┏━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭'𝐬
𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠
𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐣𝐨𝐡𝐧
𝟐:𝟓𝟒 ——————|— 𝟎:𝟏𝟑
♯ 𝐀 ♯ 𝟏𝟏
𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞 : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

Saturday, Nov. 12, 1983 .

BRIGGS COUNTS HIS breaths, entirely certain that he won't make it to ten before he draws his last.

Eyes scrunched shut against the rancid breath of the Demogorgon, he waits for the killing blow and hopes he won't feel it. Something sticky and cold drips from its skin, not drool but some otherworldly fucking goop that might kill him if the claws don't, and he vaguely registers that he's shivering. He doesn't think he's cold.

Nancy's shooting, she must be, because bang, bang, bang cuts through the fog of Briggs's pain and she's screaming, "Go to hell, you son of a bitch!" Briggs is pretty sure hell is exactly where this thing came from. Maybe if the Demogorgon goes back, it'll take Briggs with it.

It starts to loosen its grip, to turn its head like it's going to go after Nancy, after the bullets. And suddenly Briggs tastes the copper in his mouth, and he thinks, No.

He spits blood in the demon's face.

"Briggs!" Nancy screams as the monster turns back to him with a roar, a scream, a screech, something, some unnatural sound that Briggs feels as though he'll hear forever.

I hope they find Will, he thinks. Then, a little hysterically, At least I don't have to do the English reading.

But then a searing heat ripples from the joint of his shoulder, a sluggish injection of molten lava into his veins that breaks through a dam and surges through the rest of his body in a wave as the monster's claws rip out of him, and then he's on his side, gasping for breath as the thing's weight disappears entirely.

Blinking furiously, Briggs watches as Steve Harrington flips the nail-studded bat in one hand, blood-stained face and all, and swings again.

Lord help me.

"Steve!" Nancy cries, and the lights are going crazy, flickering red and blue and a thousand rainbows all over the place like a fucking Christmas club.

It feels like it should be louder than this.

The monster is loud, sure, and Nancy is shrieking and Steve is riling it up and Briggs thinks where the hell is Jon, where is he, and everyone is moving but the only thing Briggs processes is that the end should be louder than this. Louder than the suffocating space between the pounding footsteps of a thing out of hell, the sound of Nancy's panic cutting the air like a blade. Steve forces the monster out of the main room, into the hall—

There are hands around his forearms, now, hauling Briggs to his feet—"Jon," he gasps, or he thinks he does, at least. Adrenaline courses through his veins like Jon's Galaxie around a right corner, and everything is chaos and fear and shock, and he can't find the words for anything as Jon pulls him away, toward the wall.

Then something clicks.

A string is moving, the monster is howling, Steve swings with the force of every issue he's ever had behind it—

"He's in the trap!"

Briggs wonders when they decided the monster was a guy. He's pretty sure he didn't see a Demogorgon dick, but he's also kind of worried about other things right now—namely, survival, and maybe how good Steve Harrington looks with that fucking bat.

"He's stuck!"

"Jonathan, now!"

Nancy grabs Briggs with one hand and the gun with the other, brandishing it as Steve adjusts his grip on the nail bat in front of her. Jon runs forward, lighter in hand, the four of them probably looking like the worst off-brand Ghostbusters the world has ever seen.

And Jon throws the flame.

It's like nothing he's ever seen, a burst of flame like a probably-illegal summer bonfire blinding him with light and heat as it illuminates the hallway. The string lights are out, the only source of anything the giant fireball in the center. And the sound. Wretched, keening, angry. The noise burrows into Briggs's skin and tattoos itself on his bones.

The lights flash again, and Briggs stumbles back as Nancy releases her grip on his shirt, slack-jawed. Jon and Steve cover their faces with an arm in a motion so synchronized Briggs almost wants to laugh.

Then Jon moves, and Briggs doesn't know what he's doing, is about to move to stop him when Jon holds up a fire extinguisher and shouts, "Get back!"

Fire is enveloped by a seething, cold fog.

And then it's dark.

Briggs coughs as the fire extinguisher's clouds blows back into all of their faces, and he's not the only one wheezing as it clears, slowly, slowly. It's like someone put a filter over the whole house, some filmy monochrome that makes everything feel a little bit fuzzy.

