#i was just sitting there in the lecture hall and i noticed how much skinnier everyone else is.

[n0mn0]

I just realized

that I probably weigh the

most among my peers.

[fanficobsess3d]

Just The Way You Are

summary; it’s hard not to listen to the shit the northsiders spit at you (even though you are a northsider), because it’s unrelenting torture. Sweet Pea can tell that something’s wrong, but you just refuse to tell him.

warnings: fluff, swearing (uh, duh, it’s sweet pea did you really expect any different lmfao), possibly triggering if you’ve been bullied before or have issues with weight at all

word count; 8k

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The first time that Sweet Pea noticed that something was off with you, it was a cloudy Tuesday night - two weeks after the merge of the schools. It had been raining all day and everybody had felt like the sun had completely disappeared with how dark it had been, but he was still concerned about your attitude. You typically loved the rain - the smell, the sounds, the aesthetic of it - it was one of your favorite things about the outside world.

So needless to say, when you came into his trailer looking dead tired and on the verge of crying, he was concerned.

“Babe,” he started, setting his bottle of beer down and standing up to take large steps towards you. He took his face in your hands, moving your head around slightly so he could look up and down your body to try and find what was wrong. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you sniffled, nudging his hands out of the way and plastering on a smile you hoped was convincing enough to ease his worries, pulling your jacket off to hand on the coat rack near the front door, nudging your backpack towards his small dining room table,” I’m just tired, I was up all night studying. I’m just stressed, babe.”

He knew how you got when you were stressed, and this wasn’t it, but if that’s all that you said was wrong, he would leave it at that.

You were typically a very honest person, very blunt and to-the-point, so it was unlikely of you to beat around the bush. And he knew that if something was really wrong, you would immediately tell him, because you both had an honesty policy; a policy that went into effect after Sweet Pea had almost died on a dangerous job that Penny Peabody had gotten involved in, a job that he hadn’t told you about.

He was trying to protect you from his dangerous life, but that had almost gotten him killed. Needless to say, nothing was ever kept from each other now.

But if you said it was just a night of studying that was stressing you out - in all honesty, you did look stressed, but normally you didn’t look this bad over assignments - then it was just a night of studying

The next time he noticed you looking so upset and “stressed” again, was no more than a week later. It was Friday, which was normally one of your favorite days of the week, but there you were, sitting beside Sweet Pea in ninth period English, looking like you’d rather be anywhere but on this planet. You had been in your seat for all of two seconds before you were laying your head on your crossed arms that you had placed on your desk.

And English was one of your favorite subjects, so you never hated coming to this class. Needless to say Sweet Pea’s boyfriend senses were tingling.

The teacher was lecturing on the metaphorical devices used in the Great Gatsby, but Sweet Pea could not have cared less. He adopted the same position that you were in, crossed arms on the table, head resting on them, before turning his head towards you and smiling softly. “You know,” he began in a soft whisper, watching as your head tilted slightly his way to hear his voice better, “I think Jay Gatsby would be very offended that you weren’t listening to all of the devices in his book.”

“Jay Gatsby can kiss my ass.” you retorted, sighing before you tilted your head towards him, giving him a small smile once you saw the twinkle in his eye that never failed to lift your spirits.

The smile that lit your mouth didn’t fool him though, because the smile quickly fell of of his and he was looking at you with a dark tint in his eye that he only got when someone threatened his family, “Are you okay?” he asked, tilting his head towards you once he saw that the teacher had glanced at them questioningly before continuing with her lecture.

“Yeah?” you asked, tilting your head in confusion, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No offense babe,” he started, wincing when you lifted your eyebrow, “but you look like you’d rather jump into a vat of boiling toilet water than be here right now.”

“Wow,” you started, rolling your eyes with a snort, “thank you for that lovely description, Pea. That’s just what I needed to hear from my oh so loving boyfriend today.”

“You know that’s not what I meant-” he started, trying to reign the conversation back in before you got angry. Your temper was very similar to his, and when you got angry, he got angry, so he had to try and calm you down before his concerns went haywire.

“No,” you sighed, turning your head back into your arms, baffling Sweet Pea even more, “I get it, I look like shit.”

