"You cannot possibly be serious."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" The man holding the gun – the other man in the car called him Gabriel, at one point, though Daniel would wager that's not his real name – raises an eyebrow. "What's the matter, you claustrophobic or something?"
"No, but–" Daniel answers without thinking, and then, "Would it make a difference if I was?"
Gabriel shrugs. "Not really." He waves Dan toward the empty casket lying open on the floor.
His partner, whose name Daniel didn't catch, returns from the next room with a roll of duct tape in one hand and a sheet of gray foam-like material in the other, items that Daniel wouldn't expect to find readily available in an ordinary funeral home. Of course, this isn't an ordinary funeral home; or if it was at some point, it doesn't seem to be anymore. No one else is here.
As the other man kneels beside the casket and begins securing the foam to the inside of the lid – soundproofing, Dan realizes, with a sudden, intense urge to vomit – Gabriel shoves Daniel a few steps forward with one hand.
He regains his balance – not an easy task, with his hands still cuffed behind his back – and turns to face Gabriel. "Listen, you don't need to do this–"
"Will you just get in? It's not gonna kill you." Daniel's skepticism must show on his face, because Gabriel rolls his eyes and adds, "Trust me, if I was gonna kill you, I wouldn't be going through all this trouble. I'd just shoot you and dump you in and be done with it."
Daniel suppresses a shudder at his nonchalance. "Then why? Why is any of this necessary?"
"Because paying someone off to overlook one piece of cargo is a lot easier than trying to force a whole-ass person onto a passenger plane."
Daniel blinks. "Cargo?" His stomach twists into an even tighter knot. "Where is the plane going?" he hears himself ask. Like it could matter less.
Gabriel casts a quick glance at his partner, who shrugs, as if to say who cares if he knows? "Los Angeles."
"Are you serious?" Daniel laughs, near-hysterical. "That's where I was going. I was on my way to the airport today, to fly to LA, if you hadn't stopped me."
The two of them exchange another look and another shrug. Gabriel gestures to the casket again while his partner stands and leaves the room, tossing the duct tape back and forth between his hands.
"I can cooperate," Dan insists. "I swear, I won't be any trouble, I– I'll even pay for my own ticket, just let me–"
"Nah, it's a bit late for that," Gabriel interrupts. "Our guy at LAX is already expecting you, so."
Daniel shakes his head. "This is insane. You can't smuggle a person in a cargo hold, it's impossible."
"Oh, it's possible," the other man says as he re-enters with another roll of foam, this time rolling a large metal box behind him like a suitcase. "Better make your peace with it now, my man."
"There's not enough air," Daniel says. In response, Gabriel taps the side of the box with one foot, and Dan watches uncertainly as his partner opens it, revealing some kind of unwieldy apparatus resembling a hard-sided backpack. "What is that?"
"Keeps you from running out of air," the man replies, holding up an oddly shaped piece of black rubber – a mask, connected to the rest of the machine by twin corrugated tubes. "I'd try not to jostle it around too much."
He gets back to work with the foam, and Daniel turns back to Gabriel. "H-how much are you getting paid to do this?"
He laughs. "Enough to not ask any questions."
"I'll double it."
"Right. 'Course you will."
"I'm serious." Daniel glances back and forth between the two of them. "Let me go and I'll give you both twice as much as you're being paid."
This time, the other man laughs. He leaves the room again while Gabriel smirks at Daniel. "You can't afford that."
"Yes, I can." He can't. He presses on anyway, "I can– I can even give you a nice down payment, if you'll take these off so I can get to my pack." He rolls his shoulders to indicate the handcuffs and the bulky backpack he's still wearing.
Gabriel's eyes narrow. He holsters his gun. "How about I see what you got first, and then we can talk."
He steps closer to Dan, who obediently turns around and stares at the casket, suppressing a shudder, while Gabriel uncuffs him and pulls the pack off his shoulders.
"Don't move," he says as Daniel turns back to face him. Then he adds, with a slight shrug, "Nowhere to go anyway."
He unzips the pack and begins to rifle through its contents. Daniel stays where he is and fidgets with his tie, because the statement is not incorrect; the small room has no windows, and Gabriel stands between him and the only door.
The other man returns, casting a single glance at him before resuming his work with the foam. Daniel would bet money that he's armed too, so even if he did manage to get past Gabriel somehow, he'd probably be just as screwed.
"Nothing in here but junk," Gabriel grumbles.
Daniel holds out a hand for the pack, and to his surprise, Gabriel actually gives it to him. He kneels and places it on the ground to rummage through it, stalling for time. He isn't entirely lying; he does have a meager amount of emergency cash tucked away in an interior pocket, but it's nowhere near enough.
