I don't own Ghostbusters.
I own Angie and Kitty Reed.
The day turned to night, the excitement of the day finally setting in on their features: they were, in fact back. The old neighborhood was just as they had left it, still deemed a demilitarized zone by Egon, but this time he stated it with a bit of a grin as they returned back to the firehouse.
The years hadn't been kind to Hook and Ladder #8, the Ghostbusters headquarters and home for the previous years. After the city had shut them down, they had been forced to resign all property of the Ghostbusters; proton packs, traps, experimental equipment and even the firehouse, leaving the boys homeless for the time being.
Thick cobwebs collected in the corners of the painted white cinder blocks, several windows busted out from teenage kids, unappreciative of what the Ghostbusters had done for the city. About an inch and half of dust covered everything in the seemingly vacant firehouse. The Ghostbusters wondered around in what was once their home, now vacant, empty and cold as if they had never been there at all.
That was gonna change.
As always, Ray only saw what they could do now that they were back; the possibilities were endless as began spouting off ideas off the top of his head. Egon disappeared, searching in his lab for any of his experiments to find none. City Hall issued a note telling them about what had happened to their belongings earlier this morning, shortly after the Scoleri Brothers.
The note read that all of the missing items from the firehouse were temporarily stored off site, hiding somewhere in a bunker upstate. The note also mentioned that they would get back those items in the next three-to-five business days. Egon was optimistic, hoping that they might have forgotten something only to be disappointed when nothing was found but more dust.
Winston and Kitty walked through the large doors, arms linked together as they filled each other in on their lives since the separation and more importantly, the Gozer incident. No ghosties so far, Kitty told him, "No spooky noises, and no things moving. It's like I'm normal again."
"Despite that whole being possessed thing, right?"
"Yes, despite of that – I'm normal!"
Angie and Peter held up the back, fighting as they did so well as they walked through the door way. They had actually forgotten why they were fighting, both now just spouting off words to hurt the other ones grand ole ego, and failing miserably.
After putting a halt to the fighting, and Ray stopped coming up with idea's to make the headquarters bigger and better, and even after Egon gave up the search for the experimental equipment, they had all resided upstairs, surrounding the dining table, one of the few pieces of furniture the movers didn't get.
Cutting through the mediocre chatter, Peter whistled loudly, drawing all the attention to himself. The chatter stopped as the five of them looked around to Peter as he smirked widely. "I'd just like to say, that we did an excellent job of torching the courthouse today." Peter started, earning a round of cheers from the table for the collective carnage they had achieved today. "May this be the olive branch that we need to our elected officials, in high hopes for us to burn down even more federal buildings."
"A little louder, Pete, I don't think big brother heard you." Angie laughed, before taking a swing out of an amber-colored glassed bottle. Peter winked at her before lifting his own beer bottle to the light fixture, promptly in everyone's way.
"To another five years of destruction!"
"Here here!"
"Salute!"
"Bottoms up!"
They all echoed out after the other, lifting the green and brown glass, respectively, to the ceiling. With a satisfying groan, Ray's lips left the bottle as he sat the glass back on the poorly constructed table. He smiled as he looked around at the people around him talking, chatting, and laughing. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Angie, standing beside the table as she talked with Winston, Winston telling a story to her from when he was in the Air Force. Her eyes lit up as he told the story of his struggle while a police captain at Reese Air Force Base in Texas. Her lips curled into a grin as Winston repeated a joke he had heard from a fellow officer during his time.
He bit his bottom lip as he looked over to Venkman as he decided to fill Kitty in on what was going on with Dana Barrett and her young son. Kitty rested her chin on her hand as she listened intently to Peter. "… so then we drill down into the street and get Ray to go into the air shaft—"
"I was there for that."
"—Right! And so when he gets down there, there was a bunch of slime." Peter explained, underestimating it by a bit. Ray scoffed, choking slightly on his beer as he interrupted Peter's story time. "More than a bunch. There had to be thousands of gallons running through it like a river!"
"Under New York?" Kitty asked, drawing everyone's attention to the slightly serious question as it hovered in the room.
"At least under First Avenue. It seemed to be running along the old Pnuematic Transit system, but why?"
"And where did it come from?" Angie asked, sticking her nose into the conversation.
There it was! The spark, the glow in her eyes whenever they talked about the paranormal. That glimmer in her eyes showed well through to Ray, he silently wondered if anyone else could see it. She always seemed to have a certain glow in her eyes when talking about the paranormal, even back before they had been going out. He could still remember staying up late some nights, talking about different theories on the paranormal; she would just sit there, lapping it up, her eyes still a glow. He'd forgotten how much he had missed that glow in her eyes.
The table grew silent, the questions of the night still hovering in the thick, musky air. Most of them stared at the glass in their hands; others looked down at the ground deep with thought on the matter. Peter, always one to ruin a perfectly good awkward silence coughed loudly as he looked to the analog clock in the corner. Passed the spider-webs and layer of dust, he could read "11:39 PM."