Normally if Sweet Pea started a sentence off like that you’d be pissed; but here you were, talking this lying down, turning back in on yourself like a stressed turtle. It was like alarms were going off in his head, you were never this quick to back down.

“I just mean that you look tired.” he relented, pausing to look around the room as kids started to pack up their belongings as it got closer to the bell time.

“I know what you mean, but you’re right - I do look like shit. My damn trig teacher gave us another project due in two weeks and I’m trying to get that done.”

“On top of your Euro essay?” he asked, looking towards you, bewildered.

“Yeah.” you nodded, sitting up to start packing your belongings into your backpack like the other kids. You yawned, pushing your glasses onto your head to rub your eyes tiredly, standing up to throw your backpack onto your shoulder.

He stood up beside you, lifting his backpack onto his shoulder as well before turning back to you. He had opened his mouth to say something, but stopped as he examined you. You... looked different. You looked smaller. He hadn’t really noticed it before, since you typically wear clothes that were more on the baggy side, but you were wearing jeans and a t-shirt today, one of his flannel’s over top of it.

Now that he was thinking of it, your face looked skinnier too, your arms and legs looking thinner. Just above the collar of your shirt he could see your collarbones peaking out more than usual.

Now, let’s just get this out of the way - Sweet Pea did not think that you were fat. At all. He thought you were perfect. Yeah, you weren’t skinny as a stick, but you weren’t unhealthy either. He himself wasn’t 100% muscle, but he was happy with himself, especially when he saw how you blushed when he took his shirt off, which absolutely drove him insane.

But it was concerning to see you this small when you normally weren’t.

He looked back over you again, watching you stretch with another yawn; you were stressed. Normally when you got super preoccupied with something it was easy for you to forget about the other things in the world, like food, or people. It was easy for you to become enveloped in your assignments, so he wasn’t completely concerned.

He knew that once you’d finished your assignments that you’d be back to normal.

For now, he’d just have to wait.

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You were walking to your locker by yourself a few days later, Sweet Pea having skipped the day for another job assigned to him by FP. The school day had ended, and kids were practically sprinting out of the building to get home, a feeling that you had been anticipating yourself.

You had just opened your locker to put on your coat when you heard the laughing.

Your body immediately tensed, movements quickening and breath increasing as you tried to get all of your stuff before they came over here. It was nice when Sweet Pea was here, because no one would bother you here; but without him, you were fair game to them.

“And look who it is!” you heard Reggie call, his posse laughing next to him. You were shoving your books into you backpack at this point, grabbing your last binder and slamming your locker shut. You saw them coming from down the hall towards your right, so you quickly turned left, trying to leave, but found yourself cornered by the girls on the squad.

It was some of the more lower cadets, since Cheryl herself was dating a serpent, but just because she was the captain didn’t mean that everyone listened to her; no matter how much she tried to fight for that power otherwise.

You sighed in anguish, tilting your head back in exasperation.

Fuck. You were fucked.

You turned back once you heard some of the Bulldogs snort at you, staring at Reggie with your eyebrow raised, “What do you want, Reggie?” you asked, clutching at the binder in your hand. The quicker that you got this over with the quicker it would end.

“Just came to see how you and the serpent were doing.” he said, hissing the word serpent like it would give him a disease just from saying it.

“Me and Sweet Pea,” you enunciated his name with a smile, “are doing just fine, Reginald.”

You could see his face tighten in irritation, as the Bulldogs tried to hide their amused smirks; everybody and their mother knew that Reggie hated his actual name. With a burning passion that could rival every fire known to man. Needless to say, it was your go to insult for him since it was just so entertaining to see how much it pissed him off.

“Surprising,” he started, crossing his arms with a slight smirk on his face that scared the living daylights out of you. “Considering that he had eyeballs.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean, Reginald?” you asked, watching as his eyes darkened in anger slightly.

“It means,” one of the girls said behind you, making you turn around to see her, “that we’re all surprised that he’s still with you when you’re so damn ugly and fat.”

It was the same insult with them, every time they saw you. You see, they hated the fact that you were a northsider that was dating a southsider - a serpent, no less. They couldn’t really make you break up, so the best that they could do was isolate you from everyone else, make fun of you, and break you until you guys would break up. It hadn’t been long since the merging of the two high schools, but you and Sweet Pea had been dating for much, much longer than that.

