The great double doors swung slowly inward, admitting the red-and-white
Cadillac hearse to the garage area. It nestled into its roomy berth, the
right front fender knocking over a plastic waste bin before coming to a
stop. Egon Spengler climbed out from behind the steering wheel, responding
to his partners' hoots with a friendly wave. "They rushed us right
through," he called, circling the car to the passenger's side rear. "Andy
Liebowitz was there visiting a patient, and he cut some of the red tape."
"Everything okay?" Winston left Peter's side and crossed to the car, knocking an empty oil can aside with a little kick. "How you doin', homebrew?"
This last was aimed at Ray, who was struggling to escape the back seat. His tan uniform was gone though he still wore the black t-shirt and light slacks the Ghostbusters routinely used as undergarments. In deference to the chilly day, he'd knotted the sleeves of an old gray sweatshirt Peter kept in Ecto's rear around his shoulders; he pulled it off and tossed it on the seat, then swung his feet out of the car. His left foot was still clad in his work boot; heavy bandaging showed through the black sock he wore on his right. He shot the black man a rueful smile even as Egon pulled him up by the arms. "I'm fine. My ankle is sprained and Andy thinks I cracked a couple of ribs where I landed on my pack ..." He bit his lip when Egon tugged too hard, relaxing a moment later. "... but I think they're just bruised. Nothing serious. Sorry if I was any trouble."
"Happens to the best of us, kiddo," Zeddemore returned, ruffling Ray's hair good naturedly. "Happens to you just a little more often is all. But then, you always did tend to get a bit over-enthusiastic on a bust."
Stantz shrugged self-deprecatingly, the action barely stirring Egon's powerful grip on his bare arm. "Clumsy, you mean. I wasn't watching where I was going."
"That's because you were too busy watching me." Venkman, too, left the reception area to approach the car, sweeping his youngest partner with a glance. Egon slung one of Ray's arms across his shoulders, his own around the other's chest and Peter frowned. He popped his head into the car, glanced around and emerged looking puzzled. "Didn't the hospital send along any crutches?"
Ray pressed his hand against his ribcage and Egon hurriedly repositioned his grip a few inches lower. "They were temporarily unable to supply us with the proper accoutrements," the physicist returned easily. "There will be a pair consigned to us before the afternoon has elapsed."
Winston groaned. "Now I know you're all right, Ray. Egon's pulled out his five dollar words again."
"Indubitably" Spengler returned, smiling.
Peter stood examining Ray for another moment then reached out slowly and tilted his face up. "What about this?" he asked, using his free hand to brush the new dressing on Ray's forehead. "No concussion?"
Ray shook his head, freeing himself from Peter's light hold. "Nope. My ankle might keep me out for a couple days ..."
"Weeks," Egon interjected firmly.
"... but that's it." He looked around, paying particular attention to the ceiling and floor. "Aren't Janine and Slimer back from the orphanage yet?"
Peter stared another second, his fingers trailing down to touch the small gauze patch on Ray's throat. "Not yet. They said about 4:30. I-I have to talk to you." Ray's smile flickered away at his heavy tone, and he purposely lightened it though not without some bitterness. "Don't worry, this isn't an attack. I just want to talk."
Ray blinked, his shoulders drooping slightly at the barely concealed rebuke, but he nodded agreeably enough. "Sure. What do you want to talk about?"
Peter shot a glance first to a sobered Zeddemore then to Egon, whose blond brows were bisected by a puzzled frown. He forced a smile of his own. "You mind, fellahs? Got something I want to discuss with the boy wonder, here." Not waiting for acknowledgement, he slid his arm under Egon's until Stantz was of necessity leaning more on him than on the physicist. Taking the hint, Egon withdrew, leaving Peter to support fully half of Ray's weight.
Winston too stepped back, placing a hand in the small of Egon's back. "C'mon," he offered, "I'm making stew and I need someone to chop onions."
"I hate chopping onions," the blond complained, nevertheless allowing Zeddemore to usher him toward the stairs. "My glasses fog and my sinuses obstruct."
"Obstructed sinuses, eh?" the negro teased, glancing at the other's sizable schnazzola. "That could be serious. Maybe you better do the salad instead...."
Peter watched the two disappear up the stairs, an amused half smile on his face at the repartee. Then he switched his attention to the man at his side, who was at this moment regarding him with large, wary eyes. "Think you can make it into my office?"
"Sure."
With Peter's assistance the relocation was soon accomplished, and soon the two were established on the battered sofa Peter kept around for what he liked to term emergency napping. From there one had an unobstructed view through the glass walls enclosing the office, albeit an inauspicious one of the rear of the garage. The two young men sat in uncomfortable silence for several seconds, then Ray cleared his throat.
"Um ... Peter, if this is about the way I messed up the bust today...."
Startled out of his own reverie, Venkman glanced up, waving one hand disparagingly. "Winston and Egon got the last gooper. No big deal."
Stantz mulled that over, scratching his smooth chin. "You're mad at me for something else?"
There was a dust ball on the floor beside Peter's foot; he kicked it under the sofa, a frown creasing his handsome features. "What makes you think I'm mad about something?"
Ray rubbed absently at his stretched-out leg, carefully not looking at the older man. "You've been so short with everyone, it's kind of obvious you're mad about something. I-I wanted to help ... I mean, to ask.... Whatever it was, I didn't mean it. You know that don't you?"
There was so much earnestness in the apology that Peter patted his leg though his expression remained unchanged. "I'm not mad, Ray. But after what happened this afternoon, I'm ..." He pursed his lips, choosing his words carefully. "... shall we say, concerned?"
Ray twined his hands fingers together, a nervous habit whenever he was under stress. His eyes, however, were completely without guile. "I don't understand."
Peter looked from Ray's clasped hands to his eyes and back to his hands. "You really don't know, do you? But you suspect. I can tell." When Ray didn't answer, Peter dropped his head into his palms, rubbing his face briskly. When he raised it again, the anger had returned, a tautness in his jaw that had ever bespoken imminent explosion. "Do I have to spell everything out?" he grunted, turning to face Stantz directly.
Only Ray's lips moved in response. "I think you'd better."
Green eyes narrowed, then Peter stood, his agitation finding expression in motion. "Why did you fall?"
Ray blinked. "Why? I wasn't paying attention and I slipped, that's all."
Venkman took a turn around the room then came to stand over the engineer, hands on hips. "That's not all and you know it. The reason you fell was me."
Stantz protest was immediate. "That's not true, Peter! I slipped."
Peter scowled. In an abrupt move he swooped down on the unsuspecting Stantz, lips parted and ugly silver temporary caps glinting in the artificial light. Brown eyes flying open, Ray uttered an alarmed cry and cringed backward until he was brought up short by the back of the couch, one hand coming up to protect his throat. Seeing this, Peter stopped, his reaching arms dropping to his sides. "That's what happened this afternoon," he rapped curtly. "That's why you fell."
Ray sagged, his breathing coming faster than before. "You're nuts! You startled me...."
"I startled you this afternoon," Peter snapped back. "And all I did was walk up behind you." He retreated a step, vision shifting from Ray's still- pale face to a picture hanging above his head. It showed old stone buildings, white with rimefrost. In the foreground three men stood, their arms locked around each other's shoulders, wide grins on their faces. "Did you think I wouldn't know you were afraid of me?"
"That's not true!" But Ray's eyes betrayed the half-lie. He stopped, swallowed heavily, his normally soft voice growing even quieter. "Maybe ... maybe sometimes I remember ... some of what happened. But ... that doesn't mean I blame you, Peter. It wasn't your fault. What happened was all my idea, after all."
Peter dropped back down onto the couch and absently smoothed a wrinkle in his gray sweat pants. "Don't apologize for saving my life, Ray. If not for you I would have killed someone else and no one would ever have been able to help me."
Ray shifted uncomfortably under that faintly damning praise, shy self- deprecation in his face. "That was only according to Turkish legend but I didn't want to take a chance. I only gambled on a blood oath being binding, too. I didn't really know anything."
"Gamble paid off." Venkman met brown-amber eyes, remorse further creasing the harsh planes around his mouth. "Nearly cost you your life. Twice."
