Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This was a moment in silence.

In Pete’s swaying peripheral vision, boys drifted, not nearly as many boys as when they last saw light, but, Ray was there, pressed up against Pete’s side and that was all that truly mattered.

Shadowed by the looming figure of the Major, stood, stately, atop a sputtering vehicle, in the pale glow of early morning, all of them trudged, together, towards their graves, children ardent for some desperate glory.

Almost every one of them, put half to sleep by the early hour, yet, walking still, leaden feet turned mechanical, steps rhythmic as the heart, movements made involuntary by their necessity in sustaining life.

It was better to have a friend, when you were marching asleep, Pete realised.

Noticing Ray’s head bobbing up and down endearingly in the crook of his neck, drooling on his shoulder like an idiot, like they were just two little boys, dozing on one another, in the back of an old, rickety car.

Maybe if they’d met at that age, at any age, any time other than this, maybe Pete could’ve convinced Ray to stay at home with his Mommy, won this thing alone and spoiled him with his winnings.

But they hadn’t, so Pete would have to die.

He pried himself away from his pointless, sentimental thoughts, hint thirteen, they were a waste of energy.

He instead, committed himself to noticing more, to collating evidence, proof that getting attached hadn’t just been one big, fat, heart-breaking mistake.

Noticing Baker’s gangly arm draped awkwardly around Olson’s shoulders, the head of height between them making them look clumsy, like Olson was Baker’s oddly realistic ventriloquist doll, propped up by ball joints and strings. It must’ve worked though, a little, counteracted his increasingly unsteady gait, or something, because Olson was still walking, even though Pete was sure he'd have bought it a while back.

Noticing that the Stebbins kid, the one who kept fucking with Ray, spewing all kind of miserable truths, who was always walking a little behind the rest of them, had had his sticky eyes open all night, wheezing and yawning, staring listlessly at his feet.
He’d probably read some statistic somewhere that said friends lowered the likelihood of winning or some shit. Fuck that.

Noticing Barkovitch, jerked back upright every time his head drooped too far down. Glancing around with darting eyes, jumpy, like someone had called his name, or fired a carbine just behind him, like it was someone else’s fault he was still awake.
Good, Pete thought, let his guilt choke him, it was well deserved.

All of this made Pete glad, so glad that he’d decided to damn it all and make connections in a place like this.

Even if it meant he knew he couldn’t win, couldn’t live.

Because if he hadn’t reached out, hadn’t at least tried, he’d be tired and alone with no one on his shoulder, he might’ve sat down already to save himself the pain, he wasn’t someone with any great motivation or willpower, not like the others, he hadn’t had a whole lot to live for, not before Ray.

He looked down at the guy in question, his stupid bobbing head and smiled.

And then, there was a moment of noise.

A gunshot. A yell.

For an instant, Pete just thought another unfortunate had bought his ticket, wandered the wrong way in his sleep.

Poor bastard, he thought.

But when the sound rattled again it resonated differently from the fire Pete had become accustomed to, these bullets were coming from an unfamiliar gun and they were coming for everyone.

All of a sudden Ray was awake, hands on his head, confusion palpable.

All of a sudden the two of them were not walking half asleep on a crooked pavement anymore, they were walking directly into the mouth of a graveyard.

Bullets fly and land, embed themselves in anything and everything, boys drop like pheasants but soldiers drop too, because the bullets are not coming from the guns of the soldiers but from somewhere else entirely.

A voice yells something, it sounded like Parker, that kid with the long hair.

‘I told you only the soldiers!’ Pete thought it said, but he can’t be certain. A bullet grazes Ray’s cheekbone leaves a red notch. Pete’s heart catches.

There was no time to think, Pete latched onto Ray and stumbled off the road, heading for cover behind a beat up building, it felt wrong to break the rules of the walk, if this was some kind of test and the rules weren’t actually out the window then he’s getting both of them killed.

But they were still alive as they stepped off the track into the dirt, they were still alive as Pete pushed Ray against the concrete wall next to him and they were still alive when he tugged him down to sit.

They were still alive even though they were sitting, they were still alive even though their watches read zero miles per hour. They were still alive.

Pete could never have imagined how wonderful it would feel to be able to rest and still be alive.

He turned to Ray with a big grin on his face.

‘We’re alive!’ He exclaimed, reaching forward with a sleeve to wipe at the graze on Ray’s face where the bullet almost got him, too caught up in the high of adrenaline and finally not being on his feet to be remotely anxious about the active gun fight still taking place behind them.

‘Alive, alive oh?’ Ray hummed hysterically, out of breath, Pete had got no damn clue what he was on about so he just clapped him on the shoulder and said;

‘Sure Garraty! Exactly that, whatever the hell you say.’

Ray looked at him then, like he’d just realised he’s awake, face crumpling, all big wet eyes and stuttering breaths, pleading for answers, guidance, something.

Pete didn't have any answers, he’d got just as much an idea of what’s going on as Ray does, but, lucky for Ray he’s got a good friend who’s better under pressure than he is, Pete can pretend he knows what’s up if Ray needs him to.

‘It’s rebels.’ He decided, thinking that’d be the kind of thing to placate a guy whose biggest dream in life was to shoot the major. ‘They’re tryna clear out the soldiers, end the walk, they’re not after us, the boys are just gettin’ caught in the crossfire, that's all.’

‘How d'you know?’ Asked Ray, Pete hadn't been expecting that, Ray was usually so eager to naively bite whatever bullshit Pete had to offer.

‘You heard Parker yellin’ for them earlier, right?' He asked. 'He’s got the look of a rebel, doesn’t he? Maybe he’s a plant, could’a been feeding them info so they’d know the best time to attack.’

‘It’s so loud, they’re still shooting, I think- I hope the others- Baker and Olson- I hope they're okay.’ Ray responded.

‘I’m sure they’re fine, they’ve gotta be, right?’ Pete replied, uncertain, because there really was an awful lot of gunfire back there, an awful lot of bodies. But he’ll say anything to not see that line between Ray’s eyebrows any longer.

Ray glanced away, lips pressed together and moved to peer around the wall, quickly, before Pete can begin to lament the fact that he’s in love with the most passively suicidal idiot alive.

He sighed, too tired to try to stop him, and directed his eyes ahead, away from the road, towards the wooded, grassy plane in the distance with all of its beautiful wildflowers.

Watches the bulb of a daffodil begin to bloom amidst the poppies.

Chapter Text

Ray stuck his head around a corner of the building he and Pete were huddled behind, hugging the wall, hoping to spot the two missing musketeers. Still keeping a hand hooked in the sleeve of Pete's jacket because, illogically, he was scared he wouldn’t be there anymore when he turned back.

Vision limited by the bitter gunpowder that clouded the air, all he managed to spot was a body, gargling red, roadkill.

Bloodied as it was he still managed to identify it. How could he not? It was the same face that seemed to be plastered on posters everywhere he looked, the person that pulled the trigger on Dad.

It was the major.

The major was dying, bullet in his trachea, drowning in a pool of himself, like an oversized, gutted fish.

Ray wanted to relish in it, to bask in the euphoria he had always imagined he’d feel when he saw the bastard choke on his own blood, but there was a detail, a person, ruining the view.

Above the body, loomed Stebbins, looking strangely vulnerable, he seemed somehow unsteady, even though he was standing completely still, like a hollowed out tree without its roots, right in the middle of the path where the shooters, whoever they were, could easily get a clear hit on him.

He was blinking hard, breathing funny, were he anyone else, Ray might’ve thought he was crying. But he wasn’t, because he was Stebbins.

Instead he was just standing there, expression distantly horrified, like a little kid hovering in front of a bashed up television, watching some superhero he thought invincible finally lose a fight.

He reminded Ray of himself as a kid too, watching something else, but he didn’t want to think about that.
Molly Malone and her fuckass wheelbarrow had been playing their tune on repeat in the back of his mind since he’d woken up.