He hangs back as Jon steps forward, Steve behind him, Nancy hovering beside. Keeping track of the three of them suddenly feels like a monumental undertaking, and he's not sure he could really move if he wanted to. God. He's tired. Nancy's murmuring something, Jon's talking back. The conversation flows around him but doesn't reach him, and he must be hallucinating now. A single bulb lights up and flickers out, then another, then another, a trail all the way out of the hall and into the living room. It's like it's headed toward the door. He hopes it gets out alright.

It looks nice, he thinks.

The adrenaline leaks from his veins, a faucet just slightly left on. The air feels like a lost signal, an unreal haze falling over everything. None of this could possibly have been real. This is crazy. Jon's wallpaper looks grainy, more worn than usual, and Briggs turns his head to check out the remains of the living room but finds that's grainy, too.

His arm hurts. Everything's static. That's not good, he thinks vaguely.

"Briggs," someone says, a hesitant hand warm on his elbow. It takes a long moment to realize that's his name, that Steve is talking to him. He's breathing kind of shallow, and his head doesn't feel that great. "You alright?"

"Mhm," Briggs hums, trying to make eye contact with Steve. "Yeah." But the movement sends the whole room spinning, and before he even realizes what's happening, his knees are giving out and he's collapsing toward the wall, a hand instinctively flying to his shoulder.

"Whoa, hey!" Steve cries, catching him with an arm around his waist and a hand on the back of the head that narrowly prevents Briggs from slamming it into the wall. He lowers Briggs to the ground and says something that sounds really urgent, but Briggs doesn't quite catch it. Spots of white are flickering on the edges of his vision, slowly closing in, like the string lights maxed out and decided to overtake the room. "Briggs. Are you with me? Reyes, look at me."

Steve uses his Captain Voice, and some subconscious part of Briggs immediately says you have to listen, so he does. Then he removes his hand from where it's been cupping Briggs's neck, and Briggs is kind of sad about that because it was warm. Steve rips his shirt—why is he doing that? He looks good in it—Oh, Briggs thinks dully as Steve presses the fabric to the bloody gash from Briggs's left collarbone to his shoulder. That makes sense.

"No, no, no, hey," Steve breathes, tilting Briggs's chin up with one hand. "You look at me. Come on. Don't pass out, Briggs, please don't pass out. We're gonna get help, it's gonna be okay. We can't leave things like this, man, I fucked up, I fucked up so bad." He's rambling now, something about how it would be really damn rude if Briggs lost consciousness right now, and Jon runs back inside with Nancy and then runs back out and Briggs thinks he hears a car engine sputter to life in the front yard.

But Steve's face is kind of blurring around the edges, and Briggs's hand is red and he really doesn't like blood, and his arm hurts which isn't good because he's got swim practice bright and early Monday morning, but Steve looks really concerned with pinched brows and puppy-dog eyes and Briggs is trying really hard not to fall asleep but wow, when did he get so tired? But Steve thinks he fucked up and Briggs doesn't remember why, and he probably did because it's Steve, but when Steve fucks up it's never a really monumental fuck-up, and Briggs wants to promise Steve everything is going to be okay but when he opens his mouth nothing is coming out.

"Briggs. Briggs!" Steve's voice is getting farther away now, kind of murky like he's in the pool and Steve is shouting from the edge to go faster. Is he going too slow? Briggs tries to move faster, but everything just hurts. When did he close his eyes?

"Briggs!"

His eyes flutter open again, Steve's face way closer to his than he remembers, and then Nancy is on his other side and oh, shit, that hurts as she and Steve help him to his feet and move toward the open front door.

"'M sorry," Briggs murmurs. He doesn't remember why, but he is, he knows it—the guilt is like a liquid bowling ball in his gut.

"It's okay, just hang on," Steve is saying, one hand around his waist and the other gently holding Briggs's arm to his chest. "We're gonna get you to the hospital, okay? It's gonna be okay."

Hospital, he thinks. Why? Is Mack's mom working?