Color touched Ray's cheeks at that. "Like I said, I didn't even know if it would work. No big deal or anything." The seemingly simple statement elicited fresh irritation in Venkman; in a sudden burst, he slammed his fist into the side of the sofa, raising little puffs of dust from the old upholstery. Ray watched the display calmly, though his fingers continued to clamp tight. "Now are you going to tell me why you've been mad at me all week?"
Peter waved away the dust cloud, then sneezed and reached for a kleenex in the pocket of his sweatpants. "I said I'm not mad -- at least, not at you."
"Who, then?"
"Who?" Peter blew his nose and tossed the tissue into a nearby wastecan. "Nobody. Everybody. Me, maybe."
"You? Why would you be made at yourself? Not about ... what happened?"
"What happened." Peter hunched his shoulders forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "You don't even say it out loud, do you. Do you mention the subject even to yourself?" Ray began some disjointed protest, which Peter cut off by raising a hand. "What happened," he said brutally, "was that I tore your throat out. And liked it."
He turned glittering green eyes on the troubled brown, and Ray actually retreated several inches from the ferocity there before he could catch himself. "That wasn't you, Peter," he denied, touching the bandages on his neck in a self-conscious way. "It was them -- the Q'utah. They cut me, not you."
"They were also me." Peter let the words hang in the still air, their echo growing until it was a solid wall between them. Ray stared back, troubled, then dropped his head, fixing the concrete floor with a steady look. Peter extinguished the blaze in his eyes, his tone muting slightly. "You think about it a lot."
"Only sometimes," was the stubborn response. "Not a lot."
"Sometimes is enough, I'd say." Again anger finished its cycle and died away, and the deep sadness in the psychologist's expression was no less affecting. He and Ray sat shoulder to shoulder for long minutes, neither looking at the other, the comfortable harmony that had always existed between them, for once missing. Finally, Peter roused himself from the spider's web of despair to invite, "Tell me how much you remember of that first night."
"I don't remember much," Stantz answered fretfully, his fingers continuing their agitated dance. "Not really."
Not good enough. "Tell me what you do remember."
Still not looking up, Ray took a deep breath, his words emerging haltingly, painfully. "I was in the chem lab checking some references on vampires."
"Is that what you were doing downstairs?" Peter said, surprised. "I wondered."
"When we didn't find anything in the sewer ... and then you disappeared...." Ray glanced up at Peter and then away, wetting his lips with his tongue. "Tobin's didn't have anything; I hoped maybe Ryzczyk's Unspeakable Horrors would. Anyway, I heard someone moving around and found you under the stairs."
"Thought you were a prowler," Peter explained sheepishly. "Was about to give you whatfor."
"You needed blood ... or something," Ray finished shakily, not hearing the interruption, "and you took mine. That's it."
There was a chill in the air completely unrelated to the room's temperature yet not disassociated from those terse, bleak statements. Venkman shivered under its impact, the heat of anger completely gone and leaving nothing but icy analysis. "That's not it, is it?" he said brutally. "You left out the best parts, like my fangs ripping open your throat, or how it felt to watch yourself bleed to death ... while I enjoyed it."
"Stop it, Peter!" Ray blurted, spinning on his companion with all the force of a desperate man. "It was them! Them!"
If it was his intention to make some dent in the other's weary composure, he was doomed to disappointment; Peter went on unheeding, his tone so reasonable as to be that much more disturbing. "It's in your mind all the time isn't it?" he prodded relentlessly, giving the engineer no respite, "Every time you look at me."
Backed into a corner, Ray started to shake, a tiny shiver of suppressed stress only in his hands. "I can't help it. I try but...."
"But you can't separate the two -- not here." Peter tapped his temple meaningfully. "That's why when you saw me behind you this afternoon, you pulled back. That's why you fell. That's why I'm ... quitting the team."
Shock blanked the youthful features for a full thirty seconds. Ray's mouth hung open, his eyes wide. "You ... you don't mean that," he gasped finally, getting control of himself though his face had gone white. "You can't mean that! Peter...!"
Venkman held up a hand. "The only reason, I repeat, the only reason any of us are alive right now is because we learned to trust each other totally, especially in a combat situation. Once we lose that, we're no longer a team. That means one of us is going to go uncovered -- or flinch away and fall, maybe to his death." The cool tones faltered and he looked away. "I'm not prepared to let that happen."
"But you can't! It was my fault! Peter, I'm sorry! I didn't mean.... You...!" The words trailed off into incoherency, seemingly making no impression on the other's averted face. Finally Ray fell silent, both hands raised helplessly. "Please."
Ray sounded so miserable that Peter was moved to look up. He hesitated, then slipped an arm around the drooping shoulders. "Don't look like that, kid. It's not like I'm running out on you. I just won't be going on busts anymore." His voice broke and he as obliged to stop and take a deep breath. He swallowed and went on, "I'll try and get an apartment nearby...."
Ray hung his head, covering his face with one hand. "I'm so sorry, Peter. This all my stupid fault."
The psychologist pulled him closer until Ray was leaning against him. There was a weary surrender in Peter's features -- the look of a man whose mind is made up little though he liked the verdict. It might have been mistaken for conviction if the devastation in his eyes had not belied the facade for the fraud it was. "Don't Ray! After what you went through, you have to expect a certain amount of trauma. You can't help feeling the effects." Ray didn't look up and Peter raised his free hand to thread his fingers in the fine auburn hair, sighing deeply at the contact. "It'll go away Ray. Just give it some time."
Ray uncovered his eyes and peeked up, freeing his hair without leaving the circle of the older man's arm. "Doesn't that apply to you, too? You went through more than I did. And you've been so...."
"So what?" Peter asked with distant curiosity.
"Unapproachable. Mad and distant and.... Egon said if we gave you some space you'd work it out and be all right again. I ... guess he was wrong." He twisted until he could grasp Peter's left hand with both of his own. "Can't you see? The Q'utah messed with your head, not mine. You're the one not thinking straight -- you can't be if you think leaving is going to help!"
"I'm not the one who fell," Peter reminded him curtly, his tone uncharacteristically defensive.
Ray accepted that with relative aplomb. "What do you remember, Peter?"
Venkman spent several full minutes examining the glass office partition, that far away look returning. "For two and a half days I was dirty and hungry and scared out of my mind. I wasn't sure if you were dead ... or worse. I ... can't remember ever being that miserable." He shuddered and Ray leaned closer, slipping his arm under Peter's and around the older man's back. Peter securing his own grip on Ray's shoulders, seeming to draw strength from his friend's touch. They sat like that silently for a long time, Ray rubbing his back, Peter resting his cheek on soft hair. Ever so slowly the contact had its effect; the agonized expression faded leaving him looking spent yet with a tenderness softening the rough edges that had not been there before. Finally, he straightened, hesitantly meeting Ray's openly compassionate gaze. "The whole experience wasn't horrible. Part of it I ... cherish."
"When was that?" Ray asked encouragingly, not loosing his hold one iota.
Fine lips quirked in a smile. "While we were in contact ... I was inside of your head -- emotions, memories, experiences -- everything. For awhile I actually was you ... sort of."
Ray stirred, pulling back just far enough to see Peter clearly. "I thought I felt something touch my mind but I couldn't really tell. It was so vague you couldn't have been broadcasting." He frowned, looking uncomfortable. "You know everything about me?"
Peter didn't answer at first. He regarded the youthful face consideringly. "I always wondered what your mother looked like. Those old black-and- white photos you have are faded. She was lovely -- so young and full of life. You resemble her quite a bit."
Ray dropped his eyes, a very old pain stirring their liquid amber depths. "Everyone said she was beautiful. Most of the time. Bad things made her so sad, though. That was ... a lot of the time near the-the end."
Peter smiled reminiscently. "Very beautiful. Curly red hair and dark brown eyes. I didn't expect her to be that fragile." He waved a hand humorously. "Hey, if she wasn't married, I'd've taken a crack at her!"
"I miss her a lot."
The tones were so choked that Peter turned to look at him sharply. "I know you do, kiddo; I did too when I was you. Saw Pa Hanley, that low-life scumbag. If I could have...."