‘What the hell are you doing?!’ Ray screeched, batting away Pete’s hand as it reached up to clamp down on his mouth, he knew he might be giving away their location but he couldn’t watch someone die such a stupid death because of the major, he'd feel like such a shitty person if he let him have the power to take another life after his death.

No response from the road.

‘Stebbins, get off the damn path!’ He tried again. ‘They’re gonna fucking shoot you!’

Stebbins turned to him, slowly, then, some strange, animal emotion written all over his face, Ray sorta wanted to sock him for being so torn up over someone like the major when he hadn’t shown an inkling of grief for any of the poor boys who actually deserved it, but, something about his posture dampened the rage.

He took one last glance at the body, watched it waste oxygen with its final breath.

Neither Ray nor Stebbins got to hear the major’s final words, he didn’t have any. The answers they had been desperately hoping for didn’t exist, not anymore, maybe never did, blowing in the wind with that final sigh of carbon monoxide.

Stebbins started walking again, towards Ray and Pete, no haste or panic behind it, staying at that same, annoyingly consistent three point one mile per hour pace he’d maintained for the entire walk, as if it even mattered anymore.

When he got close enough Ray yanked on his arm to throw him off balance and pulled at him until he’d been dragged down to sit in the dirt with himself and Pete.

‘Idiot.’ Muttered Pete, shaking his head, Ray didn’t know which of them he was talking about.

Stebbins didn’t look at them.

‘What’s the point now?’ Stebbins asked the sky. ‘What was ever the point of any of this?’

Ray thinks he half understands, because what was the point? The point of the last, painful, two days? Of the unrelenting dread that he couldn’t be sure would ever leave? Of all those dead kids who’d never get to have their futures? If this was all just going to end without a conclusion?

He'd thought, before, that the point was revenge, getting to see the major die but now that it’s actually happened he's not so sure.

Maybe, he thought, glancing at Pete, the answer was in the people that he’d met, but even that, wonderful as it was, didn’t seem substantial enough to justify this, if the walk never existed he could've met these guys organically, at the market or school or something, somewhere where they didn’t all have to die.

Ray stayed quiet, realising he didn’t have any answer that would actually mean anything.

‘Did you see Baker? Olson?’ Pete interjected rather than humouring the question, ever practical. ‘Did they get out of the line of fire?’

‘Are they dead?’ Was tactfully omitted.

‘They’re fine. For now.’ Stebbins sniffed, red rimmed eyes rolling over to Pete, somehow still managing to use the most ominous possibly wording despite looking like he was gonna cry. ‘I saw them duck into the foliage on the other side after the first shot.’

Ray let out a breath at that, it was reassuring because he knew that Stebbins was telling the truth, he didn’t care about their feelings enough to tell them that kind of compassionate lie.

For a while they just sat.

All three knowing that this moment of stillness could get them killed, if the shooters came back or decided to search behind this run down wall, yet, none were willing to throw out a plan when they all knew the only feasible plans would mean having to get up and start walking again.

And then the peaceful denial was broken by a teary voice in the near distance, calling out their names.

'Garraty, McVries, Stebbins! I found you! Thank God! They-' A pause to suck in a long, shaky breath, it was Harkness talking, that crazy kid with the notebook, there was something wrong with him, he was half crawling towards them, dragging a leg, talking through his clenched teeth, crying, not just fearfully but in a pained way that had him trembling, tensing every muscle, for a moment Ray wondered if he'd been shot, but then he saw it.

'They- They were gonna kill me!' Harkness continued, cried, wiping a hand clumsily beneath his glasses to rub at his eyes, getting dirt on his face.
'They were following me with their guns! And then someone- someone else got them first and now I- now I don't know what's going on!'

He moved to sit in front of them, cutting off his rambling once again with an agonised noise as he tried and failed to get his legs in front of himself so he could sit.

Something was very wrong with his ankle, Ray realised, it didn’t even look like an ankle anymore, he thought he’d been desensitised enough by this whole experience to not be affected by things like this, he’d been wrong.

'Awh Jesus Harkness!' Exclaimed Pete, recoiling when he saw the full extent of it, dragging a palm down his own face. 'How'd that even happen, huh?'

'It was on that hill, last night.’ Harkness hiccuped between sobs.
‘I twisted it and- and there was no time to stop or- or do anything- Oh no!' He wept, face scrunching up and turning an impossibly whiter shade as soon as he looked down at the mess he'd been talking about, like he’d only just seen it.

‘That's my bone isn't it! It's- I was hearing- something was- but I didn't know it’d be that bad!'

Ray looked away, saw Stebbins grimacing at the sight, he gagged a little in his mouth, opened it like he was about to say something, then closed it again.
Good, thought Ray, he probably would’ve just said something off putting, Ray reckoned he'd probably learned off a whole medical textbook just to narrate the walk better, to properly creep the rest of them out.

'I-I think that's just a bit of your sock Harkness, I wouldn't worry, you're alright.' Ray said, because no one else was saying anything, he was altogether far too aware of how reedy and unsure he sounded, trying helplessly to think of what he'd want to hear if his own bones were sticking out the side of his foot.

He made eye contact with Pete again then, because he was anxious and Pete was a solid person, just looking at him was reassuring, no one else in the world made Ray feel that way, weird.

Pete was pointedly looking away from the injured boy, weary, they still had to find the others, to get away before whoever was second in command to the major caught on and tried to make them keep walking, or worse, blamed them for this.
Bringing someone who was seriously hurt with them surely won't make getting away any quicker.

It was a difficult situation. They'd already been walking for two days, Harkness wasn’t going to be able to walk, that much was obvious, but Ray wasn’t so sure he’d be capable of going much longer while carrying someone else around, even a small guy like Harkness.

But then, like he'd read his mind Harkness spoke, sounding completely certain, deflated;

'You're gonna leave me here aren't you...'

Ray looked the kid in the eye, then, saw his wobbling lip and his stupid notebook still tucked in his shirt pocket, his wet eyes peering up at him like he was a losing greyhound and Ray’s the one with the gun.

Not everyone had to die, not anymore, not at all, maybe that was 'the point' he’d been looking for earlier, that it was okay to be kind now, that it was okay to take this guy with them, liability or not.

‘No, Harkness, no, you can come with us.' Ray told him, grabbing him by the shoulders.

'I concur, but you’re damn lucky I think this long walk in particular would make a badass book.’ Quipped Pete, yet grinned warmly at him anyway.

'It would wouldn't it.' Squeaked Harkness, relief evident in his attempted smile.

Chapter Text

The gunfire ceased, lessening, then stopping all at once, gave way to muted muttering that didn't register when nothing made sense.

Nothing like this had ever happened on a long walk, not in the entire eighteen years that it had existed. A downed brigades-man, interference on the road, a disorderly civilian, yes, but this? No. This was completely and utterly unprecedented.

Stebbins stuck his hand in his pocket and rubbed at the smooth glass of the popped out sunglasses lens he'd picked up a minute ago? five minutes ago? Half an hour? More? An amount of time ago.

Much like everything else, time no longer made sense.

He'd gone into this relying on patterns, he'd gone into everything relying on patterns, when the first walker started bleeding, when the major went to bed, it was all patterns, all the same things always happening over and over again every year, it didn't need to be orchestrated that way, there were simply only so many ways a thing like this could go.

Yesterday, it had all made sense, bodies and numbers, night and day, walking and words, death and speeches, but he couldn't go back to yesterday because he was a different person now, a person without an identity.

What was he going to do now?

‘What are we gonna do now?' Asked Garraty, voicing the sentiment. 'We should fix Harkness up the best we can then go find the others, right? You have to like, set broken bones and shit, right?’

Harkness didn't seem to have the energy to look perturbed about someone talking about him like he wasn't there, too busy wallowing in the dirt.

