Chapter Text
It all happens over the span of a couple seconds. Though, in retrospect, it feels as though someone (or several Somethings) had pressed a button and slowed time for them all, one by one. Max feels the rotting floorboards give way below his feet, tensing his legs in a null effort to jump out of the way. His attempt to jump doesn’t work as well as he would have hoped it would if he had been given even a second to think about it. As things are now, he’s operating on pure instinct, but he still manages to gain the tiniest bit of forward momentum. Richie’s eyes widen as he registers the sound of old wood giving way. He’d set his camera down right as Max had started excitedly talking about their prank, partly not quite sure if he should be recording such a genuine show of fondness and partly finding himself enraptured by it.
Regardless, this means both of Richie's hands are free, so he’s able to run and lunge towards Max without needing to drop any expensive camera equipment and risk damaging it. Not that any of this actually goes through Richie’s head as he grabs Max in an almost-hug, chest to chest. Most of the thoughts flying through his head at this moment fall along the lines of trying to haul up a grown man with just my arms isn’t going to do shit— I need to do something else , so he wraps his arms and upper body around Max and throws them both backwards, trying to take advantage of their momentum and combined weight. He just really doesn’t want them to go flying over the banister either. He has an additional fleeting thought that he really hopes their impact on the floor doesn’t make that section of the floor break as well.
Ruth is the next one of them to realize what’s happening and she hooks her arms under Richie’s armpits in much the same way a lifeguard secures a victim to haul them through the water towards safety. Just as Richie fleetingly predicted, the floorboards beneath his back start to crack the second he and Max hit them, but Ruth manages to soften their landing enough to stop them from immediately falling all the way through. The loud sound of rotted wood cracking and crumbling, heard for the second time that night, finally sends Steph into action right as Richie and Max begin to fall through. She wraps her arms around Ruth’s torso and pulls, Pete quickly moving to help and stepping in beside Steph, hooking his arms around Ruth’s waist just under one of Steph’s arms, to help pull Ruth back. Grace stands paralyzed. The group tumble onto seemingly-solid ground, closer to the walls of the room, and the sounds of heavy breathing fill the space. Max has never felt more sober in his entire life.
“We need to get the FUCK out of here.” Pete is the first one to speak. They all mumble various affirmations, Grace moving to help Ruth stand up as Pete and Steph help each other. Richie and Max don’t move from where they are, with Richie still wrapping his arms around Max in a mock-hug and Max holding himself up on his forearms as best he can to avoid crushing Richie, who wheezes periodically. Max doesn’t seem to know what to do because Richie is holding onto him too tightly for Max to get up without moving him— he can’t just slip out of his grip. It should probably be strange for Richie to hold onto his bully in such a way, but the atmosphere is panicked and shaken enough that no one— not even Max or Richie himself— questions it until much later.
“... I think my asthma’s back.”
“Oh shit!” Ruth quickly dives towards a dark shadowy corner and drags a backpack into the light, digging through the front pocket until she finds what she’s looking for. Max starts to reposition them while she does so, but the sudden sound of Richie’s voice makes him freeze.
“Please don’t leave again.” It takes Max’s brain a second to process what he means.
“I’ll try not to.”
“You better, you fucking dick. I don’t think I could handle you disappearing like that a second time.” Richie somehow holds onto him even tighter and Max takes that as the go-ahead to finish sitting up. Richie’s legs end up wrapped around his waist to keep him from sliding back onto the floor, and Max’s arms come up to hold him in place. He might be the one who almost just died, but he doesn’t want to think about that, and Richie seems hurt. Ruth dashes towards them with something clasped in her hand while Grace trails behind her, looking like she wants to help but doesn’t know how. Ruth pokes Richie’s shoulder urgently.
“Richie. Richard. Richmond—”
“Not my name,” he mumbles into Max’s neck, who internally notes that it’s a weird, but not distinctly unpleasant, sensation.
“Whatever. I have your inhaler, Richmond.”
“Thanks…” He continues to not move.
“Come on man, just take the fucking inhaler.”