You met two years ago, on the night that your father had stormed out of the house with his belongings, smacking your mother before leaving for good. It had been too much to be around, dealing with his anger issues, so you had left and gotten lost in the southside. Your phone had died, and you had nowhere to go; so you let yourself get lost in the most dangerous part of town. It had started raining, so you hid under some random buildings sidings to try and avoid it.

Once you had stopped, you had started crying - the events from the night getting to you. That was where Sweet Pea had found you, a bruise on your face, tears rolling down your cheeks, looking utterly hopeless. Normally, he didn’t care about who he found in the southside, but you had been dressed far too well to be there.

But there was something about you that intrigued him, something that made him want to take care of you. And it was the same vice versa; something made you curious about the cute, tall, serpent boy that had helped you in your time of need. Needless to say, you let yourself get lost in the southside more often after that.

“Wow, Rebecca, that was a bit nice.” one of the other girls said behind you, startling you out of your thoughts. She turned to you, scoffing as she looked up and down your body before resting on your face, “You look like a hag, honestly. I mean, I knew that some of the Serpents were stupid, but dating you is just plain dumb.”

You rolled your eyes, hiking your backpack up your shoulder again, feeling your eyes start to burn with tears that you hated. You hated being upset over what they said about you, but you couldn’t help it. You knew that you were ugly, you hated how you looked, but somehow, Sweet Pea was still with you, even after all of this time. It was like they knew all of your fears and insecurities and just threw it at you every chance you got.

“Are y’all done? You know, y’all say the same thing every time you see me, you should really get some better insults, guys.”

You could see them all getting irritated, before one of the girls decided to speak up, “You want some better insults?” she asked, glancing down at her smoothie slightly before turning back to you, “Try this on for size then, Serpent Slut.”

You hadn’t had any time to react before she grabbed the lid off of her smoothie and threw it at you, letting the cold, mashed fruit drip down your body. It had been some weird grass smoothie too, so it was green and you were covered in it. You could feel it dripping down your skin, soaking your clothes and the binder that was in your arms.

You could hear them laughing around you, the clicking of phones echoing around you before you had finally had enough and turned around, walking away from them, praying that they’d let you leave.

But the laughing had echoed around you even after you had gone to bed that night.

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Sweet Pea glanced around the Wyrm, listening to some story Fangs was telling the group about some girl who had turned him down in the most hilariously embarrassing way possible.

“And then - and THEN she leaves my ass standing there -!” Fangs continued, reveling in the laughs that were brought out from the group, Toni bent over, cackling, as she prepared some more drinks. Cheryl was next to her, giggling as she cleaned some of the glasses next to her.

“Dude, that girl is wild!” one of the newer serpents said, causing another round of laughs to echo around them.

In the midst of all of the laughs, though, it went unnoticed as Cheryl’s phone pinged with notifications. She picked up her phone, unlocking it before going into her notifications. She gasped in shock, showing her phone to Toni, clicking some more buttons and exploring before she started swearing up and down.

Toni turned to Sweet Pea, watching as his eyes darkened in anticipation,” Dude, have you checked your girlfriend’s Instagram lately?” she asked with a scoff.

“No,” he said, sitting up straighter and watching as she shook her head angrily, “What’s wrong?”

“Show him.” Toni demanded to Cheryl, who handed the phone to Sweet Pea.

He looked over the phone angrily, looking at his girlfriend’s profile. It seemed normal; her aesthetic black and white pictures that she loved to take, pictures of her cats that were like her children, the rare one selfie she had posted that Sweet Pea had demanded she keep up so everyone could see how beautiful his girlfriend was.

He shook his head in confusion, “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

Toni sighed, “Click on her selfie and look at the comments.”

He tapped the picture, going into the comments. Before, when that picture had been posted, he was the only one who had commented on it, spamming it with texts of approval and love, but now, he felt his chest tighten with anger as he saw all of the disgusting, vile comments that kids from the high school had put on it. He could feel his vision turning red, god he hated fucking northside kids.

“Now look at what she’s tagged in.” Cheryl said softly, making him snap his head up.

“What the hell is she tagged in?” he asked, already turning back to the phone and quickly going to the tagged part of her profile. The last twenty pictures that had been posted within the last hour were nothing but his girl covered in some disgusting green drink. There was even a video that someone took of the minute leading up to the drink tossing, and every word made his blood boil.

