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...
"YOU'RE GONNA PACE a hole in the floor," Corey hisses at Briggs from her place between Dustin and Lucas at the kitchen table.
"Shut up," he shoots back, gaze flickering toward El. She sits with her eyes closed at the head of the table, everyone else intently crowded around her, a walkie playing static on the placemat before her. It's unsettling, the sight of her with no expression in her beat-up dress in a dimly lit kitchen, and Briggs has started taking out his apprehension on the floorboards. Corey fixes him with a scathing glare, but it's interrupted by the overhead chandelier flickering on and off ominously, bathing her in an inconsistent pool of reddish-orange light.
El opens her eyes.
Briggs suddenly finds his breathing abnormally loud in the dead quiet of the room, and he tries to make it quieter as El stares blankly forward. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and Briggs's heart sinks.
Joyce clasps her hands anxiously together. "What's wrong?" she stammers. "What happened?"
"I can't find them," El says, her voice breaking. She looks like she's about to lose it and Briggs hurts for her, this girl who has to be around Corey's age, drowning under the weight of this stupid supernatural mission.
He wants to say something, but his words stick in his throat.
Jon walks away.
Mack puts a supportive hand on Joyce's shoulder and glances at Briggs, and he nods, then turns on his heel to go after Jon. Behind him, El slips out of her chair and bounds toward the bathroom, and Briggs hears Corey snap something at Mike before following her out of the kitchen.
"Hey." Briggs finds Jon on the edge of his bed, breathing out shakily. Jon says nothing but doesn't object when Briggs takes a place beside him. He doesn't say he's sorry, because of course he is. He doesn't ask if Jon is okay, because of course he's not. "This sucks."
Jon laughs without humor, a dry crackle of a sound that seems to fit into the landscape of stagnant dread settled across the house. "Yeah." He sniffs, swipes the back of his hand across his nose. "Fuck."
There's nothing Briggs can say that's reassuring, nothing true, anyway, so they just sit there in silence for a long while. Jon is one of the few people Briggs accepts silence with. Theirs is comfortable, not stifling, and even though this one is heavy, it still belongs to them.
