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“We don’t have to.”
The carpets look a faded grey, the fairy lights on the inside of the door a gentle white. Aemond’s cheeks, even in the dim glow, are a frightening red.
“Really, it’s not a big deal. It’s not like I even— it’s a stupid joke,” he sighs, single eye rolling towards the ceiling. “The whole game is stupid.”
The very top light flickers, casting shadow over Aemond’s face. Half dark and half that blushing pink, and she tries not to smile at the sight.
“They don’t even think we’ll do it,” he adds. “It’s just— it’s a laugh.”
Her hands curl in her pockets, the nails pushing into her palms. He’s right, in that the gaggle of classmates on the other side expect nothing but awkward silence in here, maybe for one of them to storm out early, too embarrassed or too frustrated to even return to the party.
Helaena feels neither embarrassed nor frustrated. Party games are, by nature, relegated not to skill or smarts, but sheer dumb luck. And luck is on her side tonight, as instead of some idiot from her chemistry class, or one of Aegon’s college drop-out friends, she is given seven whole minutes with a boy she actually likes. One who has always been kind to her, who knows all her favourite things, who sometimes falls asleep in her desk chair, because they spend half the night talking in hushed voices, trying not to wake the rest of the house.
Of course, he’s her younger brother as well, but that doesn’t particularly bother her in this scenario.
Aemond glances down, eye meeting hers for a short moment, until he looks back up again. His lip slides between his teeth– a telltale sign of nerves, although she has not seen Aemond display this much anxiety so clearly since he was a child.
He does not look like a child anymore; over the past few years, he’s gained so many inches that her little brother now looks down on her, his neck bent and his shoulders stooping, hunching below the cluttered shelves. His face has lost its sweet baby fat, but he still looks cute somehow. Something in the silver strands that curl around his temples, the way his gaze keeps darting down to her, and then slipping away again.
He’ll make himself ill, at this rate.
“If you want to leave,” he starts, clearing his throat and giving another funny grimace, his lips pulled so tight. “I don’t mind.”
She minds. If he left, she would mind terribly, and she would sit alone in a closet for five more minutes, listening to the music and feeling very, very lost.
“I don’t want to leave,” she tells him. “Do you want to leave?”
Aemond waits, thinking on the subject, before delivering a stilted head shake.
“Okay,” she murmurs, and his eye slides down once more, low enough that he seems to be looking right at her mouth, following the shape her lips make when she opens again. “That’s good.”
He tilts back, enough that his whole head can face the ceiling, and she sees only the point of his chin and the stretching veins in his neck.
Her tongue traces the roof of her mouth. Once, twice, three times. Back and forth, until he lowers again.
“What do we have left?” He asks, and his mouth makes that thin smile once more. “Three minutes?”
She pretends to look down at her watch. “Five.”
Aemond groans. It’s strained and long, and she wonders what it sounds like to anyone on the other side. If they could paint a different picture.
“Feels so much longer,” he says. “Doesn’t it?”
It would be nice if it were longer. If she could, she’d stretch it out to ten minutes, fifteen. Maybe a half hour, just sitting in a closet, smelling the shitty cologne the couple before them must have bathed in.
It reeks, sticking in the air and the back of her tongue, but Aemond smells good. He always smells woodsy and bitter, and she likes the way his scent lingers in her room after he’s left it. It’s nice to have little pieces of him that hang around like that.
Maybe after this, she’ll smell a little like him. Maybe if they get close enough, some of it will rub off on her, and she’ll be the one who makes her bed smell like a beautiful forest tonight.
When she tries to inch closer, he only takes a step right back, and no distance changes.
“Sorry,” he murmurs. “You can sit, if you like.”
Sometimes, for all his books and classes and knowledge, Aemond is very clueless.
“I’m alright,” she promises. “Do you want to sit?”
He shrugs, hands in his pockets and feet shuffling below the shelves, his body curving so far, she thinks his spine might snap in two.
“How long?” He asks, as if he can will the time to run faster. “We must be close.”
In fact, Helaena thinks they truly seem so very far away, but she glances back down, checking the numbers. Two minutes. Almost over, and the thought feels sad and uncomfortable. Like watching something so pretty and perfect slip through your fingers.
He watches her face –carefully and closely, because Aemond does everything with so much effort– and he must come to the conclusion that it’s bad news, because he lets out another groan.
Her belly flutters, like driving over a speed hump without slowing down.
“What is it? Four minutes? Are we back to seven?”
She smiles. “No. Not seven.”
He tries to mirror the grin, if only for a short moment. “Six?” He teases, and she can see the muscle tense in his neck, the one that shifts when he lowers his head. He does this just to speak with her, so the muscle moves only for her, like it’s been designated a central role, performing this single task.
Aemond clears his throat. The muscle pushes out, and then it disappears under his skin again, and she licks along the roof of her mouth with the motion.
“I’m going to kiss you,” she says. “We don’t have a lot of time left.”
His lips part, and she can see the tongue poking between his teeth. “What?”
“We’re almost out of time,” Helaena repeats, one clenching at her side and one settling over his shirt, pressing to the warm skin. “So, I’m going to kiss you.”
The gears are halting in his brain, so loud she almost hears the clicking over the drum of the music outside, the sounds of teenagers yelling.
“Why?”
Clueless. “Because that’s what people do in here,” she offers. “And because I would like to do that too.”
The fairy lights flicker again, and Aemond’s face vanishes in the dark. When they return, he is just an inch closer, near enough that her chest can bump his, and their hands can almost touch.
Almost.
“With me?” He whispers, like it’s a secret, one they must keep safe in this tiny space.
Helaena bites at her bottom lip. “Yes,” she answers, and his cheeks fade to a colour she has never quite seen before. Perhaps it’s something only the two of them have invented.
He leans down, nose bumping hers and breath hitting her face, a sight so eager and anticipating. “How much time do we have left?”
Her watch is reading 10:23. It’s going to beep soon, and then the door will open, and they’ll be pulled back into a room filled only with mocking laughter and a terrible sour feeling.
Thirty seconds, maybe. Probably less, because she only started her own count when the closet door shut. Which means they’re likely in the twenty five second range, perhaps even twenty, if her watch is not tuned up.
“Not much,” she offers, but her lips are curling at the edges, and she watches Aemond match the very same action. Wide enough that his cheeks wrinkle, and his teeth flash bright in the dark.
“Sorry,” he whispers. “I wasn’t— I didn’t mean to say this was stupid, you know. I don’t think it is. I just don’t want you to—“
Fifteen seconds. She really can’t afford to play these little games anymore.
Aemond’s mouth is warm and his lips are soft, opening so easily when she presses only the slightest bit. His tongue is slick and heavy, but she coaxes him to take her own, runs a hand up his back to pulls him close. Tilts her head to slip back inside, tracing the plush line of his skin and leaving him with a pretty sheen. Marked, merely for a few seconds.
He sighs, and she leaves a final kiss right atop his open mouth, sweet and chaste. Sisterly.
The door opens, and the little space floods with light. It turns out the floor is not grey at all, but a very dull blue, and the shelves are stocked with hideous sweaters and boxes of jewelry. The fairy lights continue on the wall, but they’re burnt out and so faded, it’s impossible to tell if they’re on at all.
Still, even with the loud jeers of their interruptor, all Helaena has eyes for is her brother. Hunched over and red-faced, and looking absolutely wrecked.