Even in the video you could see how glass her eyes got when everyone started taking pictures of her; he knew his girl well, and no matter how much she would try to hide her emotions, there were some times when she would feel everything at once and she wouldn’t be able to control it.

“I’m gonna kill every single one of them.” he swore, handing Cheryl back her phone before stomping out of the Wyrm. He ran to his bike, pulling out his phone and blowing up Y/N’s phone with text messages. He knew that she’d be upset right now, but he needed to get her out of the house.

He knew that it wasn’t just stress! He couldn’t believe that those fucking kids were ruining her life like that; god he was so pissed. As he kept sending her texts, every memory that he’d had with her at that damn high school kept replaying through his mind.

The day that the bulldogs had scoffed at them, growling like the mutts that they were when they had walked past; Sweet Pea had thought that they’d done it at him, but now that he’s thinking about it, they were doing it to her too.

The one time the vixens had been walking around the school and had bumped into her shoulder. Sweet Pea normally never hit girls, but he didn’t discriminate in fights, so he’d assumed they’d been going after him. But they literally rammed into her; it must’ve hurt too.

God, how could he have been so stupid? This entire time, the stress, the bags under her eyes, the collarbones peeking out of her shoulders - it explained it all.

He threw his legs over his bike, revving the engine before driving to his trailer.

He knew that she wouldn’t want to do this at her house, or outside, so they needed privacy. And while he was upset about it all, he was pissed at her for lying. Underneath the anger he understood why she hadn’t said anything, but he told her over and over again that he would protect her. It was a blow to his ego - if she didn’t want to tell him, did that mean she didn’t trust him enough to protect her? Did she really not want him involved? He was a serpent after all, maybe he’d just fuck it up, like he always does.

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He had been pacing around his trailer angrily, strained breaths escaping his teeth; god he was so mad. It had taken everything in him not to grab his knife and the other serpents and tear them all apart.

Soon enough, he heard the squeal of car brakes and the slamming of a door before he heard your sprinting footsteps. You hadn’t even bothered to knock before you slammed the door open, panting heavily with worried eyes. Once you had seen him, you quickly slammed the door, running towards him and throwing yourself into his chest.

From his texts, you had assumed he’d been injured or something; you were terrified the entire way over here. You pulled back when he didn’t lean down to reciprocate the hug, looking over his body and fussing like a worried mother hen. “Where are you hurt? Are you bleeding? Do you need a hospital-”

“Y/N, stop.” He demanded, cutting you off immediately. His attitude had startled you, causing you to look up at him in confusion. You flinched back once you saw the anger in his eyes, but it was directed at you, which scared you more.

“Pea what’s - what’s wrong?” you asked, stepping back from him in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” he said, letting out a dark laugh that worried you, “What’s wrong is that my girlfriend is keeping secrets from me!”

“What are you talking about?” you asked, crossing your arms over your chest defensively.

“Don’t act like you haven’t seen Instagram, babe, it’s everywhere!” he swore, kicking the couch angrily. Your face paled in response, and he felt bad since he was probably scaring you, but he’d been so angry and so hurt. The only thing that was going through his mind was destroy, destroy, destroy.

“I...” you started, gulping down the tears that were causing a lump in your throat, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He turned to you with a scoff, “Stop the lying, Y/N! Everyone’s seen it!”

You had opened your mouth to retort, but you quickly shut it again, closing your eyes and sighing sadly. You ran your hands through your hair, backing up until you were resting against the dining room table. You took a shuddering breath, trying to hold the tears back, but it was like you were a waterfall at this point.

Your couldn’t stop, no matter how many times you wiped them away, sniffling and coughing, trying to get them to stop. “I’m-” you blubbered, “I’m sorry.”

The second that you had started crying it was like his anger was momentarily shut off. He looked down as his clenched fists, letting them ease back to normal again before he walked towards you, gently pressing your face into his chest and letting you cry.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” You sobbed, clenching onto his jacket in anguish. You felt so bad hiding it from him, but Reggie had threatened the Serpents, if you even thought about telling anyone.

Sweet Pea shushed you in guilt, leaning down to press a kiss on the top of your head. “It’s okay, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“I should’ve told you!” you cried, shoulders shaking with each sob, “It’s my fault, I just mess everything up!”

