Red moons ---Beronica (Riverdale's, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge)

Chapter 1: audition

A warm dizziness seeps into her brain as she pulls away from the kiss. Veronica lowers her hands to her hips and sucks in a breath as she turns to face Cheryl, who is scowling from her seat just a few feet away. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Betty sheepishly swiping at the lipstick smeared across her top lip, and she firmly purses her own lips together in an attempt to keep herself from smiling triumphantly.

Cheryl is spewing an insult of some sort, but Veronica is having difficulty paying attention. Her head is still swimming from that kiss - a kiss that was really supposed to be a last-ditch effort to impress Cheryl and her River Vixen cronies, but kisses like that aren't supposed to leave you with a foggy mind and sweaty palms.

To Veronica, a kiss is nothing more than attempt to get something she wanted. Her kisses were ammunition, not a sign of affection or desire. She only kissed when she knew it was going to work in her favour. Love? Relationships? She dabbled in them, but wasn't particularly a fan. She enjoyed the chase - who doesn't really - but once the hunt was over, so was her interest. In all honesty, she knew she was capable of committing to a serious relationship if she really wanted to...but that want never really came about, and so she never felt the need to put forth the effort.

So what makes this kiss so different? Veronica Lodge doesn't do love at first sight. It just doesn't work that way. Hell, she doesn't even know if love even exists (Maybe she did once before, back in the day, but she's been questioning a lot of things ever since the mess with her father started).

She kissed her own fair share of people back in New York - boys and girls - and none of them made her flinch or think twice. Betty was nice enough, sure, but she was a little too vanilla for Veronica's tastes. Plus, they only just met...and honestly, she only decided to kiss her at that very minute because she figured a small town like Riverdale would flip upside down three times over at the sight of a girl kissing another girl. This place didn't seem like it was very progressive (Its aesthetic practically screams "I was ripped directly from an episode of Leave it to Beaver"), at least not in comparison to Spence and New York, but Riverdale has been throwing her surprises left and right ever since she got here.

"Faux lesbian kissing", as Cheryl Blossom had so subtly put it, was outdated and overdone - which was true, to be fair - but that was her trump card. Now what was she going to do? The last thing she wanted to do was to admit defeat on her first day as the new kid...and she promised Betty she'd help her get on the cheer squad.

It's only when the redhead shifts to the "interview portion of our audition" that Veronica's mind is forced to return to the present.

"Betty, how's your sister doing?"

Veronica furrows her brow at the seemingly out-of-place question. The way Betty's eyes widen ever so slightly at the mention of her sister makes the brunette feel uncomfortable for some reason. She didn't know Betty had a sister, then again...how long have they known each other? A day? Not even. That was barely enough time to talk about background stories and family lives.

Betty was bound to bring her up at some point, right? What was so urgently important about her sister that Cheryl felt the need to ask about her in the middle of an audition for a high school cheerleading squad?

"Um...Polly's fine, thanks for asking." There's uncertainty in the blonde's voice, and she's nervously wringing her hands. Veronica briefly turns to glance at her new friend. There's something wrong here, her conscious is telling her, but she can't quite figure out what it is and she's not sure if it's her place to do so.

"Veronica, has Betty told you about her sister yet?" There's a smug smirk spread wide across Cheryl's mouth, and Veronica can feel the shame radiating from the blonde standing next to her.