Crack Attack: A Collection of One-Shots and Other Disturbing Shit

Proofless - Chapter 8

The long silence continues for the second day as he leans forward and gently picks at the watch stretched between my hands under the bedspread, Legos scattered all around us so that she won't be able to tell what we're doing if she looks back at the camera footage. We must have spent at least six hours on this god damned watch now with nothing to show for it but raw, cracking fingertips and a burning disappointment. It has to work sometime, right?

"Crap," he mutters as the familiar rumbling from the car coming down the street interrupts his concentration and brings me out of my spacey trance. It's still hard for me to think about anything without the constant throbbing of my foot getting in the way. I hand the watch over and he expertly latches it back around my wrist, glancing up at me for a split second before he moves back over to his side of the bed and starts pulling the stuck Legos apart again to put on a show for her. I grab the multicolored chunk of plastic from under the bedspread and continue adding more tiny pieces to it until it starts to look like a lopsided U.S.S. Enterprise. The car door slams upstairs and I absentmindedly stretch my legs, cringing in agony when I accidentally flex my broken toes. The flimsy triple layer of folded-over duct tape that she used to make a splint across my foot isn't quite cutting it, and I dread having to get up and walk again in a few hours.

After what he did to me, the least he could do was stop being a mopey asshat and be some company.

---

"I'm done. I need a break." His dagger nails are stronger than mine and he has the better chance of prying it open, anyway. He hands me the poor watch covered in scratches, dust from broken fingernails, drops of blood, and layers of skin oil and I take a second to examine the metal circle embedded in the back for any sign of it budging. Nothing yet. I hold it tightly in my sore hands and he pauses for a second to check his fingernails to see which one will give us the best chance of success. We sit there for a surprisingly long time, waiting for the car to return and waiting for the watch to give up the ghost and just pop open already. He picks and picks and picks, then he silently asks me to turn it so that he can use a different finger to pick at the other side for a while. But no such luck today, either. Vibrations rattle the driveway as the car pulls in from her daily shopping trip and within seconds, the watch is back on my wrist and we are pretending to be asleep.

Any day now.

---

"Would it be easier if we just used the pin from the band?" he asks, his voice raspy from lack of use from his moody religious bullshit. He should have known that he was going to hell the instant he was born. Now isn't the time to have a fucking identity crisis, when she can come down here and start terrorizing us again at any time.

"I still think we should keep that as a back-up, man. We are only going to get one chance at this - when she finds out, we won't have any of this, " I jiggle the watch behind the Lego house shielding us from the camera, "to work with anymore. We might not even have fingers to use anymore." I jerk my head toward my still-swollen, purple and black toes and he nods guiltily, deciding not to argue with me for the first time in his life. That was surprising. "Are you okay?"

"I'm... No, not really. I don't really wanna talk about it." At least he's talking again today. I sigh and hold the watch out for him and his organic crowbars to start working away on. It feels like we're getting nowhere with this but what choice do we have?

---

His face is mere centimeters away from the back of the watch and his forehead is crinkled in concentration. He said that he thought he was onto something, but that was over an hour ago before he repositioned his ass eight times, getting closer and closer to the watch. I have to hold my fingers up out of the way or they would be poking him in the eyes. The repetitive clicking of his nails slipping down the smooth metal is comforting; it means that she isn't home and that both of us are still conscious and sane. I kind of enjoy the secondhand touch we share when we work on our plan together, the feeling of him being so close and our fingers occasionally brushing as he works. I start to zone out again, my own form of pain medication, when he starts picking more furiously. Is he losing his temper at it again? He gets a good grip on it and pulls in an unfamiliar motion.

"ROB!" I jump at his sudden croaking and I bend over to the side next to the mound of bedspread to get a closer look. The top edge with the tiniest of indentations in it from Dad's screwdriver is bending upward ever so slightly, revealing the brighter silver inside of the watch face. He got it open.

"You sunk my battleship." It's the only safe reply above a whisper in case she has microphones in here, too, and a huge grin spreads across his face. We might have a chance at this, after all. I get a tighter grip on the watch and hold it out for him to pull harder, an excited whimper escaping from my throat when the back comes off completely, revealing all of the gears, screws, and pins waiting for us inside. "GG, bro. G-fucking-G."

"We hafta get going! She's gonna be back any time and-" He whispers frantically as he sits up straight and holds his wrists out for me to pick the locks. I shake my head and he frowns deeply, his eyes darting uncertainly over at the door. "Whaddaya mean, 'no?' Rob!"

"She might be back any time. We have to do it as soon as she leaves or we won't stand a chance. We need to be prepared and we need to practice getting the locks off before we go for it." He doesn't look convinced but he knows he can't leave without me. He does look disappointed, though.

"If we don't do it today, how're we ever gonna do it? You're gonna lose all the pieces when you move if you put back on like that."

"We have to put the back back on." He looks completely disgusted now and he holds his bloody, bruised fingertips out for me to look at.

"And how're we gonna get it back off? Wait another week so we can 'practice' and do it all again? Screw that, dude."

"It won't be that hard. I need a string, a really long one. Can you get one off of your shirt or the bedspread or something?" He doesn't seem impressed but we both start looking for our next unlikely tool. I finally manage to get one from the waistband of the too-tight pair of basketball shorts she made me wear and I hand him the watch to hold. I loop the string back and forth across the mess of spinning gears in a squiggle pattern, then I press the back of the watch into place, pulling up on the three little loops of string on each side to pop the back off with relative ease. He seems minimally convinced of my plan now. I can't help but wonder how long either of us would have been trapped down here by ourselves.