Nikolai's Room at the Arms Hotel, Monday Morning

[spin_kick_snap]

Sunday night, Kathy and Nikolai had gone to bed a happily--and, uhh, enthusiastically--married couple who had been together for twenty years at that point. They had survived a zombie apocalypse, the death of almost everyone they had known and loved, an old enemy of Nick's who could control the undead, a man who could control minds by use of a code phrase, and a bunch of other really weird stuff in that time. They knew one another in and out, up and down, and there was no question in either of their minds that they belonged together.

This was not true of the Kathy and Nick who would be waking up together. Twenty years and multiple catastrophes younger, they couldn't be called strangers, but they weren't yet entirely friends, either. Allies, was a good word for it, perhaps even partners, on those nights when one or the other of them ended up on the opposite coast and decided to go out for a night of costumed vigilante justice. Even patching Nick up after a bullet wound didn't really prepare either of them for the morning after a weekend like that.

Add that to the already fading memories of said zombie apocalypse and that resulted in a Kathy whose state up mind upon awakening could be summed up as something along the lines of oh god oh god oh god oh god.

Good times.

[For the guy mentioned please and SP!]

Comments

[gunslingerpose]

Nick's tone was maybe a little more sober as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, trust me, I stayed on the island plenty long enough. I didn't see it coming back home, though."

And he didn't like the possibility that it could happen there. Not one goddamn bit.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Me neither," Kathy said softly. "I thought home was--was safe. At least from crazy stuff like that. The odds of getting shot by a Seventeen are high, but the odds of being eaten by a zombie should be non-existent." She ran a hand through her hair and cast about looking for her skirt and discarded underwear. "There was a decade of children missing. I remember telling that to someone. Like, there just aren't people aged fifteen to twenty-eight. That's terrifying. Not just terrifying--unthinkable."

Except she was doing a damn good job of thinking about it now. Picturing classrooms. Rows and rows of empty classrooms. Almost every child seven and under had died and practically no new children had been born for almost five years after that--or, at least, hadn't survived. That was insane.

"Do you remember how it started? I know I explained it, but by the time I got to that part, I was pretty drunk." She blushed, looking down at her hands. "Sorry about that."

[gunslingerpose]

"Hey, it was a drinking kind of conversation," Nick pointed out. "Somewhere around the start I was hitting the ouzo pretty hard, myself."

Which he was kicking himself for now, yes.

"That's... a whole fucking generation. My brother has kids that age," he added, swallowing. "Fuck."

He should be taking notes. Should be putting down everything he could remember, which was slipping from his mind like a slow leak from a tire. And he should have stayed fucking sober the other night, not that he'd thought for an instant that he'd be twenty years younger two days later.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I--I don't think--" Kathy abruptly shut up. She didn't like the feeling of dread creeping into the pit of her stomach when Nick mentioned his brother and his--nephews? For a moment she'd been certain he had two nephews. Then, she was briefly distracted by the thought No, really, where did he throw my underwear? and when she dismissed it as being irrelevant, her certainty about number, sex, or gender of Nick's brother's children was gone.

"The dead rise and civilization falls, or so we remember," she said instead. "The read question is, is that our future? Our real future? Or is it like the kids from after prom, who could be from anyone or anywhere? I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned. Shouldn't be prepared. But I'm trying to figure out how much weight we need to worry about all of it."

Even so saying, she was wrapping a sheet around her so she could snag the complimentary pad of paper and a pen to start taking notes. Even if they agreed it was likely a Fandom trick, there was too much depending on them to ignore it all.

[gunslingerpose]

"Well, we can't exactly let it stop us from functioning," Nick pointed out, fastening his belt and just sort of slinging his shirt over his shoulder for the time being. "But it's not exactly something we can afford to not give a lot of weight to. Not considering the cost."

He took a heavy seat on the edge of the bed, exhaling raggedly.

"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. How do you even prepare for the fucking zombie apocalypse in a city like Los Angeles? Do we tell Dragon? Regenerator?" Something sat in his mouth like ashes at the mention of Regenerator's name, and he made a face without fully understanding why. "We don't even know exactly when, do we? Just... fuck. Soon?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"I graduated," Kathy said, frowning as she tried to pull the details out of her uncooperative brain. "Finished here, went home, and then started fighting against them. So...a year? Slightly less because our commencement is in early May?"

She started carding her hand through her hair, trying to think. "If we even wanted to tell them, would they listen? Would you? 'I went back East and suddenly I was twenty years older and remembering a zombie invasion that hasn't happened yet.' What would you think of someone who tried telling you that--if you didn't have Fandom experience already, I mean."

[gunslingerpose]

"I would laugh until I cried and then tell them to sober the fuck up," Nick replied, honestly. "But then, I'm not Dragon. I'm a complete asshole, and he's a fire-breathing Boy Scout. And is it that it's hard to believe, even for a pack of people who can fucking crush metal with their bare hands or heal people with a touch? Or is it that it's just so fucking horrifying that nobody wants to think about it? Because even if we plant that seed of doubt, it can't hurt. We already do the impossible every damn day."

[spin_kick_snap]

"True and I'll back whatever play you want to make here, but..." Kathy licked her lips, a little nervous. "But we have to do it carefully. Even a fire-breathing Boy Scout has his limits and dumping the fuzzy details of a zombie apocalypse that may or may not ever happen into his lap might be one of them."

God, she wasn't explaining this right or well. "I'm not trying to say we shouldn't do anything," she said, hoping to forestall an accusation of exactly that. "I just want to--to think before we decide what to do. Right now, we know that in a year, the dead will rise, destroy LA, and we'll end up making a community for survivors in--in--in a mountain or something. Sure, we could tell the Mighty Dragon to be on the watch for zombies, he might not even dismiss us out of hand. But then what?"