His fingers brush the cell phone buried beneath everything else, and he freezes. Calling for help isn't an option; not with Gabriel standing over him. He could dial 911 and leave the phone open inside the bag, and hope that the speaker isn't loud enough for his kidnappers to hear, and hope that the operator doesn't write off the silence as a prank call or misdial, and hope that they're able to track the phone's GPS location, and hope that help arrives before he's locked into a box and taken elsewhere, and hope that these men don't decide to kill him outright if the police show up.
He steals a glance at Gabriel's gun, right at his eye level. He isn't really that hopeful.
There's no way out of this. There's no time.
"Hey, you got a scissor?" the other man asks.
Daniel flinches and stares at him. Surely he's not addressing Dan, is he?
"I got a knife," Gabriel says in response, answering Dan's question as well.
"That'll work." The man holds out a hand, and Gabriel steps toward him, digging in his pocket.
Daniel wraps a shaking hand around the phone. It's a terrible idea, and he knows it, but it's the only one he has.
Quickly, while Gabriel is distracted, Daniel flips the phone open inside the bag, navigates to his text messages, and addresses a new one to his only contact. The unfamiliar process is slow and awkward, but his clumsy thumbs manage to type out three letters anyway:
LAX
"Hey, what are you doing?"
He mashes the Send button, an instant before Gabriel yanks his hand out of the pack and rips the phone away.
"You little shit," he hisses, gripping Dan's wrist hard enough to bruise while he checks the screen. "Who the hell is Desmond?"
"No one," Daniel replies quickly, and it's the wrong answer. Gabriel drops his arm to draw the gun and presses it hard into Dan's forehead.
He shuts his eyes tight, and for a few agonizing seconds, nothing happens.
"You are so goddamn lucky he wants you alive," Gabriel growls, and the weight of the gun disappears.
Slowly, Daniel remembers how to breathe again. He opens his eyes just as Gabriel throws the phone to the floor and stomps on it, smashing it to pieces.
"It doesn't even matter," he grumbles, pulling his own cell phone from his pocket. "I'll just call our man in LA and tell him we're gonna fly to a different airport."
"And, when he asks why," Daniel says quietly, "What will you tell him?"
Gabriel stops dialing and glares at him, realization dawning on his face. He can't report anything without admitting that he was stupid enough to hand over Dan's pack, and he can't mention that without admitting why he did it. Slowly, he folds the phone and puts it back in his pocket.
Daniel doesn't see the gun swing toward him; he's just on the ground, suddenly, pain radiating from his jaw. He clutches his face with one hand and groans, the sound muffled by the ringing in his left ear from the impact. When his vision returns, Gabriel is standing over him, too close, like he's trying to decide whether to kick Daniel while he's down.
"Whatever, man, just forget it," the other man is saying, somewhere far away. "Are we ready to go or not?"
"Just about," Gabriel says after a moment. "Hand me those cuffs."
Shit. Daniel doesn't recover fast enough to get away from the hands that wrench his arms behind his back and the hard metal that closes around his wrists, tighter than before.
Then he's being dragged across the floor by his ankles and shoved into the casket on his back. "No, no, wait–"
He tries to sit up, but Gabriel shoves him back down with the end of the gun digging into his neck.
An empty threat; they need him alive.
As if reading his mind, Gabriel presses the gun into Daniel's knee instead. "Y'know, he didn't say anything about the number of pieces you could be in."
Dan takes a shaky breath. There's no way out of this. He watches helplessly as the other man secures the breathing apparatus into the casket with more duct tape.
Gabriel retrieves his pack from the floor and shoves it into the small space as well, down by his feet. "That everything?" Gabriel asks his partner.
"Yup," he replies, picking up the respirator attached to the apparatus now tucked into place beside Dan.
"Just one sec," Gabriel says. With no further warning, he grips Dan's jaw with one hand and thrusts something small into his mouth, something that clinks against his teeth like metal – the handcuff key. Daniel gags and twists to the side to spit it out, but the hand clamps down hard over his mouth to stop him.
"Hold still," Gabriel is saying, calmly, as he tries to wrestle free. His fingers tighten on Dan's face to slow his movements, nails digging into his skin. "Hold still, or I'm gonna find somewhere more creative to stick it."
Daniel stares up at him, eyes wide and growing wider as Gabriel pulls his hand away to press the respirator over his nose and mouth instead, muffling his wordless shout of protest.
"Try not to swallow that," Gabriel says as he pulls the straps over Dan's head and fastens them tightly.
Daniel's breath inside the mask is hot and damp and way too fast. His hands clench into fists beneath him, desperate to rip the damn thing off his head so he can breathe.
Just when he's sure that he's going to suffocate, the other man flips a switch on the device tucked into the casket beside Dan. Fresh air floods the mask, cool and breathable.
It's not enough to offset his panic. A wordless plea leaves him, muffled and desperate, when Gabriel lifts a hand to close the casket.
"Chill out," Gabriel says. "It's only a four hour flight, and there's eight hours in the rebreather." Then he shrugs. "Give or take."
