WHO: Steve Harrington & Richie Tozier WHEN: During Zombie Apocalypse WHERE: Tony Stark's House WHAT: Richie and Steve discuss their similar experiences when it comes to survival and monsters TRIGGERS: Background zombies?
______________
There was a point where Richie definitely noticed that Steve had drifted off, but that was about ten minutes ago now. There was a cascade of thoughts that fell into place -- disjointedly -- upon noting Steve’s emptied spot.
One: maybe he needed air. Like, shit, zombies were everywhere. That was stressful.
Two: maybe he went to take a whiz. And that could go back to the first thought.
Three: Peter Parker was really good-looking. That had nothing to do with anything else.
Four: Did Iron Man keep any fruit snacks around? Those would be great right now.
Eventually, Richie’s mind came upon another thought: he should maybe find Steve. They were, after all, cohorts of a sort now. Steve had agreed to take Richie in and let him eat his food. That meant something.
A quick question of Morgan (who apparently had been paying more attention) had led Richie to find Steve exactly where she said he went to, out on the front steps of the porch with his modified baseball bat. Richie shuffled his shoe-less feet over to the older teen and then plonked unceremoniously down beside him, careful of the bat’s pointier end.
“So this is why you got a murder weapon just laying around the house, huh?” A blunt question, but Richie wasn’t known for his art of careful wording.
The notion of Zombies was a new one as far as life experiences went. But hearing the town was in the midst of an uprising of the undead hadn't been questioned by Harrington. He didn't question much in the way of the supernatural anymore. After all, it hadn't been that he found the idea of portal travel unlikely. It was that he wasn't sure if it was a Russian attempt to coerce information out of him.
Still, moving locations hadn't been a bad call. He didn't exactly want to test out the new magic defense on his house while Richie was there and vulnerable. Going somewhere with tighter defenses made sense.
Not that Steve had any intention of just holding up inside and hoping for the best. He didn't exactly know what kind of arsenal not Batman had.
He glanced at Richie out of the corner of his eye and gave a slight chuckle. "Nah. First time with zombies." He'd rested the bat against his shoulder but he shifted it now to rest on the porch by his other side. "You?"
“Seen ‘em in movies, but Derry’s not a zombie town.” Being in the middle of growth spurt meant that the form of Richie was a mess of gangly limbs that look slightly too-long for his body. He more or less pulled that spaghetti-like mess into order as he hugged his knees (pushing his glasses askew) and turned his head to look at Steve.
“Got a clown. A clown thing. We call it ‘It’ and…” A shrug. “I guess if It wanted, It could be zombies if someone was super freaked about those. Does a thing, y’know? Whatever makes you shit yourself, that’s what It looks like if It’s not a skeevy clown.”
Richie wrinkled his nose. He wished he had his own bat right now. “Me and my friends beat It back into its hole in the ground, but people’re saying stuff ends up here even if it’s dead back home.”
Steve had moved his gaze back to the scene ahead of them. He didn't want to risk not noticing some fast moving zombie coming there way. But his focus remained on what Richie was saying. From the bits Steve had gathered in the little they'd known one another, Derry didn't sound at all like the sort of town Steve would want to live in.
But then again? Maybe others might say that about Hawkins.
There was a quick side glance. Others had given Steve very brief descriptions of this clown but it was better hearing it straight from Richie. "Never met a changeling before," he commented before tilting his head. "Okay, not necessarily true. The creatures back home rapidly evolved. So I guess you could call them changelings?" A pause. "They didn't focus in on fears though."
He turned his gaze fully now to Richie. "It shows back up? We'll do what you and your friends did."
It must’ve been intended to sound more bolstering that Richie took away from it. Maybe it was because a legion of zombies was slowly devouring Tumbleweed. That tended to sour most things, even the fact that he didn’t have to go to school… on account of a legion of zombies devouring Tumbleweed.
Still, Richie gave a fair nod. Steve was handy with a bat, he guessed. Maybe they could knock It’s eyes out and solve the problem that way.
“So what was the deal with Hawkins? Mutant turtles that went bad instead of learning karate and saving people?” Richie asked, suddenly realizing he was unguarded and scanning the porch for something to fight with. The bench was too big. Flower pot?
Steve wasn't sure if the statement had been absorbed in the way he'd hoped. Given the conversations with MJ and Julia, he'd picked up on the concern and he hoped to diminish some of the anxiety. He wasn't sure if he had. He went still after that, lost in thought, before he really registered what Richie had said.
"Mutant Turtles?" He didn't get why the first example was mutant turtles. "Karate?" He then added before shaking his head, "No."
He brought a hand up to push his hair back and out of his face. "There's this spot. It's called the Upside Down. Kind of exists outside of our world? Anyway, there were monsters in it and they found a way out. Roped up in all sorts of government cover ups." He didn't let it known how much of a hand Eleven had with contact on the other side.
"Beat the shit out of the monsters all the times they came back through."