'I've gotta be honest with you, I don't know jackshit about broken bones.' McVries admitted, shaking his head. 'Typical, the one time we actually need Olson to rattle off some nerdy facts he's off in a bush somewhere.'

'If only someone else also knew a whole bunch of useless information.' Sighed Garraty, pointedly.

All eyes turned to Stebbins.

‘I’m not a doctor.’ He countered, defensive, because he wasn't, he was eighteen and he had no dad anymore and he didn’t feel well.

For the first time in forever he didn't feel above it all, he just felt his age.

Their expectations were terrifying, to be looked at like that, like he'd been created specially, just for this, and now he had an unspoken obligation to hang the moon and stars or die doing it.

‘We know.’ Stated McVries, calmly reframing the request. ‘But, let’s say, hypothetically, a person broke their leg, like Harkness here, on the long walk but won anyway by hopping or crawling or some other miraculous bullshit, how would he be treated on site before the ambulance got there?’

Huh, that was actually a similar situation to something that had happened before.

During the sixth long walk a finalist, number forty something, had lost the sole of his hard shoe, kept walking on the nails for too long anyway and by the time he'd taken them off there'd been jagged bone sticking out of the holes in his socks, he'd only outlasted the other guy because he passed out.

After he'd made his wish someone with a nurses kit rushed out of the crowd, stuck a roll of bandages in his mouth, peeled off the remains of the sock and dumped a whole bottle of antiseptic all over the guy's foot, he'd screamed, a lot. Then, right before they took him away, the person had taken out some sort of thicker bandage and wrapped it all up real tight so that the foot couldn't move at all.

'Oh.'

Maybe he did know what to do. That was a smart way to put it. McVries was smart, maybe he would've placed second, if none of this had happened.

Stebbins wordlessly situated himself beside what was left of Harkness's foot, Harkness himself looked up at him in alarm with wet eyes.

'Please don't hurt me.' He begged. 'It won't hurt more will it? It can't, can it?'

'It will.' Stebbins replied, tilting his head to remove Garrety wincing at the bluntness from his peripheral vision. 'You've walked this long on it though, so I know you'll manage. You're the kind of person who'd rather hurt than die.'

'Mhm.' Nodded Harkness, grimacing as Stebbins snatched the glasses off his face and handed them over to McVries to look after, it was better not to see, probably. Then he pulled his hat out of his rucksack, folded it up and stuck it in Harkness's mouth, to make him bite on it rather than his tongue.

After that, he hooked his fingers in the top of the sock, to try to get it off, the leg flinched violently the moment he got close.

'Can one of you keep him still? Why are you just standing there?' He snapped at the others, who moved into action.

The whole thing was disgusting, he kind of felt like he was torturing Harkness rather than helping him.
I'm somewhere far away, just watching, Stebbins told himself to distance himself from that concept, as he peeled the bloody sock away from the broken appendage, ignoring the sounds the other kid was making, swallowing down the phlegm in the back of his throat so it wouldn't make him gag.

When the sock was off, along with an unfortunate amount of what was probably flesh, Stebbins uncapped his water cannister with shaky hands, then remembered the implications of bacteria, backwash and bone infections and reached for Harkness's untouched cannister instead, emptying it all over the wound to wash out the dirt and blood that had accumulated from walking on it.

Finally he took off his jacket, lamenting the loss of it when the wind hit his arms, wrapping it tight around the foot to stop the blood, tying the arms to keep it secure, bunny ear method, like his shoelaces.

When the task was done he washed his hands of the blood with what remained of his own, already open cannister and looked up at the others.

It seemed Harkness had passed out sometime during the process, probably for the best, the other two were looking down at him, concerned, his head lolling across McVries legs.

It was a shoddy job at best, no painkillers or antiseptic or antibiotics or bandages or any of the other stuff that was definitely necessary, but, it was the best he could do with what he had.

'Will he be okay?' Asked Garraty.

Stebbins just shrugged.

'Yeah I thought so, good job though, that was impressive.' Garraty returned. There was no sarcasm in it, it made him Stebbins happier than he thought it would.

'Alright.' Said McVries decisively. 'We need a course of action. We find Baker and Olson, anyone else if we spot them and we get somewhere safe. Find someone who'll help, who won't turn us in.'

'Good luck with that.' Stebbins sniffled, mood ruined by McVries ignorant optimism and the prospect of having to get up again. 'Everyone in the country knows who we are, no one's gonna help, no one wants to risk getting shot for harbouring fugitives, the major-'

'The major can't shoot anyone anymore.' Interjected Garraty, forceful. 'You saw.'

'Oh. Yeah. Well. Still.' He replied, disoriented, the evidence was only a few meters away but it still didn't register, somehow. 'No one else knows that, they'll turn us in.'

'Not if we find my Mom.'

'Your Mom?' McVries and Stebbins questioned, almost in unison.

'I mean, yeah! I live here or-' Garraty rambled, gesturing to the rolling countryside. 'Not exactly here, here, but further up! If we can find her, she'll help for sure!'

'Ray, how much further up exactly is 'further up'?' Asked McVries, raising an eyebrow.

'I mean, I was supposed to meet her at about the two hundred and eighty mile mark?.. If I made it that far.'

'Garraty. That's three more days straight walking.' Deadpanned Stebbins, he was starting to realise that Garraty's plan was rooted in homesickness much more than it was in any realistic chance at survival.

'I know! I know okay?! But we'll take breaks! Go slower, get proper sleep when we get far enough from here, aim to get there in a week instead, it's way more achievable than what we were gonna do anyway, I can't see many other options, she's our best shot, right?'

'You know what Ray, you're right.' Decides McVries, because of course he does, when has he ever disagreed with anything Garraty has said? 'We'll go find your mom, in fact, I can't wait to meet her! She a good cook? I'm hungry as hell.'

'Yup, she makes a mean stew, maybe she'll be waiting, have a big meal prepared for us and everything. We've got those feathered cushions too-'

All of a sudden Stebbins finds himself incredibly glad that they're bringing Harkness with them, the prospect of third wheeling McVries meeting Garraty's mother sounds like it would be leagues more traumatising than anything else that's happened today.

'Shut up, you're making me nauseous.'

'Sorry for talking about actual balanced meals, Stebbins, I almost forgot you only eat gross sandwiches.' Garraty quipped. 'I'm sure my mom has bread and jelly in the house too.'

Stebbins restrained himself from the urge to counter that with a comment about the 'raw meat' McVries ate earlier only to save himself from the subsequent insufferable reaction the innuendo would induce.

He just rolled his eyes instead.

'Enough chit-chat boys. There hasn't been fire in a hot minute, we should be good to cross and find the others now.' Says McVries, clapping his hands, using the wall to stand up, painfully before offering Garraty a hand.

Stebbins really, really doesn't want to stand back up, he can't feel his feet inside his shoes and the shock of sitting has broken the autopilot he'd been walking with.

He'd be more than happy to die here, close to his father's corpse, if it would mean getting to sleep here in the heavy dirt until all of the tiredness and the pain in his chest went away.

Maybe they'd bury them together.

But, the others are looking at him, he was supposed to be their lure, not the other way around, to be the one tempting them further than the previous contestants, that was the job he'd assigned himself, to make somebody proud, but, maybe now that he'd been cut loose from the mechanical track he'd have to learn to use his own two legs.

Maybe he wanted to.

He took an outstretched hand and stood up.

The three of them turned to face the road, Harkness balanced, floppy, between Garraty and McVries, and they began, once more, to walk.

Chapter Text

Art was frightened.

He'd seen what happened, it had passed in a blur but he'd seen it none the less.

He had been walking, not quite awake but not quite asleep either, afraid to fully commit to it after that hill. He hadn't been worried about himself so much as he'd been for his friend.

It had been because Olson was being quiet, more than anything, all Art could drag out of him were one word answers, nods or shakes of the head, Art hadn’t known the guy long but he’d known him long enough to know that he was far from a quiet person, the chatter he had come to associate him with was suddenly gone.

