POLL : So far we have three entries tied for top spot, and this is one of them. Keep voting, and the winners will be worked on. Mainly this is for me to sort out priorities, I'm planning to do them all at some point. Visit my profile to vote, and if one of the others takes over then you'll have more than one story being done at once!

A/N : This is another of those 'shared universe not crossover' type situations. There will be no characters from the other source appearing. Hope you all enjoy!

1.

"Da-na-na-na-NA-na! Na-na-na-na-NA-NA-na!"

Peter was singing, or at least making some sort of tuneful noises. Erik wasn't sure why, but gave him a sidelong glance that seemed to question his sanity.

"Why on earth are you doing that?" he murmured, saw his son roll his eyes in that familiar 'my Dad is so out of touch' way. Instead of answering, he had directed his singing straight at Erik and continued

"If there's something strange, in the neighbourhood – who you gonna call?!"

"Sorry Peter, am I supposed to know what you're talking about?"

"You've really not seen that movie yet? OK if we get time out from this, we're totally going to the movies. In fact, can we go to Hollywood? I bet they have the best movie theatres there, we could –"

"We're working" Erik said firmly, "And no"

"Buuuuut Daaaad.."

"You're twenty-seven, Peter. Don't whine at me like a child, we've been given a very important job to do and we're going to do it. There will be no movies, no visits to Hollywood, and certainly no frivolous singing once we get where we're going. Do you understand? This is a mission, and Charles has trusted us with it."

"I understand that only the terminally boring would have not seen "Ghostbusters" yet" he quipped back, drawing another hard look in the mirror. Erik sighed a long-suffering sigh, that wave of semi-despairing futility that he was becoming intimately familiar with washing through him.

"It's not a ghost" he explained patiently, "There are no such thing as ghosts. It's a Mutant with abilities that are causing similar phenomena to what the uneducated may call a haunting, and we're going to try to bring them in so that Charles can help them"

"Can we at least say we're Ghostbusters when we get there?" Peter suggested brightly, "You can be Spengler, you're all serious and weird, and I can be Venkman 'cos he's obviously the coolest, and –"

"No. For the last time, it's not a ghost. If you're going to fixate on the details, you could at least read the information we have and get a better idea of what we're dealing with"

In a fraction of a moment, the large wad of papers Xavier had sent them off with was in Peter's hands, flicking through to a large black-and-white photograph of their destination.

"Already did, twice. It's awesome and definitely haunted"

"Peter – "

"I know, I know. You don't believe in ghosts. But check this *out* man, the place used to belong to this creepy dude who had a Frankenstein complex, then there was this couple used to live there who had a whole murder-suicide thing going on, there's been literally dozens of deaths. People get scared and move out as soon as they're in. It's so cool, it'll be just like being in a real-life horror movie!"

Erik counted to ten in his head, put a lid on his urge to yell that there were no such thing as ghosts yet again, and kept his mind on the road. When Xavier had called them both up to ask them to go out to Los Angeles to approach a Mutant whose signature had been detected there, he had thought it a simple matter. Been glad of the idea of taking his son with him, thought they could spend some time together whilst on the road and get the chance to use their skills together for once. Whilst the thought of having Peter cooped up in a car for hours wasn't a pleasant one, he'd carefully planned the route so that they could stop frequently to get him exercised and fed like the bouncy, demanding puppy he was. What he hadn't banked on was Peter being intrigued by the details of what had been going on in that house, and insisting that it was haunted despite Hank's careful and patient explanation of what he actually suspected was going on there.

It was true that the house had a shadowy and fascinating history, and true that numerous people had died there and many others had been driven out by events that had no explanation to them. It even looked like a haunted house, with its beautiful Victorian architecture and lavish art-deco touches inside, marred in several of the pictures they had obtained by spatters of blood. Having regained his calm, Erik took a patient tone and asked

"Is it this intersection or the next?"

"This one"

Erik took the turning without thinking, soon off what he thought was the right path by some way, turning briefly to his son

"Are you sure?"

"Oh you meant to the Murder House? No, that was the next one – but there's a Denny's just down this one, and I'm hungry"

Erik counted to ten again, gripped the steering wheel hard.

"You will not call it 'Murder House' in front of the very concerned current owners, clear?"

"It's on the Murder House tour of Los Angeles" he pointed out, fishing a leaflet out of the file and waving it at him, "I'm pretty sure they already know"

Pulling into the truck stop that housed the expected Denny's, Erik turned in his seat, tried to sound kind and fatherly, even put a hand gently on Peter's shoulder just to reinforce that he wasn't about to lose his temper with him.

"Peter, if you lived in a house where people had died, where there were things going on that you didn't understand and that frightened you badly, would you want a couple of people showing up calling themselves Ghosthunters or saying you lived in a Murder House?"

"Ghostbusters" he corrected, "And yeah, I'd be cool with that"

"Well they probably aren't. They're humans, don't forget. They have a very limited capacity for understanding such things. Let's not worry them more than they already are"

"Fiiiiine" Peter sighed, "No Ghostbusting for us"