It sounds an awful lot like Steve is trying to convince himself, Briggs thinks dryly, and then he's in Jon's backseat with Steve and Jon floors it as Nancy calls out directions from the passenger side.

Is he dying? Now would be an awfully inconvenient time to die, and Corey would probably be sad, and wow, Briggs never even found out how Mack did on his death-trap chemistry test, some friend he is—

"Hey, Briggs, can you look at me?" Steve asks softly, grabbing Briggs's chin and tilting it up. "Can you say something?"

"Um," Briggs says. "Uh... hi."

Steve laughs without humor, gripping Briggs's hand tighter as Jon maneuvers the car over a bump and Briggs gasps at the way his shoulder moves. "Fuck."

"Hey, if you're swearing, that's a good sign," Steve tries to joke, but Briggs is pretty sure there are tears in his eyes and he feels really bad because he probably put them there.

"Oh, yeah?" Briggs's words come out a little slurred.

"Yeah," Steve says, and Briggs's head starts to tilt back to the side but Steve catches him with a hand cupped around his jaw, warm and gentle but urgent still.

"Hang on, okay? Almost there."

Everything is getting darker and blurrier and Briggs thinks he maybe got blood in Jon's car, which is not cool, because if someone got blood in the Jeep he would be pissed.

The car lurches to a stop and Steve's arms are around him again, and he thinks it's a pretty nice feeling as he kind of loses control of his body a little bit. He thinks he's supposed to walk somewhere now, but he doesn't really remember what's going on. Why is Steve so panicky? Why is Steve here? Swim practice?

As the dizziness and pain and confusion sweep over Briggs like a wave that's definitely not in the Hawkins High pool, he vaguely hopes he doesn't drown.

▮▮▮

Sunday, Nov. 13, 1983.

Consciousness trickles back slowly, sense by sense, the first one being the quiet humming of a familiar voice somewhere to Briggs's right. Then there's the smell of antiseptic, that gross, sterile scent he hates so much. It worms its way into the inside of his flesh and stays there. And then something kind of itchy, and pain, and then the red of his eyelids under what must be fluorescent lighting, and a coppery taste in his mouth.

And then more pain. Shit, that does not feel good.

And then panic.

Corey. Will. Jon. Mack. Steve. Nancy. What happened? Did they get the monster? Briggs remembers blood, and he doesn't know who it belongs to, and suddenly his breath catches in his throat and his eyes fly open and he needs to find Corey, needs to make sure everyone is okay, but slicing pain spirals up his arm as he tries to move and he gasps in pain as he falls back into... pillows?

He's in a bed? He tries to force his vision into focus and the voice that was humming stops humming and starts soothing, and Briggs takes a breath and realizes Mack's face is hovering right above his.

"Briggs," he's saying. "It's okay, man. Breathe. Everyone is safe. You're okay. It's okay."

For a moment, he and Mack just stare at each other, and he tries to catch his breath against the panic and the pain in his left shoulder, lancing into his collarbone and setting fire across his chest.

"Motherfucker," he mutters.

"Well, that's not really the greeting I was hoping for," Mack says, but he's smiling, kind of wetly, like he's been crying. Vaguely, Briggs registers the throbbing in his left shoulder, the sling his arm is in against his chest, the IV line in his other arm. The hospital, then.

"Corey," he gasps as soon as he has enough air to do it.

"Safe, she's okay, she's just in the waiting room," Mack assures him. "Will is back and safe. Everyone is okay. Everyone is here. It's okay."

It's okay. Somehow, after all this, Briggs feels like that's not allowed. How can things go back to any semblance of normalcy? Can any of them ever be okay?

There's a cut on Mack's face, already scarring over. "What—"

"It's fine," he says in a rush. "Briggs. It's fine."

"Mack," Briggs murmurs. Mack's hand is in his, then, squeezing gently.

"Yeah, man," he says. "I thought I told you to be safe, you absolute shit. I literally told you not to die and you almost fucking did. Fuckhead."

For an avid reader, Mack sure has a sailor's vocabulary. He bounces between religiously avoiding cuss words and spitting them every other second, not much of an in between, and the familiarity of it makes Briggs relax just a little bit.

"That's mean," he huffs, sinking further into the pillows. "I'm injured."