It was as if a person only had a limited number of words they could use up on the long walk and Olson had expended all of his in one go.

So Art had been walking close by, looking out for him, just in case he needed him for something, it wouldn't do to lose a buddy so early on.

Early. He'd thought. If this was early in the walk what state would they be in when it was 'late'? Jesus Christ.

A soldier had been flanking them, carbine strapped to his chest, ever since the hill, even after they'd walked off all their warnings, Art thought that perhaps he wanted to 'look out for' Olson too, just in a different way.

He'd just wanted the guy to go away, to let them suffer in peace, to leave them alone forever, and then, as if God had been listening, the soldier fell away from them and died.

This is divine intervention, he'd thought, at first, stopping briefly only to look down at the nameless executioner with a hole in his forehead, the walk is over, he'd thought hysterically, we've all been saved.

And then, something whizzed past Art's own face and threatened to put a hole in him too.

Bullets rained from the skies and found their homes in warm soldiers, while the soldiers, unsure of the source, lodged their own bullets in anything they could see; Boys, trees, each other.

More out of instinct than coherent thought Art ran to Olson, who was covering his ears, looking pointedly at the ground, and latched onto his shoulders steering the both of them off the road into the mud, half collapsing into the bushes where the shooters wouldn't see them.

'No.' His friend had murmured, trying and failing to get back up, twigs tangled in the hair that stuck out from his hat. 'We can't go off track. You're fuckin' killing us. The rules.'

'Rules don't apply no more Olson, look.' Art had replied pushing aside a patch of brambles from the bush to create something like a window to the road.

Bodies fell to asphalt like flies against a pane, mere silhouettes in the yellow glow of the morning, when the major tumbled from the tall tower of his four wheeler it was poetic, almost beautiful.

‘You wanna say a prayer with me Olson?’

'We're not walking.' Olson stated in lieu of a proper answer, like he'd just realised it. 'We're not walking and we're not dead. We must'a said enough of them already.'

Then he'd just curled up on his side, head cushioned by shrubs and roots, and went quiet again.

So Art had said his own prayer in his head, then he'd said one on Olson's behalf and said another for McVries and for Garraty and deliriously, he'd said one for that first downed soldier who'd been following them too, he hadn't really wanted him to die.

All the while, he'd kept watch through his manmade gap in the leaves, scanning the figures still standing and those on the ground, keeping an eye out for people he knew.

Art couldn't find McVries or Garraty among them, he really, really hoped that meant the other musketeers had gotten away, that they were hiding somewhere, just like he and Olson were, that they weren't lying just out of his line of sight, hurt or worse.

Wherever they were, in whatever state, he knew they'd be together, at least, because they were McVries and Garraty. That was some consolation.

The fire from above puttered out gradually, as did the number of people still standing on the road, after roughly five minutes every uniform was either prone on the ground or had defected, fleeing back to where they came from in their armoured vehicles. The boys who hadn't been hit had fallen and scattered in equal number.

Art watched the trees from afar, looking for any sign of unusual movement but failing to find it, it was as if the people who had caused the chaos, whoever they were, had never been there to begin with, a clean disruption and escape, it must've been planned meticulously.

'The road looks clear, should we try go find the others?' Art asked, turning back to Olson who just regarded him with a tired expression, shaking his head.

As much as the long blister on the side of Art's foot and the shooting pains up his legs agreed with the sentiment he knew this was the best time to move, maybe the only time, to try to find the others before something bad happened.

He stood up, knees clicking loudly and reached out a hand.

‘No please, I can’t, it hurts enough sitting, leave me alone, I can’t.’

‘Yes you can c’mon.’ Art said, retracting the arm to hook it around his friend and pull him up that way instead. ‘We’ll take another break when we’re outta the area, yeah? There’s gonna be reinforcements soon, probably, it’s not safe here.’

‘You’re not gonna be safe from my middle fuckin’ finger Baker.’ Olson responded, whatever that was supposed to mean, but staggered along with him anyway.

They clawed their way out of the brambles with wet leaves plastered to their clothes and thorny sticks caught in their belts but they made it out none the less.

It took a moment to get used to standing on the hard, unforgiving asphalt again. Art took a moment to survey the road.

'Hell.' Said Olson, under his breath.

Art couldn't help but agree, hell was right, the pavement was soaked in blood, drying brown in patches now, bodies littered all over the place, not neatly cleared away like they had been during the walk, all the vehicles long since hijacked or used for escape.

There was only one person still standing, a little further up the road.

It was Barkovitch, of all people, standing on the yellow line, right in the centre, he was fidgeting, muttering to himself or maybe to the dead kid at his shoes, he was getting blood on them, the shoes, the kid must've been one of the stragglers because Art couldn't put a name to his smooth, waxy face.

'Why'd it have to be this dipshit?' Groaned Olson, motioning towards Barkovitch, Art just hummed in agreement, watching the dipshit in question wearily, his erratic demeanour putting him on edge.

The instant he caught sight of them Barkovitch started started talking, way too fast.

‘I didn’t do that!’ He bit desperately, gesturing at the road, looking rapidly between them and the dead boy with wide eyes. ‘I know you're gonna say it but I didn’t! That wasn’t me, okay?!’

‘Yeah dude, we know, we saw what happened.’ Art told him, confused, Barkovitch was a serious asshole but it was pretty damn obvious he hadn't started whatever it was that had caused all of this, he didn't have a weapon on him and Art seriously doubted that even someone like him could trash talk what had to be at least twenty people to death.

'I just turned around!' Barkovitch continued urgently. 'I was having this dream where all you other fuckers were dead and then- And then I turned around and you were! Man- I didn't actually want- I didn't mean to!'

'Calm the fuck down, Jesus fucking Christ, you're giving me a headache.' Whined Olson.

'Shut up!' Barkovitch snapped in return. 'You're not even real! Shut the hell up!'

Barkovitch turned around as if to walk away then, grabbed at his head and started smacking himself, Art considered him for a moment, concerned, it wasn't a nice thing, to watch someone hurt themselves, even if the guy was a jackass, Art cycled though ideas, methods he could use to try to snap him out of it.

He decided on flicking an empty tube of concentrate at his face.

'What the hell?' Said Barkovitch, rubbing at his forehead where the packet had hit him. 'Why'd you do that?'

'Did that feel real?'

'Yeah?'

'Then we're real too, but that dream crap wasn't, so wake up, there was a shoot out, the walk's over, we're gonna look for anyone else who's still standing and get somewhere safe, that's all.'

'Oh.' Barkovitch said, plainly. 'Okay.'

He trailed after them while they wandered, after that, like a particularly irritating shadow, neither Art nor Olson had the heart to tell him to fuck off when there wasn't even really anywhere to fuck off to anymore.

They hadn't had to walk for long, only had to retrace their footsteps a little when Garraty and McVries appeared from behind the remains of a crumbling building.

They broke into a shambling run then, all four of the musketeers merging together in a long hug, grappling at each others backs, they were all sweaty and disgusting but Art didn't care, invigorated by the mere fact that each of them were alive.

For an instant it felt like everything was going to be alright.

Chapter Text

This was so much scarier than the long walk, Gary thought, rocking on his heels, watching all those other boys smiling at each other, all happy and animated and shit.

At the end of the long walk there were only two possibilities, you either made everyone super impressed with you forever and ever and as a bonus got disgustingly rich, or, you got to die a nice, quick, respectable death and your Mama didn’t even have to find you or clean it up or anything.

You got some kinda wish too, of course, if you won, that was, Gary hadn’t really come up with one though, not one that wasn't damn stupid.

Now that it had all fallen apart there was only this and this was bad, bad, bad. This was a survival game dictated by peers. Picking teams on sports day all over again, where how good you were at sports didn't even matter if no one fucking liked you.

