Chapter Text
"Ah, motherfu-"
"Daphne," her dads says from the living room, voice pleasant but with an edge of warning, not quite loud enough to yell but loud enough to interrupt. "Honey. There'll be none of that."
Cursing herself in a completely inaudible mutter, Daphne lightly kisses the end of her finger where it was burned, glaring down at the boiling kettle like it was to blame for her slip up. Her hair is down and free and therefore covers the whole width of her shoulders, and her roots are growing back but she's been talking about letting her roots grow anyway because she thinks it looks cool. The toes of her boots are now wet with tea water, and she taps them one at a time against the floor to get rid of the excess.
Velma decides it's best to stay in the doorway. She clears her throat. "Hey, Daph."
Although Daphne can't have heard her come in she doesn't seem very surprised to hear her voice, turning and giving her a smile that was as pleased as it was tired. "Velm," she says, sounding relieved, probably just to see someone who isn't her dad. "Hi. How was work?"
She looks so tired, and Velma wants to hug her, but she's had some issues with that ever since The Big Feelings Realisation nearly a year ago. Prolonged physical contact isn't good for subtlety - she definitely enjoys it, but avoids it when she can. "I don't work mornings." Velma knows that Daphne is lying about forgetting this - she's learned Velma's timetable by heart over the last few weeks - but she can't think of why, so she lets it go.
Daphne nods, staring at the floor with a blank expression before looking back up with the same unenthusiastic smile. "Sorry. I'm in a bit of a weird mood."
A beat passes. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
"I don't know," Daphne sighs, dumping what was left of her tea down the sink and turning to lean against the counter. "I'm just stressed about some things."
"Some things?"
When Daphne frowns, her eyes become a bit less cloudy. Her eyes open a bit wider, like they normally are - big and expressive and great. "Isn't it kinda weird that I've barely seen you in, like, three days?"
"We eat lunch together," Velma says with a smile. "And classes and stuff. You see me a normal amount."
Daphne grumbles. "It's not normal for us."
Carefully, Velma steps into the room and puts her bag down. She hears Daphne's dad get up from where he was sitting in the couch and go upstairs. Daphne in a bad mood is a difficult minefield to cross, but she has years of experience under her belt. When she's more upset than angry, she just needs someone to be patient with her, and if there's anyone who can bring out Velma's patient side, it's Daphne. She doesn't say anything, instead opting to just look at Daphne with a controlled expression, waiting to see what she decides to do next. Leaving the ball in her court.
Daphne leans back, her arms crossed and pouting pensively. She scuffs her heel against the floor. "I'm worried. About," there's a pause and she looks through her eyelashes at Velma, before her expression tightens again and she looks away. "About all the exams. Who knows how I'll do without Miss Dinkley's free tutoring sessions."
Velma visibly cringes. "Please don't call me that."
Daphne laughs, and it sounds genuine, so Velma takes it as a victory. She thinks for a second.
"... Do you really need my help?" Daphne only nods in response. Velma rocks on her heels. "Well. Grace is a really casual boss. She wouldn't mind if you stopped by when I'm on break."
Daphne perks up. "Really?" She almost squeals, her face lighting up so bright it makes Velma feel warm. "That would be - so, so helpful. I think Ms Warton's gonna kill me if I don't go up a grade in english lit."
Velma nods, a bit stiffly.
She's not sure that this is the best idea.
If there's any good thing that's come out of her spending all of her time at school, at work, or at home, and therefore not seeing Daphne constantly, it's that she's becoming a bit less dependant on seeing Daphne constantly. Over the last year, she's reached the point where any time Daphne isn't around things just feel dull - like the colours all dim a bit and nothing feels as important. Daphne became the core that her whole life revolves around. And that, itself, isn't something she has a problem with. But because of this constant exposure, her resolve to secrecy was slowly chipping away, and she'd started feeling a confession on her tongue the second the sun reflected on Daphne's highlight the right way. Which is terrifying. So she decided that this job would be good for her - good for distancing herself.
It hadn't quite worked yet, though. Now she just spends every lunch completely deaf to Fred's latest rant about the declining quality of mystery crime shows and instead testing how long she can get away with staring at Daphne before anyone notices. Absence makes the heart grow stronger, and all that jazz.
"Where's your mom?" Velma asks in a poor attempt to subtly change the subject. Daphne takes the bait, though, moving away from the kitchen counter to fiddle around with the contents of her bag, probably moving everything into the same Tetris-esque layout she always likes to keep it in. 'It keeps my books neat and my lunch un-crushed', she always says.