"He's not important," Ray interrupted quickly with a flash of alarm.
"And," Peter finished mercilessly but with a touch of the whimsical, "Lorna."
Ray blinked. "Lorna? My cow Lorna? You know about her?"
Peter shrugged, mischief dancing in bright green eyes. "A bit. Big thing -- at least, she looked big when you're seeing through the eyes of a ten year old. Moo-moo face, wet, scratchy tongue."
A slow smile smoothed lines of concern. "I used to really love Lorna. They let me raise her myself after her mother rejected her. She was one of my best friends on the Hanley place." He grinned, a brief, embarrassed flash of white teeth. "Kind of weird keeping a cow for a pet on a working farm."
"Working farm?" Peter delicately cleared his throat. "You ... um ... didn't eat her or anything, did you?"
Ray looked scandalized at that, then somewhat sad. "Mr. Hanley wanted to slaughter Lorna when she was a couple years old. We ran away. They caught me and brought me back but by then one on the neighboring farmers, Mr. Olsen, had agreed to take Lorna as a milk cow. He promised me he'd wouldn't kill her and Pa Hanley never found out what happened." He bit his lip, defiance jutting out his jaw. "He was mad for a long time but I never told him where she was. Never."
"Couldn't have been easy to keep quiet,," Peter murmured, uncertain temper smoldering. "I felt that strap of his, that lousy--"
"I don't want to talk about him," Ray pleaded quietly, eyes hooded. "Or Mom or.... I ... guess you know all about them anyway."
Peter laughed shortly. "Hardly everything. All I remember are a few flashes. Does that make you uncomfortable with me?"
"Should it?" Ray rejoined in tones Peter himself might have used.
Peter laughed again, this time with genuine amusement. "You've been hanging around me too long. Since you never talk about your past, I just assume it's something you don't want me to know. If not, my finding out what you're keeping to yourself is bound to make you uncomfortable with me." He waved a hand expansively. "Quod Erat Demonstrandum."
Ray pondered that a moment, resting his chin in his palm. "It's not that I don't want you to know anything about me," he said slowly, carefully not looking in Peter's direction. "It's just ... I don't want to think about ... that time. I want to live in this time." He looked up. "Is that so bad? To want to live only for now?"
Peter tightened his hold around Ray's shoulders, leaning forward himself until he was inches from the questioning brown eyes. "The past shapes the present," he explained gently. "The only way to stop it from affecting you -- or hurting you -- is to bring it into the light and deal with it for what it is or was. Running away from it won't eliminate the problem."
Ray's bright eyes lightened. "The Q'utah ... everything that happened -- that was in the past too. It can't hurt us now if you don't run away from it. We have to deal with it together, right?"
Sensing the unaccustomed precipice of threatened defeat crumbling beneath him, Peter pulled back, clasping his hands behind his head and affecting a pseudo-casual pose. "Argument won't wash, bunky. That ..." He jerked a thumb at Ray's bandaged ankle, then reclasped it behind his head. "... happened today, not last week, and dealing with it means preventing it from happening again. That's the whole point of this discussion."
Ray stared at him helplessly, fresh pain in his eyes mixed with an older, resurfacing emotion that Peter had acknowledged hating for years. Peter, seeing this, sat up straighter and took him by the shoulders. "Don't even think it," he ordered firmly, giving the younger man a shake. "My leaving has nothing to do with blame and it's not your fault. It's just ..." He waved one hand, his rational tone breaking under the strain of maintaining an insincere facade. "... the result of circumstances."
"You sound like Egon," Ray returned in a choked voice. "But it's not right. You can't...."
"Peter!" That strident, slightly nasal bass jerked both their heads up. Filling the entire doorway stood a tall, blue-clad physicist with red glasses, blond hair and an very forbidding expression. "You and I have something to discuss, I believe," he rumbled, stalking forward
"He's going to quit the team!" Ray wailed, regarding Egon beseechingly. "You've got to do something!"
"You told," Peter accused the black man following in Spengler's wake.
Zeddemore shrugged. "Not into abetting some idiot's self-demolition," he returned unapologetically. He leaned one hip against Peter's heavy wooden desk, his boot clunking against its side. "Did you think it was going to be easy to walk out on us? If so, you're doin' really bad drugs, homeboy."
Peter sighed deeply, the hunted look that he'd worn for several days returning with a vengeance. He released Ray and stood to face the advancing blond squarely, his body tensed as though for combat. "I think you should hear my side," he began reasonably.
Egon dismissed that with an impatient gesture. "I don't need to hear your side if it includes your leaving the team." He placed his fists on his hips belligerently, regarding Venkman from a distance of less than a foot. Egon's blue eyes held a curious mixture of severity and a sympathy even his thick lenses could not hide. "It was obviously a miscalculation to leave you unattended for any length of time. Your logic circuits disengaged."
Peter smiled bleakly. "My logic circuits are working all too well," he returned. "That's the problem."
"You logic circuits haven't been in working order for days," the blond snapped back, full lips thinned with annoyance. "What possible justification could your warped mind have come up with for walking out on the team?"
Had he been physically slapped, Peter could not have flinched as visibly at those words. He unsuccessfully attempted to cover the reaction by crossing his arms across his chest, for once unable to create a casual veneer. "It's not a matter of walking out," he protested. "This is necessary." Unable to turn away from Egon's rivetting stare, his green eyes dulled, shadowed from within. "If I stay I could be danger to you all. Ask Ray. He knows how ... pleasurable it was for me while I was feeding. And there's a constant echo in the back of my head reminding me of how great it was to feel ... sated." He did escape the sharp field of blue then, dipping his head to sink into Ray's gentle brown eyes. "The Q'utah might be gone but how can we be sure their influence is? That hunger was overwhelming; what if it comes back? What if I revert to what I was?"
"Do you feel any continuing influence?" Egon asked worriedly. "You're readings have remained normal since we trapped the Q'utah."
That brought Peter around in a flash. "Ah-HA! So you have been keeping watch on me. Your suspicions were aroused too, eh?"
Egon shook his head definitely. "Not at all, Peter. I consider it standard procedure to test and retest any data which comes into my possession. The phenomenon of your enslavement was unique and I was curious as to any long term effects on your own psi-readings." He looked uncomfortable. "I ... must admit I was a little uneasy as well. Your behavior has been erratic of late and...."
"Just like I told ya, Pete," Winston interjected when the blond stumbled to a confused halt. "None of us knew how to approach you and it worried us. You know Egon -- scientific road first."
"He's right." That was Ray, his soft voice hesitant as though expecting a rebuff. "You wouldn't tell us what was wrong and...."
Peter returned his stare to the younger man, baring his teeth fractionally to reveal the silver caps. "And what does that have to do with whether or not I'm going to revert to type?" he interrupted without apology. "If my natural psionics have been affected by the alien contact, we could all be up the creek. Especially you." He turned, switching his glare to Spengler. "And don't try to tell me it can't happen, Egon. This is my field, remember, and I know it's a possibility."
"Nothing is impossible," the physicist agreed. "However, statistically the probability line hovers in the one-percent range. And that, my friend, is my field."
Peter stared. "You worked it out?"
Egon stared back. "Did you think I wouldn't?"
Peter waved a hand. "Sorry. Forgot who I was talking. Of course you worked it out." He paused, letting the blond's words sink in. "One percent, eh? That low?"
"Based on the quantitative table you and Professor Stubbs worked out two years ago," Egon returned easily, "and the readings I've been taking, one percent is actually a generous estimate." The blond head shook head with honest bafflement. "You cannot believe your presence constitutes a genuine danger to Ray, Winston or myself? After all we've been through together -- after all we've faced together -- can you honestly look into your heart and say that?"
Peter shook his head stubbornly. "My heart? Not the logical approach I was expecting from you, Spengs. But to answer your question, forget my heart -- I can look into that bruise on Ray's face and say that."
"But Peter...." Ray began desperately, fingering the small bandage on his forehead.
Egon cut him off by spinning on him. "Raymond, when you were attacked by those terror dogs last year, who was it that drove them off?"
