A/N: I wrote this partially because it's so close to Halloween and partially because it's Andrew-Lee Potts' (a.k.a. the adorkable Connor Temple) birthday today. Happy early Halloween everyone! And happy birthday, Connor!
"I'm telling you guys, this place is full of—"
"Connor Temple, if you say the word 'ghost' one more time, I am going to send you home," Cutter threatened, glancing in the rearview mirror at the errant young student.
"—apparition-Englishmen," Connor revised.
The professor groaned and rolled his eyes. In the passenger seat, Stephen was fighting down laughter, so was Abby and Jenny in the back seat. It was the twenty-ninth of October, only two days away from Halloween, and it was just their luck that an anomaly appeared in what was widely acclaimed to be the most haunted house in London. Connor had yet to stop going on about it, much to the professor's annoyance and the team's amusement. It was Cutter's own opinion that the 'haunting' was actually a creature from a recurring anomaly moving about inside the house and then disappearing back through the temporal gateway, leaving behind no trace of its presence, thus furthering the idea of a ghostly presence.
As they pulled up to the kerb outside the house, Cutter would at least admit that the house was definitely creepy-looking; the ancient-looking, decrepit house wouldn't have looked out of place on the set of The Addams Family.The lawn had been left to grow wild, climbing plants swarming over the sides of the house, up the front pillars of the porch, and around the iron bars of the fence like creeping vegetal fingers. The windows were all cracked and thickly layered in grime. The clapboards on the side of the house were falling apart, paint flaking away. A tall iron fence wrapped around the yard, topped in sharp spikes.
As they all climbed out of the Hilux, Stephen turned to look at the Scotsman, a small grin playing on his lips. "Cutter…say it."
"Say what?" the other man asked, then turned to look at Stephen. He seemed to understand what the tracker was asking for and shook his head. "No. No, I'm not saying it."
"C'mon, Nick, say it. Just once, please. For me, say it one time," Stephen coaxed, a grin playing at his lips whilst the rest of the team watched in curiosity.
The professor sighed and closed the ammo case in the back of the truck, turning back around to face his friend. He managed to maintain his stern expression for only a heartbeat longer before the corner of his mouth curled up. "I ain't 'fraid of no ghost," he said at last.
The small smile playing at the other man's lips became a full-blown grin. "Thank you."
"See, now what did I tell you? No ghost," said Cutter smugly as the team walked out of the house well over two hours later, a glum-faced Connor shuffling behind. His theory had been correct—the 'haunting' was actually a small flock of archaeopteryx from the Jurassic, a recurring anomaly in the cellar allowing them into the house. The bird-like dinosaurs produced a rather ethereal-sounding mating call that did sound for all the world like something out of a ghost film, shrieking like angry banshees when disturbed. It seemed that they'd used the house as some kind of mating ground, courting and pairing up in the house before returning through the anomaly to hatch their young in the Jurassic.
Needless to say, Connor was massively disappointed. Whilst he was rather excited to see the beautiful archaeopteryx, early ancestors of the modern bird, he was rather gloomy about there not actually being a proper ghost about. Falling into step beside her flatmate, Abby playfully nudged him with an elbow. "Aw, come off it, Conn. What in the world could we've done if there actually was a ghost in there?" she asked.
"I dunno, but it'd be a lot cooler than a bunch of Mesozoic chickens," he replied sullenly.
Stephen snorted. "I know you expected there to be more than this, Connor, but I'll tell you a secret," he said, and just as he expected, the young man perked up slightly at the mention of secrets. Lowering his voice so the others couldn't hear, he let the student in on a secret that could possibly get him fired. "You might be a geek for Star Wars, but I know for a fact that Cutter knows every word of Ghostbusters line-for-line," he said in a confidential tone. Connor had to clap one gloved hand over his mouth to keep from laughing aloud. "Try it."
Taking a deep breath to steady his voice, Connor called, "Oi, Professor, who you gonna call?"
"Ghostbusters," replied Cutter without missing a beat, then froze as he realised what he'd said. Both Stephen and Connor were doubled over with laughter, and he knew instantly that his lab technician had let slip his guilty pleasure to the student. "Damn it, Stephen!"
They only laughed harder.