
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/10411254.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/F
  Fandom:
      Riverdale_(TV_2017)
  Relationship:
      Betty_Cooper/Veronica_Lodge
  Character:
      Betty_Cooper, Veronica_Lodge, Cheryl_Blossom
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Canon_Divergence, Friends_to_Lovers, Sexual_Content,
      Making_Out, Sharing_a_Bed, Frottage, Sleepovers, First_Time, Explicit
      Consent, Consensual_Underage_Sex, Bisexual_Female_Character, Femslash_Big
      Bang_Monthly_Challenge
  Series:
      Part 109 of tumblr_fics_&_ficlets.
  Collections:
      Riverdale_Kinkmeme
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-03-26 Words: 3944
****** the rhythm of the night ******
by doctorkaitlyn
Summary
     This isn’t something that she’s ever really fantasized about, not in
     any real detail; on the rare occasions when Archie wasn’t the star of
     her inner mind’s show, the girls that floated into her head were
     always anonymous, composed of ever-changing facial features that were
     usually hidden beneath a thick layer of hair or buried between her
     legs.
     She has a feeling that, if things keep going the way they are, the
     girl in her fantasies is going to have a very familiar face.
     Or: the one where Betty and Veronica share a bed at a sleepover and
     share their second kiss (and then some).
Notes
     written for the Femslash Big Bang March Monthly Challenge, where the
     prompt was 'fantasies.' also written for the following prompt from
     the Riverdale_Kink_Meme:
     "Betty/Veronica- Frottage during a sleepover. All the other girls are
     sleeping, but Betty and Veronica start making out and it goes a
     little too far. Some gay panic from Betty's part would be nice."
     set in a canon divergence where Jason didn't die, but everything else
     is the same. the sexual contact in this is underage, but consensual.
     title from Of_The_Night by Bastille. huge thanks to Babs for betaing!
See the end of the work for more notes
If anyone ever asked Betty Cooper to willingly spend a night in Thornhill, she
would have shut them down immediately.
Even if you put aside the fact that it’s inhabited by the Blossom family (who,
despite their name, are never warmer than ice, who seem only to feel emotions
like delight and joy when they’re at someone else’s expense), the place was
just creepy, like the set of a black and white horror film, the kind where
women were imprisoned in dungeons by leering men with shadows twelve feet high.
Betty had only ever been there a handful of times as a child, on the few
occasions where she’d been invited to one of Cheryl and Jason’s joint birthday
parties.
Even at the height of summer, the grounds always remained shady, full of deep
patches of darkness that looked like they could swallow you whole if you
wandered into them. The sprawling house itself wasn’t much better; outside of
whatever area was being used for the party, it was quiet enough to hear your
own heartbeat. When she traversed the halls on the way to the bathroom, Betty
swore that the shadows moved, skipped from one side of the hall to the other,
slipped underneath doors that probably hadn’t been opened in decades. When they
went towards the back of the property, as they occasionally did on one of
Cheryl’s whims, the Blossom cemetery was a constant presence, always silent,
the tombstones and monuments rising from the ground like cracked teeth.
She had no idea how Jason and Cheryl could sleep in that house night after
night, with the looming specter of death in the backyard and the silent,
darkened hallways. Just being in it in the daylight was enough to give Betty
nightmares.
The year they turned twelve, Cheryl stopped inviting Betty to her birthday
parties and, frankly, Betty wasn’t that bothered, because she assumed that it
meant meant she’d never have to set foot in Thornhill again.
But that was before she joined the River Vixens (or, rather, before Veronica
got her onto the squad) and discovered that, so long as Cheryl Blossom was
cheer captain, one of the team’s mandatory bonding activities was a sleepover
at Thornhill.
She doesn’t tell her mother about it; she’s still livid that Betty is a River
Vixen at all, and telling her about the sleepover is bound to make her
completely blow her top. But she tries to come up with some solid excuses she
can feed to Cheryl, anything to get out of the sleepover.
She settles on one that she thinks is particularly believable, with a back-up
excuse in case that one falls through, but when she approaches Cheryl in the
locker room after practice, she doesn’t get any further than the first word of
her first excuse.
“Be at Thornhill at six sharp or you’re off the squad. No exceptions!” With
that, she saunters off, leaving Betty agape, excuse still trapped in her
throat. Before she can move, Veronica pops up at her side and slings one arm,
still damp from the showers, around Betty’s shoulders.
