@dissociativedesign:
Billy stared at Mason flatly for a good ten seconds before sighing and setting down the plate in his hands. “Y’know Masie, I gotta tell ya, I ain’t gettin’ anythin’ outta this.” He sank into the folding chair beside him, metal creaking in protest of his weight. “It’s not my thing, and I’m tryin’ not to be a complete asshole bu-ut…” He shrugged a shoulder and laughed. “You know, that ain’t really my thing either.” He snorted and pushed himself up on his feet again. He fished a tube of neosporin out of his pocket and tossed it at the other. “Put some of that on yer wrist.” His phone buzzed and he frowned down at it before stepping back out of the half finished basement room.
Cold fear coils in Mason’s belly and he catches the neosporin and licks his chapped lips. He’s seen Billy like this before, in work mode, goal oriented, but never as the focus of his efforts, only as a co-conspirator. Something’s happened and that means that Mason’s in a whole mess of trouble.
“C’mon, Fred -- whatever it is you don’t have to do this. Let me go and I’ll take care of it,” Mason says, voice low, wheedling. The way he’d talk to Margot when he’d really hurt her and didn’t want her running of making a fuss. Let big brother take care of everything.
But no dice, he didn’t really expect it to work and he watches Billy out of the room and then looks around, looks down at his wrist and squeezes the tube of ointment. When Billy’s out of sight he twists the cap off and squirts out half the tube onto his wrist where the cuff sits, smears it underneath and all the way up to the joint of his thumb and starts trying to slide the cuff off.
If he can get free maybe he can get out, and that’s a start.