"Gym," Daphne sighs out, pulling out her makeup mirror and checking on her eyeliner. It's perfect, as always.
"I thought she quit?"
Daphne giggles - one of the cutest Daphne Things. "She's quit every month for the last year. Her fitness journeys been a bit wonky."
She doesn't react for a second and Daphne glances at her, and all Velma can think to do is shake her head fondly. "She doesn't even need a fitness journey, she's already plenty healthy."
"That's what I keep saying!" Daphne lightly smacks the table with her palm indignantly, with no real anger behind it. "It's like she's already perfect but she's overcompensating because she just - she doesn't get it, or something. And she's going about it so weirdly! She banned white bread from the house last week, I have to eat bread with seeds!"
A bunch of Daphne's hair has fallen over her eye in her dramatics, and Velma finds herself staring at it a stupid amount. She grins at the goofiness. "I'm sure you'll live, Daph."
"Next she's gonna get rid of pasta, and I'll starve to death, I swear to god."
"Nope," Velma says quickly, popping the 'p'. "Just come to mine, I'll cook you pasta. We even have normal bread." She feels a twinge of embarrassment when she realises how grossly domestic that sounds.
"We're so grossly domestic," Daphne laughs, and she's fine again. Daphne glances at her phone to check the time. "Is Fred picking us up? Class starts in, like, twenty minutes."
Velma nods. "I told him I'd be here, and Shaggy slept at his last night. He'll probably just be a few minutes if he's coming straight here."
Daphne’s phone lights up with a text from Shaggy, and and so does she not even a second later when they hear a honk from outside. She seems a lot like normal Daphne now - the anxious look in her eye is gone, replaced with something like giddiness, despite the long day of class ahead of her. "We summoned them," she says, shouldering her bad and strutting to the door. Velma takes a moment to keep her grin in check before following.
--
Fred grabs her wrist before she can climb out of the van.
She turns to look at him only to see he's staring back at her with pretty desperate eyes, so she slowly sits down again while the other two get hop out of the back, closing the double doors behind them. Fred signals at them through the window to go on ahead - Shaggy just smiles and nods, while Daphne frowns, seemingly unsure. Velma tries for a reassuring smile, and a second later they're walking out of the student car park and towards the school gates. Velma turns back to Fred, who has let go of her arm and is now fidgeting the edge of his shirt.
"Uh," she clears her throat. The air around him seems heavy. "What do you wanna talk about?"
He seems to struggle to look at her dead on, instead glancing around them. He stares at the Star Wars air freshener for a second before speaking. "So. You're gay."
She doesn't move. "Yeah? So are you."
"Did you ever, like," Fred's face seems to be getting redder with every word he says, and leaning an arm on the steering wheel like that would cover it up, somehow. She's never seen him this flustered before. "Properly come out to people at school? Because I can't remember you ever not, you know, being all open about it, and stuff."
"... Well," she says, slowly, giving herself time to remember. Now that she thinks about it, she never really questioned it. She remembers realising she liked girls when she was eleven, and after that she just bought it up when it was relevant. She didn't want to cause a big fuss about it. She remembers her mom almost dropping a plate the first time she mentioned it in casual conversation, and how she'd sat her down and lectured her on the importance of thinking things through and considering your words, but that's really it. Her and her parents don't really talk about it. And with people at school - well. It's all anyone knows about her. "No, not really. I've never 'come out' to anyone. Why?"
Fred frowns down at his knuckles, and Velma makes a quiet 'oh' of understanding. Fred never really opens up about himself at school. Their group knows about him being gay, and so do his family, but at school everyone just knows him as the blonde jock-type that everyone likes. He's always smiling, always helping other people with their lives, but he never sees the need to tell people about his own. He's not closed off, per say, he just doesn't think it's relevant. Or, he hasn't until now. "Has someone said something to you?" She says, her tone taking on an edge.
"A little?" He shoots back with a shrug, laughing nervously. She tenses. "Nothing bad, or anything. Some guys on the team were giving me some weird looks after I talked to Shaggy the other day, and, uh, one of them nearly asked me something before coach called us in." He's talking about it casually, but she can tell he's uncomfortable. She places her hand on his arm for a second, and he smiles. "None of them seemed angry or judgemental, or anything. Just curious."