“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” she says. “I mean, I know the place has a
whole House on Haunted Hill vibe to it, but I don’t think Cheryl would invite
us all there to kill us.”
“If my mom finds out I’m there, she’ll kill me,” Betty sighs, reluctantly
ducking away from Veronica’s arm and turning to her locker.
“Well, I’m guessing you came up with half a dozen excuses to give to Cheryl for
skipping her sleepover,” Veronica says, leaning against the locker beside
Betty’s. “Just come up with another one for your mom. Tell her you’re working
on a project with Kevin. Would she believe that?” Her long, dark hair is
cascading over her shoulders, and Betty can smell her shampoo and perfume,
coconut and roses, mingling together. There are a few errant water droplets
clinging to her collarbone, just above the scoop neck of her dress, and Betty
forces herself to look into her locker, cheeks burning of their own accord.
“She might,” she replies, grabbing a towel. “He’d definitely cover for me.”
“Well then, it’s settled,” Veronica says with a grin. “I’ll go talk to him
while you shower. If he’s game, I’ll pick you up from his place around five.
Better to be early than late, unless we want to send Cheryl off into a
megalomaniac spiral before the first game of the season.”
“I think that can wait until at least the fifth game,” Betty says. Veronica
laughs, the sound genuine and warm, and for a moment, she leans in closer, so
close that Betty thinks Veronica is going to kiss her cheek.
She doesn’t. But Betty still feels the warmth from her mouth all the same.
                                      &.
On the way to Thornhill, Betty tries not to think about her childhood
impressions of the place. She tries to tell herself that it’s just an old
mansion, no creepier than her own home or Archie’s. It’s just unfamiliar; it
was only her slightly overactive imagination that turned the place into a
modern-day version of the House of Usher.
She’s able to hold onto that rationale for as long as the sun is up, for as
long as the whole squad is gathered together in Cheryl’s room, making noise,
eating popcorn, watching movies and having a surprising amount of fun, with
only a minimal amount of cattiness.
But as soon as night comes, as soon as the partying winds down, that rationale
flies right out the window.
Thornhill at night is just as terrifying as she always thought it would be.
She doesn’t think that it would be as horrible if she was in Cheryl’s room,
where she’d at least be able to hear the other girls breathing, or shifting in
their sleeping bags, or whispering and giggling quietly. But, expansive as
Cheryl’s bedroom is, it isn’t quite large enough to fit all of them, and when
Cheryl proclaimed that, her eyes had locked onto Betty’s, and the hint of a
sharp smirk ghosted past her red lips. The message was loud and clear, but
before Betty could respond, Veronica jumped to her feet.
“We'll take the spare room,” she said, extending her hand to Betty and pulling
her up as well. “Just tell us where to go.”
The room turned out to be behind one of those doors Betty dreaded as a child,
one of the rooms that was closed up for months, maybe even years. She supposes
that couldn’t be the exact case; the servants must go in every so often to
dust, but the air is still stuffy, stale, like the inside of Betty’s attic
during the dead of summer. It was smaller than Cheryl’s room, and the windows
were covered with heavy, burgundy velvet curtains that stretched from the
ceiling to the floor. Even when Veronica had tugged them open with a practiced
flourish that spoke to years of doing exactly that in other grand residences,
no extra light came into the room, the moonlight strangled by thick cloud
cover.
The bed was four-poster with a canopy and an ornately carved headboard. Betty
practically had to jump to get into it and, for a fraction of a moment, she’d
allowed herself to indulge a childhood fantasy, a fantasy of being a queen who
lived in a giant castle alongside her doting, dutiful king.
(In those fantasies, innocent as they were, it had always been Archie’s face on
the king’s body.)
“You know, I think everyone else got the short end of the stick,” Veronica
said, jumping up onto the bed and flopping back against the cushy mattress.
“This is way better than a sleeping bag.”
“Definitely,” Betty replied, managing to get under the heavy, multiple layers
of bedding after some effort. She waited until Veronica was under the covers as
well before she leaned over and twisted the switch on the antique lamp resting
on the nightstand.
As soon as the room plunges into darkness, all her old fears about Thornhill
come rushing right back.
She can hear Veronica breathing beside her, but it’s not enough to split
through the oppressive quiet. She always expects houses this old to make
strange sounds, to creak and moan as they shift on their foundation. That would
still be creepy, but at least there’d be some kind of noise. In the near-
silence, Betty feels like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, like she’s
stuck in that moment in a horror movie where everything goes quiet before the
music blares and something leaps out of the darkness.
