Title: The Box

Author/pseudonym: Natalia Carter

Rating: R

Pairing: Peter Dragon/Stuart Glazer (Action)

Date: 2/3/00

Archive : Yes

Series: The Long Hard Road

Category: Drama, big-time angst

Disclaimer: Chris Thompson and FOX have the offical rights, but I love them more and posession is nine tenths of the law.

Summary: Peter and Stuart go through some rough times.

by Natalia Carter

*I'm going to die here.*

The thought pops unbidden into his head, and an annoying relative, once it's there it will not leave. He shivers and wraps his arms around his knees.

The little room is cold and dark, pitch-black. The only indication of size he can get is from pacing it off, carefully, with one hand resting on the wall so he doesn't walk head-on into the stone. Three steps to the right, then turn and four more, turn and another three, then turn and four, and he's back in the corner that he's come to think of as his.

Although, it's all his. He's alone in the darkness, in the cold, just him and his thoughts. There is no indication of time in the hole, no way of telling how long he has been there, what day it is, or what time. For someone whose life has always depended on the clock, this is the hardest to deal with. He has never been one to share his space with other people, but his watch is a different matter. But it's broken, dead, the face shattered--that much he could feel with the tips of his fingers, probing gently. And that, for some reason, makes him angrier than anything else. They (he realizes with some amusement that he has automatically assumed it was a 'they' that captured him, not a 'he' or a 'she') could lock him away, deprive him of food and water, torture him, whatever--but fuck with his watch, and you were in trouble.

He thinks this is funny, and laughs silently until he can't breathe anymore. Then he lays down across his corner, head against one wall, toes pressd against the perpendicular one.

He is getting weaker.

**

*I need him.*

Peter Dragon is outraged at this realization. He lifts a paperweight off his desk and throws it, hard, against a wall. It falls to the ground with a thunk, and he follows it, sinking to his knees. He sits on his heels and hangs his head, eyes drooping closed.

He is so tired.

*I need him.*

Wendy comes into his office, cautiously. She is worried about him, he knows, but he doesn't care. Peter doesn't care about anyone, anymore.

He wants Stuart back.

It has been three full days since his lover kissed him goodbye and walked off into the darkness. They agreed that it was best for Stuart not to spend the night; after all, they had to be at work early, and if Stuart stayed over neither of them would have gotten any rest. So he had sent Stuart home, with nothing more than a kiss and a whispered "See you tomorrow".

Peter wishes, now, that he had asked Stuart to stay. That he had taken the other man in his arms and never, ever allowed him to leave.

For it had been somewhere between Peter's house and his apartment that Stuart Glazer had disappeared. Peter had checked with Stuart's landlady; she hadn't seen the other man since the morning of that day.

The cops had found something the other day. A black Jansport backpack. One that Peter had identified as belonging to Stuart. He had been carrying it when he left Peter's house. There was blood on the backpack. A lot of blood.

Peter glances out the window, and realizes it is snowing. He has a sudden, desperate wish to share this with Stuart.

Stuart.

Peter lets loose with a sob. He hates this. Hates losing his cool, especially in the office. He hates what losing Stuart has done to him.

He is getting weaker.

**

The little room seems to be closing in around him.

Stuart Glazer paces more restlesly now, out of sheer nervous energy. Four steps, three, four, three. Again and again and again. The back of his head hurts from where they hit him; his arm, where they cut him and made him bleed. He wants his backpack. His entire life was in that bag, and he wants it back.

The bastards still haven't given him any food or water. Bastards.

He doesn't want to die.

**

Peter is becoming frantic, desperate. The cops have recieved a note from the kidnappers. They say that Stuart is dying. That he hasn't had any food or water in the five days that he has been their prisoner.

*Oh, Stuart.*

The cops have found a clue. A single hint, a thread that may lead to Stuart. Something they found on his backpack. Peter isn't sure what; the cops are keeping detains very secret. But for the first time since this ordeal began, Peter has reason to believe.

He hopes Stuart still believes.

**

Stuart Glazer has not moved from his corner inn a long, long time. He has lost the strength, the will, to get up and move. He keeps his eyes closed now--nothing worth seeing anyway.

He misses Peter desperately. He feels sorry about doing this to Peter--no matter how many times he tells himself that what has happened isn't his fault, some small part of his mind does not buy it.

At the beginning, when this all started, he was sure that he would be going home soon. Peter would find him, and bring him home, safe. But he is finding it hard to believe now.

Stuart has resigned himself to the fact that he is going to die in this dark hole. He finds a certain peace in the knowledge.

He closes his eyes and smiles.

**

This is it. The last chance.

The cops have allowed Peter to come with them, on the theory that his presence will calm Stuart down when(if) they find him. So, Peter sits tensely in a police cruiser, watching as a SWAT team swarms through a big, old farm house. He hears gunshots, and his heart leaps into his throat.

He prays Stuart is all right.

**

Stuart hears noises for the first time since he was captured, and opens his eyes. It's a struggle to raise his head off the floor, but he manages. The noises sound like gunshots. People running. Voices, loud ones.

And then part of the ceiling disappears, revealing brilliant light. Stuart is instantly and completely blinded.

He screams.

**

Peter hears Stuart's scream, from all the way out in the car, and he panics. Before he even knows what he is doing he's out of the cruiser, running toward the house, tripping and picking himself up, still running. The one and only thought in his head is STUART . . .

It is not until he falls a second time that he realizes he was screaming it.

**

They tell him, later, that Stuart's scream was barely more than a squeak and there was no way he could have heard it. But Peter knows better.

He stands by Stuart's bed. Stuart is unconscious, completely oblivious to what has happened between the farmhouse and the hospital.

The SWAT team found Stuart in sort of a root cellar, a sub-basement in the farmhouse. He was weak and delirious--apparantly he had been kept in the darkness, no food or water, for the entire seven days. The light stunned him, knocked him out.

Peter had arrived seconds later, and thrown himself into the hole with no hesitation. Stuart had been in his arms instantly; Peter held him as close as possible, clinging to him, hugging him tight, murmuring inane things, reassurances. The paramedics tried to take Stuart away from him, but were unable to.

The doctors say that Stuart is okay, just dehydrated. He hadn't been abused, and for that Peter is thankful. He is sitting on the bed, holding Stuart's limp hand, and thanking the Powers That Be for his lover's life.

Peter laughs shakily. "I always told you we would regret coming out, Stuart."

There is no response; Peter is only half-surprised to find himself expecting one.

Peter sighs and moves away from the bed, toward the window. It is snowing again.

=30=