"How much do you remember?" Mack asks, and Briggs squeezes his eyes shut against the lights in concentration.

"Monster thing attacking me," he mutters, "and then, uh... Steve was there? And we were in the car, and uh..." He was holding me, and it was nice.

"It's okay if you don't remember everything," Mack reassures him. "You lost a shit ton of blood. They gave you a transfusion and everything. You scared the shit out of me, dude."

Briggs's first thought is fuck, that sounds expensive.

"Wimp," he says halfheartedly, but he squeezes Mack's hand back in some semblance of an apology. "How long?"

"Only three hours," Mack says. "It's, like, three in the morning. Will hasn't woken up yet. But they got him. Jon was in here until they let him into Will's room."

Will. "Is he okay?"

Mack nods, explaining what Joyce and Hopper relayed to him and then what happened at the school with the kids and Eleven. Briggs is still a little hazy and unfocused, but he gets the gist of it: the assholes from the labs, machine guns, blood. Mack had fought, he'd tried, but they were stronger—he wasn't going to let them take those kids, hurt them, but he got a little roughed up in the process.

The Demogorgon—that's where it had gone, not dead, just running. Fleeing.

Eleven. She's gone. Mack tried to stop her, and she flung him back like it was nothing. He's never heard the kids that quiet before, he says, and Briggs feels shivers run down his spine as Mack relays the girl's last words.

Goodbye, Mike.

Briggs is silent for a long, long time.

Then he says, "Shit."

Mack laughs, just once, short and stilted and forced. "Yeah. Shit."

After a beat, Briggs asks, "How're you in here?" There's no natural light streaming through the cracks in the blinds. It would feel wrong somehow if there was—things like this aren't supposed to happen during the day. Definitely not during hospital visiting hours.

"Mom pulled some strings," Mack says with a crooked smile. "And nobody's asking all that many questions with the chief around. You need anything?"

Briggs glances at the water on the bedside table and starts moving to sit up, but Mack is pushing him back immediately, muttering dumbass under his breath and easing the bed into a raised position. He maneuvers Briggs up against the pillows with an arm around his waist. His arm is cold on his skin, and Briggs realizes he's not wearing a hospital gown, just a pair of hospital-issued sweats and a lot of bandages. Briggs tries to hide his wince at the movement it causes his arm. He knows Mack notices anyway, but he doesn't say anything. Mack hands him the water cup and Briggs gratefully washes away the coppery taste and the dryness of his tongue.

"Hey," Briggs says, a thought from earlier surfacing.

Mack looks up. "Hm?"

"How'd you do on your chem test?"

Mack pauses for a second, and then he just cracks up. Briggs is a little tired and he isn't really sure what's funny, but he laughs, too, and then Mack says, "Seriously?"

"Yeah, dude. You whined about it for six years."

"Shut up. I got an A."

"Figures."

Mack's smile falters. Briggs realizes the mention of chemistry probably reminded him of his lab partner.

"I'm sorry," Briggs murmurs, "about Barb."

"Had enough time for tears and sorries already," Mack tries to joke. "Probably dehydrated now. Let's just—drop it for now. I—thank you, though."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Your family was in here too, but Danny dragged them out a little bit ago to get food and check on Will." Mack picks at a loose thread in the hem of his shirt. "Also, there's someone out there who really wants to see you. He's gonna be so pissed you woke up the one time he left to pee."

Briggs knows what's going to happen before the door even slams open a moment later, Steve stumbling over himself into the room and gaping at the sight of Briggs awake in the hospital bed.

Mack smirks. "I'm gonna check on Jon," he says dismissively, clapping Steve on the back on the way out of the room and shutting the door behind him.

"Briggs," Steve breathes, and then he's at his side in literally half a second, hands hovering over the sheets like he's scared to touch Briggs in the wrong place or hurt him or something. Something in his chest warms at the concern, the same something that leaned into Steve's familiarity in the back of Jon's car, the same something that flared as he pressed Steve against a brick wall. He's getting awfully close to giving the something a name, but he doesn't think he should.

"Hey, dumbass," he says softly, looking up at him from the bed.