"Peter did," Stantz returned promptly.
"And whose plan was it that forced the nether-entity Plague to release you from her sickness?"
"Peter!" Ray answered again with even more force, eyes fixed on Venkman's. The psychologist, however, seemed fascinated by the intense sapphire stare again boring into him from behind Egon's red frames.
"It was Peter who dug me out when that wall collapsed last month," Winston chimed in, reading Egon's tactics accurately. "He saved my life that day."
"And who came after me when my body was being used by that N-E?" Egon finished in the triumphant tones of one who has just won a major battle. "Dr. Venkman, would you care to assess the probable consequences to Ray, Winston or myself had you been absent on any one of those occasions?"
Winston tapped the desk, waiting until he had Peter's reluctant attention. "Or a hundred other occasions." He leaned forward, reaching across to slap Peter hard on the chest. "You're part of this team, homeboy. Without you we'd've been dead a long time ago."
"Not trusting me can accomplish the same thing," Peter commented pointedly and to no one in particular. He dropped back onto the sofa abruptly, as though his legs could no longer hold him, then turned to pierce Ray with a glance. "It nearly did today. You could have broken your neck."
"Shoot. Seein' your ugly mug would have made me jump, too," Winston broke in, making a weak attempt at humor.
"But I didn't break my neck." Ray snagged Peter's sleeve, his expression was earnest and pleading. "Nothing happened to me today worse than a bump on the head and a sprained ankle. We've all gotten worse than that playing touch football! Nothing happened except ... what you're doing right now." He choked off, dropping his eyes. When he resumed, there was more pleading in his voice and his fingers twisted gray cotton. "Maybe I ... do have some problems with what happened with the Q'utah. Sometimes when I'm asleep...." He stopped, visibly forcing his head back up. "You say I'll get over what happened in time but you're not even willing to give me that time."
"You're even less willing to give yourself that time," Zeddemore interjected. "You had it worse than Ray. Who are you, Superman?"
Ray went on as though the black man had not spoken. "Peter, it's only been a couple of days since what happened ... since the Q'utah made you attack me." He released Peter's sleeve to take his hand, holding it tight with both his own. "You were the one that mentioned traumatic effects and that we'd have to do some healing."
Egon knelt by the couch, resting one large hand on the enclasped ones of Peter and Ray. "You, Raymond and myself have been together better than ten years! Don't we deserve a little time to heal before you decide to throw it all away? Before you throw us away?"
His kindly tone caused Peter's face to crumble, the defensive determination fading into open need. "It could cost your life, Egon. It nearly cost Ray's. How can I...?"
Stantz managed to wave that away without releasing Peter's hand. "You could never hurt me, Peter, not deliberately and not because of them. I know that -- I always did. Even when the Q'utah had you, I knew you wouldn't kill me."
"We all knew that," Winston interjected quietly. "No matter what the Q'utah had done to you, inside you were still a man -- a man we all loved."
"And trusted," Spengler added, his deep bass a caress.
"I wish I could believe that." And this much was truth for this was the core of Peter's ache. "The Q'utah augmented a psionically empathic state, especially while they were ... while we were feeding. I could tap into Ray's emotions as if they were my own." He licked dry lips, avoiding his comrades' eyes by gazing steadily out the open glass door. "I remember when the flavor changed. It wasn't sweet trust I was tasting -- it was fear."
Ray released Peter with one hand to touch his own throat, paling again at the returned memory. "I was afraid," he confessed softly, as to himself. "I was scared to death. I could feel myself...."
"Dying."
Ray shivered. "Yeah. But, Peter, I was scared of what was happening; I was never scared of you." He tugged on Peter's arm though the psychologist refused to look his way. "After I woke up I was even more scared -- not of you but for you! We didn't know what had happened to you or even if you were still alive. Or if we could save you or...."
Shifting slightly, Peter wove his fingers through Ray's, reaching for Egon's hand through them. "How could you not have been afraid of me?" he asked in a quavering voice. "It's normal to be afraid, and it was me that was doing it all to you." His jaw jutted forward, teeth clenched tight. "I remember how much trust there was in you even when I was ripping your throat open. I remember what it tasted like when you were afraid. I know what you felt."
Ray shook their clenched hands roughly, his face a study in denial. "But not who it was directed at. Never at you, Peter. At the Q'utah, but not you. Not ever." He stopped, squeezing Peter's hand for all he was worth. "Don't leave us, Peter. Please."
Egon slid onto the couch then slipped his arm around Peter's shoulders, holding onto him even as Ray was, the psychologist being bracketed between them. "You care enough about our well-being to force yourself to leave us," Egon murmured close to his ear. "Care enough to stay."
"You've got to know we need you, homeboy," Winston added for good measure. He stepped across Ray's injured leg and sat on the engineer's far side, twisting until he could look into dulled green eyes. "Take it from someone who's been where you are. Everyone who ever fought in Viet Nam knows what it's like to be used as a pawn; the trick is to not let it stop you. Keep going or the user wins in the end."
"I've never seen Dr. Peter Venkman give up on anything." Egon tightened his hold. "I refuse to believe I shall see that now."
"Please, Peter," Ray breathed, fixing the mute psychologist with so imploring a look that Peter swallowed heavily. "Stay."
Emerald eyes locked with amber, his own voice hoarse, his expression tender. "I don't want anything to happen to you. Anything else," he amended, glancing at the ugly white bandages on Ray's throat. "But...." He turned to the others, first Winston, who was unconsciously holding his breath, then Egon, whose strong features were taut with apprehension. "Maybe we do need some time...."
"Time heals," Ray prodded softly. "Isn't that what you're always telling us?"
Peter considered this carefully, lips pursed. Slowly, he nodded, taut muscles sagging. "Okay. You win. I guess we're worth some healing time after all." This statement was met with cheers and hugs from all sides. Peter grinned. "You know, it's bad enough fighting the three of you guys; it's dirty pool making me fight me too."
"Guess you were always meant to be on our side, homeboy," Winston said, ruffling Peter's hair fondly. "Even against yourself."
Peter reflected, absently finger combing his thick brown locks back into place. "We all do need some time -- away from the pressures to ..."
"Heal?" Egon suggested.
"... relax," Peter finished firmly. "We're all too tense. I know I'm not up to doing any busts for awhile."
"Got your solution," Winston said. "How about a vacation?"
The couch groaned as Ray moved, practically jumping up and down in sudden excitement. "A vacation! Great idea! We could go back to Tahiti...."
"Not enough money," Peter vetoed practically.
"Florida?" Egon suggested, pulling off his glasses and polishing them on his sleeve.
"Flying cockroaches," the psychologist returned with a theatrical shudder. "Hated it last time I was there."
"Cousin Sam's?" Ray suggested timidly. This was greeted by a chorus of groans. He visibly wilted. "Or someplace else."
"Definitely someplace else, Tex." To remove any possible sting from the rejection, Peter hesitantly draped his arm over Ray's and around the younger man's neck in easy affection. Rather than pulling away, Ray leaned against him with a grin and Peter heaved a near inaudible sigh of pure contentment. He slumped back against Egon's chest, his casual pose no longer pretense, his own grin even wider than Ray's. "I vote for a week at Asbury Park. It's close, we're off-season, and we might catch the Boss at the Stone Pony if our timing's right. What'd'ya say?"
Nodding slowly, Zeddemore again reached across Ray to pat Peter on the head, much to Peter's expressed annoyance. "I say Springstein is on tour, but Asbury Park sounds good to me."
"I don't care where we go." Ray's entire face glowed, his eyes reflecting the fluorescent lights like twin stars. "As long as you're not going to leave us."
"As if we'd permit that," Egon added, poking Peter in the ribs playfully. "The odds of your actually succeeding in such an endeavor are excruciatingly minuscule."
Peter looked at each of his three friends -- the affection-softened angles of Egon's face, the sheer adoration in Ray's amber eyes, the brotherly affection in Winston's open smile -- and his own expression regained what the Q'utah had taken -- the tranquility of a man who knows he is loved. "When you're right, you're right, Spengs-baby ... whatever you said."
