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“Sansa,” a voice says softly.
“Mm,” says Sansa. “I’m asleep. Go away.”
“Sansa,” the voice says with more urgency, and Sansa feels herself being shaken.
“No,” she says.
“Sansa!”
Her book falls off of her face and lands on the floor, bending pages and closing with a thump.
“Jeyne,” Sansa whines. “What did you do that for?”
“Because it’s only eleven thirty and you’re not sleeping through this,” Jeyne says, reaching an arm out to lift Sansa from the couch. A little overzealous, she nearly yanks Sansa’s arm out of its socket and Sansa crashes onto the hardwood floor.
“I’m up, I’m up,” Sansa sighs, getting to her feet and gingerly touching her knees to check for bruises.
“Good,” says Jeyne, “because there’s no way you’d want to miss this.”
“No way I’d want to miss what?” Sansa grumbles, thinking that there’s nothing that could make up for being so rudely awakened. Jeyne takes her by the hand and half leads her, half drags her back to her room, where their small group of friends waits, and pushes open the door.
“Oh, look who’s back,” says Arya idly, inspecting her empty beer bottle. “We thought you’d died on the way to the bathroom.”
Arya's being there may have had more to do with Catelyn’s insistence than either Sansa or Arya actually wanting her there.
“No, actually. Sansa decided to ditch all of us to read East of Eden,” says Jeyne, holding up Sansa’s now bent book like it was evidence of some unforgivable treachery.
“I’m sorry,” says Sansa. “I must have fallen asleep on the couch.”
“Before eleven thirty?” asks Theon.
“I had a long day,” says Sansa.
“Have a drink, then,” he says, handing her a beer. Sansa opens it and sips it gingerly. She doesn’t have much of a tolerance for alcohol.
“Now, why did you drag me back here, Jeyne?” Sansa asks, her patience beginning to wear thin. She glances around the room at Arya and Shireen drinking and laughing, Theon looking jealously at them and then at Jeyne, Brienne looking quietly at her phone with her knees tucked up into her chest, and Mya Stone, Wynafryd Manderly, and Myranda Royce talking in the corner to Margaery Tyrell.
Sansa does a double take and then drags Jeyne into the hallway, muttering pleasantries and apologies.
“Why in the seven hells is Margaery Tyrell sitting in your bedroom?” she hisses.
“Oh! Well, I was talking to Theon about tonight and Margaery heard us. So I thought, well, I can’t not invite her now, can I?”
“You barely know her!”
“Well, when she heard you were coming she seemed to get really excited,” Jeyne whispers, failing to contain her giddiness.
“There's no way--,” Sansa says a little too loudly.
“Look,” Jeyne says as she pointedly places her index finger over her lips, “I’m going to suggest seven minutes in heaven, I’ll get Theon, you’ll get Margaery, and everyone will be happy.”
“And if I don’t get Margaery?”
“Well... you can’t always get what you want the first try. Besides, everyone here is hot!”
“Arya’s my sister!”
“You can spin again if you get Arya.”
“And I’m a lesbian! I don’t want to hook up with Theon.”
“If you get Theon, just, like, talk about the weather for seven minutes.”
“Talk about the weather, she says!” Sansa snaps incredulously.
“Look, Sansa. Worst case scenario: you have to make conversation with Theon. Best case scenario: you get to kiss Margaery. Wouldn’t you say the reward is worth the risk?”
“Fine,” says Sansa, “but if I have to kiss Theon, I reserve the right to chop off one of your limbs.”
“Great!” says Jeyne, clapping her hands together. “Then it’s settled!”
She crashes through her bedroom door again, with Sansa following reluctantly.
“Okay,” she says, “we’re going to play seven minutes in heaven!”
Brienne and Wynafryd blush furiously. Myranda and Mya seem marginally excited, enough to stop talking anyway, and Margaery is... grinning at Sansa? She can’t possibly be reading that right.
“Hey, Sansa,” Arya hisses, “did you forget the part where I’m aro ace?”
“This wasn’t my idea, I promise,” Sansa says. “You can blame Jeyne for this one. Just, like, talk about the weather or something.”
Arya stomps off muttering something that sounds a lot like “the fucking weather, she says...”.
“Right,” says Jeyne, “if no one else has any objections...”
“I’m not kissing Sansa,” says Arya.
“You can skip Sansa,” Jeyne says diplomatically. “Right, so everyone knows the rules? You spin the bottle twice and the people it lands on have to go into the closet for seven minutes?”
“Yes, Jeyne, literally everyone knows this game,” Arya grumbles.
“Well, I think it’s a great idea,” says Margaery, her eyes still on Sansa. Sansa gulps.
“You can use my bottle,” Wynafryd says reluctantly, and Theon scrambles across the room in his haste to get it. He places it gingerly on the floor and they all sit in a circle around it, looking sceptical. Jeyne spins it. “Brienne and...” She spins again. “Mya.”
Mya and Brienne make their way to the closet, Brienne blushing even more furiously and Mya smiling slightly. They close the door behind them and Jeyne sets a timer on her phone. Thirty seconds pass.
“It’s kind of awkward out here,” Sansa says uncomfortably to Jeyne, who laughs and says, “it’ll be your turn soon enough.”
But it isn’t. Brienne and Mya return, Brienne blushing and looking a little rumpled but ultimately very pleased with herself. Next to disappear for seven mysterious minutes (occasionally punctuated with kissing noises, and once, the sound of somebody stubbing their toe and letting out a filthy string of swear words) are Myranda and Shireen, then Arya and Theon (Theon emerges rubbing his arm where a fist shaped bruise is already forming), Margaery and Wynafryd, Theon and Jeyne (Sansa shoots her a thumbs up that she hopes is covert) and before finally, it’s almost two thirty AM and people are beginning to get tired.
“I think this is the last round, guys,” says Jeyne as she spins the bottle again. It lands on Sansa and then Margaery, and Jeyne’s smirk tells Sansa that her being chosen might not have been an accident. She can feel her heart hammering in her chest as she shakily climbs to her feet.
Margaery takes her hand and leads her into the closet, shutting the door gently behind them.
“I’ve got lots of experience in these,” Sansa says, chuckling nervously at her own bad joke. Margaery only smiles. Sansa wishes she’d stop smiling at her like that. It’s making her feel some combination of terrified and turned on.
“I’ll admit, Sansa,” says Margaery, taking a step towards her and cupping her face, “you’re kind of the reason I’m here.”
“And you’re the reason I’m playing this stupid game,” says Sansa breathily. She notices that Margaery’s eyes are almost painfully blue as she leans in, and Jeyne’s closet seems to disappear around her.
------
They hear the closet creak open a few minutes later, when she and Margaery are both shirtless and Margaery is in the process of unbuttoning Sansa’s shorts.
“Hey, guys, it’s been-- seven hells.”
“Jeyne,” Sansa says, “this game might not be so stupid after all.”
And she closes the door in her face.