"Oh, God," Steve whispers, some combination of relief and exhaustion, laughing shortly. "I didn't—God, Briggs. You scared me."

"Apparently it's a skill I have," Briggs murmurs, swatting Steve's floating hands out of the air and grabbing one. Maybe he should be overthinking it more, but he just almost died at the hands—claws?—of a literal demon monster thing, and he just doesn't care.

Steve smiles. Briggs just woke up, but he's so tired. What's that about?

"How're you feeling?" Steve asks, gently sitting on the edge of the bed, Briggs's hand still idle in his.

"Hurts," Briggs admits quietly. "But I'm... okay."

Steve's breath comes out in a shudder, and suddenly everything about him has a sudden clarity, a sharpness to it. Dried blood crusted over newly bruised skin, deep purples, sunken skin under wary eyes. The bruises are from Jon, presumably. But he can't help whispering, "Are you okay?"

Steve's eyes snap back to his. "You're in the hospital and you're asking if I'm okay?"

Briggs just stares at him, smiling a little. "Did you—is that all from the fight or did you get hurt?" By the Demogorgon, he means.

Steve seems to remember the state of his face and brings a hand up to his cheek self-consciously. "No, it's—it's all from earlier. I'm okay. I'm fine. Really."

"Good," Briggs murmurs, eyelids drooping. He shakes himself awake. Not now. He can sleep later.

"You tried to tell me I was on acid," Steve accuses after a moment. Briggs grins.

"It didn't work," he says, "which means you've done acid before and know that's not what it's like."

"Maybe it is what it's like," Steve says. "Have you done acid?"

"Do I look like I've done acid?"

"You look like you're on all kinds of shit right now," Steve laughs, and Briggs smiles without meaning to. He probably is. The pain is duller than it was earlier, when they were all rushing out of Jon's house in a haze of Christmas lights and flames.

"I'm so sorry," Steve whispers, his voice cracking as he looks at the ground. "God, I'm so sorry, Briggs. I was an asshole. I—I think I just... I was so scared to—to admit to myself..."

The end of the sentence dissipates in the air, words running off to places they can't be found. Steve's free hand runs anxiously through his hair.

"Listen, I came to Jonathan's place to tell you that I'm done with Tommy and Carol. That I'm gonna be better, stop being such an entitled ass. I've been awful. I'm so sorry."

Briggs is quiet for a moment.

"I also just..." Steve hesitates, glancing at Briggs and then back at his hand, still holding his. "I was scared of the way you make me feel. I didn't—don't know what to do with it. But then it—it all seems so stupid in comparison to the freaky ass monsters and the weird dimensions and you almost dying—"

"Steve," Briggs says, softly but firmly. "I'm not dead. And it's okay."

"It's not," Steve whispers. "It's not okay."

"Okay," Briggs murmurs. "Then apology accepted. You... saved my life, you know." And looked good doing it. "I probably wouldn't have..."

Maybe not the right thing to say, based off the way Steve's expression twists, mouth pinching down and brows knitting together in worry.

He's trying to think of something reassuring to say when two soft raps on the door have Steve's hand silently retreating from Briggs's. His fingers curl around empty, cold air.

Ma and Danny stand in the doorway, and it looks like Ma's spent three straight days and nights at the daycare, hair frizzy and eyes all worried and dark-circled. Hopper's behind them.

Corey's hair is more of a rat's nest than he's ever seen it, and she's got a nasty bruise forming on her jaw, but she looks otherwise unharmed. Even happy, a little bit. Relieved. She says, "We gotta tell 'em, Briggs."

"Oh, baby," Ma says, rushing over to the bed and wrapping Briggs in some semblance of a one-sided hug. "Oh, God."

Corey climbs right onto the bed without asking, and Briggs wraps his good arm around her without thinking twice. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, unsure exactly how to start this batshit crazy explanation, and then Corey gets tired of waiting and starts it for him.

"So," she yawns. "Y'know D and D?"

They start to explain, and the whole family is sitting there crying together, except Briggs but it's probably because he's too dehydrated, and he only realizes several minutes later that Steve has slipped out.

He contributes where he can, backing up Corey's dramatic retellings of monsters and interdimensional travel and the uncanny way a tabletop RPG mimicked the real world, but he feels himself flagging before long, drunk on exhaustion and whatever drugs are being pumped into his bloodstream.