"Oh," she nods, hearing how relieved her own voice sounds. "Good. Do you... want to tell them, then?"
"Yeah. Especially since me and Shaggy are, you know-"
"Disgusting," she says fondly.
Fred grins. "Yeah. Disgusting."
"Why haven't you talked to him about it?"
"I did. He didn't know what to say, either," Fred chuckles a little. "His parents asked him if he was bi, you know? They went to him first."
Velma hums in understanding. Shaggy, bless him, has always been so obvious about how he feels about Fred. Even before they banded together as a friend group, back when her and Shaggy would sit next to each other at lunch because she was the antisocial one and Shaggy was bullied for not talking as easily as everyone else, Shaggy would stare at him from across the playground like an Elizabethan heroine pining after a handsome visitor. She remembers asking him about it when she slept over at his house once, and Shaggy had said that he was just jealous of Fred's big group of friends and endless supply of nice shirts. She never believed him.
Thinking back to the matter at hand, she hums. "To be honest, I don't think I can help you?" She stares out the front window for a second, considering. "I mean. I'm not exactly the most emotionally sensitive person, and I've never navigated that kind of conversation before. Maybe you could ask Daphne."
He frowns. "Daphne?"
"She came out to her parents properly, right? She's probably got some advice."
"I... sure. That makes sense," he sounds pensive, and he seems to consider her for a second. She's not used to Fred looking at her like that - hesitant and calculating, like she's a minefield he has to cross. "Has Daph said anything to you recently?"
She smirks. "You mean, have we talked?"
"No," he huffs. "I mean, has she said anything weird?"
"Um. Well, she was in a weird mood this morning, I guess. She said she's been stressed because I've been too busy to help her study." She's not at all sheepish to admit it - she knows she's a valuable tutor. It makes sense. "It's all fine now, though. I said we could study in my breaks at work."
Fred's expression doesn't change. "Ah. Okay. I'm glad you sorted that out."
She gives him an odd look, suddenly hyper aware that Daphne could have told him something she doesn't know, but having no idea what. Everyone's been more secretive lately. They hadn't found out about Fred and Shaggy getting together until a month after it happened (not that they were surprised), and now every time she mentions Daphne everyone acts like shes stupid. It makes her more uncomfortable than she'd like to admit, the idea that she's not being trusted. Their group was the only friend group she's ever really had. She wants them to talk to her - she just doesn't know how she'd say that without sounding like she's prying.
She sighs instead. Fred came to her with something important and she's making it all about herself. This is why people don't talk to her about their problems. "Hey," she says, worrying her bottom lip slightly. "Uh. I hope it goes well, ok? I'm sure it will, but we'll be here for you if it doesn't." She faintly hears the bell ring.
He smiles. "Thanks, Velm. You, uh. You don't have anything you want to talk about, do you?"
Stiffly, Velma shakes her head. "The bells gone." Without waiting for a response, she climbs out of the van faster than she thought she could. Fred seems to pause for a second in surprise, before scrambling to follow her, stuttering something about how opening the door that quickly will break it, it's an old car, my dad won't pay for my replacements anymore, Velma!
---
Alice looks up at her when she walks into Spanish. Velma quickly looks past her to find Daphne doing the same (with a much happier expression) and she walks past Daphne's desk and flicks her forehead as she goes, earning her a laugh and a middle finger.
She's always loved Spanish - she loves all of her subjects, really, but this ones pretty special because she's already halfway to fluent. She can do the entry level work they're given in half the time they're given to do it, because since when has a high school language class ever evolved beyond entry level, and she can spend the rest of the time subtly doing her own thing. 'Her own thing' on this context usually means getting permission to get her headphones out and listen to music, and drawing stupid things she can drop on Daphne's desk. As much as she prides herself on her academic achievements, she hasn't quite managed to master the arts, but she can still draw a convincing ginger stick man.
When she takes her seat she thinks feels a pair of violet eyes on her, but by the time she turns around all she sees is Daphne and Alice staring each other down for a minute, faces stony. She watches, baffled, as Alice crumbles and looks away, leaving Daphne to grin smugly and flip her hair as she turns to the front of the room again.
Velma tries to make eye contact with her to silently ask what the hell that was. She is ignored.
--
"Ok," Velma exhales, leaning back in her creaking plastic chair and holding up in front of her the piece of scrap paper she's been noting on for the last twenty minutes. "If this is all you want to cover, we can get them all done if we switch topics every few days, providing we do this everyday. Sound good?"