These guys already really didn't like him, no, they hated him, he knew that, they could just beat him up and leave him alone in some field in fuck ass nowhere Maine and no one would ever find what was left of him, if they wanted to.

He knew they wanted to.

Maine didn’t even count as a real place, not really, literally no one knew anywhere in Maine except weirdos like Garraty who's parents fucked there, didn't stick a hanger in it and never got the chance to leave, so none of the rest of them really even had any choice but to follow him around like lost goddamn puppies and hope he’d find some cardboard box for them to cry themselves to sleep in.

Gary was looking at Garraty but no one was looking at him. They were looking at each other and talking. He was a little too far away to hear them, sometimes they'd roll their eyes or huff but they never looked actually angry with each other, he had no clue how they did it.

From a certain angle they looked like they were planning something, planning to get rid of him? Probably.

This was worse than the insults, the not knowing, at least with the insults he could pretend they were just friendly fighting, being boys together, ha ha ha. The waiting was too much, might as well get it over with, that was what signing up for this had been all about, hadn't it?

So he just let all the stupid words trapped in his throat spill out, arterial;

‘Oh my fucking god, get a fucking room! Brothers my ass!’ He interjected, overhearing McVries babbling to Garraty about the same brotherhood shit they'd been keeping everyone awake regurgitating all last night.

‘Mad no one would ever wanna be your brother Barkovitch?’ McVries responded, completely calm, a couple of his friends snickered.

‘No! I’m mad because if you guys are meanta’ be brothers you’re subjecting the rest of us to the badly acted intro to some queer incest porno!’

‘I’m sure you know all about those.’ Drawled McVries.

He doesn't. Why would McVries even say that? Did he think he looked like a freak or something? He's the freak. Fuck off, Gary thinks, then says it.

‘How could it be incest? They’re not even the same race?’ Questioned Olson, sounding genuinely baffled.

‘Never heard of adoption Olson? No, of course, they haven't told you yet, It’s- I’m sorry to be the one to break the fuckin' news but your parents ain’t related to you, like, at all.’ Gary rambles on, it's too late to give up on the bit at this point, just pray something sticks.

‘Course I know what adoption is? What- Ah whatever, stop distracting us, you just shut right up now, sooner you stop talking the sooner we can figure out where we're goin'.’

Olson waved his arm dismissively, he didn't even look upset at the comment, not like McVries had been, Gary thought that was a good sign, that maybe he'd got it right now, the talking, so he kept going;

‘Or- or maybe it’s a step sibling situation, like Garraty's Papa and McVries' Mama had ghost sex in the graveyard.’ He grinned, laughing at his own quip in hopes it'd make the others do the same.

‘You're wrong for that Barkovitch.' Huffed Garraty instead, face scrunched up. 'My dad was the most loyal man I knew.’

‘You do know we can fight you and not get our brains blown out for it now, right killer?’ Added McVries, placing a hand on Garraty's shoulder.

That sent a lance of panic up Gary's spine, the word, the reminder of that thing that happened, not the threat.

The threat was deserved, probably, definitely.

Because of that thing that happened.

It had made it a bit easier to walk with the pain in his feet when he knew he deserved it, when he thought about how much more that poor kid must've been hurting when-

No, no, no.

It was so stupid to think about things like that! Just accept it, it made it easier, great! That, is, all.

He just scowled at McVries and averted his eyes then, time to shut up, damage control.

He looked at everything that couldn't look back, everything except the dead bodies, the sky, the trees, the road, his shoes, the unconscious guy the others had brought with them for some reason. It was that guy who’d been asking all those invasive questions, his name started with a H or an R or some other irrelevant letter like that, Gary’d just been calling him ‘book dweeb’ in his head.

Book dweeb looked like complete and utter shit, he was hanging precariously off Garraty's shoulders in some kinda unconscious person's modified piggyback carry and had someone’s bloody jacket all knotted around his lower leg, Baker was tapping on his cheekbone, peeling his eyelids open, trying to wake him up.

Gary was reminded briefly of lunch breaks as a child, watching all the other kids in class play at being soldiers without him.

There was this one boy who’d bring in this little wooden doctor’s kit that Gary was always really fucking jealous of, with all its little plastic tools strapped neatly in a row, when another kid got ‘shot’, he’d pretend at ‘surgery’ for a minute, then take off his school tie and wrap it around the ‘injury’ so the fake hurt kid could get up and go back to 'war'.

He'd watch them play 'long walk' too, sometimes, the game was absolutely nothing like the real thing, but that was besides the point.

Gary flinched, suddenly back in the present, when a blonde guy that he’d been thinking of as Mr.Serious at the start of the walk appeared in front of him, he hadn't even realised that that guy was here or even, like, still alive at all, he'd always been somewhere in the back where Gary couldn't see him.

Mr.Serious tilted his head and gave him a weird, serious look, then crouched down beside the dead kid Gary'd almost forgotten was in front of him, unhooked its cannister and exchanged it with his own.

'What are you doing?!' Screeched Olson, from where he'd been sitting on the road, recoiling.

'Mine's empty?'

'Yeah but-! But that's dead guy water! You can't just steal his shit, you gotta- you gotta respect the dead.'

'Are you gonna give me yours instead then?' Mr.Serious deadpanned.

'I mean no- but- like- ew?' Olson stuttered ruefully, grabbing at his cannister protectively.

'Maybe we should take all the cannisters and food belts off all these fuckers, not like they're gonna use them anymore, right?' Said Gary, hoping that even if Garraty and McVries' buddy circle kicked him out he'd be okay if he could at least find some kinda common ground with Mr Serious. 'Betcha they'd want us to, probably had bleeding hearts like you lot.'

'No one asked you Barkovitch, be more careful with what you say or we'll leave you here.' McVries responded, because of course he did, but reached down to another fallen boy and started removing tubes of nutrition paste from his belt and stuffing them in his pockets anyway.

'Hypocrite.' Gary muttered to himself, watching, secretly delighted that McVries had followed his suggestion.

'I still think this is disgusting.' Mumbled Olson, covering his eyes to avoid looking at what McVries and Mr.Serious were doing. 'Robbing graves.'

'It's gonna be a long walk to Ray's Mom's place, you wanna eat dead guy food or you wanna eat no food and become a dead guy? Huh Olson?' Countered McVries.

'Maybe we could take anything light that looks personal with us too.' Added Baker after a long silence, fidgeting with something around his neck. 'Bring it back to their their families or something.'

What a nice idea, thought Gary, opening up his digital camera, thinking of dead boys and their crying Mamas watching from their little tin tvs at home, clicking all the way back to the start and holding the thing real close to his eye to stare at a tiny picture of a paper crane, tipped over by the wind, what a nice fucking idea, I am so sorry.

Chapter Text

Hank was looking down, trying not to watch his new friends loot warm bodies, when he made unwitting eye contact with the dead stare of an unseeing man lying a few paces away.

It made him nauseous.

They were open, the eyes, glassy and vacant, red leaking into them like tears from the bullet wound cleanly bisecting them. There was nothing else remarkable about the soldier's blue face, that prevented Hank from averting his gaze, rather, it was the polished silver heart dangling from his neck, the fingers bloodless where they rested at his chest, fingers outstretched, as if he had been reaching to grasp at it but stopped moving halfway.

Upon inspection, the uncharacteristic heart was a pocket locket strung up on a necklace chain, a picture of a smiley pregnant woman with big brown eyes contained within it.

Cognitive dissonance. Two words that had never been on his English class curriculum that somehow came to Hank's mind anyway. Two conflicting beliefs blah, blah, blah. That was what the locket was making him feel, mad fucking cognitive dissonance.

They'd looked like monsters last night, the soldiers, with blue-black shadows shrouding their immovable faces, reapers that only spoke in numbers and warnings and death.