"In your own vernacular," Egon translated, giving Peter another poke then having to cover his ribs when the psychologist retaliated with a vengeance, "the translation is...."
"I know." Peter grinned. "Cowabunga! The Four Amigos ride again!"
****
"Everything okay?" Winston left Peter's side and crossed to the car, knocking an empty oil can aside with a little kick. "How you doin', homebrew?"
This last was aimed at Ray, who was struggling to escape the back seat. His tan uniform was gone though he still wore the black t-shirt and light slacks the Ghostbusters routinely used as undergarments. In deference to the chilly day, he'd knotted the sleeves of an old gray sweatshirt Peter kept in Ecto's rear around his shoulders; he pulled it off and tossed it on the seat, then swung his feet out of the car. His left foot was still clad in his work boot; heavy bandaging showed through the black sock he wore on his right. He shot the black man a rueful smile even as Egon pulled him up by the arms. "I'm fine. My ankle is sprained and Andy thinks I cracked a couple of ribs where I landed on my pack ..." He bit his lip when Egon tugged too hard, relaxing a moment later. "... but I think they're just bruised. Nothing serious. Sorry if I was any trouble."
"Happens to the best of us, kiddo," Zeddemore returned, ruffling Ray's hair good naturedly. "Happens to you just a little more often is all. But then, you always did tend to get a bit over-enthusiastic on a bust."
Stantz shrugged self-deprecatingly, the action barely stirring Egon's powerful grip on his bare arm. "Clumsy, you mean. I wasn't watching where I was going."
"That's because you were too busy watching me." Venkman, too, left the reception area to approach the car, sweeping his youngest partner with a glance. Egon slung one of Ray's arms across his shoulders, his own around the other's chest and Peter frowned. He popped his head into the car, glanced around and emerged looking puzzled. "Didn't the hospital send along any crutches?"
Ray pressed his hand against his ribcage and Egon hurriedly repositioned his grip a few inches lower. "They were temporarily unable to supply us with the proper accoutrements," the physicist returned easily. "There will be a pair consigned to us before the afternoon has elapsed."
Winston groaned. "Now I know you're all right, Ray. Egon's pulled out his five dollar words again."
"Indubitably" Spengler returned, smiling.
Peter stood examining Ray for another moment then reached out slowly and tilted his face up. "What about this?" he asked, using his free hand to brush the new dressing on Ray's forehead. "No concussion?"
Ray shook his head, freeing himself from Peter's light hold. "Nope. My ankle might keep me out for a couple days ..."
"Weeks," Egon interjected firmly.
"... but that's it." He looked around, paying particular attention to the ceiling and floor. "Aren't Janine and Slimer back from the orphanage yet?"
Peter stared another second, his fingers trailing down to touch the small gauze patch on Ray's throat. "Not yet. They said about 4:30. I-I have to talk to you." Ray's smile flickered away at his heavy tone, and he purposely lightened it though not without some bitterness. "Don't worry, this isn't an attack. I just want to talk."
Ray blinked, his shoulders drooping slightly at the barely concealed rebuke, but he nodded agreeably enough. "Sure. What do you want to talk about?"
Peter shot a glance first to a sobered Zeddemore then to Egon, whose blond brows were bisected by a puzzled frown. He forced a smile of his own. "You mind, fellahs? Got something I want to discuss with the boy wonder, here." Not waiting for acknowledgement, he slid his arm under Egon's until Stantz was of necessity leaning more on him than on the physicist. Taking the hint, Egon withdrew, leaving Peter to support fully half of Ray's weight.
Winston too stepped back, placing a hand in the small of Egon's back. "C'mon," he offered, "I'm making stew and I need someone to chop onions."
"I hate chopping onions," the blond complained, nevertheless allowing Zeddemore to usher him toward the stairs. "My glasses fog and my sinuses obstruct."
"Obstructed sinuses, eh?" the negro teased, glancing at the other's sizable schnazzola. "That could be serious. Maybe you better do the salad instead...."
Peter watched the two disappear up the stairs, an amused half smile on his face at the repartee. Then he switched his attention to the man at his side, who was at this moment regarding him with large, wary eyes. "Think you can make it into my office?"
"Sure."
With Peter's assistance the relocation was soon accomplished, and soon the two were established on the battered sofa Peter kept around for what he liked to term emergency napping. From there one had an unobstructed view through the glass walls enclosing the office, albeit an inauspicious one of the rear of the garage. The two young men sat in uncomfortable silence for several seconds, then Ray cleared his throat.
"Um ... Peter, if this is about the way I messed up the bust today...."
Startled out of his own reverie, Venkman glanced up, waving one hand disparagingly. "Winston and Egon got the last gooper. No big deal."
Stantz mulled that over, scratching his smooth chin. "You're mad at me for something else?"
There was a dust ball on the floor beside Peter's foot; he kicked it under the sofa, a frown creasing his handsome features. "What makes you think I'm mad about something?"
Ray rubbed absently at his stretched-out leg, carefully not looking at the older man. "You've been so short with everyone, it's kind of obvious you're mad about something. I-I wanted to help ... I mean, to ask.... Whatever it was, I didn't mean it. You know that don't you?"
There was so much earnestness in the apology that Peter patted his leg though his expression remained unchanged. "I'm not mad, Ray. But after what happened this afternoon, I'm ..." He pursed his lips, choosing his words carefully. "... shall we say, concerned?"
Ray twined his hands fingers together, a nervous habit whenever he was under stress. His eyes, however, were completely without guile. "I don't understand."
Peter looked from Ray's clasped hands to his eyes and back to his hands. "You really don't know, do you? But you suspect. I can tell." When Ray didn't answer, Peter dropped his head into his palms, rubbing his face briskly. When he raised it again, the anger had returned, a tautness in his jaw that had ever bespoken imminent explosion. "Do I have to spell everything out?" he grunted, turning to face Stantz directly.
Only Ray's lips moved in response. "I think you'd better."
Green eyes narrowed, then Peter stood, his agitation finding expression in motion. "Why did you fall?"
Ray blinked. "Why? I wasn't paying attention and I slipped, that's all."
Venkman took a turn around the room then came to stand over the engineer, hands on hips. "That's not all and you know it. The reason you fell was me."
Stantz protest was immediate. "That's not true, Peter! I slipped."
Peter scowled. In an abrupt move he swooped down on the unsuspecting Stantz, lips parted and ugly silver temporary caps glinting in the artificial light. Brown eyes flying open, Ray uttered an alarmed cry and cringed backward until he was brought up short by the back of the couch, one hand coming up to protect his throat. Seeing this, Peter stopped, his reaching arms dropping to his sides. "That's what happened this afternoon," he rapped curtly. "That's why you fell."
Ray sagged, his breathing coming faster than before. "You're nuts! You startled me...."
"I startled you this afternoon," Peter snapped back. "And all I did was walk up behind you." He retreated a step, vision shifting from Ray's still- pale face to a picture hanging above his head. It showed old stone buildings, white with rimefrost. In the foreground three men stood, their arms locked around each other's shoulders, wide grins on their faces. "Did you think I wouldn't know you were afraid of me?"
"That's not true!" But Ray's eyes betrayed the half-lie. He stopped, swallowed heavily, his normally soft voice growing even quieter. "Maybe ... maybe sometimes I remember ... some of what happened. But ... that doesn't mean I blame you, Peter. It wasn't your fault. What happened was all my idea, after all."
Peter dropped back down onto the couch and absently smoothed a wrinkle in his gray sweat pants. "Don't apologize for saving my life, Ray. If not for you I would have killed someone else and no one would ever have been able to help me."
Ray shifted uncomfortably under that faintly damning praise, shy self- deprecation in his face. "That was only according to Turkish legend but I didn't want to take a chance. I only gambled on a blood oath being binding, too. I didn't really know anything."
"Gamble paid off." Venkman met brown-amber eyes, remorse further creasing the harsh planes around his mouth. "Nearly cost you your life. Twice."