"Well, looks like it's time to go now." He said, faking a yawn as he lifted his arms in a dramatic motion. "We've gotta get some sleep before tomorrow – that's when all the calls are gonna come in."
"That reminds me, we might want to get Janine back. I'm sure she'd want her job back." Ray suggested as he sipped his microbrew. Peter's face scrunched up, turning his nose up at the idea, but going along with it as no one else would want the stinking job. Lord knows he wouldn't. "I'll call her tomorrow, it's too late tonight." He lied as he made his way down the stairs.
"Goodnight guys! Good to see you again Kitty. Say bye to the Koala for me!" He shouted up the staircase as he disappeared from view.
"Okay, someone has to explain that nickname to me." Angie said, lifting the beer bottle to her lips.
After Peter had left, the rest didn't take long to follow, soon getting too late for even Egon as he came up with a rightly excuse to leave Angie and Ray alone. Soon after piling in, drinking all the beer that Angie had bought it was just the two of them for the first time since their break up.
Empty beer bottles littered the kitchen of the once infamous Ghostbusters, lining the rim of the sink and even the corner, but none actually making it in the trash can, which was literally two feet away. Angie groaned, rubbing the back of her head at the mess before she began picking up stray bottles by the necks and tossing them in the trash with a fantastic crash. Ray smiled before helping her along with the clean-up, feeling somewhat responsible, and guilty for leaving such a mess.
Angie faked a smiled at him as they worked in silence, the only noise coming from the clattering noise of the glass on glass shattering. In a last ditch event to impress his ex, Ray picked up a bottle and tried to throw it in the trash, jumping up and tossing it like a basketball into a 'hoop'. Angie saw him aim for the 'hoop' as he made it into the trash bin, the glass bottle shattering alongside its brothers. Angie cheered loudly, throwing her hands in the air ecstatically. "It's in! And the New York Knicks still lose!" She cheered, causing Ray to laugh at her silly joke.
"Hey, you leave the Knicks alone."
"I'll leave them alone when they can hit something from the three-point line." Angie said, pushing another random group of bottles in the trash bin.
He sighed, leaning against the aging counter top as Angie worked around him, grabbing bottles they had left, all while not looking at Ray's face as she worked. Gazing up at the scenery, Ray smiled brightly, a rush of different memories flooding his subconscious. He remembered the talks, the laughs, the arguments, the fights, the make-ups and the breakup; the memory of Angie's angry, tear-ridden face fresh in his mind. He shook his head, trying to clear the unpleasant thought from his mind.
Angie's brows furrowed as she watched his expression change from delight to one of pain, switching like a light switch. "Hey." Angie said, her hand grazing over his shoulder as he jumped, shaking himself from his deep thought. "Are you okay? You don't look too good?"
"I don't?"
"No, you don't. Are you okay?" Angie asked again, the sound of worry perfected over the years as Ray smiled, shaking his head at her concern. "I'm fine, Ang. Thanks." He smiled his best goofy, endearing, loving smile, causing Angie's heart to melt just a little bit from the cold frigidness she promised herself she'd maintain.
She forgot her promise to herself, getting wrapped up in the moment as she smiled back at him. "Good," She said, as she wrapped her long fingers around the neck of the glass bottle. "I'm glad to hear it."
She spun around on the ball of her foot, tossing the bottles in the trash as Ray smiled at her. From the cold shoulder he'd gotten from her yesterday and today, to the warmth he'd grown to know from her; Angie's smiles made him happy, almost ecstatic to see her so happy. If only she was happy with him.
She turned back around to face him, meeting his contagious smile across his lips as he looked down at her from his extra four inch height difference. Her brows creased, gazing up at him with curiosity as she finally mustered the courage. "What?"
"Nothing!" He lied, pausing as he searched for the right words. "It's just… Good to see you, Angie."
She smiled again, matching his endearing smile. "It's good to see you too, Ray." With an air of hesitance, she looked to the floor as she scuffed her shoes on the vinyl floor before admitting her worst fear. "I've missed you."
"I've missed you too, Ang." Ray confessed, looking down at his shoes as he did. Angie's smile grew three sizes as he continued. "It would be a lie to say I didn't think about you, after we had broken up."
She nodded, knowing the intense feeling all too well. He looked up from the ground, staring deeply in her dark brown eyes, a puzzling look on his soft features. He slid his bottom lip between his teeth, biting softly on the rosy flesh as he considered his next words carefully as to not open any old wounds.
"This has been bugging me for a while." He confessed, searching in her eyes for something he wasn't quite sure of. "Why did we break up?"
Angie smiled but only just, hiding her sadness behind a fake mask of happiness as she looked away, pulling him from his longing gaze. She bit the inside of her cheek as she searched for the right words. The fights, the arguments, she knew all too well, often spending her late nights replaying every fight in her head, word-for-word, asking herself if she'd said the right thing, if she was too harsh or if he'd really meant any of that stuff.