Hank had told himself he’d take one of those monsters out with him, when he went, weed out something evil, so the good guys, Baker, Garraty, McVries, would have one less invasive force at their backs, he hadn’t really considered this, that grim reapers could have smiley, pregnant wives at home that probably couldn't turn on their televisions cause that'd mean seeing who died for the bread on their tables.

Hank reached down, unclasped the wet, red metal necklace round the back of dead soldier guy's neck like Clementine showed him how to with her pearls, cleaned it off with an edge of his shirt before hooking it around his own neck.

'You taking memories back for that dude too?' Questioned Baker when he saw him with it. 'No one should die like that but I haven't seen you touch a single other person's stuff, what makes the guy who was tailing you all last night so different?'

'It's a valuable memento! Shows we lived and he didn't, right? Sides' it's got a picture of a hot girl in it, if we're gonna be walking any longer I want someone sexier than you to keep me company.' Lied Hank, feeling kinda bad about running his mouth about poor locket lady when the whole reason he'd been saying all that shit in the first place wasn't even relevant anymore.

Baker just rolled his eyes fondly.

The silent gathering of necessities continued for a minute or two, extra water cannisters, belts of food concentrates, there wasn't much of anything else, any useful shit those tanks might have held was far away with the soldiers who'd escaped in them.

After that, it had only taken one or two sentences to get them moving away from the bloody asphalt.

‘We break when it gets dark, for now we keep going left towards the horizon till we get about a mile off the track, just so we’re hard to find, I’ll know which way to go after that.’ Garraty had said, a little too confidently.

Hank hoped to hell Garraty knew what he was talking about. He was tempted to chime in with some shit about finding north using the stars that he’d learned back in Boy Scouts but decided it'd be useless, how were they supposed to know which cardinal direction Garraty's place was even in?

Fuck you scout leader Stephen, he thought, why couldn’t you have taught me actual practical survival skills? Like, how to have the common sense to not sign up for a death walk? I hope you're getting bitten by a swarm of mosquitos in a tent full of snotty kids right now.

Hank shook his head, Baker tapped his shoulder, McVries whooped, clapped his hands and said something stupid about 'getting the metaphorical show on the literal road' and just like that, they were walking again, certainly not at a consistent pace of three miles per hour anymore but walking anyway.

Yay. Whoopee. Hooray.

But actually none of those things because Hank was tired.

Not normal tired but that weird sorta ominous tired that had been coming and going since yesterday morning.

It was like nothing worked anymore, like his muscles and joints had fucked off and gone to sleep so his bones were the only things in his legs that were still helping out, like he was balancing on stilts, but the stilts didn’t make him any taller because they were just parts of his skeleton all stacked haphazardly on top of each other inside of his skin.

He knew what normal tired felt like and it sure as hell wasn't that.

He knew what normal tired was because, ironically, he'd practiced for the walk. A lot. Course he had, it would be damn stupid not to, he'd been foolish enough, back then, to think that no matter how much bigger those other boys were than him that if he could just be better prepared, more on top of his shit than all of them that he'd have his win in the bag.

He'd made up his mind when he was sixteen, after he'd made a wooden ring in his apprenticeship to replace the gummy one he'd given Clementine when they were seven because he couldn't eat the gelatin, told himself he was gonna replace this wooden one too, when he was older, with a big, fat, sparkly diamond.

He'd gotten into a routine, after that, without fail he'd get up at half five in the morning, pop a caffeine pill and half a pack of gum in his gob then watch the sun claw its way up from behind the distant mountains as he walked to Clementine's place, all the way on the other side of town.

It had pissed her parents off, to have him hammering on her window every morning, she’d even called him a show off, but, he’d liked that it made him feel like Romeo, from that one story he'd read by that guy Shakesomething, the one where that guy loved his girl so much he did a whole bunch of idiotic lovey dovey shit for her.

He'd ended up offing himself for her at the end too, that guy Romeo, if Hank was remembering how the story went right, so maybe he was already more like the fucker than he'd realised, why had he signed up for something like this? He'd had a good life going. She hadn't even wanted him to. He was such a dipshit.

It had always been ‘When I win not if!’ like it was something as obvious as bread and butter.

The moment he realised it, the big thing he’d overlooked, felt the wrong kind of pain that told him he just wasn’t built to outlast some of these bigger guys who simply didn’t have to walk as fast to keep the pace, he’d started spewing bullshit.

Yammering on about whores and hoes and bitches in hopes she’d be listening in back at home and choosing to stop loving him. So it wouldn’t hurt her so bad when he went.

Geez, how was he gonna explain himself when he got back home? If.

He didn't have to think about it for long because he was snapped out of his thoughts by the unexpected sound of that kid with the broken foot, Harkness's voice, Hank hadn't thought by the look of him that he'd be awake so soon but he'd been proven wrong before.

'Can- can someone check my notes're still in my bag?' Harkness slurred, from where he was draped over Garraty's shoulders, Garraty didn't even look too overly encumbered despite him, not yet anyway, how unfair.

The guy wanted his notes, his notes for his fuckass long walk book. What kinda messed up priorities were those? Hank thought, but didn't say, because it'd be too mean to take his bewilderment out on someone who's foot had been hanging off of him all night. Unfortunately someone else didn't care about things like that;

'A guy with a mangled ass foot hops into a bar.' Giggled Barkovitch, as if this was the perfect time for an offensive comedy performance. 'What can I get you? Asks the bartender, 'Painkillers? Bandages? A fucking ambulance?' Nah, says broken foot guy, get my girly little diary outta' my bag for me real quick, I gotta write this joke down.'

'Not funny Barkovitch.' Countered Baker, speeding up his walk a little to match pace with Garraty so that he could unzip and root around in Harkness's rucksack. 'You're banned from talkin now.'

'Yeah. Man!' Added McVries, still seeming weirdly hyped up. 'Don't get started about bars, killer. I think I'd sell both my pinkie toes right now to be in a bar getting plastered instead of listening to you lot yapping all day.'

Garraty huffed a laugh in response.

'Maybe I'd let you come with.' McVries added, giving him a wink, to which Garraty blushed and swatted the almost compliment away.

'That'd be a stupid reason to sell your toes.' Said Hank tiredly, hoping to stop the dumb conversation so he could get back to thinking about how stupid he was and the that fact his legs hurt in peace. 'We're not twenty one yet, they'd only give you soda.'

'You never heard of a fake ID? You admitting to being an alcohol virgin right now Olson?' Jeered McVries.

'No! Fuck off.' Hank murmured, out of breath. 'I deadass drink wine every time I get my holy communion.'

'Oh no boys!' Cried McVries. 'I think Olson's an alcoholic! He's addicted to the blood of our saviour!'

'Gotta cut out those Sunday morning sips Olson! It's church not happy hour!' Garraty added light heartedly, grinning.

'Everyone be quiet for a minute.' Muttered the guy at the back who Hank remembered was maybe called Stebbins, he couldn't agree more with the statement.

'Its not nice to talk like that boys.' Said Baker, looking at McVries and Garraty, finally fishing out the journal and holding it up to Harkness. 'What'd Jesus ever do to you?'

'Jesus sure as shit doesn't like that they!-' Started Barkovitch but was thankfully interrupted.

'I said shut up!' Whisper yelled Stebbins, looking vaguely panicked. 'I hear something.'

Everyone listened then. All sharing the same collective fear that the government had somehow tracked them down already, that a platoon of soldiers would burst out from behind the rustling brush.

Leaves moved and parted, no one would admit it but for a moment they were all kinda clinging to each other, grabbing onto each others sleeves and biting back their bated breath.

Out from the foliage emerged two large antlers followed by a sleepy looking head. Staring at them, chewing leaves with a ruminator's jaw was a massive, brown moose.

Chapter Text

It was okay to be properly awake again, Harkness's brain supplied. There were people now. He wasn't stuck in the back with a gun at his temple, hopelessly dragging what was left of himself along the track to keep up.