His eyes widened as he looked down at you, what the hell were you talking about? You made everything better! You were smart, and gorgeous, and kind, and loving and everything that Sweet Pea would ever need in this world. If anything, he was the fuck up in this relationship. I mean, shit, he literally yelled at you for not saying anything when you literally got a smoothie thrown at you today. God, he was such a dick.

“What the hell are you talking about, baby doll? You couldn’t mess anything up even if you tried.” he reasoned, shaking his head just to hug you tighter. God, with every single sob you let out it felt like his heart was pulsating in pain. He hated when you were upset, it was like your pain was palpable.

You pulled back from his chest, shaking your head in disagreement,” Look at us, Pea! You’re smarter and better than me at probably everything and here we are!” you swore, throwing your arms to gesture to your relationship. You were probably ruining his life in someway; just being near you could give someone enough bad luck to murder an entire population, honestly.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he said in surprise, letting you push his chest away and walk around him to stand in the middle of his living room. He watched you put your hand on your hips, shaking your head and taking deep breaths.

You turned back to him after you had slightly calmed down, biting your lip and sniffling, “Look at us, Pea. Look at me! You could have anybody in this damn town that you wanted, anybody! But you’re with me. There’s something wrong with that, don���t you see it?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be seeing,” he said, forehead wrinkling in his confusion. Were you saying that he was better than you? Seriously?

“Look at me! I am the biggest fuck up you could possible find on the northside. I’m ugly and stupid and fat and I don’t even know why you’re with me when there’s a plethora of girls lining up at your fucking doorstep.”

He looked at you in surprise, trying to figure out how to handle this. You hadn’t broken down on him like this before; sure you had talked to him about stuff, showed him your darkest secrets and family problems, but it had never been like this.

“I don’t know if you’re just being stupid, babe, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a Serpent. No one on the northside wants anything to do with me.”

“And I don’t know if you’re being stupid, babe, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m literally the worst option of any northside girl to pick from. Hell, I’m uglier than the girls from the damn southside too - I’m just the biggest fuck up in all of Riverdale! If you’re seriously saying to me that nobody from the northside wants anything to do with you, then I might have to call you stupid.”

“Okay, now you’re pissing me off. What the hell are you talking about?” he said, taking another step towards you.

You sighed, throwing your head back and staring up at the ceiling. Damn, he could be so stupid sometimes, it wasn’t even funny.

“I’m talking about how I’m not good enough for you,” you said, startling him out of the silence. He looked at you with his eyes wide, you were being fucking serious? “Everyone constantly tells me that I’m lucky that you’d even fucking look at me; southsider or not. Nobody on the northside wants anything to do with me, I was just lucky that someone wanted me period; but you’re smarter than that. I know you are, Pea.”

“I’m really going to have to beat Mantle’s ass because if anyone’s not good enough for someone here, it’s me.” he retorted, watching you shake your head.

“I’m a disgusting human being, and I honestly get concerned about you sometimes when you tell me that you love me.....” you let more tears trail down your face before you turned back to him, “Are you just with me out of pity?”

The sentence slapped him in the face so hard it made him take a step back; had you really been this damaged by them that you were this convinced of how shitty you were?

“What? How could you even think that?” he asked, taking more steps towards you until your face was in his hands. You shut your eyes, looking down and letting more tears trail down your cheeks.

“Look at us, Pea. I’m the weak one, the ugly one; there’s no point in us being together when I’m messing it all up!”

“That’s why you didn’t tell me?” he asked, looking down at your sobbing figure in surprise, “I thought you didn’t think I could protect you.”

You startled back from his chest, looking up at him concerned, “If I didn’t think that your six foot three inches of nothing but 200 pounds of muscle could protect me, I’d need a mental asylum.”

“So you do trust me?” he asked, blushing slightly as you stared up at him with wide eyes.

“Of course I trust you, dumb ass! Reggie threatened me if I tried to tell!” you blurted out, eyes widening before you slapped your hand over you mouth. You hadn’t meant to tell him that, he would get seriously pissed and you were very concerned with the outcome of that. 

