Work Text:
Garraty sat in bed, blinking sleepily around him as he adjusted to wakefulness. His dreams had been as they always were, of the Walk and death and pain. But whatever last night’s had been about specifically was fading from his increasingly alert mind. That was fine. The memories wouldn’t ever fade, so it seemed only fair that the dreams, at least, left him once he woke.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and gradually put more weight on them until he was upright. It was a process these days, to convince his feet to hold him up once more. Today seemed not too bad, he noted without satisfaction or disappointment. It was what it was.
As he stepped toward the bathroom, another set of feet appeared beside him and matched his pace. They were sad looking feet, wet and dirty, clad in beat-up hiking shoes. The laces were frayed, and the heel of one shoe flapped a little as its wearer walked. They looked worn, in a deep and unchangeable way, and Garraty knew just how they felt.
His own feet were encased in thick, fluffy socks, with compression sleeves underneath, keeping the blood and other fluids where they ought to be. Under those layers, plus the heavy flannel pajamas he wore and the heat cranked up in his house, he was almost warm. His circulation didn’t function so good these days, so he did what he could to make up for it. One of the perks of a Long Walk winner was no more discomfort ever again, insofar as that was both possible and desired.
The shod feet stayed in line with his to the bathroom. He didn’t recognize them offhand, but there were so many possible boys they could belong to. Ninety-nine, in total, not counting him. He never got to know them all. Garraty didn’t look up at their owner, not quite wanting to see just yet, first thing in the morning. He’d have plenty of time to get a good look later at whoever was accompanying him that day.
The feet vanished when he sat on the toilet, and there was only the briefest flash of them as he took one step to the sink to get himself ready.
Once he left the bathroom though, they returned and stayed alongside him as he moved about the house, only leaving him again when he sat for breakfast. Some days he spent a lot of time at that table, just sitting, not even thinking. Some days he needed to be alone. Those were dark days, when he just sat and intentionally prevented any visitor from joining him. He wondered if it was mercy that kept them away when he wasn’t moving or if they just didn’t know how to do anything but walk anymore.
Other days Garraty missed the company. Of all those friends he’d once had. Those days—the days he was kinder to himself, admitting his company in—Garraty walked and was grateful for whichever figure was beside him. That was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. He was grateful for Baker and Olsen and Scramm and Abraham, and even sometimes Stebbins (Stebbins, who had discovered his own limit in a way Garraty never would, like all the rest of them who had walked until they’d died, all but him alone), but the best days were the days McVries was there beside him once again.
On the days he stepped out of bed to find those shoes next to his sock-clad feet—solid work boots, the kind you could stand all day in—Garraty would feel something like comfort. He’d talk to McVries, even if his companion never spoke a word in return. Garraty would talk nonetheless, about anything and everything on his mind. He tended to avoid other, living people on those days, preferring the quiet company of the dead he missed so greatly. He’d talk and walk, sometimes not stopping for the entire day. Walking around his house and the grounds, walking with McVries beside him keeping pace indefinitely. Until Garraty’s feet screamed in pain and remembered trauma. Until he finally collapsed into bed in utter exhaustion, knowing that the following day might see zero walking—and therefore no companion—at all. He wouldn’t regret it though. The life of a Long Walk winner meant he could do whatever he pleased for the rest of his life. Sometimes all he wanted was to be with his friend again for an entire day.
But even on days like this one, where it wasn’t McVries beside him—or any of those others he’d gotten to know so intimately during their few days and countless miles together—he still felt grateful for the company. He finally looked up at the boy as he entered the kitchen again to put his breakfast dishes in the sink. Garraty didn’t know his companion for the day. There were so many he hadn’t gotten to know, and he regretted that now. Those whose faces he’d only seen briefly, maybe only at the start of the Walk when all their names were called. Too many to know them all, though he wished he could at least put a name to this boy’s face. But Garraty smiled at the boy anyhow and said “Nice to see you,” like a polite host should do. He’d go about his day and tell the boy what he was up to and any thoughts he felt needed sharing. Company went both ways, after all, and Garraty would do his best to make the boy’s day pleasant, though he thought he might not spend as much time walking as he would have if they’d known each other better.
Garraty meant it when he greeted the boy. He’d thought, at the end of the Walk, that no one else could ever understand what he’d been through. That he was alone and would be forever. But he was wrong.
Garraty would never walk alone again.