The fights were etched into her mind, but the causes of them were sketchy. At first it was something stupid, like doing the dishes, or something; then it evolved, taking on a life of its own. But it couldn't have been the dishes, fighting over something like that would have been juvenile, childish.
It hit her, the flood of emotion rushing back to her as the blood left her face, leaving her as pale as a ghost. She remembered why they had fought the whole time, why they'd pick a fight over anything just to have a fight.
"You knew I wanted kids."
Ray closed his eyes slowly as he nodded, the memories coming in clear to him now. The beginning of every fight, every argument, every name-calling drag out they'd had was over kids. Ray ran his hand through his dark hair as he sighed, flashes of the fights clear in his head as he saw in his minds-eye the epic fights and the weary relationship that was hanging on by a thread. One day, after hours of fighting over everything, Angie had finally sat down, her head in her hands as she confessed she couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't keep fighting over the same thing every day. She wanted out, and Ray saw that, so he gave her what she wanted. He set her free.
"I told you why I didn't want kids." Ray tried to defend himself, trying to keep calm in hopes of avoiding another argument. "It wasn't the right time. At the time, you have to remember, that's when we were being sued by the city. We had a lot to deal with and adding a kid to mix wouldn't have helped us."
"Ray, it was never the right time." Angie confessed, saying the words she'd rehearsed in her mind over and over again. "It was the city suing you guys, and then it was trying to find a job and then it was trying to find a place to live—"
"Seems like good reasons to me."
"Ray, those reasons are always going to be there. You're not guaranteed tomorrow, or the next day. Every day you could get fired, or sued, or kicked out of your apartment, or be homeless – but that doesn't stop you from living, does it?" Angie held back tears and she sniffed loudly. She searched in his eyes for comfort, some sort of sign that he wasn't a hollow shell like she'd thought all these years, but finding no such sign.
Ray scratched the back of his neck, thinking about everything and nothing all at the same time. It wasn't the best time; it was never the best time for him. One of these days, he'd hoped that he might settle down and raise a family. Silently he wondered as he rubbed his hand through his dark hair when would 'one of these days' actually show up.
Angie looked down at her feet, holding back the tears before the fell. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry, having had that opportunity years ago.
Ray looked up, looking at the young woman before him, waiting for her to say something. She didn't, waiting out the heat of the fight as she stayed silent. Ray bit his lips once more, a small bruise forming beneath the skin.
"I'm sorry." He started, pulling the young woman's attention to him, her eyes red and swollen from failing to hold back tears. "I don't want to fight anymore."
She smiled, a heartwarming smile on her face as she nodded her head up and down, bouncing like a child. "I don't want to fight either." She confessed, slowly moving her way over to Ray as her arms moved of their own accord, wrapping them around his chest. He followed, not having control of his body either as he hugged back, sighing contently.
Angie's eyes widened, suddenly realizing what she was doing. Hugging Ray might give him the wrong idea that she was ready to pick things up where they'd left off. She pushed herself away from Ray, as always missing his warmth as she left. "R-Ray." She stuttered, pushing him away to arms length. "I don't want to get back together."
"Oh."
"I just think we should start off slow." Angie said, trying to sell Ray on the idea. "Maybe we could be friends and see where it goes?"
Ray mashed his lips together, swallowing hard as he tried to control himself. It had been that way for Angie, an only Angie. Her smile made his heart race, her winks made him blush – how could he be just friends with someone who made him feel like this?
"Okay." Ray nodded, confirming his words. "Friends."
Angie smiled wide, pulling him back into a hug as she sighed deeply against the cotton fabric of his shirt, taking in the sweet, devastatingly deadly aroma of motor oil and cologne. She missed it. She missed the way his clothes smelled and how the scent would rub off on her own clothes. She missed his fingers touching all the right parts of her, she missed the way he snored in the morning, which to most people sounded like a chainsaw. She didn't know she missed all these things until they weren't there any more: the smell disappearing from her clothes, the touch of his rough hands on her skin, and yes, even the sound of his snoring in the morning.
"Ang?" Ray asked, his voice muffled in her thick, curly locks of hair.
"Hm?"
"Did you ever think about-…" He stopped himself. Clearing his throat he tried again. "Did you ever think about maybe… You and I having…?"
Angie bit her bottom lip, burying her face deeper in his collar as she nodded her head, her hair swaying back and forth as she did. She was afraid he was gonna ask that million dollar question about kids. "I did. At one point."
Ray stayed silent, hoping that he hadn't just reopened old wounds. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, again. He rubbed down her back, his hand finding the sweet spot in on the small of her back as she shivered in his arms. A sick grin grew on his face as Angie took a swift breath of air, trying to conceal her previous involuntary shake. He loved making her shake and shiver, a common pastime during their relationship as he found different places that made her weak in the knees.
This was the beginning of a beautiful and confusing friendship.
Ray's eyes widened as the words became clearer now. He wouldn't be able to make his friend shiver like that, no longer able to hold his friend in his arms, no longer making his friendgiggle just to hear her laugh.
Friend.
Fuck.
Pure.