Sweet Pea looked down at you, his eyes growing dark in anger, “He what? What did he threaten you with?” You sighed, shuffling your feet sheepishly, nervously wringing your hands together. If you told him what Reggie was holding over your head, it would just piss him off more, and while you could calm him down, you were still very, very, worried. “Y/N? What did he threaten you with?”

You looked up at him before quickly looking back down, “He said he’d get all of the serpents expelled so that none of you could go to school anymore.”

Out of all of the things that Sweet Pea could’ve guessed for him to threaten you with, that was certainly not one of his guesses. That wasn’t even in the ballpark of his guesses. But honestly, the more that he thought about it, the more it made sense. “Why would he threaten you with that?”

“Because he knows how much I care about you guys; how much I want you guys to learn. You guys are smarter than a lot of people give you credit for, and he knew that I wanted you guys there.” you bit your lip nervously, playing with the skin on by your fingernails.

It was true, though. You had wanted the Serpents there more than anybody else; because Southside High was complete garbage, and none of the serpents would have any future if they went there. You had gotten into a lot of arguments with people while defending them, and Reggie had taken advantage of that.

You hadn’t grown up around them, and you certainly weren’t a Southsider, nor were you a serpent, but they had become your family. When you had met Sweet Pea, they had followed along as well; it was like you were the pretty, shiny new toy. You were smart, and not mean - it was kind of like a miracle, honestly. You had started to help the younger serpents out with tutoring and such, hoping to help them become smarter since Southside High wasn’t teaching them shit. 

You had become an honorary Serpent, without or without the initiation, with or without the damn tattoo. After a year of dating, Sweet Pea had gotten you a silver necklace, a simple chain that held a bright green snake in the middle of it; and it had never left your neck. 

You were his girl, and according to the rules; if a serpent is killed or imprisoned, their family will be taken care of. You were his family, and he would be damned if you weren’t treated like it. 

Sweet Pea grabbed your face in his hands, forcing you to look him in the eye, “Reggie fucking Mantle threatened you with our education?”

You ignored how tight his hands were pressing your cheeks together, nodding, “Yeah.”

The love that he felt throbbing for you in his chest was so overpowering that he couldn’t help but press his lips against yours. Any anger or any sadness that you had felt while you were arguing was completely washed away by the comfort that softened your body into his as his tongue pressed past your lips.

He pulled away, breath heavily panting from his chest, smiling at you softly. He lead you to the couch, laying down to pull you to his chest, lying the blanket over your entwined bodies. You laid across his chest, legs entwined with his, completely unaware of where you ended and he began.

The night had been quiet, nothing but the beatings of your hearts echoing through the night. Until...

“You do know that I’m still going to fucking merk Reggie Mantle, right?”

“You wouldn’t be the man I love if you didn’t.”

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The next morning is full of languid kisses and lingering touches, both of you taking three times as long to get out of bed since neither of you can stop touching the other. It felt like your relationship was different now - it felt more comfortable, more bonded, if you could even call it that. Sure, you guys had only fought, but after telling him what you felt was wrong with you, he still wanted you; and that was the best feeling in the entire world.

That night, you guys stayed up late talking about it; each of your fears, and insecurities. And despite the fact that those would take some time to go away, it already felt like they had disappeared, because now it felt like you both were in this together, like nothing could break you apart anymore.

He agreed that you guys would find some solution with the Bulldogs before the Serpents were blamed for anything, but that would also require talking to the other Serpents, since they were effected too. He promised that he would stop at nothing to absolutely ruin Reggie Mantle and his stupid friends for what they had done to you.

He had thought that you hadn’t trust him enough to protect you, but you had quickly reassured him that you were just protecting him instead. You knew how much his education meant to him, along with the other Serpents; you wouldn’t let one stupid jock ruin all of that progress. You completely trusted him with your safety and defense, but you just told him that this was your battle to defend right now. He could take the next one.

That had gotten you a lot of kisses that night and the next morning.

But eventually, you both had to get up for school, so with a quick shower you both got dressed and headed off, stopping at your house for your backpack and sneaking back out before your mother could hear you.

When you had gotten to the school, you hopped off of his motorcycle, nudging him as he glared up at the building. “Hmm?” he asked, not taking his eyes off of his surroundings.