[gunslingerpose]

Nick already had a vague notion of what the Mount might be. Which meant that he was going to have to go poking around when he returned to L.A., to see if it was actually a workable option in case of the worst.

"Then we have one more person on the watch for zombies," he pointed out. "One more person who might be able to help us figure out that 'then what' question. And if he does dismiss us out of hand, what do we lose? And if he takes us seriously and it turns out we're wrong? Fuck yes, great, the world didn't actually come to an end. Worst thing we lose in any of these situations is maybe some credibility."

[spin_kick_snap]

"So, how do you plan to tell him about it?" Kathy asked. "So far, I'm not coming up with anything that doesn't sound like it would end with us locked in a nuthatch."

[gunslingerpose]

The narrative was going take a moment to be mildly concerned at the prospect of stuffing Kathy and Nikolai into a tiny songbird.

"Very carefully," Nick replied, shrugging. "You do know what I do for a living, don't you? You can say all you like about Hollywood, but an agent's job is marketing. I get the big bucks for making the hard sells. For convincing a director that they want to hire someone for their children's movie in spite of the front-page drinking binge that ended in assault charges and public indecency, still not completely settled in court. That is literally my career."

[spin_kick_snap]

So literal, other narrative. So literal.

"Okaaaay," Kathy was trying not to sound too dubious about the possibility. She hadn't seen Nick in action, maybe he was as good as he said. Kathy was still pretty sure there was a sizable difference between his job and convincing someone rational that a zombie apocalypse was coming, but what did she know about Hollywood anyway? "So then we should try to remember everything we can, so we can use it as touchstones."

Setting the pad on her knee, she looked up at him. "What do you remember best?"

[gunslingerpose]

Other narrative should know by now that, when given the opportunity to birb...

"We know it's relatively soon," Nikolai offered. "And... something about teeth?"

He frowned. Even just the moment taken to discuss what the hell to do about this was enough to make things start to get fuzzy.

"Shit, I mean, like, more than the usual zombie 'don't let them bite you' common sense, you know?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"There were other heroes, too," Kathy said. "Ones we don't know yet? Like...Jim, maybe? Colonel America? Zipper?"

Damn it. None of those sounded quite right.

[gunslingerpose]

"I'm mostly sure the Colonel is actually a character in a comic book movie I helped cast for," Nick pointed out, raising an eyebrow. "That said, I wouldn't be surprised if more heroes did start crawling out of the woodwork. I mean, look at how many of us there are in just a few years. There never used to be."

And then, because that wasn't actually helpful for remembering in the least.

"I do remember something about Barry's handiwork saving your ass once, though."

That seemed important. That seemed... more important than a lot of the rest of it, for some reason. Still, even now, going by the little pang he felt when he mentioned it.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Wait--you helped cast the Revengers movie?!" Kathy asked, because, hi, comics nerd. "Is he really as adorable as--"

No. Hang on. She needed to focus. Zombies. Right.

"You do?" she asked, brow furrowed. "It did? I don't supposed you remember how?" This was definitely something Kathy didn't remember but felt she should.

[gunslingerpose]

No, no, the Colonel was in his own solo flick before the Revengers. Nick would have loved to have bragging rights for casting Manos for that end credits scene.

"That's... a good... question." Nick frowned, trying to remember how the story had gone. "I mean, zombies, so it's gotta be a bite, right? What's so special about that costume of yours, anyway?"

It had pockets!

[spin_kick_snap]

DON'T YOU SASS THE POCKETS!

"Umm, Barry is kind of a supergenius," Kathy explained. "My suit's actually a bullet...resistant? Not bulletproof, especially at point blank range, but definitely bullet-resistant."

[gunslingerpose]

"So, I'm guessing it'd take a lot of doing for a zombie to actually get his teeth directly into you...?"

Seemed worth a wager.

"Bullet-resistant, huh? Shit, I need to talk to this kid about maybe doing something up for me. Not in the mood to get myself shot again."

Which was a detour in the conversation, and he verbally smacked himself for going there when so many things were fading.

"What heroes that we know did we talk about, do you remember? Regnerator? Dragon? Did we even mention the Awesome Ape, or that creepy fucker, Cairax?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy's brow furrowed. "I don't...I don't remember mentioning Dragon much," she said, looking worried. "I know we talked about him a bit when we were telling Eliot, Parker, and Hardison about everything. But the rest of the weekend? When we were talking about our current life? We didn't mention Mighty Dragon or Regenerator."

[gunslingerpose]

"I don't remember the Ape, either," Nick sighed. "Cairax... maybe. Something about... something."

He frowned.

"That was super helpful. Great."

[spin_kick_snap]

"So..." Kathy was trying to think of reasons why they might only be mentioning new heroes and not the ones they already knew. "Maybe we weren't the only group of survivors?" she suggested. "And so we split up the heroes to keep each group safe?"

[gunslingerpose]

"That... is a shitload more optimistic than what I was thinking," Nick admitted, biting the inside of his cheek. "It leaves humans as an endangered species, I mean. And there are a lot more of them than there are of us."

After a pause, he offered a slightly less pessimistic option.

"... Of course, if there's nobody left, maybe we just don't have any reason to bother with secret identities all that much."

With the once-again-pessimistic reasoning of... who would they be protecting if all their loved ones were dead anyway?

[spin_kick_snap]

"It's not like the zombies care whether they eat us as heroes or as civilians," Kathy admitted, gloomily. "And...yeah. I know that option isn't likely. Odds are, we're not mentioning them because they're dead. But...until we start planning for real, I'd rather keep at least hoping it's something less bleak, regardless of how likely that is."