Color touched Ray's cheeks at that. "Like I said, I didn't even know if it would work. No big deal or anything." The seemingly simple statement elicited fresh irritation in Venkman; in a sudden burst, he slammed his fist into the side of the sofa, raising little puffs of dust from the old upholstery. Ray watched the display calmly, though his fingers continued to clamp tight. "Now are you going to tell me why you've been mad at me all week?"
Peter waved away the dust cloud, then sneezed and reached for a kleenex in the pocket of his sweatpants. "I said I'm not mad -- at least, not at you."
"Who, then?"
"Who?" Peter blew his nose and tossed the tissue into a nearby wastecan. "Nobody. Everybody. Me, maybe."
"You? Why would you be made at yourself? Not about ... what happened?"
"What happened." Peter hunched his shoulders forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "You don't even say it out loud, do you. Do you mention the subject even to yourself?" Ray began some disjointed protest, which Peter cut off by raising a hand. "What happened," he said brutally, "was that I tore your throat out. And liked it."
He turned glittering green eyes on the troubled brown, and Ray actually retreated several inches from the ferocity there before he could catch himself. "That wasn't you, Peter," he denied, touching the bandages on his neck in a self-conscious way. "It was them -- the Q'utah. They cut me, not you."
"They were also me." Peter let the words hang in the still air, their echo growing until it was a solid wall between them. Ray stared back, troubled, then dropped his head, fixing the concrete floor with a steady look. Peter extinguished the blaze in his eyes, his tone muting slightly. "You think about it a lot."
"Only sometimes," was the stubborn response. "Not a lot."
"Sometimes is enough, I'd say." Again anger finished its cycle and died away, and the deep sadness in the psychologist's expression was no less affecting. He and Ray sat shoulder to shoulder for long minutes, neither looking at the other, the comfortable harmony that had always existed between them, for once missing. Finally, Peter roused himself from the spider's web of despair to invite, "Tell me how much you remember of that first night."
"I don't remember much," Stantz answered fretfully, his fingers continuing their agitated dance. "Not really."
Not good enough. "Tell me what you do remember."
Still not looking up, Ray took a deep breath, his words emerging haltingly, painfully. "I was in the chem lab checking some references on vampires."
"Is that what you were doing downstairs?" Peter said, surprised. "I wondered."
"When we didn't find anything in the sewer ... and then you disappeared...." Ray glanced up at Peter and then away, wetting his lips with his tongue. "Tobin's didn't have anything; I hoped maybe Ryzczyk's Unspeakable Horrors would. Anyway, I heard someone moving around and found you under the stairs."
"Thought you were a prowler," Peter explained sheepishly. "Was about to give you whatfor."
"You needed blood ... or something," Ray finished shakily, not hearing the interruption, "and you took mine. That's it."
There was a chill in the air completely unrelated to the room's temperature yet not disassociated from those terse, bleak statements. Venkman shivered under its impact, the heat of anger completely gone and leaving nothing but icy analysis. "That's not it, is it?" he said brutally. "You left out the best parts, like my fangs ripping open your throat, or how it felt to watch yourself bleed to death ... while I enjoyed it."
"Stop it, Peter!" Ray blurted, spinning on his companion with all the force of a desperate man. "It was them! Them!"
If it was his intention to make some dent in the other's weary composure, he was doomed to disappointment; Peter went on unheeding, his tone so reasonable as to be that much more disturbing. "It's in your mind all the time isn't it?" he prodded relentlessly, giving the engineer no respite, "Every time you look at me."
Backed into a corner, Ray started to shake, a tiny shiver of suppressed stress only in his hands. "I can't help it. I try but...."
"But you can't separate the two -- not here." Peter tapped his temple meaningfully. "That's why when you saw me behind you this afternoon, you pulled back. That's why you fell. That's why I'm ... quitting the team."
Shock blanked the youthful features for a full thirty seconds. Ray's mouth hung open, his eyes wide. "You ... you don't mean that," he gasped finally, getting control of himself though his face had gone white. "You can't mean that! Peter...!"
Venkman held up a hand. "The only reason, I repeat, the only reason any of us are alive right now is because we learned to trust each other totally, especially in a combat situation. Once we lose that, we're no longer a team. That means one of us is going to go uncovered -- or flinch away and fall, maybe to his death." The cool tones faltered and he looked away. "I'm not prepared to let that happen."
"But you can't! It was my fault! Peter, I'm sorry! I didn't mean.... You...!" The words trailed off into incoherency, seemingly making no impression on the other's averted face. Finally Ray fell silent, both hands raised helplessly. "Please."
Ray sounded so miserable that Peter was moved to look up. He hesitated, then slipped an arm around the drooping shoulders. "Don't look like that, kid. It's not like I'm running out on you. I just won't be going on busts anymore." His voice broke and he as obliged to stop and take a deep breath. He swallowed and went on, "I'll try and get an apartment nearby...."
Ray hung his head, covering his face with one hand. "I'm so sorry, Peter. This all my stupid fault."
The psychologist pulled him closer until Ray was leaning against him. There was a weary surrender in Peter's features -- the look of a man whose mind is made up little though he liked the verdict. It might have been mistaken for conviction if the devastation in his eyes had not belied the facade for the fraud it was. "Don't Ray! After what you went through, you have to expect a certain amount of trauma. You can't help feeling the effects." Ray didn't look up and Peter raised his free hand to thread his fingers in the fine auburn hair, sighing deeply at the contact. "It'll go away Ray. Just give it some time."
Ray uncovered his eyes and peeked up, freeing his hair without leaving the circle of the older man's arm. "Doesn't that apply to you, too? You went through more than I did. And you've been so...."
"So what?" Peter asked with distant curiosity.
"Unapproachable. Mad and distant and.... Egon said if we gave you some space you'd work it out and be all right again. I ... guess he was wrong." He twisted until he could grasp Peter's left hand with both of his own. "Can't you see? The Q'utah messed with your head, not mine. You're the one not thinking straight -- you can't be if you think leaving is going to help!"
"I'm not the one who fell," Peter reminded him curtly, his tone uncharacteristically defensive.
Ray accepted that with relative aplomb. "What do you remember, Peter?"
Venkman spent several full minutes examining the glass office partition, that far away look returning. "For two and a half days I was dirty and hungry and scared out of my mind. I wasn't sure if you were dead ... or worse. I ... can't remember ever being that miserable." He shuddered and Ray leaned closer, slipping his arm under Peter's and around the older man's back. Peter securing his own grip on Ray's shoulders, seeming to draw strength from his friend's touch. They sat like that silently for a long time, Ray rubbing his back, Peter resting his cheek on soft hair. Ever so slowly the contact had its effect; the agonized expression faded leaving him looking spent yet with a tenderness softening the rough edges that had not been there before. Finally, he straightened, hesitantly meeting Ray's openly compassionate gaze. "The whole experience wasn't horrible. Part of it I ... cherish."
"When was that?" Ray asked encouragingly, not loosing his hold one iota.
Fine lips quirked in a smile. "While we were in contact ... I was inside of your head -- emotions, memories, experiences -- everything. For awhile I actually was you ... sort of."
Ray stirred, pulling back just far enough to see Peter clearly. "I thought I felt something touch my mind but I couldn't really tell. It was so vague you couldn't have been broadcasting." He frowned, looking uncomfortable. "You know everything about me?"
Peter didn't answer at first. He regarded the youthful face consideringly. "I always wondered what your mother looked like. Those old black-and- white photos you have are faded. She was lovely -- so young and full of life. You resemble her quite a bit."
Ray dropped his eyes, a very old pain stirring their liquid amber depths. "Everyone said she was beautiful. Most of the time. Bad things made her so sad, though. That was ... a lot of the time near the-the end."
Peter smiled reminiscently. "Very beautiful. Curly red hair and dark brown eyes. I didn't expect her to be that fragile." He waved a hand humorously. "Hey, if she wasn't married, I'd've taken a crack at her!"
"I miss her a lot."
The tones were so choked that Peter turned to look at him sharply. "I know you do, kiddo; I did too when I was you. Saw Pa Hanley, that low-life scumbag. If I could have...."
"He's not important," Ray interrupted quickly with a flash of alarm.
"And," Peter finished mercilessly but with a touch of the whimsical, "Lorna."