“Shit, if I’d known that you were gonna turn into a fucking hawk and ignore me then I wouldn’t have told you anything.” you joked, setting your helmet onto his bike, watching his head immediately turn down to you with a smile.

“Hey, this is my battle now,” he quoted you, gesturing towards the school as he grabbed your hand and pulled you towards the entrance, “And I always win my battles when it comes to my girl.”

You blushed slightly, head turning down to step closer to him, allowing his arm to pull you closer before wrapping around your shoulder. “I wonder how different it’s gonna be today. This is the first time they’ve posted something online.”

“Well, I don’t know how it’ll go, but I do know that I’m going to beat someone’s ass today, probably multiple, so make sure you’re planned for it.” he said, a cheeky smile on his face as you whacked his chest with the back of your hand slightly.

He walked you to your locker, glaring at anyone who even looked in your direction, sending everybody running with their tails between their legs. Now that he knew what you’d been dealing with, he wasn’t letting anybody get near you.

Never again.

Once you had gathered your stuff, he walked you to your first period trigonometry class, one of your college credit classes that you hated, hoping to keep the smile on your face. You were in the middle of the hall with him, the classroom at the end of the corridor, when the smile fell off his face.

You followed the direction of his eye and gulped when you found the group of Bulldogs at the end of the hallway, conveniently in front of your classroom doorway. You nudged Pea, causing him to look down at you with an eyebrow raised, anger brewing in his eyes, “I know that you’re pissed, but you can’t take all of them on. Talk to the Serpents and figure it out before you end up in the hospital.”

He chuckled darkly, leaning down to press a kiss into your cheek, before leaning down into your ear, “I will take on whoever and however many I have to if it means I get to beat the ass of the guy who’s been making your life hell. No matter how many of them there are, I will make them regret it.”

You shivered as you felt his warm breath trailing down your neck, trying not to clench your thighs together, ignoring his chuckle as he watched your reaction, “Then do it; but do it with the Serpents. I’d rather you not end up in the hospital, babe.”

He looked down into your eyes, glancing over at the Bulldogs congregating outside your classroom doorway before he turned back down to you, nodding with a smile and putting a kiss on your forehead. “Do you still want me to walk you to trig?” he asked, gesturing towards the boys near it.

He didn’t like the idea of sending you down there alone, but he knew that if he went down there he’d do something and fight somebody, which would piss you off. This was his battle to fight, but you were his adviser, and he wouldn’t go into battle until you had both come up with a plan. You guys had already made the mistake of not including each other once, you wouldn’t do it again.

“I’ll go by myself, I can handle them. They won’t do anything to me when so many students are around.” you reassured him, smiling at him softly with a love in your eyes that made his heart skip a beat. “Hurry up and get to history before you’re late.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He said, saluting you before pressing another kiss to your forehead and walking off to find Fangs. You could hear them greeting each other from the end of the hallway, play fighting and rough housing until a teacher broke them up. Their laughs echoed around you, and when Sweet Pea turned to send you a smile, you found the confidence to walk to trig.

Thankfully when you had gotten down there, the boys hadn’t said anything to you, but they didn’t have to with how many glares they sent.

Class went by uneventfully, the day passing by until you were in ninth period English, your only class with Sweet Pea. He threw himself into his seat, sprawling out his long legs in around the desk, leaning back to stare at you with a Cheshire grin on his face.

“What did you do?” you asked, crossing your arms and biting your lip to hide your growing smile. The grin that he had was the grin that he got whenever he was up to something, and damn you if it wasn’t attractive. You clenched your legs together softly, focusing on the words that came out of his mouth rather than the smile on his lips. But his lips were very hard to ignore.

“I haven’t done anything... yet.” he said, a snort coming out of his mouth as you sighed in exasperation.

“Did you talk to the serpents, at least?” you asked, a smile coming onto your face as you grabbed your notebook out of your bag, the bell ringing for class to start.

He nodded, his smile somewhat fading as his eyes darkened in seriousness, “They’re thankful for what you did. Toni’s ready to cut someone’s head off, as is Cheryl; the rest of them just want to beat their asses.”

“Good.” you nodded, sighing in relief, “At least I won’t have to worry about you getting put in the hospital.”

He snorted, “Someone’s getting put in the hospital all right, but it’s sure as hell not gonna be me, baby doll.” there was something about the cockiness in his voice that reminded you of last night, and you turned down to your notebook with a blush on your face as you started to take notes.