"And then she flung Lucas through the air, like with her brain—" he catches, and his eyes flutter closed.

▮▮▮

He's going to miss so much fucking swim practice.

Between bouts of unconsciousness, a doctor popped in to explain that the "animal attack" had resulted in severe blood loss, a mild concussion, and punctured cartilage just around the rotator cuff. Any closer and he likely never would've been able to swim again. It'll still take a while before he's back to full function, but he should theoretically make a full recovery.

There's a gash from the Demogorgon's claw from his collarbone to his shoulder and four puncture wounds in the back. He's a little hopped up on painkillers, and between that, the concussion, and the blood transfusion, he's going to be pretty unsteady on his feet for a while, so the hospital wants to keep him until morning. The doctor murmurs something about Selah checking on him later, and Briggs smiles at the thought of Mack's mom, and then the room is quiet again.

After a beat of silence, Corey says, "I'm mad at you. You didn't say bye when you left the middle school. So. Rude, y'know." She sniffs. "Have some manners."

Briggs pokes her on the nose and Corey draws back indignantly. "I'm sorry," he says. "But I would do it again."

"You—"

"You would have followed me," Briggs interrupts her. He looks at her, daring her to refute it. But she can't. She sticks her tongue out and flops back into the pillows.

"You owe me ice cream."

"Whatever you want, kiddo," Briggs says around a yawn. "Harrington still here? Guess I should tell him he won't have any competition in the pool for a while."

Corey shrugs. "Think he left a while ago."

"Oh," Briggs says, nonchalant.

Oh, Briggs thinks, worried. He wishes he could call him on one of those stupid walkies. Tell him it'd be okay if he stayed. If he wanted to.

Selah comes in eventually, Mack on her heels, and ushers Corey out of the bed so she can replace his IV bag and check on him. Briggs watches his sister's dark hair disappear around the corner and lets himself check out a little, float in that space just before falling asleep.

And then he blinks, and Jon is in the doorway.

"Hey," Briggs murmurs, and Jon takes a few steps inside, almost hesitant. "How's Will?"

"Uh, good, yeah." He shoves his hands in his pockets. "All the kids are in there with him now. Everyone's here, the Wheelers and Hopper and—y'know. Except—"

"Eleven," Briggs whispers. "I'm sorry."

"It's Mike I'm worried about," Jon admits. He's looked exhausted since the day Will disappeared, and that hasn't changed, but somehow now he seems... lighter. The relief of having his brother here, safe, alive, pushes away that cloudy burden that's been hanging over him for the past week. God, has it really only been a week? "He's just... going through the motions."

"You're all good for now, sweetie," Selah says, ruffling Briggs's hair affectionately. "You rest, okay?" She looks warningly at her son and then Jon. "And you two, don't bother him." But her voice is heavy with the kind of fondness only a mother can have, and she gives the three boys soft smiles before departing and closing the door behind her.

The second she's out of sight, Mack and Jon plop themselves down on each side of the bed, shoulders sinking in a combination of relief and sleep deprivation. Briggs feels the most relaxed he has in forever, with just the two of them in here, the way it has been for so long.

"Thanks," he murmurs at some point while Mack and Jon are making idle chatter about Chester and how if Mack got a cat, they would definitely hate each other. The boys look at him a little quizzically.

"For what?" Jon asks, baffled. Briggs yawns again. Whatever painkillers Mack's mom has him on are hitting hard.

"Everything," he says, and then he falls asleep.

▮▮▮

It's a blur, getting home. He refuses to leave until he can see Will from the doorway—the kid's asleep, but he's alive and well, and that's all Briggs needs to settle that thing that's been writhing around in his gut like a cobra since he went missing.

In the waiting room, Nancy lurches awkwardly to her feet, clutching that gold necklace she's always wearing like a lifeline. "Briggs," she says, shoulders hunched like she's not sure whether she regrets the decision to talk to him yet.

"Uh, hey, Wheeler."

"God," she says. "I'm glad you're not..."

His eyes trail down the sleeve of her plaid jacket, the cuff of her sweater, to the bandage wrapped around her palm.

