Title: A Long Walk in Wet Socks
Author: saxloch
Fandom: The Running Man (2025)
Characters: Ben Richards, Evan McCone
Rating: Teen & Up
Length: 748 words
Content Notes: Non-graphic mentions of death of a child
Summary: After escaping the network, Ben is left with nobody--aside from his attempted killer.

 

The spot that Cathy’s sock once filled burns a hole in Ben’s front pocket.

He walks the road alongside a man who was trying his hardest to kill him not twenty-four hours ago, his hands in his pockets and his clothes still damp from their escape. When he glances to his right, he finds that McCone hasn’t stopped limping yet—he was really betting on a fake injury, after everything they’d been through. He can still feel the cold press of Destiny on his throat, but in all this time they’ve been escaping the network, McCone hasn’t made a move.

They walk forward in silence, having only spoken a few words to each other when they crawled from the water to the shore after leaving the escape pod: -“Are you alive?” -“Yeah. Are you?” -“Yes. I don’t know how.” -“Me neither.”

McCone started walking in the opposite direction of the network building, out of Co-Op City entirely, and while it seemed like a longshot at the time, Ben didn’t anticipate that they would make it to the city limits before they were gunned down, captured, or worse. Might as well see just where McCone was going; they were both dead men walking, after all.

The sun comes up on the horizon of a long, straight stretch of road that only a few cars have shot down in the past half an hour, and Ben appreciates the warmth of the sun beating down on his frozen skin. He starts to thaw under the golden rays, and it seems that McCone starts to come back to himself with the rising of the sun.

“I’m surprised you’re still walking with me, Richards. I thought you would have gone straight to the network and tried to take Killian down, something ballsy and stupid like that.”

Ben scoffs, his tired eyes flicking over to McCone.

“Says the man who has murdered people for money on freevee for the past how many years?”

McCone’s scarred lip tugs up at one corner. “Touche. I never took out three hunters in a row, though—that’s a different kind of reckless dumbassery.”

For once, Ben bites his tongue and doesn’t say what he wants to: that reckless dumbassery was really reckless suicidality, because who was Ben Richards without his family? A freedom fighter? A symbol for the working man? On one hand he likes it after a life deprived of ego-stroking but with so many hours of silent contemplation weighing heavily on his shoulders, he can’t help but fixate on the fact that all it cost was Sheila and Cathy. His family, his life, his everything. 

All he has now is the companionship of a career killer and that companionship is reluctant, only brought on because neither of them have anyone else. At least, Ben can only assume McCone doesn’t have anybody left after the network killed his family, too. He can take a little solace in the fact that his traveling companion isn’t the one who pulled the gun on his wife and daughter: one of those faceless nobodies did it, McCone just permitted it.

Ben feels rage burn inside him, roll around in his core like lava sloshing in his belly, but he doesn’t make a move. While he despises this man, he doesn’t want to be alone anymore, and if there’s a renowned hunter out there in the world, he’d rather be able to keep his eye on him than not—it’s safer, albeit a lot ballsier and dumber than keeping his distance.

At least McCone is just as alone as he is. No reinforcements, no backup: just him and Ben, walking into eternity.

“My socks are soaked to shit,” Ben groans, lifting one aching foot up to alleviate the awful squishing he’s been dealing with for the past few hours, “how are they still soaked?”

McCone laughs.

“After all of that, some wet socks are what’s gonna take you out? That’s disappointing.”

Ben second guesses this brilliant plan of his for a brief moment, but he keeps walking—awkwardly, but he walks nonetheless. He has no choice but to follow McCone into hell now, if that’s where he happens to be leading them, and he can already tell that this is only the second worst choice he’s ever made in his life just after signing up for The Running Man.

So long as he doesn’t end up disemboweled on the side of this neverending road, this’ll be far and away a better choice.