You ignored his chuckles as class went on.

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When the bell had finally rung, you had practically sprinted to your locker, trying to get away from Sweet Pea and his god-awful innuendos about last night. It had been hard enough trying to ignore him when he looked good today, but that had been your breaking point.

You panted with a slightly smile as you opened your locker, giggling as you quickly tried to shove your books into your backpack before Sweet Pea could get to you. Since he was so huge, it would take him a minute or two to get through the crowd, but since you were so small, you had easily maneuvered yourself through the traffic.

Plus, your locker was on the other side of the building, so it would take him a minute to get here. When your phone pinged in your pocket, you pulled it out to find a text from him; you can run, but you can’t hide, baby doll

You giggled in anticipation, quickly putting your phone back into your pocket as you grabbed your beanie and pulled it over your head. You shut your locker, turning around to take back off into the hallway when you heard his voice.

“There she is: the resident Serpent Slut!” he called, tendrils of anger dripping through his voice. You turned to find Reggie Mantle, a few of his friends behind him, the girls next to him with their arms crossed over their chest.

“There he is: Reginald the Rat Reject!” you called back, smiling at him in satisfaction as a snort escaped your nose. You could see the anger in his eyes, which only made you giggle more.

“Funny, your Serpent isn’t here.” he said, glancing around the hallway in mock concern, “He knows about our meetings yet he still doesn’t care. How quaint.”

“Funny how you’re so ugly yet you still haven’t been exterminated.” you said, looking at him in a patronizing pity that had you snickering as he got more angry.

The girls that were with him walked past you, looking up and down your form with judgement before scoffing and walking to stand behind your back before you turned back to Reggie

“You’re just asking for this then, bitch.”

“What are you gonna d-” you had started off when you felt your beanie get yanked off of your head, hair being yanked back.

You quickly spun around, throwing out your leg towards the bitch’s stomach and watching as her body fell to the floor. Her other minions reached for you, trying to grab your arms and legs but you just continued to throw them off of you, hitting and kicking and punching until they were gone.

You turned around, about to ask Reggie the question again when you were met with a hard slap that sent you to the ground. You could hear the gasps of the guys behind him, and when you looked up, cheek stinging and eyes watering, your eyes hardened in anger.

You had opened your mouth to retort to him when someone had beat you to it, “Yeah, you’re gonna regret that, mutt.”

It had only taken two seconds for Sweet Pea to launch his fist into Reggie’s face, body flying into the lockers before being punched again, and again, and again.

You could see the Bulldogs looking at each other in question, they hadn’t agreed to hurt you, they just wanted to scare you a little bit. They didn’t like the fact that he had hit you, so they were a bit on the fence about defending him.

You could hear other footsteps before there were hands lifting you to your feet. You turned to find Toni and Cheryl, smiling at them in gratitude as they looked around you to glare at the guys who had tucked tail and run. The other serpents had arrived, along with some of their northside friends; guess they had been too scared to face off with us.

You turned back to Sweet Pea once you heard him grunt again, and found him launching punches into Reggie’s face as he tried to get up. You could see that Reggie was giving up on trying to get away from Sweet Pea’s antics, quickly allowing himself to fall to the floor unconscious as one final punch came from Sweet Pea’s fist.

He stood up, his chest panting with heavy breaths before he stepped over his unconscious body and walked over to you. Toni and Cheryl walked away, gathering the other serpents as Sweet Pea grabbed your face in his hands, looking over the red slap that was still red and burning on your face.

“Come on,” he said, gulping with anger, “let’s get you home before I beat his ass again.”

He walked us out to his bike, quickly sitting on his bike and grabbing the helmet before I grabbed his arm. I smiled at him softly once he looked at me in confusion, leaning over to to press my mouth to his lightly, sighing in content. I pulled back from him, nudging his nose with mine as he tried to lean forward and kiss me again.

“What was that for?” he asked, breath fast and voice rugged.

“Thank you,” you started, pressing your forehead to his. “For protecting me.”

He swore, pressing his lips to yours again, pressing his tongue against yours before pulling back.

“Never thank me for that, baby doll. I love you just the way you are, even if those bastards don’t want me to.”