were they growling?—arms. Just as she felt teeth—teeth!—sink into her neck, the man in front of her turned to dust—dust!—and there stood her 5-foot-nothing bitch of a boss.
“I believe you’ve already had your dessert,” she smirked as one of the young men released Betty to go after Buffy. If she weren’t so scared, she would be in awe of how that tiny woman grabbed the much larger man and threw him across the alley and into the dumpsters. She then flipped—flipped!—over Betty’s head taking both of Betty’s remaining attackers with her. The woman snarled—snarled!—as she rushed at Buffy, but Buffy easily blocked her with A KICK TO THE FACE?!?!
“Get out of here,” Buffy yelled to Betty after the woman crashed into her. Betty started to run as she heard the fighting continue behind her. She heard Buffy yell, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” as she reached the end of the alley. Before the could round the corner, another pair of hands grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back. She was carried, literally kicking and screaming, back down the alley toward the fight. Only, there was no fight. Betty stopped struggling to see Buffy, standing alone, holding a wooden stick—a wooden stick?—in her hand. “Let the girl go,” she demanded. “I wouldn’t want to get dust in her eyes.”
The man pushed Betty to the ground and ran at Buffy, who simply stepped to the side and stabbed him in the upper back as he charged past. Betty’s jaw dropped as he turned to dust before her eyes. “Holy shit,” she breathed. “What the fuck just happened? Who…what were they?”
“You don’t want to know,” Buffy said, offering Betty a hand up. “You should get home to your boyfriend.” Buffy handed Betty her phone and her purse, “I’ll find coverage for the rest of Veronica’s shifts. You don’t have to come back here.”
Betty nodded mutely as she stumbled back up the alley. She turned back to see Buffy dropping her stick into her leather jacket. When did she put that on? It looked…hot….
“Ummmm…” Betty began, “thank you doesn’t seem like enough. But thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Buffy replied, meeting Betty’s eyes.
Betty looked away. “Could you…walk me to my car?” Tears began spilling from her eyes. She had almost been killed…again! Why was this shit always happening to her? Psychopaths and cult-leaders were one thing, but now she had to worry about wrinkly-faced Baby Boomers who turned to dust! It was too much for a person to take, even if that person was Betty Fucking Cooper!
“Yeah,” Buffy smiled, “I can walk you to your car.”