Daphne gives a thumbs up, drawing a fond smile out of her. "Sounds good, teach."
They hear a damp rag slap against a tabletop out on the main floor and approaching footsteps, before Alice pokes her head around the doorway, looking disgruntled. "Are you two done? You're, like, five minutes over your break."
Velma's smiles smoothes out and Alice disappears from the doorway again. "What is there for me to do? You've just been cleaning tables all day."
There's a distant screech of 'Help me clean them, then!', and Velma rolls her eyes at Daphne, who's leaning back in her chair and smirking. "Is she always that bratty?"
"Sadly. Are you staying? Grace said she doesn't mind as long as you're not in the way."
The first time she had bought Daphne back to the break room - after asking for permission, of course - Grace had come down from her office at least six times to offer to make her a drink, and one of these offers had turned into a full, thirty minute conversation about the pros and cons of digital art versus traditional. This was also the first time Velma had learned that Grace is an artist. In the space of a few days, Grace has completely accepted Daphne as a welcome presence in the cafe, and Velma isn't really surprised. She's very charming with new people.
Daphne shakes her head, gathering up her stuff and dumping it unceremoniously in her bag, apparently too tired to care about organisation. "Nah, I'm going to Fred's tonight. He said we have to talk about something important." Velma tries not to let her disappointment show. Over the last few days of study sessions, she's been thinking about how much more pleasant the walk home is when she's walking with Daphne for half of it. Daphne stands and shoulders her backpack. "Any idea what that could mean?"
Velma hesitates. "Well. I know something's going on with him and his team. So, maybe that?"
They're both walking to the door slowly, and Velma likes to think that Daphne is trying to prolong the conversation as much as she is. Daphne scrunches up her nose a little. "I still don't know how I feel about those guys. I don't think any of them remember our names."
Velma rolls her eyes and mutters something inaudibly about them definitely knowing who Daphne is (everyone knows her - even if not personally). "I don't think they're that bad. A bit... obnoxious, maybe. But not bad."
Daphne looks at her in mild surprise, and she frowns back. "What?"
Seeming to realise herself, Daphne shakes her head, smiling a little. "Nothing, you're just usually a bit more... uh, cynical about people, I guess."
Velma shrugs. Unlike what one would expect from a high school football team, she'd never heard anyone say a bad word about the current batch - they didn't seem to bully anyone, and a few of them seem like people that even she could get along with. On top of that, Fred had texted her the night before to say that he had come out to them like he said he would, and they were fine about it - they had just been acting weird because they wanted their suspicions confirmed. One of them had even gone up to him and hugged him, and asked him what his type was, because Fred is 'too handsome to be single, even if he's gay' - which, ok, could have been phrased better, but at least he was trying. After that Fred apparently mentioned his boyfriend, and this was met with many claps on the shoulder and 'nice, dude's.
So they couldn't be all that bad.
There's also the fact that she has this memory that she's never really shaken, and it's one of the first times she and Daphne had ever really talked, and it never really struck her as important until the last year or so. Velma had managed to capture and escort a spider outside of the classroom, and when she had sat back down afterwards, the pretty girl who always talked about wanting to dye her hair ginger had stared at her and smiled. Velma had asked what she was looking at. Daphne said that she knew Velma wasn't as mean as people said she was.
"I'm trying to be nicer. It doesn't feel great to assume the worst of everyone all the time."
"And what brought that on?" Daphne asks, smiling. Her hand is hanging right next to Velma's, and Velma wants to hold it.
You. "I don't need a reason to be nicer to people."
"Oh. That's true," Daphne nods, looking pleasantly dazed. "I know you probably do have a reason, but yeah. Good point."
"My points are always good."
"Doubtful."
"That must be the secret of our friendship," Velma says, feeling giddiness rise up in her throat at the easy teasing. "The nicer I am, the meaner you become."
Daphne feigns offence. "I've never been mean in my life."
"That's a lie and you know it."
"It isn't! I balance you out with my niceness. That's why you keep me around - I'm the yin to your yang. The black to your white. The honey to your vinegar-"
"Okay, that's enough," Velma interrupts, meekly holding up a halting hand, and Daphne laughs deeply, like she's using her whole body to do it. The kind of laugh she only laughs around her. Velma smiles subtly, eyes turned to the floor, and she opens her mouth to say something before she realises they're out of the break room and now behind the counter, and Alice is staring at them, and this has been the situation for at least a minute now. Alice smirks at her and she feels the tip of her ears blush. She glances at Daphne and finds her face carefully blank.