Just thinking about it makes her heart skip.
“God, this place is like a tomb,” Veronica says softly. The sudden sound of her
voice makes Betty jump. “How the hell do Jason and Cheryl sleep here every
night?”
“I’ve been wondering that since I was a kid,” Betty replies, turning onto her
side to face Veronica. The room is so dark that she can’t see anything more
than the faintest of outlines, but she can feel Veronica’s body heat radiating
across the mattress. She’s closer than Betty expected her to be, given the
sheer size of the bed, but she makes no attempt to further the distance between
them. It’s comforting, being able to feel that there’s someone else in the
room, someone that she knows and trusts. “This place always gave me nightmares
when I was younger.”
“You and half the town, probably,” Veronica says with an exaggerated shudder.
“I wonder how many bodies are stashed in the walls.”
“I really didn’t need that mental image,” Betty groans. The sound of shuffling
comes from Veronica’s side of the bed, and after a few seconds, the glow from
her phone splits the darkness. The contrast is so jarring that Betty winces and
shoves her face into an overstuffed pillow.
“Sorry,” Veronica apologizes, sitting up and spinning around so that her body
blocks most of the light. “Just give me a second.” After a few moments, soft
music starts playing from her phone, something acoustic, and the room goes dark
again as she sets her phone on the other nightstand. When she settles back down
with a rustle of blankets, she’s even closer to Betty, close enough for their
legs to bump together. “Is that any better?”
“It is, actually.” The lack of any light is still disconcerting, but at least
the music gives her something to focus on, relieves some of the oppressive
silence that otherwise fills the room. The person singing has a soothing voice,
and while she’s sure that, knowing Veronica’s wide and varied taste in music,
the song is bound to change to something a little more upbeat sooner rather
than later, she genuinely feels like she could fall asleep.
But just as she gets herself comfortable, manages to find a spot in the
mattress where she sinks in perfectly, Veronica’s fingers brush against the
curve of her elbow.
As a touch, it’s really no firmer than the flap of butterfly wings against
Betty’s skin, but it seems to resonate outward like ripples in a pond. Her skin
actually tingles, in a way that’s not entirely foreign; she’s felt it before,
on the few occasions that Archie got closer to her than usual, when their bare
shoulders bumped together when they were at the beach, when his hands touched
hers when she passed him a pen during class.
“Sorry,” Veronica murmurs. She draws her fingers back slightly, but not
entirely, and another tingle pulses through Betty’s skin.
“It's okay,” Betty replies, swallowing around a lump in her throat. She knows
what she wants to say next, but part of her is frightened of the words
lingering in her throat, frightened to spit them out.
The other part of her is unfailingly curious and, for the time being, it's this
part that wins out.
“You don't have to move.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Once Betty answers, breathing the word like a curse (or maybe a prayer),
Veronica shifts closer, until their legs aren’t just brushing; they’re pressed
together, from ankle to knee. Her fingers return to their previous position and
then move higher, sliding from Betty's elbow to the thin skin of her inner
bicep. It's an area Betty doesn't think she's ever been touched on, and the
skin is almost too sensitive, almost sensitive enough to make her yank away.
Thankfully, Veronica doesn't linger there; she keeps moving, trailing her long
fingers to where the strap of Betty's tank top cuts across her shoulder.
“Still okay?”
“Yes,” Betty murmurs, although it isn't entirely the truth. Her body feels like
it's on fire; she can still feel everywhere Veronica has touched, like her
fingers are still there, setting each of Betty's nerves alight.
Veronica remains quiet, although her toes brush against Betty's ankle and,
eventually, she slides her foot over Betty’s entirely.
“You can keep going,” Betty eventually says, when Veronica shows no sign of
budging her fingers from the curve of Betty's shoulder. “Please.” Truthfully,
aside from wanting more, she doesn't know what she's asking for. This isn’t
something that she’s ever really fantasized about, not in any real detail; for
most of her life, it’s only been Archie taking center stage in her mind, and
those fantasies followed a very specific pattern, were essentially the same
thing over and over again. On the rare occasions that Archie wasn’t the star of
her inner mind’s show, on the very few occasions where a girl had come into her
mind-
(on the few occasions where she was able to silence the inner voice that
sounded exactly like her mother long enough to allow a girl into her mind)
-they were always anonymous, composed of ever-changing facial features that
were usually hidden beneath a thick layer of hair or buried between her legs.