"Yeah. I'm glad you're not, either."

She and Mack make eye contact for a beat too long and then nod, solemn, and Briggs finds himself grateful that he at least has someone who is just as distraught over Barb's death. Someone else who knew her, who understands. They must have talked at some point while Briggs was out. The way they have a quiet conversation with their eyes, now, hints at some unspoken understanding.

Ma drives Briggs and Mack home. Hospitals have never sat well with Briggs, but this was the longest he's ever spent in one, and the sterility of it all, the monotony of talking to person after person with the same I'm glad you're okays and oh, thank Gods was starting to grate at him. He's glad to be out before he loses his cool and snaps at someone who doesn't deserve it.

He wishes he could snap at Steve, because he does deserve it, running off like that.

"Demogorgon," Ma mutters to herself in the car, the sound mixing with an Elton John track streaming from the radio. "Absurd. Absolutely absurd." She twists in her seat to glance at the boys. "You will tell me if the dragons part of Dungeons and Dragons becomes real, you hear? Or any of you are in a dungeon. Or there are any more of those—those things." She shudders. "In Hawkins, Indiana. Who would have thought?"

Mack sighs. "Yes, ma'am."

"You hear that, Bridger? Yes, ma'am, I'll tell you the next time a supernatural being threatens my safety."

"Yes, Ma, I'll tell you the next time a supernatural being threatens my safety," Briggs drawls.

"Thank you."

The thank you is for more than that. Last night, when Corey had fallen asleep and Briggs was a little more coherent, Ma held him close and whispered, "Thank you for protecting her. You are a good brother, Bridger."

Somehow, that was what he'd needed to hear more than anything else. That he'd done the right thing, taking all those risks and dodging all those truths. That Corey had come out on the other end of everything safe and sound, that someone recognized it, knew it, even though Briggs had felt like he was putting her life at stake the whole time and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

If the fabric of Ma's sweater was a little damp when she pulled away, she didn't say anything about it. She just pressed a palm to his cheek and murmured, "My boy. I'm so glad you're okay."

Now, Ma makes sure the boys are still okay, presses a fierce kiss to Briggs's forehead, and then heads out again, because she needs to get the car back to the hospital for Danny and Corey—there's only one shared vehicle between them.

"Easy," Mack murmurs as Briggs stumbles over the threshold of the front door, pausing to steady him before kicking the door closed and guiding him down the hall. "Okay?"

"Mhm." Briggs leans on Mack a little as his balance wavers. The arm around his waist tightens its hold in response, and the boys stumble into the half-made bed like they haven't slept in years. But somehow, Briggs doesn't feel like sleeping.

"Mack."

"Huh?"

"Jon and Nancy. Do you think...?"

"I think a lot of things," Mack sighs. He sits up and shoves a pillow at Briggs. "I think Steve and Nancy have some shit to figure out. I think Jon has a lot of feelings he doesn't know what to do with." He grabs a water bottle from literally nowhere and shoves it at Briggs with a don't argue expression uncannily similar to Selah's. "Mostly, I think he's gonna be too focused on Will for a while to do anything about those feelings."

It's stupid, that teenage romance feels like it has any significance after worlds have literally collided, dimensions have spilled into one another, monsters have come and gone. But the heart wants what it fucking wants, apparently.

Briggs doesn't respond to any of this. He knows Mack, as usual, is right.

"Will he be okay?" he murmurs. He's not sure who he's asking about, Jon or Will. But Mack just nods, like he's never had any doubts in his life.

"Yeah, man. He'll be okay." He shoves at Briggs's good shoulder and stands up. "Now go the fuck to sleep."

▮▮▮

a/n:

hey, friends! i'm so sorry this took absolutely ages and i left you on that absolute asshole note at the end of chapter ten. i thought i'd have a little more time after like, graduating college, but turns out applying for a million jobs while doing an internship and freelance writing feels the same way school did. whoops.

this was just kind of looming over my head because briggs was so out of it the whole time that the writing style was very choppy/runny/stream of consciousness, but it's here now! one more chapter wrapping up season one and then we're onto two, which i am super excited for.

[word count | 5.3k]