Huh.
Daphne clears her throat a little and lightly touches Velma's shoulder to get her attention again. "I'm gonna go, ok? I'll see you tomorrow." She pauses. "Morning. With Fred and Shaggy."
Not fully understanding the sudden awkwardness, Velma nods. "See you tomorrow."
Daphne nods back jerkily and smiles - and even if it's tense and probably fake, it's still pretty, and she's reminded that Daphne can pull of any lip colour because her yellow lipstick still looks clean like it had been applied minutes ago. Daphne worms her way around the counter and towards the door, her white platform boots punctuating every step. Alice waves at her with a sarcastic smile, and Daphne glares back, before swinging the door open and leaving with more force than she probably needed to.
Huh.
"What was that for?" she asks the second the door shuts, leaning with her elbows on the counter surface, looking at Alice with narrowed eyes. She's still cleaning a table that Velma is sure she saw her cleaning an hour ago, but that's just how slow it is in the cafe some days. They don't have many regulars. Despite her task needing no focus at all, Alice stays focused and doesn't look up at the question, like she was expecting it. Now that Velma thinks about it, she definitely was.
"What was what for?"
"That look. You know." The question hangs for a second, and Alice still doesn't look up, but her expression is definitely telling. Telling of what, she's not sure, but still. Telling. "You're always like that with Daphne and I can never figure out why."
Alice scoffs quietly. "Not the only thing you've never figured out."
"What?"
"Nothing."
Velma lets out a quiet, frustrated grunt. "I want to remind you that you don't know me as well as you think you do."
Alice hums in mock agreement, still focused on the circular motions she's making with her cleaning rag, very obviously thinking she knows Velma as well as she thinks she does. For a second, the air around them is still, until Velma has to restrain herself from huffing and she turns and walks into the kitchen.
She really wants to know what's going on with those two.
For as long as she can remember, they've just been aggressively silent towards each other - they never acknowledged the other, always avoided eye contact, and probably refused to admit they knew each other's name. She'd never asked Daphne about it - she'd just assumed that Alice had bullied her or a friend at some point in their childhood, or something like that, and the anger over that never really faded. Daphne has a knack for staying petty about people. She's lovely to mostly everyone she meets, but if someone fucks up twice, they're out of her good books permanently. Being in Daphne's bad books didn't mean arguments or fights - it just meant cold hard exile from her life.
But in the last month or so, every time she's seen them in the same room, the tension has seemed so much more... tense. They stare at each other, mainly, and the staring is usually very threatening, as if either of them are ready to pounce the second the other makes a wrong move. Actually, no - Alice actually seems to be enjoying it, kinda. Daphne is ready to pounce the second Alice makes a wrong move. Which just isn't like her at all.
The most frustrating part is that she really can't think of anything that would've triggered it. It must have been around the time she started her job at the cafe - so maybe something happened while she was distracted with all of that, and she's only noticing now that she's more relaxed? Maybe?
There's a loud scraping that sounds like Alice violently shoving a chair under a table.
"Velma! Are you gonna help me or what?"
Really fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Velma drags herself back out onto the main floor, grabbing a rag and some surface cleaner on her way. They really don't need to do this, but she's too distracted to argue. She would ask Grace if there was anything else important to do, but she doesn't even know if Grace is in today. She hasn't seen her at all. Hopping up onto the stool behind the counter, lazily wiping at the surface, she looks at Alice calculatingly.
She doesn't know if Alice likes girls at all, but it's worth it to ask.
"Alice."
"Hm?"
"Has anything happened between you and Daphne?"
This makes Alice pause, turning to look at Velma with suspicious eyes. "Are you asking what I think you're-"
"Yes." She swallows a lump of anxiety. "Did it end badly, or something? Is that why you're acting like this?"
Red rises up Alice's face as her expression moves through shocked to embarrassed to offended all in the space of a few seconds. She opens and closes her mouth incredulously, and just as it seems like she's gonna say something, the bell rings and a customer comes in, so casually, as if he hasn't just single handedly stopped World War 3. Velma snaps into autopilot, greeting him and asking for his order, but in the corner of her eye she can see Alice staring at her in furious amazement.
That's probably a yes, right? Or at least Alice wants it to be a yes. And Daphne's been acting even worse than she has, which means -
She almost drops the man's change.
Oh, fuck.