His notes were in his bag. It was okay.

But, when he finally opened his eyes, the first thing he came face to face with were two great big velveted antlers and a pair of shiny black eyes, a floppy jaw working lazily on the remains of a tree.

The creature looked all smudged and blurry, disorientation and uncorrected astigmatism painting a yellow halo of light around it.

Awh shit, he thought, I’ve died and God is a moose. Who the hell's gonna believe me when I tell them that?

How unfair, he thought next, that humanity’s great artiodactyl ruler from above would design an afterlife where pain was still a factor.

Maybe it was some sort of poetic revenge for everything people had done to animals, for all the moose heads strung up like trophies on American walls, or, perhaps, it had something symbolic to do with moose having to the shed and regrow bone every winter.

Or maybe, Harkness was just getting all English class about it like he always did and it didn’t actually mean anything at all.

Whatever the reason, even though he was pretty certain he was dead, Harkness was still in pain, a lot of it.

He had to breathe through his gritted teeth or not breathe at all. It wasn’t because of his ankle, he actually couldn’t feel anything from his ankle down at all, rather it was the referred pain that shot up his leg and into his hip that made him have to chew on his cheeks not to yell or gag when he moved.

Moved? Why was he moving? Was he still walking? He thought, vaguely horrified, maybe that was why he couldn’t feel his foot, maybe he’d already walked it into nonexistence.

He was scared to look down again, just like he’d been scared to look down all last night.

If he was still walking without a foot, maybe he’d never be able to stop himself, maybe he’d walk until his other foot was gone too, until both his legs were trails of viscera and then he’d keep walking on his hip bones and when those were dust he’d be dragging his ribs along the concrete by his bloody fingertips and he'd never even realise because he, would, not, look, down.

Maybe this was the hell the moose was giving him, for spending too long looking at everyone else instead of ever looking inside at himself.

He looked up at the creature, so he wouldn't have to look down, it was a little further away now for some reason, his wet eyes met its wet eyes, it wore the same expression his Mommy and Daddy had on in the beat up car when they dropped him off, for his first day of elementary school, for the long walk, for the last time.

‘I’m sorry.’ He begged the moose. ‘I tried to be a good kid. I didn't think it through. I was too big for my boots, I’m sorry.’

‘Shh Harkness. Not the time to be sleep talking man.’ Came a voice, a low whistle, Harkness was surprised to hear that the God moose sounded almost exactly like number forty seven, Ray Garraty, Maine’s own.

‘We need to be quiet.’ The Garraty, God, moose? Continued, still moving its jaw like it was chewing, not talking. ‘Back away slowly. No sudden movements, I’m looking at you Barkovitch. Do. Not. Run.’

Things weren’t adding up. Had there been a mix up? Did the moose think Harkness was Gary Barkovitch? That would explain why this afterlife was so bad. He hadn't realised the afterlife could have administrative errors.

If the afterlife had human error maybe it also had jobs, that would be okay, if Harkness could just be some kinda investigative ghost journalist, dead people, he'd learned on the walk, had good stories.

Harkness heard the sound of many shoes shuffling in the brush. Heard the murmurings of many voices, each with a different lilt. The moose kept getting smaller and smaller, further and further away.

Confusion overwhelmed fear and let Harkness finally get brave enough to look down, having expected to see his own mangled legs he was shocked to instead see a head of someone else's hair.

Oh. Oh!

Everything made sense again, he was being carried. Memories returned like disjointed clips, like the ads that popped up suddenly on tv when you watched The Long Walk and the walkers started talking about, or doing, something that they shouldn't.

Harkness wondered if his parents had just been watching one long stream of ads since the thing fell apart this morning, they'd probably seen him hurt himself on the hill, they probably thought he was dead by now.

He wasn't dead, because people had his back, because he was on someone's back.

'You're a- a good person Garraty.' He told the top of Garraty's head, the words came out weird through his teeth. 'I'm gonna write you as the hero.'

'Er, you can just write me as myself.' Returned Garraty sheepishly. 'I only knew how to get away from that moose because I've seen enough of them, I live here, remember?'

'That's not what I meant.' Harkness rambled. 'I thought you were God just there, for a second, or, that the moose was, but- but that it had your voice.'

'You doing okay dude? Other than the... well, the obvious? You're not making a lot of sense right now.' Asked Garraty, looking back to scan his face, concern written all over his own.

That made Harkness want to cry, in a relieved way, maybe, or just because it reminded him of the pain, it was so nice to be asked. Maybe he wasn't making a lot of sense to himself either.

'It's just-' He started, trying to put everything into words. 'It's because it hurts, I can't think- it's like nothing wants to stick in my mind how it's supposed to. I'm missing all the details.'

'We'll remember the details for you, don't worry about that.' Said Garraty, sighing. 'God, we need to get you some pills or something, this is fucked, if there was a pharmacy nearby I'd rob it right now, my law abiding days are done.'

'You planning a crime Ray?' McVries interjected, bemused.

'I want to steal something.' Replied Garraty. 'But there's nothing for ages to even steal, isn't that messed up Pete?'

'Real messed up. If it makes you feel better-' McVries grinned, gesturing dramatically and whispered, so that only Garraty and by proxy of being on his back, Harkness, could hear; 'You've already stolen my heart.'

'You're so corny man!' Garraty laughed as McVries cackled, waving a hand like he could bat away the flirty comment, but Harkness, because he was observant and also right beside them, could tell there were both blushing.

Awh, cute.

Harkness couldn't imagine a walk where it was just McVries and Garraty at the end, even though they were both up near the top of his 'most likely candidates after me' page. They'd just sit down together, he thought, if it came to that, it was the least depressing outcome he could imagine.

'We need to take a break soon. Sit down somewhere, somewhere with no mooses.' Said Art Baker, number six, from somewhere behind them, lagging back to keep pace with his friend, Olson.

'Your right.' Garraty conceded, stretching out a leg. 'Just a little further away from that damn moose and we'll sit down.'

Harkness swivelled his head to count everyone, there was himself and the four 'musketeers' of course.

Billy Stebbins, number thirty eight was slightly ahead of them, he'd always been in the back on the walk, an indicator that either he'd sped up, or, more likely, that the rest of them had slowed to a pace below three miles per hour.

Gary Barkovitch, number five was all the way on the very edge of the dirt path to the left, preferring to let nettles and brambles catch on his skin and clothes than to walk any closer to them, eyeing them all the same.

There was no one else. Was everyone else really dead? Tressler? Parker? Larson? Smith? They'd all been walking together not too long ago and now they were just dead?

This was the trouble with rote learning everyone's names, taking the time to remember little human tidbits about everyone in a place like this, Harkness supposed. Those weren't numbers they'd left behind, they were boys with families and things they liked doing and big, big dreams.

He hadn't even been nice to them, at the end, the kids who'd tried to talk to him after that hill, that was the worst part, he'd been so convinced he was next he'd just been ignoring everyone who tried to chat in favour of focusing on not looking down.

He'd write to their families. He decided. All of them. When he could focus on anything but the pain long enough to hold a pen. Tell them everything he'd learned.

The remaining boys walked and walked and walked and walked until they found a clearing, sheltered by a couple of big red maples.

Before they sat down Baker made Garraty check for 'signs of another moose' and the moment he gave the all clear the group collapsed as one onto the forest floor like deflated balloons.

Garraty sat Harkness down against the tree, propped up against the bark, he didn't care that the surface was scratchy or that the wet leaves on the ground got stuck to his palms, it was heaven to just be able to keep completely still.

Everyone else seemed to agree, all crumpled together, as various shapes in the clearing, rubbing at knees, rooting in bags, untying shoes.

'Lovely, we're gonna have to put these back on tomorrow.' Said McVries, holding up a sock between two fingers, red saturating the heel and toes. 'If I'd'a known this would be a road trip I'd have packed another pair.'

