“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Ruth said.
“It’s going to be silly to watch!” Ruth also said.
Fuck her. Fuck her so much and her big, sad brown eyes that reduced Pete to a puddle of agreement every time she pulled them out. He should have rejected any of her ideas that came up with that one type of voice she always pulled when she wanted to convince them to do something.
He should have expected something of this caliber, to be honest. After so many years of friendship, knowing Ruth from when she was the tiniest kid in their dance classes to the world’s most awkward (and horny, that aside) light technician in high school, he should have expected the most recent development.
Now he’s staring right into the little–tiny camera that’s standing on the windowsill behind the bed, and can’t believe what he has gotten himself, and the others, into. It’s definitely noticeable, with the little red light indicating it’s on, but small enough to be cleverly hidden between the stacks of books, empty mugs and plant pots.
One look around the room tells him no one is looking, so he starts waving his hands around, behind, right in front of the camera, checking if anything will happen.
“It’s not motion activated.” Ruth throws on her way from the office–second room, arms full of old plates and glasses. Peter almost has a heart attack at the ripe and young age of twenty–six. “I checked it.”
“Goddammit.” Peter mumbles under his breath.
Ruth’s distant yell of “don’t goddamn me!” reverberates through his skull like a drill press.
Goddammit.
10:03 PM
Not surprisingly at all, the first person the camera catches crawling to bed is Richie. With all his fucked up sleep schedule, he’s prone to falling asleep on the couch, dad–after–work style and then staying up until three or four in the morning, working on leveling up in League of Legends — or whatever the hell you’re supposed to do in it, Peter’s still not very sure, even after a thousand of Richie’s thorough explanations — or scrolling down Instagram rolls, occasionally rolling over to show the person closest to him still awake.
Either that, or he’s going to sleep at ten in the evening.
Which is fucking nuts to Ruth, who appears in the doorway to the bedroom for a few moments, staring dumbfounded at his limp body, back rising up and down rhythmically as he buries his head deeper into the covers.
Then she sighs, loud enough for the camera’s microphone to pick up, and manages to wrangle the jeans off a sleeping and completely and utterly uncooperative Richie. She huffs for a few moments, bent in half, still holding the jeans that she had to almost WWE–style wrangle from Richie.
And then she looks up to the camera, rolls her eyes, and kisses Richie on the back of his neck before backing out of the room, closing the door gently.
10:14 PM
Someone runs in front of the still–closed door. Then they run back, and once again, and then the door handle starts to rattle.
Grace is half in the bedroom, half in the doorway when Ruth tramples onto her, — all sequin, shiny dress, black glittery thighs and a white headband on her head, hair in curls — kisses the everliving shit out of Grace and leaves her absolutely stumped, yelling something that gets lost in the creaky microphone of the camera.
Grace’s absolute shock and the huge smile on her face, and the way she touches her lips after Ruth kisses her, is absolutely recorded, though.
10:59 PM
(Peter demanded that they delete this portion of the video, and he lost one vote to four.)
Peter Spankoffski, salutatorian of Hatchetfield High Class of 2021, Biology graduate, struggles to put his goddamn pajamas on for five minutes sixteen seconds. It’s not like his pajamas are something complicated — just a tank top, sweatpants and different socks — but for some reason, his melatonin–addled mind decided to make the task virtually impossible.
He looks at the discarded day t–shirt on the floor in front of him, one sock halfway on, the other still in his hand, and probably decides to just fuck it and kicks the shirt to the corner of the room, waddling over to the bed and flopping down next to Richie.
11:25 PM
“Nope.” Peter says, wounding up the blanket he’s already been burritoed in tighter around himself, only his head poking out of the teddy bear–patterned material. “You and your crumbs have no place in this bed. This is a crumb-free zone."
“Peter!” Grace huffs, almost throwing her arms up in the air in exasperation — she absolutely would, if she wasn’t holding a steaming hot baguette in one hand.
“I don’t want crumbs in my bed!” His voice always gets less animated when he’s sleepy, especially after he takes his melatonin, but he manages to somehow still sound like Pete himself, and not a mumbling version of him.
“Wow, so it’s not our bed now?”
Peter rolls onto his front and groans into the mattress.
“It’s not your goddamn crumbs’ bed!”
Grace rolls her eyes theatrically, puts the baguette down on the nearest desk, and dives — straight onto Peter.
“Steph!” He wails, dramatically, as Grace tries to pry the blanket off of him,
“I’m going to wipe crumbs all over this mattress—”
“I’M DYING!” Peter wails as his legs kick upwards, trying to center them somewhere into Grace, who is currently in the process of kicking Peter off the bed.
(Later, when they’re rewatching it, Richie starts stirring at that moment, even looking like he’s waking up — he turns his head to the direction where all the commotion is coming from, and squints at them, as if to make them out without his contacts, but quickly disregards them and goes back to sleep.)
11:30 PM
Steph is standing at the feet of the bed, watching as Grace crunches loudly on the baguette.
“So he lost?”
“Lost to sleep.” Grace clarifies between grinding the bread with her teeth. “Technically, I didn’t get in until he conked out.”
“That melatonin is some good shit.” Steph says as she rolls off her top, throwing it somewhere in the general direction of the dirty clothes hamper. “I might steal some.”
“He’ll kill you.” Grace notices thoughtfully, and Steph’s eyebrows briefly furrow before deciding, eh, that’s probably the next part of the little weird relationship Grace and Pete have going on, and tugging off her shorts.