Ray blinked. "Lorna? My cow Lorna? You know about her?"
Peter shrugged, mischief dancing in bright green eyes. "A bit. Big thing -- at least, she looked big when you're seeing through the eyes of a ten year old. Moo-moo face, wet, scratchy tongue."
A slow smile smoothed lines of concern. "I used to really love Lorna. They let me raise her myself after her mother rejected her. She was one of my best friends on the Hanley place." He grinned, a brief, embarrassed flash of white teeth. "Kind of weird keeping a cow for a pet on a working farm."
"Working farm?" Peter delicately cleared his throat. "You ... um ... didn't eat her or anything, did you?"
Ray looked scandalized at that, then somewhat sad. "Mr. Hanley wanted to slaughter Lorna when she was a couple years old. We ran away. They caught me and brought me back but by then one on the neighboring farmers, Mr. Olsen, had agreed to take Lorna as a milk cow. He promised me he'd wouldn't kill her and Pa Hanley never found out what happened." He bit his lip, defiance jutting out his jaw. "He was mad for a long time but I never told him where she was. Never."
"Couldn't have been easy to keep quiet,," Peter murmured, uncertain temper smoldering. "I felt that strap of his, that lousy--"
"I don't want to talk about him," Ray pleaded quietly, eyes hooded. "Or Mom or.... I ... guess you know all about them anyway."
Peter laughed shortly. "Hardly everything. All I remember are a few flashes. Does that make you uncomfortable with me?"
"Should it?" Ray rejoined in tones Peter himself might have used.
Peter laughed again, this time with genuine amusement. "You've been hanging around me too long. Since you never talk about your past, I just assume it's something you don't want me to know. If not, my finding out what you're keeping to yourself is bound to make you uncomfortable with me." He waved a hand expansively. "Quod Erat Demonstrandum."
Ray pondered that a moment, resting his chin in his palm. "It's not that I don't want you to know anything about me," he said slowly, carefully not looking in Peter's direction. "It's just ... I don't want to think about ... that time. I want to live in this time." He looked up. "Is that so bad? To want to live only for now?"
Peter tightened his hold around Ray's shoulders, leaning forward himself until he was inches from the questioning brown eyes. "The past shapes the present," he explained gently. "The only way to stop it from affecting you -- or hurting you -- is to bring it into the light and deal with it for what it is or was. Running away from it won't eliminate the problem."
Ray's bright eyes lightened. "The Q'utah ... everything that happened -- that was in the past too. It can't hurt us now if you don't run away from it. We have to deal with it together, right?"
Sensing the unaccustomed precipice of threatened defeat crumbling beneath him, Peter pulled back, clasping his hands behind his head and affecting a pseudo-casual pose. "Argument won't wash, bunky. That ..." He jerked a thumb at Ray's bandaged ankle, then reclasped it behind his head. "... happened today, not last week, and dealing with it means preventing it from happening again. That's the whole point of this discussion."
Ray stared at him helplessly, fresh pain in his eyes mixed with an older, resurfacing emotion that Peter had acknowledged hating for years. Peter, seeing this, sat up straighter and took him by the shoulders. "Don't even think it," he ordered firmly, giving the younger man a shake. "My leaving has nothing to do with blame and it's not your fault. It's just ..." He waved one hand, his rational tone breaking under the strain of maintaining an insincere facade. "... the result of circumstances."
"You sound like Egon," Ray returned in a choked voice. "But it's not right. You can't...."
"Peter!" That strident, slightly nasal bass jerked both their heads up. Filling the entire doorway stood a tall, blue-clad physicist with red glasses, blond hair and an very forbidding expression. "You and I have something to discuss, I believe," he rumbled, stalking forward
"He's going to quit the team!" Ray wailed, regarding Egon beseechingly. "You've got to do something!"
"You told," Peter accused the black man following in Spengler's wake.
Zeddemore shrugged. "Not into abetting some idiot's self-demolition," he returned unapologetically. He leaned one hip against Peter's heavy wooden desk, his boot clunking against its side. "Did you think it was going to be easy to walk out on us? If so, you're doin' really bad drugs, homeboy."
Peter sighed deeply, the hunted look that he'd worn for several days returning with a vengeance. He released Ray and stood to face the advancing blond squarely, his body tensed as though for combat. "I think you should hear my side," he began reasonably.
Egon dismissed that with an impatient gesture. "I don't need to hear your side if it includes your leaving the team." He placed his fists on his hips belligerently, regarding Venkman from a distance of less than a foot. Egon's blue eyes held a curious mixture of severity and a sympathy even his thick lenses could not hide. "It was obviously a miscalculation to leave you unattended for any length of time. Your logic circuits disengaged."
Peter smiled bleakly. "My logic circuits are working all too well," he returned. "That's the problem."
"You logic circuits haven't been in working order for days," the blond snapped back, full lips thinned with annoyance. "What possible justification could your warped mind have come up with for walking out on the team?"
Had he been physically slapped, Peter could not have flinched as visibly at those words. He unsuccessfully attempted to cover the reaction by crossing his arms across his chest, for once unable to create a casual veneer. "It's not a matter of walking out," he protested. "This is necessary." Unable to turn away from Egon's rivetting stare, his green eyes dulled, shadowed from within. "If I stay I could be danger to you all. Ask Ray. He knows how ... pleasurable it was for me while I was feeding. And there's a constant echo in the back of my head reminding me of how great it was to feel ... sated." He did escape the sharp field of blue then, dipping his head to sink into Ray's gentle brown eyes. "The Q'utah might be gone but how can we be sure their influence is? That hunger was overwhelming; what if it comes back? What if I revert to what I was?"
"Do you feel any continuing influence?" Egon asked worriedly. "You're readings have remained normal since we trapped the Q'utah."
That brought Peter around in a flash. "Ah-HA! So you have been keeping watch on me. Your suspicions were aroused too, eh?"
Egon shook his head definitely. "Not at all, Peter. I consider it standard procedure to test and retest any data which comes into my possession. The phenomenon of your enslavement was unique and I was curious as to any long term effects on your own psi-readings." He looked uncomfortable. "I ... must admit I was a little uneasy as well. Your behavior has been erratic of late and...."
"Just like I told ya, Pete," Winston interjected when the blond stumbled to a confused halt. "None of us knew how to approach you and it worried us. You know Egon -- scientific road first."
"He's right." That was Ray, his soft voice hesitant as though expecting a rebuff. "You wouldn't tell us what was wrong and...."
Peter returned his stare to the younger man, baring his teeth fractionally to reveal the silver caps. "And what does that have to do with whether or not I'm going to revert to type?" he interrupted without apology. "If my natural psionics have been affected by the alien contact, we could all be up the creek. Especially you." He turned, switching his glare to Spengler. "And don't try to tell me it can't happen, Egon. This is my field, remember, and I know it's a possibility."
"Nothing is impossible," the physicist agreed. "However, statistically the probability line hovers in the one-percent range. And that, my friend, is my field."
Peter stared. "You worked it out?"
Egon stared back. "Did you think I wouldn't?"
Peter waved a hand. "Sorry. Forgot who I was talking. Of course you worked it out." He paused, letting the blond's words sink in. "One percent, eh? That low?"
"Based on the quantitative table you and Professor Stubbs worked out two years ago," Egon returned easily, "and the readings I've been taking, one percent is actually a generous estimate." The blond head shook head with honest bafflement. "You cannot believe your presence constitutes a genuine danger to Ray, Winston or myself? After all we've been through together -- after all we've faced together -- can you honestly look into your heart and say that?"
Peter shook his head stubbornly. "My heart? Not the logical approach I was expecting from you, Spengs. But to answer your question, forget my heart -- I can look into that bruise on Ray's face and say that."
"But Peter...." Ray began desperately, fingering the small bandage on his forehead.
Egon cut him off by spinning on him. "Raymond, when you were attacked by those terror dogs last year, who was it that drove them off?"
"Peter did," Stantz returned promptly.
"And whose plan was it that forced the nether-entity Plague to release you from her sickness?"