Mutant turtles was a longshot, so Richie wasn’t too letdown that they didn’t exist in either of their worlds. He watched Steve for a second, fixating on how Steve’s hair just did that Thing. Richie’s own mess of a dark, vaguely curly mop never could do that Thing. He lacked commitment in that department, anyway. Wake up, make sure gravity was doing its job, cram his glasses on and go. No one was giving him a second glance, and if they did, it was just to say something like ‘Shit, how thick are those glasses?’
Still, he self-consciously ran a hand back through his hair as if it might change something about the previous 13 years of his existence as a social reject.
“Upside Down?” Richie echoed. He leaned back to grab a small garden spade. In a pinch, he could gouge with it. Sure, why not. “Because it was actually Upside Down? What did the creatures even look like?”
Steve's focus, largely, was still on keeping his guard up in case of zombies stumbling across the threshold; so he didn't pick up on any vibes or cues that may have tipped him off to Richie feeling anything close to self conscious. But he did hear the echo that came across as a question before being followed up with a direct one. It made him smile some. "No, it's not upside down. The kids named it that." He didn't actually know why but it had been absorbed into the Lexicon of all those in the know.
"The demogorgons were tall, lanky bastards. Faces opened up. Kind of like a fly trap? Big old teeth in the middle." He thought for a moment. "Before they got to that size, though, they were kind of like giant ass dogs. Walking on all fours." His head tilted in remembrance of something else, "And this summer there was this...I don't know, blob? Kind of like the blob. It absorbed folks to get bigger."
Richie snorted at Steve’s titling of the other teenagers he knew as ‘the kids’. Far as Richie had heard, he wasn’t that much older -- honestly, he wasn’t that much older than Richie, either. He just happened to be employable and able to drive a car, past his awkward puberty phase of life… small things, y’know.
But he was listening to Steve. There was a fascination with all of it, actually. Someone else had dealt with some other worldly horrors. It was like an unspoken bond that more or less was founded on the amount of fucked up shit that they’d both seen. “Plant dog turns into a lanky fly trap and eats people to get bigger?” Richie considered it for another second, then concluded that: “Indiana sounds like a fun place.”
Richie reached out a hand and tapped his fingers to a bare part of the nail-adorned bat in Steve’s grasp. “How many bad boys did this thing take out?”
Steve did have a slight look of 'what' at the sound of the snort, but didn't linger on it. It didn't feel too important to identify.
"More or less." He didn't know if the blob creature was technically connected to the Demogorgon's or had just originated from the Upside Down. Far as he figured, they were all connected because of that source. " 'Bout as much fun as Derry sounds," he offered up, turning his head just enough to give him a smile. They both came from pretty fucked up places. Maybe Richie would find his way out of his town. Steve doubted he ever would.
"Eh, well..." He began, shifting the bat so he could hold it out for Richie to take hold of if he wanted. He'd snatch it away if they ended up needing it, he figured. "...One?" He knew that wasn't going to sound all that boisterous or convincing but it was the truth. "Gone up against a hell of a lot more than that, of course, but those suckers are hard to kill. Only managed the one."
Richie caught the smile sent his way, which prompted something more akin to a shit-eating grin on his end. Bonding? Hell yeah, they were bonding. This was the shit right here.
The movement of the bat made Richie look down, but he shook his head. The small gardening spade was brandished with a demonstrative jab at the open air. It was useless and ridiculous, but the weight of it still felt better than nothing. “At least zombies sound easier,” was the reply after Richie chewed on a few different thoughts. “I mean… stacked against a sewer clown and a plant man with fucking teeth.”
He was quiet, but only for another second. “Hey, Steve?”
Steve's eyebrows came up at the demonstration of the debatable use of the gardening spade but there was a tilt of his head to the side as if to say 'Fair enough.' If the zombies did break through at this moment, Steve had full intentions to shove Richie behind him in an act of defense and safety. "Yeah, come down right with a pop to the head. Least they did in Night of the Living Dead."
He wondered if that was even a valuable source of information these days.
Steve didn't mind the silence. With the situation, it felt sort of par for the course. They had a lot to mull over. "Yeah?" He gave a sideways glance to Richie again, waiting patiently.
“Night of the Living Dead,” Richie echoed, smiling genuinely at that. “Nice pick.”
But there that lingering question that he’d vaguely been aware that he should say something now that he’d started in. Mostly, it was the thought of ‘hey, if everything goes to hell, thanks for letting me eat your food and crash in your house’ but what came out was an even less polished offering: “If shit goes up in flames, we go out fighting, yeah?”
Steve probably should have insisted that they not do that. They were supposed to be hiding after all. He was supposed to be making sure Richie was safe. And, in a way, that's exactly what he was doing. But Steve wasn't a fool. If everything went to hell, there was nothing Steve could do to keep himself and Richie safe but encourage defense. And so, there was a small smirk before an agreeable nod, "Damn right we do."