She groans as she curls up under the cool covers, shivering before trying to crawl closer to Grace’s warm body. For some fucking reason, Grace, despite being only covered halfway up her thighs, is a human radiator — has always been, ever since Steph got first to experience it.
Steph could only dream. She got her dad’s shitty circulation and permanently chilly fingers.
“You’re cold.” Grace says, almost mad, but she still puts an arm around Steph’s shoulders and tugs her closer, letting Steph’s cold nose dig into her chest.
01:16 AM
The sound of Steph’s nails on the laptop keyboard falter as she looks to the side, feeling Grace’s very fucking intense stare on her. Yes, she loves her girlfriend very much, just like all her other partners, but feeling her eyes on her constantly makes her feel like God himself is about to smite her.
“Why are you glaring at me?”
Grace swallows suddenly, almost choking on the spit, and sways between "uhs" and "ohs".
“You’re too cute.” Grace replies suddenly, but completely serious, still staring dead–on at Stephanie.
Steph stays in a stunned silence for a few more moments.
“What?”
Grace smiles off somewhere to the side. “You’re so cute I can’t tear my eyes away.”
“Are you serious?” A crack of humor, and something that sounds like true disbelief pops into Stephanie’s voice.
“Of course.” Grace sounds taken aback. Then, she scrambles closer to Steph — to put her face on her shoulder and stare even harder, making Steph’s heart speed up. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know.” Steph mumbles, looking down on the keyboard.
Why?
“Maybe because I’ve got chips crust all over my mouth.”
Grace snorts, kissing her with a wet smack. “Even better.”
02:04 AM
Steph can hear the keys jangling in the hallway before Ruth even puts them in the lock; she hears her closing the door back on, both top lock, bottom lock and then putting the chain on for good measure, and when she kicks off her shoes and walks barefoot to the room.
Ruth squints slightly when her head pops in through the door. “Steph?”
“Hi.” It comes out more like a long h, because of how quiet she is, but Ruth seems to hear it.
Ruth walks in wordlessly, making a quick work of switching from the clothes she’s been wearing into her pajamas.
“Are they all asleep?”
“Yep.” Steph hums as she starts to turn off her laptop, putting it on the window sill as Ruth climbs in, in just boxer shorts — Steph swears they were Peter’s — and a tank top, and smiles as Ruth leans in for a long, sweet kiss.
“How was the party?”
“Fun.” She smiles, laying down next to Steph and propping herself up on one elbow. “I finally got to meet Caitlin’s fiance. Well–deserved role, because that girl is literally Robin goddamn fucking Williams if he was from Georgia, and we would have even more fun if it wasn’t so goddamn late already and I still have the afternoon shift tomorrow.”
Steph nods through the rant, letting Ruth’s voice lull her into a more sleepy state.
“G’night, Ruth.”
Ruth blinks at her a few times, and then her expression melts. “Goodnight, baby.”
4:50 AM
“Richie?” Pete’s voice suddenly pops up from the dead, and his whole body rises. “Richie?”
There’s a familiar groan somewhere in the bed, and a hand starts patting around.
“‘ete?” The second voice rings out, and Peter’s breath whooses out “‘sup?”
“Nothing, just—” He goes quiet, voice turning into a creak as he tries to keep it together. Shuffles a bit in the covers. “The usual.”
Richie hums before going, “do you want to lay down together?”
Pete nods so frantically the camera mic picks up his neck cracking.
“Yes please.”
Richie hums, shifting in the covers.
“Okay, there’s Ruth here, so I need to roll her over.” He immediately jumps into action, guessing by the sounds, he’s attempting to push Ruth over to Steph and Grace, who are tangled together in some weird position with a weighted blanket, Grace’s stuffed cat and Ruth’s travel dinosaur–themed pillow.
Ruth makes a high–pitched, whining sound, stretching like a cat.
“Ich?” She croaks out, yawning widely.
“Yeah, just me, need you to move a little so I can breathe.” Ruth moves to the other side obediently, and Peter almost jumps into the empty space left behind by her.
Richie has already unbuttoned his work shirt he forgot to take off yesterday and has thrown it somewhere into the feet of the bed, and by the time he lays back down to let Peter calm himself with his presence, his tank top from underneath has been also discarded.
“Is it really bad?” He asks, and Peter will later swear he remembers the vibration of his chest as he spoke.
Peter is quiet for a few moments, before clicking his tongue.
“No, just— weird.” Peter says into the mattress, and Richie nods, hair brushing against the camera. “Like something bad is about to happen, that weird feeling in my stomach. Swirly.”
“Try to sleep, okay?”
“Okay.” Peter fixes his position, more wrapped around Richie and less across him. He makes a loud exhale as Richie puts his hand in his hair, gently carding through it, petting him right back to sleep.
05:03 AM
“Ruth, let me go.”
“M–hmm.”
“I need to pee.”
“No.”
“Fuck you mean no? I need to piss, Ruth.”
“I need you to cuddle.”
“Go cuddle Grace or Peter or Richie, I’ll piss.”
Steph slithers out of Ruth’s reach, downwards the bed, causing her to whine and try to chase after Steph’s warm body. But she’s faster, and the shadow of her creeps out of the bedroom with a soft sound of her feet padding on the floor.
By the time she’s back, Ruth has glued herself to Pete’s back, legs wrapped around his waist and arms thrown in weird angles around his shoulders.
Steph wedges herself between her back and Grace, who sleeps like a newborn cat, curled up, back up and stomach hidden, around someone or something, most often one of her childhood stuffies, but opens her arms for Steph almost immediately.
She happily settles in, face where she can smell their laundry detergent.
Their. Their. Their.
They’re here. They’re together. They survived.