As if to rub it in his face Stebbins, wiping at his nose, rooted around in a side pocket of his bag, pulled out a pair of thick, fresh socks and replaced his own ruined ones with them.

McVries just gave him an incredulous scoff.

'You seeing this Ray? You think if I started on about not having a pillow he'd pull one of those outta his ass too?' He asked Garraty.

'You can sleep on me Pete.' Garraty said, earnestly. 'God knows I slept long enough on you when we were walking, sorry if I drooled on your shoulder.'

'You saying you're gonna be my pillow Ray?' Quipped McVries, smirking.

Barkovitch shot them an exasperated look from where he was folded over himself to the side, hands on his head, looking at everyone else like he was waiting for someone else to make a comment first, no one did so he just took out his camera and blinded them with the flash instead.

‘Can I see those?’ Croaked Harkness from the tree, glassy eyes rolling over to the camera.

‘See what?’ Snapped Barkovitch, defensively tucking the object of interest away.

‘Your photos, I wanna see if they’d work in my book. Illustrate the point. A picture speaks a thousand words and all that.’

‘They’re shitty photos of shitty things, you don’t want them.’

‘This whole situation is shitty though.’ Harkness countered, huffing a tired laugh, no shit, he thought, attempting to unlace his shoes, shoe, his only remaining shoe, with stiff, shaky fingers, look at the state of us. ‘It wouldn’t be proper journalism if you were only documenting the good parts.’

‘What the fuck is journalism?’ Is all he gets back.

‘It’s this thing that used to happen.’ Garraty interjected, reciting the meaning like he'd learned it off by heart. ‘Back in the day they’d send people to places where bad stuff was happening so they could tell everyone the truth about it.’

‘How the hell was that supposed to motivate the workforce?' Spat Barkovitch, putting on some kind of indiscernible impression accent. '“Quick boys! Some fuckers cat’s been hit by a school bus! Time to pay some saddos to leer at it then go around telling everyone!”’

‘Oddly specific.’ Commented Olson.

‘That wasn’t the point of media back then.’

'What the hell was then?'

'Well, why have you been taking photos this whole time?' Asked Harkness. 'Maybe the point's the same.'

Barkovitch went quiet after that, but handed Harkness the camera anyway, turning away when he started clicking through them so he wouldn't have to see his reactions to the pictures.

'Give up on your dreams now.' Said Stebbins, monotone, lying on the ground, hiding his face underneath his hat like he could block the rest of them out. 'You're all getting squadded when you grow up.'

'You saying you wanna squad us?' McVries chuckled.

'Sure, if it'd make you quieter.'

Harkness pulled his notebook out of his bag and tried at thinking of eulogy ideas for all of the dead kids, clicking through photos to try to find a nicer one of each of them, smiling at some, grimacing others and falling asleep halfway through.

Chapter Text

Collie had only wanted to do it for the same reasons any teenager wanted to do anything.

It was a little bit his community telling him to make something out of himself and Collie listening, because it was only last year he'd watched little Dyani die of croup because they couldn't afford a doctor, and why did it always have to be one of his baby cousins dying of poverty? Because no one ever did anything that mattered?

It was a little bit the people outside of his community, the kids at school and the idiots on the street, telling him he'd never amount to anything and a little bit Collie wanting to do the most drastic thing possible to prove them wrong.

And it was a little bit the fact that he'd always been an angry kid. Always sitting outside with the dogs, in trouble, like they were, for biting and snarling and clenching his fists when things weren't fair.

He was sitting outside again now, but, despite the distant howling, there were no dogs, not yet, there was just Collie, the brain matter on his shirt, his redundant little morse communication device and the children glimmering up in the navy sky.

An elder had told him about them, the boys in the sky, the Pleiades, when he was little, about those seven kids who played gatayu’sti all day, who didn't listen to their mothers when they scolded them for single-mindedly focusing on that game, neglecting their families, their futures, those boys who didn't listen even as they drifted into the night and became a less concrete part of it all.

He'd thought that was so stupid as a kid, turning into a star over sticks and stones, wondered who would ever be so obsessed with a game they'd let something like that happen to them, but now, click, click clicking on the device sewn into his jacket that wouldn't click back, he knew he'd gone and done it.

He might as well have been one of the Pleiades himself.

'You don't need to go to the airport you silly boy, stay here. You're loved. I love you.' Mom had told him, eyes big, grabbing at his clothes, petting his hair. Collie had rolled his eyes because who was she to hold him back from his first flight ever, his great big fucking purpose.

Because Collie was the silly boy who didn't listen to his mother and his obsession with the game that was ending the long walk and making things better had caused him to drift far, far away from everything he'd ever known.

It had gone like this:

An angry looking white man with darting eyes and a limp and a not-quite American accent had given Collie the device in the airport bathroom, just like he'd said he would in the letter, he'd showed him how to use it and sent him off with a pat on the shoulder and an apologetic look.

Collie had got there and told them all his perfectly acceptable, perfectly fabricated surname, surrendered his passport and taken his tags.

And then Collie had walked and walked and walked and when he'd walked until it was morning, he'd looked at his watch and seen the numbers six and five, the number of miles he'd been told to give the signal at, he'd taken a subtle glance up and seen the shadows of people in the trees above, a subtle glance at the major's car.

Then, he had sent the code click, click, click in a language the major would never understand.

'ᎯᎠ ᏂᎦᎾᏬᏗ ᏱᎩ.'

'He is not looking.'

And then the boy beside Collie had had his face blown off.

Brain matter, grey and red splattered all over Collie's shirt, face, hands.

Which wasn't how he had thought it would go.

One moment prior Collie had held some delusional belief that it would only be the bad guys, the soldiers and the major, that all the kids who's conversations he'd eavesdropped in on and never quite joined would all get to go home, that in no time they'd be smiling with their mommies, and it would all be because of him.

But that wasn't how violent protest worked, apparently.

So Collie ran and he ran and he didn't get shot but his stomach hurt like he had been, because it felt like he'd been the one who'd killed that kid the moment that message went through.

He ran until he was deep in the forest and he tripped over his own legs and then he stopped running because it was getting dark and he couldn't make himself get up and run anymore.

After that, he wheezed into a pile of leaves off of a type of tree he didn't recognise and had a cry because running had hurt and because he was on his own and because he wasn't home and because he was stupid and immature and because he hadn't listened to his mom and because the rebels he'd been waiting for weren't a bunch of smiley superheros who were gonna save everyone, drive them home and maybe give him a hug.

When he'd got a hold of himself he tore a hole in his jacket with the sharp end of his necklace, pulled out the clicker and noticed that the little flickering light that had been on it when the man had sewn it in had died out, the thing wasn't even working anymore.

That hopeful little, artificial light replaced by the Pleiades in the sky, damn it all.

What was next? Not dying.

Collie wasn't hungry but he emptied a tube of protein into his mouth anyway, the belt full where he hadn't touched it out of the anticipation that morning, he promptly swilled away the flavour with a quarter of his canteen.

He peeled off his shoes and socks and tried not to cry again. He pulled up a plant that looked like it maybe could've been a sage leaf but probably wasn't because who the hell knew which useless plants even grew in Maine. He wrapped it around the popped blisters on his toes anyway, turned his socks inside out so the cleaner side was touching the wounds and put them back on.

Then he took off his jacket and tried to curl up under it like it was a blanket, even though he didn't fully fit, used his pack as a pillow and hummed as he thought.

What was he supposed to do? He'd been abandoned by the guys he'd thought would save him and it was his own fault for never asking about that part, the major was probably after his ass too. The only viable options were walking until he found some semblance of cold civilisation and hoping it wouldn't shoot him at the door or staying right where he was and letting the elements take him.

Collie was halfway to choosing option number three, sleeping and leaving his tomorrow self to deal with it when he heard something, something that sounded a lot like people.