Briggs is restless, bored with the mundanity of Hawkins and the drag of rural Indiana November. That energy is channeled into laps up and down the Hawkins High pool, where he's worked his way up the ranks of the swim team and found a rival in one of...
Karma, Briggs thinks as he treads water in the second lane, watching Harrington amble along the deck eleven minutes late with bags under his eyes and a hand rubbing his temple.
Never mind if a night of staring at the ceiling left Briggs with matching sleep deprivation. A glance in the mirror this morning revealed an absolute mess of hair, skin imprinted with the wrinkles of his bedsheets, circles under his eyes looking like bruises. He still made it to practice on time.
Both Coach and Walsh give Steve a look that says we're talking about this later, and Steve just sighs in resignation, giving Walsh a two-finger salute before diving in with the form of a fifth-grader learning to swim.
Some captain.
Briggs thinks he sees even McCoy roll his eyes behind his tinted goggles, exasperation evident in the tension in his shoulders. Carson McCoy, a sophomore who's always been kind to Briggs, is rarely frustrated, always patient—he'd be a good captain. Better than the one rolling in late and possibly hungover, now surfacing in the lane beside Briggs and shaking the sleep from his head.
Briggs itches to say something, but he can't mention anything about last night without revealing his unintentional spying. So instead, he smirks at Steve and decides to kick his ass for the remainder of practice.
In response, Steve dunks under the water and starts toward the other end of the pool. Small victories.
His blurred form gets farther away as McCoy joins Briggs by the pool's edge, resting a hand on the cool metal and using the other to tread. The chill of the water has already seeped into Briggs' core, and he hardly feels it.
"I don't even want to know what he was doing on a Tuesday night that made him late," McCoy scoffs with a little smile. Briggs thinks back to Cormac in the locker room—she put out yet?—and agrees. McCoy doesn't want to know.
"He look hungover to you?" Briggs asks, only half-joking. McCoy shrugs, pulling his goggles up to his forehead, blue eyes now visible.
"I think he looks like he could care less about this team," the boy says with a small frown. His gaze flickers to Walsh in the next lane, and Briggs knows he's comparing the two captains. He's done it himself on numerous occasions.
