request for ao3: maybe something with one of the nerdy prudes having a panic attack and the others supporting them?
Yeah by all means! Tossed this one up for a little while, just trying to decide who to do it for, because god only knows Pete, Ruth and Richie are all probably prone to a good panic attack...
"Has anyone seen Ruth? Max is gonna be here soon!"
Richie finished helping Pete with the final touches of his costume, just to really sell the act that they were trying to put on here. It had come to their attention that in fact, none of them had seen Ruth, not since she said she needed a moment to get herself ready.
Pete shot Richie a knowing glance. Richie nodded in return. "How long's Max gonna be?" He asked, somewhat cautiously. They had a good inclination as to what was going on, and why Ruth had seemingly gone missing. Between them, they'd managed to work out exactly the same problem, because both of them knew Ruth well enough to know why she was yet to show face.
"He said twenty minutes," Steph answered.
Twenty minutes was enough, supposedly. The two of them had found her in some pretty bad states before, but together they'd managed to pull her back in before it got worse. Richie glanced back down the hall, back to the last place he'd seen her.
"We'll go look for Ruth," he decided. "You guys finish getting everything sorted."
The two of them left down the hall, picking up the pace as soon as they were a good enough distance from Steph and Grace. Richie had been the one of them to see her off, so he knew roughly where she'd gone to get changed.
They found her in a matter of minutes, in the drawing room, curled into one of the old chairs that had been covered over with an equally as old dust sheet. One hand was carefully delved into the sheet, her grip tight around the old fabric. The other was running through her hair, in some attempt to try and ground herself in the moment.
"Ruth?" Pete made sure to keep his voice soft, so as not to startle her with their presence.
Even still, she looked up quickly, her eyes wild from her panicked state. Stray tears were still running down her cheeks, and she tried desperately to scrub them away. Once her vision cleared a little, she registered the two figures in the doorway, and instantly recognised them.
"Richie... Pete..."
"What happened, Ruth?"
The two of them wandered into the room, closing the door behind them. Richie sat at Ruth's side, keeping a comfortable distance, and Pete took a space on the floor, close enough to be able to reach for her hand should the need arise. Ruth had never normally relied on anything less than physical reminders of the present moment, and so the two of them always came into situations like this with exactly that in mind, just in case.
Ruth tried to level her breath, to little avail. "I c- I can't do this. I can't do this!"
Richie frowned. "Why not? We're so close..."
In all her reasoning, Ruth had only managed to come up with one thing that made sense, one thing that really sparked her fears into motion. "What if... What if Max finds out? And he gets pissed, and we don't really make things better at all? What if it gets worse?"
The boys looked at each other for a moment. Pete leaned over a little, looked at Ruth for permission, and then took her hand in his. Her gaze landed on him, and she found herself glad to be in such familiar company as her two best friends.
"The worst that could happen here is Max finding out, you're right... But think about it... When he gets here, it's gonna be dark. We're already gonna be set up. Do you think he's gonna figure us out before we even start?"
"I dunno..."
Richie saw what Pete was trying to do. He nodded slowly. "Does Max even think at all? He always just jumps to conclusions! When have you ever seen him just sit and work something out?"
"Exactly!" Pete added with a growing, reassuring smile. "Even if he does figure us out, we'll have still managed to prank him beforehand!"
Richie shuffled closer. Ruth laid her head on his shoulder, and he pulled her in for a slightly awkwardly angled hug. It was just the three of them in that moment; it didn't need to be any more than that. Ruth could see what they were trying to tell her, and when she stopped for as long as her mind would let her to think about it, she realised they were right. It wasn't often that anyone saw Max trying to think something through...
Pete's hand was colder than hers. His thumb was carefully running up and down the back of her hand in a constant, steady motion.She squeezed, and he squeezed back.
Richie had the camera tucked away in his pocket, she could feel the edges of it digging into her shoulders. She could tell where his shirt ended and his jumper began. She could feel the hem at his wrist up against her forearm.
She registered that loose thread of her own jumper that she could always feel, just down the back of her neck, and the fake cobwebs hanging from Pete's arm, and the colour of his bruise in this dim light. The old smell of dust was heavy in the air. She took a breath. It was deeper than her last.
"How about it, Ruth? We need you with us. We can't do this without you... Are you ready to make him shit his pants?"
She managed something of a smile, however weak and shaky it was. "I think so... Maybe?"
"He's not here yet, we've still got time." Pete assured.
"Then... Can you stay a bit?"
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