She didn’t dare to focus on a specific person although, truthfully, there
weren’t really any girls in Riverdale that she wanted to focus on.
She has a feeling that, if things keep going the way they are, the girl in her
fantasies might have a very familiar face.
Veronica’s hand moves again, trails over to the hollow of Betty’s throat, where
her pulse is hammering like she’s just finished cheer practice. It feels
intimate, almost disarmingly so, and part of her is relieved when Veronica
keeps going, rests her palm against Betty’s cheek.
(The other part of her wishes that Veronica would linger on her pulse point a
little longer, wishes that she would press her lips to it.)
Veronica uses her hand to turn Betty’s face towards her. Betty knew that they
were close before; they’re touching in a dozen different spots, after all. But
she can feel Veronica’s breath brushing against her mouth, and that only makes
her hyper-aware of all the spots they’re connected, from where Veronica is
still cradling her face to where Veronica’s foot is resting on top of hers.
There’s so much skin to skin contact, almost enough to be overwhelming but,
simultaneously, it's not nearly enough.
Betty already feels like she’s going to combust, implode, but she still wants
more.
Since Veronica has been the one to initiate every touch so far, Betty decides
that it’s her turn, and she leans forward to erase the already minimal space
between their mouths. The darkness makes her misjudge at first, and her lips
skim over the smooth surface of Veronica’s cheek. Before she can try to
readjust, Veronica twists her head and catches Betty’s lips with her own.
It’s their second kiss, her second kiss, full stop, but it’s the first one that
counts, the first one that Betty knows is genuine, isn’t just a ploy to impress
Cheryl Blossom.
This time, she’s prepared to kiss back.
Veronica’s lips are soft and yielding against hers, and her palm is a warm
weight against Betty’s cheek. Betty doesn’t part her lips just yet; she simply
savors the contact, savors the taste and texture of Veronica’s mouth against
her own. After a moment, Veronica pulls away and gently bumps her nose against
Betty’s.
“Still okay?” she asks softly, sliding her palm into Betty’s hair.
“Very okay,” Betty responds, nodding enthusiastically, nose sliding against
Veronica’s cheek. “Can we keep going?”
“We can do whatever you want,” Veronica responds. “When you’re ready to stop,
we’ll stop.”
At the moment, Betty can’t think of a concrete stopping point, a particular
action that she isn’t prepared for. She doesn’t even know what she wants to do,
truly, other than kiss Veronica some more.
She’s totally out of her depth. It should be terrifying, should feel like she’s
drowning. She should want to claw her way free.
She wants to fall further.
She leans in again to find Veronica’s mouth with her own and reaches out,
hoping that her hand is going to land on Veronica’s hip and not somewhere else
that might wreck the moment. Thankfully, her spatial awareness checks out, and
her palm molds to soft curves covered by expensive silk. She tugs gently,
working more on instinct than any real knowledge of what to do next, and
Veronica rolls on top of her, her legs resting on either side of one of
Betty’s. She slides her hand from Veronica’s hip to the small of her back,
flattens her palm against her, and Veronica gasps softly against Betty’s mouth.
The tempo of the music wafting from Veronica’s phone picks up and, in sync, so
does Betty’s heartbeat and the movement of their bodies.
Betty’s ability to think rationally goes up in smoke, replaced by the addicting
feeling of Veronica’s skin against her own. Neither of them are wearing a bra
underneath their pajamas, and while the feeling of someone else's breasts
pressing against hers momentarily takes her off guard, after a few moments,
Betty finds herself chasing it, leaning up off the bed when Veronica shifts,
just to keep the contact as continuous as possible. Veronica’s hands leave
trails of warmth wherever they touch; the movement of their bodies has made
Betty’s shirt ride up to the bottom of her ribs, and when Veronica touches her
there, flattens her palms on Betty’s stomach with her fingers just touching the
lower rungs of her rib cage, Betty has to pull away and gasp for air.
She tries to return the favor the best she can, even though she is in
completely foreign territory. Every time she moves her hands along Veronica’s
body, she wants to pull away and ask if it feels good, if Veronica feels good.