"Peter!" Ray answered again with even more force, eyes fixed on Venkman's. The psychologist, however, seemed fascinated by the intense sapphire stare again boring into him from behind Egon's red frames.
"It was Peter who dug me out when that wall collapsed last month," Winston chimed in, reading Egon's tactics accurately. "He saved my life that day."
"And who came after me when my body was being used by that N-E?" Egon finished in the triumphant tones of one who has just won a major battle. "Dr. Venkman, would you care to assess the probable consequences to Ray, Winston or myself had you been absent on any one of those occasions?"
Winston tapped the desk, waiting until he had Peter's reluctant attention. "Or a hundred other occasions." He leaned forward, reaching across to slap Peter hard on the chest. "You're part of this team, homeboy. Without you we'd've been dead a long time ago."
"Not trusting me can accomplish the same thing," Peter commented pointedly and to no one in particular. He dropped back onto the sofa abruptly, as though his legs could no longer hold him, then turned to pierce Ray with a glance. "It nearly did today. You could have broken your neck."
"Shoot. Seein' your ugly mug would have made me jump, too," Winston broke in, making a weak attempt at humor.
"But I didn't break my neck." Ray snagged Peter's sleeve, his expression was earnest and pleading. "Nothing happened to me today worse than a bump on the head and a sprained ankle. We've all gotten worse than that playing touch football! Nothing happened except ... what you're doing right now." He choked off, dropping his eyes. When he resumed, there was more pleading in his voice and his fingers twisted gray cotton. "Maybe I ... do have some problems with what happened with the Q'utah. Sometimes when I'm asleep...." He stopped, visibly forcing his head back up. "You say I'll get over what happened in time but you're not even willing to give me that time."
"You're even less willing to give yourself that time," Zeddemore interjected. "You had it worse than Ray. Who are you, Superman?"
Ray went on as though the black man had not spoken. "Peter, it's only been a couple of days since what happened ... since the Q'utah made you attack me." He released Peter's sleeve to take his hand, holding it tight with both his own. "You were the one that mentioned traumatic effects and that we'd have to do some healing."
Egon knelt by the couch, resting one large hand on the enclasped ones of Peter and Ray. "You, Raymond and myself have been together better than ten years! Don't we deserve a little time to heal before you decide to throw it all away? Before you throw us away?"
His kindly tone caused Peter's face to crumble, the defensive determination fading into open need. "It could cost your life, Egon. It nearly cost Ray's. How can I...?"
Stantz managed to wave that away without releasing Peter's hand. "You could never hurt me, Peter, not deliberately and not because of them. I know that -- I always did. Even when the Q'utah had you, I knew you wouldn't kill me."
"We all knew that," Winston interjected quietly. "No matter what the Q'utah had done to you, inside you were still a man -- a man we all loved."
"And trusted," Spengler added, his deep bass a caress.
"I wish I could believe that." And this much was truth for this was the core of Peter's ache. "The Q'utah augmented a psionically empathic state, especially while they were ... while we were feeding. I could tap into Ray's emotions as if they were my own." He licked dry lips, avoiding his comrades' eyes by gazing steadily out the open glass door. "I remember when the flavor changed. It wasn't sweet trust I was tasting -- it was fear."
Ray released Peter with one hand to touch his own throat, paling again at the returned memory. "I was afraid," he confessed softly, as to himself. "I was scared to death. I could feel myself...."
"Dying."
Ray shivered. "Yeah. But, Peter, I was scared of what was happening; I was never scared of you." He tugged on Peter's arm though the psychologist refused to look his way. "After I woke up I was even more scared -- not of you but for you! We didn't know what had happened to you or even if you were still alive. Or if we could save you or...."
Shifting slightly, Peter wove his fingers through Ray's, reaching for Egon's hand through them. "How could you not have been afraid of me?" he asked in a quavering voice. "It's normal to be afraid, and it was me that was doing it all to you." His jaw jutted forward, teeth clenched tight. "I remember how much trust there was in you even when I was ripping your throat open. I remember what it tasted like when you were afraid. I know what you felt."
Ray shook their clenched hands roughly, his face a study in denial. "But not who it was directed at. Never at you, Peter. At the Q'utah, but not you. Not ever." He stopped, squeezing Peter's hand for all he was worth. "Don't leave us, Peter. Please."
Egon slid onto the couch then slipped his arm around Peter's shoulders, holding onto him even as Ray was, the psychologist being bracketed between them. "You care enough about our well-being to force yourself to leave us," Egon murmured close to his ear. "Care enough to stay."
"You've got to know we need you, homeboy," Winston added for good measure. He stepped across Ray's injured leg and sat on the engineer's far side, twisting until he could look into dulled green eyes. "Take it from someone who's been where you are. Everyone who ever fought in Viet Nam knows what it's like to be used as a pawn; the trick is to not let it stop you. Keep going or the user wins in the end."
"I've never seen Dr. Peter Venkman give up on anything." Egon tightened his hold. "I refuse to believe I shall see that now."
"Please, Peter," Ray breathed, fixing the mute psychologist with so imploring a look that Peter swallowed heavily. "Stay."
Emerald eyes locked with amber, his own voice hoarse, his expression tender. "I don't want anything to happen to you. Anything else," he amended, glancing at the ugly white bandages on Ray's throat. "But...." He turned to the others, first Winston, who was unconsciously holding his breath, then Egon, whose strong features were taut with apprehension. "Maybe we do need some time...."
"Time heals," Ray prodded softly. "Isn't that what you're always telling us?"
Peter considered this carefully, lips pursed. Slowly, he nodded, taut muscles sagging. "Okay. You win. I guess we're worth some healing time after all." This statement was met with cheers and hugs from all sides. Peter grinned. "You know, it's bad enough fighting the three of you guys; it's dirty pool making me fight me too."
"Guess you were always meant to be on our side, homeboy," Winston said, ruffling Peter's hair fondly. "Even against yourself."
Peter reflected, absently finger combing his thick brown locks back into place. "We all do need some time -- away from the pressures to ..."
"Heal?" Egon suggested.
"... relax," Peter finished firmly. "We're all too tense. I know I'm not up to doing any busts for awhile."
"Got your solution," Winston said. "How about a vacation?"
The couch groaned as Ray moved, practically jumping up and down in sudden excitement. "A vacation! Great idea! We could go back to Tahiti...."
"Not enough money," Peter vetoed practically.
"Florida?" Egon suggested, pulling off his glasses and polishing them on his sleeve.
"Flying cockroaches," the psychologist returned with a theatrical shudder. "Hated it last time I was there."
"Cousin Sam's?" Ray suggested timidly. This was greeted by a chorus of groans. He visibly wilted. "Or someplace else."
"Definitely someplace else, Tex." To remove any possible sting from the rejection, Peter hesitantly draped his arm over Ray's and around the younger man's neck in easy affection. Rather than pulling away, Ray leaned against him with a grin and Peter heaved a near inaudible sigh of pure contentment. He slumped back against Egon's chest, his casual pose no longer pretense, his own grin even wider than Ray's. "I vote for a week at Asbury Park. It's close, we're off-season, and we might catch the Boss at the Stone Pony if our timing's right. What'd'ya say?"
Nodding slowly, Zeddemore again reached across Ray to pat Peter on the head, much to Peter's expressed annoyance. "I say Springstein is on tour, but Asbury Park sounds good to me."
"I don't care where we go." Ray's entire face glowed, his eyes reflecting the fluorescent lights like twin stars. "As long as you're not going to leave us."
"As if we'd permit that," Egon added, poking Peter in the ribs playfully. "The odds of your actually succeeding in such an endeavor are excruciatingly minuscule."
Peter looked at each of his three friends -- the affection-softened angles of Egon's face, the sheer adoration in Ray's amber eyes, the brotherly affection in Winston's open smile -- and his own expression regained what the Q'utah had taken -- the tranquility of a man who knows he is loved. "When you're right, you're right, Spengs-baby ... whatever you said."
"In your own vernacular," Egon translated, giving Peter another poke then having to cover his ribs when the psychologist retaliated with a vengeance, "the translation is...."
"I know." Peter grinned. "Cowabunga! The Four Amigos ride again!"
****