Daniel's heart vaults into the back of his throat.
"Happy flying." Gabriel slams the lid shut.
If he survives this, he'll never complain about the inconveniences of air travel ever again.
Daniel spends a good deal of the flight praying, on the off chance that someone might actually be listening – God, or the universe, or destiny or karma or anything, really, he's not picky.
The worst part of being sealed in the darkness is not knowing how long he's been here. He'd started off counting seconds in his head, only to lose track completely when he felt the unmistakable g-force of the plane accelerating and leaving the runway.
So much for his chance to alert someone to his presence before takeoff; his prior attempts at making enough noise to be heard – kicking at the lid of the casket, tapping the metal handcuffs against a sliver of wood he'd managed to expose by tearing at the soft lining to his left – were answered only by one of his kidnappers slamming a fist down hard on the lid and shouting loud enough for him to hear that he'd better cut that shit out, unless he wants to travel with a broken nose. He thought he'd waited long enough, that maybe he was in an airport somewhere, being loaded into a cargo hold by people who would find it abnormal to hear banging from inside a coffin, people who would stop and do something about it, people who would help him.
Now it's too late; he's well and truly alone.
The air is too hot, stale and humid against his skin. He stopped trying to move long ago, aside from shifting around occasionally to restore the circulation in his fingers, but his initial panicking wasted an unknowable amount of oxygen, precious time that he won't get back. If anything goes wrong – if there's a delay in unloading the plane, if his abductors' calculations were incorrect – any sort of mistake at all and he could run out of time. He'll suffocate, then, gradually poisoned by his own exhalations.
He's breathing too fast, verging on hyperventilating again, and he squeezes his eyes shut, seeking comfort in the blackness behind his eyelids rather than the pitch-black void surrounding him. He can survive this, as long as he stays calm. He can make it through this.
It's not like he has a choice.
He squirms in the darkness, muttering a curse into the mask when his knee strikes the lid, and shifts until he has enough room – more or less – to roll to one side. The width of his shoulders barely fits in the tight vertical space, but it's at least enough to take the weight off his hands. He flexes numb fingers and tries one more time to squeeze his left wrist out of the looser of the cuffs, now that he's drenched in nearly enough sweat to flood the whole damn casket.
God, he's sick of being kidnapped. He kicks the side of the box in frustration, then closes his eyes again and takes a deep, shaky breath, resting his head on the too-soft pillow. He shifts the handcuff key to rest inside his cheek, somewhere that he could almost forget it's there, if it wasn't for the bitter metallic taste that he's not sure he'll ever get out of his mouth.
He takes a slow, deliberate breath through his nose, counting backwards from ten. Then another. And another. He imagines himself back on the island, standing on the beach, the sun warm on his skin and the sound of waves lapping at the shore, a breeze of fresh, salty air ruffling his hair and his clothes.
It's an eternity before the plane lands, long enough for the deceleration to force his stomach up into his throat, and another eternity of lying motionless before he feels the casket being moved again. He contorts himself in the small space to bang the handcuffs against the side of the box, as loud as he possibly can.
Nothing happens.
He tries again, and again, and again, until a sound like a car door rattles the wood hard. Then he waits in silence while the world shifts around him, accelerating and decelerating and turning in one direction or the other from time to time.
Eventually, the motion stops, and the muffled sound that's probably a car engine goes quiet. His breathing is too loud in his ears, too hard and too fast and he still can't get enough air.
He flinches when the casket is jostled, lifted up at an uncomfortable angle and then set down on something solid. Maybe the ground?
Has he arrived at whatever destination he's been shipped to, then?
A knock on the lid, right above his head, makes him flinch again. "Anybody alive in there?" a muffled voice asks.
He exhales. What happens now?
"Because if not, then I might as well put this in the ground where it belongs."
A shot of adrenaline jolts through him, and he kicks the side of the box, as hard as he can.
"There you are." There's a soft, rhythmic tapping sound, like fingers drumming on the wood. "Now, I'm going to open this and let you out, but I'm going to request a favor from you in return."
Dan blinks, and waits for an explanation that he's probably not going to receive.
"Does that sound fair to you, or would you like to stay where you are?" A pause, and then, "Knock twice if we have a deal."
He kicks twice without hesitation.
"That's a yes, then? You'll do whatever I tell you?"
Dread claws its way up his throat. He's going to regret this later.
But it's not like he has a choice.
Two more kicks, and the tapping sounds stop. There's a loud click from right beside him, and then he's blinded, suddenly, as the lid swings away and light pours in along with fresh, cool air.
"You must be Daniel," says the blurry figure leaning over him, silhouetted by a street light overhead. "I'm sorry for the circumstances, but we're already short on time."
Dan squints as a face comes into focus – vaguely familiar, but he can't place it. He doesn't have to, though, when the figure speaks again.
"My name is Benjamin Linus."