But since she’s fairly certain that would undoubtedly kill the mood, she
settles for keeping at least part of her brain attuned to Veronica’s responses,
listening for gasps or moans or sighs of Betty’s name, all of which makes waves
of warmth to flood between her legs.
By the time Veronica ducks her head and presses her mouth to Betty’s throat,
right above where her pulse is hammering like a stampede, Betty feels pulled
tight as a tripwire. When Veronica gently sucks at the skin, worrying it
between her teeth just hard enough to feel, Betty moans and instinctively rolls
her hips up, palms sliding down Veronica’s back until her fingers are just
barely hovering on the curve of Veronica’s ass.
When her hips press up, they connect with the firm line of where Veronica’s
thigh is pressed between her legs, and a jolt of sweet pressure shoots through
Betty’s core.
It comes as a surprise, and a loud gasp, a sound that she barely recognizes as
one of her own, falls from her mouth. Veronica echoes it, and her teeth press
into Betty’s neck harder, possibly hard enough to leave a mark.
Veronica’s mouth edges lower, to where Betty’s collarbone peeks out of the
collar of her tank top, and this time, it’s her hips that grind down, causing
her thigh to press directly against Betty’s clit.
“Is that okay?” Veronica asks, mouthing at the base of Betty’s throat. “Too
much?”
“No,” Betty gasps, arching into the solid line of Veronica’s leg again. “Not at
all. Please don’t stop.”
It’s the last thing either of them say for a long time. Exactly how long, Betty
can’t say; it’s impossible to tell whether it’s been minutes or hours, if the
whole night has passed. Betty’s shirt ends up shoved up to her armpits, and
Veronica’s is somewhere on the bed or floor beside them, flicked aside.
Veronica’s palm is molded to Betty's breast, thumb gently skirting over her
nipple, and even through the layers of their pajamas and underwear, Betty can
feel how hot and wet Veronica is when she grinds down against Betty’s thigh.
Betty is in much the same state; she feels like she’s burning up, feels almost
dirty, the inside of her legs slicked with her own wetness.
Her orgasm sneaks up on her, starts unfurling in her stomach before it slides
down and reaches her core, and by the time she realizes what’s happening, she’s
already there, already tipping over the edge, fingers tight on the back of
Veronica’s neck, lips parted wide. Veronica presses deep, almost frantic kisses
to her open mouth and cheeks, and she doesn’t stop rolling her own hips against
Betty’s leg. It takes a few moments for Betty to get her voice back, to
remember how to speak, but she wants to help Veronica, wants to make her feel
good in any way she can.
“I want to touch you,” she pants, still trying to catch her breath as she
raises her hand and settles it on Veronica’s shoulder. “Where do you want me
to?” Veronica doesn’t answer verbally, but she takes Betty’s hand and settles
it on the the swell of her breast, holds it there. Betty curls her fingers
slightly, not tight enough to be considered a squeeze, and Veronica sighs, the
sound close to Betty’s ear.
“Harder,” she murmurs. Betty does as she’s asked and, after a second of
hesitation, she places her other palm on Veronica’s other breast, brushes her
thumb against Veronica’s peaked nipple. This time, Veronica actually curses and
drops her forehead against Betty’s as her hips stutter against Betty’s thigh.
Betty slides one hand through Veronica’s thick hair to the base of her neck and
simply lets her hand rest there while Veronica comes down, catches her breath.
Eventually, they fall into kissing again, mostly closed-mouth in between
breaths, and at some point, Betty starts laughing softly, unable to help
herself.
Thankfully, before she can apologize, Veronica joins in as well, giggles
slipping from her lips in between kisses.
By the time they stop laughing, Betty is breathless all over again.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she admits, smoothing her hand from the nape
of Veronica’s neck down her back. They aren’t words that she enjoys saying,
that she’s ever felt comfortable saying, but it feels safe to admit it to
Veronica, to admit that she’s totally in over her head.
“We’ll figure it out,” Veronica says. “We don’t have to worry about it tonight.
For now, we just have to worry about getting cleaned up and trying to sleep in
this gothic nightmare of a house.” She makes it sound like the easiest thing in
the world, like they’ll just wake up tomorrow and know exactly what they are,
where they’re going to go from here, how they’re going to present themselves to
the world.
Betty can only hope that it’ll be that simple.
“Okay,” she murmurs, bumping her nose against Veronica’s and pressing one last
kiss against her soft mouth. “Tomorrow, then.”
End Notes
     as always, I can be found on tumblr. :)
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