“Fine! If you’re gonna be such an ass about it. Christ.” Max barely registers Grace reprimanding them in the background. It’s a strange feeling to be thrust directly in the middle of their dynamic. Richie lazily reaches out— or maybe ‘lazily’ is the wrong word, he just misses on the first couple of tries— and lifts his head to put the inhaler up to his mouth and breathes the medicine in deeply, twice. His other hand is still firmly wrapped around Max. “Happy now?” He says, waving it vaguely at Ruth, who takes it from him and then looks down at it as if she’s not quite sure why she took it other than the simple fact that he held it out to her. A couple feet away Pete looks just about ready to explode about the fact that they still haven’t stepped out of the old Waylon place.
Max and Richie’s faces are very close together now that Richie’s lifted his face from Max’s shoulder, and Max notices something sincerely concerning.
“Dude, I think he has a concussion.” He’s familiar with all the basic symptoms, being a football player— plus, he may be an asshole but he generally doesn’t aim to cause permanent damage when beating the shit out of someone. It’s helpful to tell when he’s gone too far, not that he’d ever admit it. Plus, what with his dad…
He shoves that thought back into the recesses of his mind.
Ruth steps to the side to look over Max’s shoulder at Richie, placing her thumbs on his eyelids and gently pulling them up, “Oh fuck, you’re right. Look at his pupils.” She pulls her hands back and stops leaning over where the two of them are still sat on the floor. “Though, I guess you already did,” she laughs awkwardly and uncomfortably, “since you already said you think he has a concussion… and, uh… yeah.” She finishes, lamely. Richie lets his head fall forward onto Max once more, arms still resolutely wrapped around the other boy.
“What do you mean ‘look at his pupils?’” Steph asks.
Pete’s grimace somehow becomes even more distraught. “I’ll tell you later.”
Max fleetingly wonders why all these nerdy prudes know concussion symptoms and feels a little bit sick when he realizes it’s probably in case he ever went too far.
“We need to get him to somewhere he can get actual medical attention.” He says, looking up at the others. “Do any of you guys have a car nearby?” One by one, they all shake their heads.
“I don’t even have my license yet.” Adds Ruth, dejectedly.
“Shit. One of you guys… call an Uber, then, or something.” He’s got no idea why he’s the one calling the shots right now, or why they’re even listening to him, but everyone else— except for Ruth— all seem to be too panicked to do much of anything. It’s like if he had fallen through the floorboards they would’ve just let him die, or something.
Steph nods and goes to pull out her phone immediately, letting her hands fall awkwardly at her sides when she remembers why they’re in this situation. “I can’t, my dad took my phone. Do any of you guys have the app?” Once again they all shake their heads.
“I—I can do it. I already have Apple Pay set up so it’s not a big deal.” Pete says, fumbling with his phone and downloading the app, fingers pressing incessantly against the screen.
Max stopped paying attention after he told them to call an Uber, focusing back in on Richie. He carefully checks to make sure Richie’s legs are still hooked around his waist, and re-wraps his own arms around the smaller boy. Finding his hold satisfactory and stable enough, he stands up, Richie in his arms. He turns to Ruth.
“Can you grab his backpack?”
“Yeah, sure... absolutely… additional affirmation?” She turns around and heads to get the backpack after saying ‘yeah,’ mumbling the rest to herself.
Pete looks up from his phone, as if just now snapping back to reality after having been given a specific task to complete.
“We REALLY need to get out of here.” The rest of their group begins carefully moving around, grabbing their backpacks and moving towards the door. Ruths the last to leave, her own backpack worn how one would usually wear a backpack and Richie’s hanging over her front. As they step outside Richie groans and nuzzles his face deeper into the crook of Max’s neck.
“Why is it so fucking bright.”
“It’s really not, you just have a concussion and one of the primary symptoms of that is a sensitivity to light.” Ruth chimes in, helpfully.
“I don’t have a stupid concussion, I didn’t even black out— I just saw a flash of white or whatever.” He doesn’t seem to fully register that he’s being carried around by Max— or he does register it but just doesn’t give a shit. There’s a beat of silence and then Ruth's entire body jerks very suddenly, as if she’s just remembered something really important.
