Archeryl

Archeryl is the het ship between Archie Andrews and Cheryl Blossom on CW teen mystery drama Riverdale.

Canon
Cheryl is mostly mean to Archie's friends, but not really to him. In fact, Archie is pretty much the only one of his group that Cheryl bothers to be nice to (at times), even flirtatious. There are plenty of indications that Archie, with his red hair, provides a visually ready reminder of her brother, Jason, and whenever they spend time together, Archie is nice to Cheryl, often considering that she's going through a lot losing her brother.

Cheryl hits on Archie quite a bit, but sincerely asks him to help her out when the annual Blossom family Maple Tree Tapping takes place. Archie agrees to be Cheryl's date for moral support, and in time spent with the Blossoms and their cohorts, both comes to Cheryl's defense and tells her how strong he considers her to be. Cheryl, alone with no one who truly cares for her in Riverdale, takes comfort in Archie's warm presence and she kisses him. He returns to kiss, but breaks it up and leaves.

Cheryl is hurt by his behaviour and returns to spending as little energy as possible on Archie, outwardly. To avenge herself on Archie and Veronica, she enlists Chuck to humiliate them when they crash Jughead's birthday party, where Cheryl makes out with Moose. Whatever feelings Cheryl may have had for Archie seem to be over and done with. At the Riverdale High Homecoming Dance, which Cheryl plans to attend with Polly, campaigning for Homecoming Queen, she instead arrives solo and, after watching Archie and Veronica together, seems hurt and leaves. Archie, as per usual, has no clue of Cheryl's burgeoning feelings for him or thinks to actually redeem his behaviour towards her, but is probably less inclined to do so given her continued hostile treatment of his friends.

They don't really interact again until after Cheryl discovers her dad killed her brother, only to subsequently ends his own life. Her icicle mother talks as if they would be better off dead and Cheryl takes her up on it, deciding to end her life at Sweetwater River, which luckily Veronica deduces. Archie is the one to storm ahead of the group as they try to rescue Cheryl from the icy water and he saves her life by punching his hand through the ice, pulling Cheryl out and resuscitating her. Cheryl and Archie don't really talk after what happened, until Archie's Dad is shot and Cheryl hears about it in the hospital. She goes to give a comatose Fred Andrews a token of her appreciation for what Archie did for her, in a sort of maniacally airy way.

Archie goes on a vendetta to avenge his father getting shot while Cheryl adjusts to live after Jason's death and her father's ghastly actions. When Cheryl is drugged and almost raped by Veronica's old New York acquaintance, Archie is livid and wants to beat him up, but Cheryl, who's shaken, says he can calm down as she was already rescued by Melody, Valerie, Josie and Veronica. Cheryl attends the drag race with Kevin, Betty, Reggie, Veronica, Jughead and Archie, taking it upon herself to wave the start flag. Probably because of her low self-esteem Cheryl continues to alternate between being flirtatious with, indifferent or hostile towards Archie. They have a very normal exchange at Christmas, when Cheryl goes to Pop's to buy a Christmas tree from Archie.

Fandom
AO3

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