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Nick wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. He knew he had been with Troy. That they were leaving the Bazaar after trading in some shit they scavenged at the dam for food and water. As far as they had known none of Proctors men who had been at the dam were back yet. They must have been mistaken. Or had shit timing.
He remembers getting hit in the back of the head as they had finished loading up the truck, and hearing Troy shout before he fell to the ground unconscious.
Now... He isn’t sure where he is. It’s a small space. Cramped. His long limbs tucked in close to his body.
He’s pretty sure it’s night out still, because there’s no light. And it’s actually a little cold. Fall in the desert doesn’t get cold during the day, but at night it can get pretty chilly.
He shifts, tests how far he can move in the confined space. Feeling groggy, he hasn’t really registered that he might not be able to get out of wherever he is just yet. He just knows he’s got a headache and it’s cold and he doesn’t have a lot of room to move.
Rolling onto his back, his knees knock into something flat above. He reaches up, palms pressing against cool metal that’s smooth to the touch. He drags his fingers along it, feeling out slight curves at the edges to one end and at the other it connects to something like large hinges by a seam in the metal.
A car trunk.
He's in a fucking car trunk.
The surface beneath him is carpeted, and there appears to be no tools or anything laying in the storage space.
Panic starts to sink in as he feels around above him once again and finds there’s no emergency release. The car is either too old to have one, or his captors removed it with the intention of making sure he had no possible way out. A deep sense of dread settles in at that realization.
He makes a fist and starts to bang on the metal above him. “HELLO! IS ANYBODY OUT THERE!” he shouts, finding his voice a bit hoarse.
There’s no reply, just the sounds of his steadily increasing of breath, which is quickly becoming ragged as panic starts to rise in him.
They wouldn’t just leave him, would they? Proctor had wanted to execute him. He wouldn’t have his men just leave him in a trunk to die, right?
And where’s Troy? Is he in another car trunk somewhere. Did they kill him? Torture him? What the hell is going on!
Nick begins banging on the trunk lid above once again, now yelling at the top of his lungs in an attempt to get his captors to at least acknowledge him. Tell him to shut up. Anything to let Nick know he isn’t really alone. That he hasn’t been left to die in the trunk of a fucking car in the middle of the desert.
He bangs on the metal above until his fists hurt, voice a raw croak from yelling. He isn’t sure how much time has passed. Only knows that it’s starting to get light out because the lid apparently is dented in some way as light starts to filter in from around the seams in several places.
The sliver of light calms his nerves for a little while. Being able to see something other than darkness is like a beacon of hope. One that is short lived.
It starts to get hot.
Hot like the time he was in that god forsaken box back on the ranch only a few days prior. It feels like a lifetime ago.
It starts to get hard to breath, and that’s when the panic rises in full force.
He starts screaming again. Kicking and pounding in vain to get out or get someone’s attention. He needs to get out. Needs to breathe. Needs to know he isn’t going to die like this. Alone. Suffocating in a hot car like a dog.
He stops fighting when the air gets too hot, his breathing labored and his limbs heavy and aching from the fight he’s put up.
His vision is blurry. The dust motes he’d been able to see floating in the cracks of light are moving in a haze. He tries to reach up and touch them. Fingers only finding the hot metal above and making him cry out at how the heat makes his aching fingers hurt worse.
He tries to gasp in great lung- fulls of air at the pain, but it’s so hot, humid. It’s like he’s underwater almost. But without the mercy of blissful coldness that usually comes from such a thing.
He’s about to give in to the urge to close his eyes when there’s a clatter outside that he doesn’t really register.
A moment later there is a blinding light and a creak of metal as a gust of warm, but still cooler than he’s had so far, air hit’s Nick in the face like a shock of cold water.
He gasps aloud at the sudden mercy of cooler air entering his lungs. Ragged breathing picking back up to a panicked quickness for fear he won’t get enough of it before the lid is either closed again or his captor puts him to his end.
“Nick!” A familiar voice nearly shouts from behind the blinding light.
Hand’s grab his shoulders and start to pull him up. Nick thrashes weakly out of instinct, but he’s so tired, so dizzy he barely can move.
“Nicky, calm down! It’s me, it’s Troy!” Troy says in a rush, pulling Nick up and out of the Trunk so that he’s sitting on the edge with Troy’s arms wrapped around him. The taller man holding Nick to his chest in a tight embrace.
Nick sags against him, breathing still too fast from fear and desperation to get the oxygen he’d been being deprived in the hot space.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Troy assures him as Nick reaches up and weakly grabs hold of Troy’s shirt, fingers digging in to hold on for dear life as he fights to calm down. ”It’s okay. Just breathe.”
There’s a rough hand on the back of Nick’s neck, the other soothing up and down his spine over his sweat soaked shirt. It helps him slowly start to calm down. Breathing evening out eventually as he comes down from the fear and panic.
“Troy?” Nick manages to rasp out once he feels like he’s got himself under control again.
Troy pulls back enough for Nick to get a look at him for the first time since they’d been attacked the night before. He’s dirty, face smudged and a patch of dried blood coming down from the corner of his mouth where a bruise is forming.
“Come on, we gotta get out of here.” Troy says as he helps Nick move to stand properly. The younger of the two wobbles, unsteady and weak still from his time spent in the hot trunk. Troy pulls him close, hooking Nick’s arm over his shoulders to help him walk.
“What happened?” Nick asks as they start to move. They’re in what looks like an old junk yard. Broken down cars and appliances piled high all around.
“Two of Proctors men thought they would keep us locked up until the boss got home,” the sneer on Troy’s face looks all the more venomous with the blood and bruising coloring it. “They decided to knock me around to try and find out where Madison and Alicia went. Idiots couldn’t tie a knot though. Got free, got them to tell me where they left you and here we are.”
Nodding, Nick let’s himself lean against Troy as he leads him to their truck where it waits outside the massive chain-link fence of the junk yard.
As they drive off Nick takes deep breaths, eyes closed as he feels the wind on his skin and Troy’s warm hand held in his own where they rest in the space between them on the trucks old leather seats.