"Eh, its just something you learn to live with. Well, you, live with, not so much me anymore."
"Pete, I think you've missed the point of being dead." Ray smiled despite himself. What a peculiarly cruel situation - ghostbuster loses his buster. And he doesn't even have the decency to be vengeful, or sad, or any different at all.
"I might've missed the memo..."
"Missed meaning 'threw it out a window'?"
"More like burned. And scattered the ashes in a volcano."
He looked up and shared his smile with Peter, smirks in perfect reflection but for Ray's evident exhaustion. None of them had slept too much since Pete had died because, well, Pete didn't know how anymore - ghosts, obviously, have no natural compulsion to sleep - and they didn't like to leave him all on his own since he had nothing to occupy his time.
Strange, to concern yourself with someone whose already dead.
Dead. Such a heavy word. Doesn't seem to mean as much anymore. Though it can't seem to stop coming up. Stop forcing itself on their awareness.
"Ray, go to bed. It doesn't take a genius like myself to see you're tired. Like, fall on your face, break your nose and not wake up until its healed tired."
"I'm fine, Pete. This needs to get done anyway." And on cue, the soldering iron slipped in his hand.
"Do I need to say it?"
"No..." He sighed in defeat and glanced over at the clock. Well, at least it was -
"Look, its already three. I'm sure I can handle myself until Egon starts with his usual crazy. Or at worst until Janine gets here."
"... You want me to leave the TV on or something?"
"Nah, we can't afford to keep running up the bill."
"Okay." Heavy as much from reluctance as tiredness, Ray drug himself off to fall into bed, with much egging and shooing from Peter.
It was indecent how much like himself he still was...