“Someone call Paul.” The words definitely come out much louder than she intended them to, and Richie flinches minutely. Stephanie just looks at her, obviously lost.
“Richie’s uncle.” Ruth says, by way of explanation, and Steph mouths ‘oh,’ nodding her head in understanding.
“I can call him as soon as this Uber arrives. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to close the app in the middle of the…” Pete waves one of his hands around, trying to find the right word. “In the middle of the transaction or whatever.”
“That probably works.” Ruth makes sure not to let the words come out too loud this time.
Max gently lowers himself so that he’s sitting on one of the steps to the house, still holding Richie but needing to expend less energy to do it like this. Richie lifts his head up, seemingly just to grumble gibberish directly in Max’s ear and be a general nuisance, then lets his head fall back to its previous position after doing so. Max feels the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
“My fucking head hurts.”
“That’s why we’re getting you to a hospital, you big baby.” Ruth pats Richie gently on the back, actions slightly at odds with her words.
“Why’re you being such an ass? I’m fine, can we just stay here? It really wouldn’t be that hard, we’d just need to not do something. Not doing something is, like, the easiest thing you CAN do because it literally isn’t doing something, which means that its also the hardest thing you can do because you technically can’t do it at all because if you do it then you’ve already failed.” Max looks to Ruth for help, who shrugs as if to say ‘I have no fucking clue what he’s talking about either,’ but it’s obvious she’s trying not to laugh. Her tone turns soft.
“But seriously, are you okay? How’re you feeling?”
“You holding up okay?” Pete adds, looking up from his phone for a second.
“I guess I’m fine. I just fucking told you, my head hurts.” The group laughs. “Thanks for caring, though.” He sounds genuine. Max finds himself rubbing little circles into the weeb’s back with his thumbs. He gets a very quietly mumbled ‘feels nice’ in response, which he feels against his skin more than he actually audibly hears. It’s strange. This is all strange. He’s not used to being around people in this way, so casually— if you can even apply ‘casual’ to being in the middle of a medical emergency.
“The Uber should be coming down the street any second,” Pete says and they all start to get up and head to the gates, which have ‘for sale’ signs plastered all over them, in the house’s front yard. The car that pulls up is pretty standard, if not on the smaller side, and it definitely won’t fit all 6 teenagers. It isn’t really much of a discussion, Max carefully maneuvers Richie until he’s carrying him bridal style, and clambers into the car, Ruth keeping a hand on Richie’s head so he doesn’t undergo any more grievous head injuries. Ruth pulls herself into the backseat with Max and Richie, shoving her and Richie’s backpacks onto the floor of the car by her feet, as Pete sits down in the passenger seat and pulls his backpack into his lap. He starts to say something before Max interrupts him, which he’s surprised to find he actually feels sorry for.
“Actually, can you take us to the walk-in health clinic?” Ruth looks at him somewhat incredulously and he quickly continues. “We’ll probably get seen faster there than if we went to the ER. Plus they’re well equipped for this sort of thing, it should be cheaper too if his insurance doesn’t cover this sort of thing or if he just doesn’t have any.” He cuts himself off there so he doesn’t start rambling. The others don’t need to know that that’s where he’s had to go to the past for similar problems when they’ve occurred outside of school. He may be an idiot, but he’s not looking to let something happen to himself that’ll stop him from playing football and getting a sports scholarship— to let something effectively cut off his only lifeline.
“Sure, kid. Not like I care. Just keep your shoes off my seats, yeah?” In another life, this dude would’ve made an amazing taxi driver.
Ruth awkwardly pulls Richie’s sneakers off of the seat and into her lap. The car pulls away quickly, leaving Grace and Steph standing by the curb. The four of them— not including the driver, who’s humming along to something playing faintly on the radio— sit in relative silence for a few moments before Max speaks up.
“Sorry for interrupting you, uh, Spankoffski.”
“It’s fine.”
“Sorry for the black eye, and the other stuff too.” He doesn’t get a response.