Reactions
Title: Reactions
Fandom: Ghostbusters
Rating: T
Summary: Based on the spoilers to GB3 that we know right now. Four Ghostbusters, four reactions. One event.
Warnings: Spoilers! Don't read if you haven't heard the news!
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This is how it feels to be Peter Venkman right now.
Numb. You don’t know what just happened. (That’s a lie, and you’re good at telling them.) You do know what happened. You just don’t want to admit it.
Why? Life was just getting good. Or maybe not. Maybe it was good all along, but you just couldn’t see it. Or didn’t want to admit it. Denial is something you excel at.
After denial comes rage - how could this happen, why now, why to you? It could have happened to anyone. But today, it happened to you.
You don’t want to see them, suffering, not Egon, Ray, or Winston. But you know, in a kernel of your brain that loves them, that they care deeply for you and the hurt will go deep.
You wonder absently why there isn’t the white light - does that mean you aren’t going up there? Because you know you play rather fast and loose, and if that, or busting ghosts is that which has discounted you from Up There…
And then you get it. That even if the white light comes, you wouldn’t step into the light. You don’t want to leave. Because the four of you are a team, and whether they know it or not, you will wait for them.
Because you are all the Ghostbusters, and you will all step into the light at the same time.
This is how if feels to be Peter Venkman, former Ghostbuster turned ghost, right now.
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This is how it feels to be Winston Zeddemore right now.
Contrary to what your three friends think, you’ve never been in the army, and you’ve never served there. You went straight into the police force, and then out years later because of a big fuss that you never want to mention, since it involves the color of your skin. You were a good officer, they say, but the Big Man who made that complaint against you has power, and his power can make you lose your job.
You don’t want to talk about that.
You were in homicide, on the force. You’ve seen more than enough of death, and when you see the cordon, your heart skips a beat. You know what to expect. Enough that you are the one to identify him, because you want to spare Egon and Ray.
You know the two of them won’t be able to take it. Egon will disintegrate, quietly, somewhere. Ray - he’ll just fall apart, on the spot. Years on the force teaches you how to read people. Until today, you’ve always been content to leave it to Peter. After all, he’s the licensed psychologist. You’re just the ex-cop who doesn’t like donuts.
You realise your mind is rambling. Enough to see dead bodies, and to tell people their loved ones are dead. It’s far harder when you look at Peter, and you recognise him, but you still have to sign you do, just so regulations are satisfied.
One stupid accident.
You’ve never thought of it, really. Death. You take another pull on that cigarette. You always privately thought you’d be the first to go. You’re the oldest on the team, and you’re the one who’s been smoking the longest. You know what the doctor says about the lungs but you discard it in the same, easy, way you can believe just about anything if it comes with a paycheck.
Sometimes, you can feel the cancer, eating away at your lungs.
You hold the cigarette between your fingers, and carefully snuff it. It’s only half-gone, but you aren’t in the mood to smoke any more as you stare at the cold body of your best buddy.
You will never smoke again.
This is how it feels to be Winston Zeddemore, staring at the dead body of Peter Venkman, right now.
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This is how it feels to be Ray Stantz right now.
You meet the news with denial. It’s funny, because all your life, you’ve been laughed at because of how open-minded you are. You’ll believe just about anything, until it’s proven false. And here you are, denying the news because you don’t want to believe it.
Innocent, they call you. Like a puppy, or a box of chocolates. Everytime Peter says that, you tell him he’s been at Forrest Gump too much. Except now you can’t. He’s gone. All those conversations you’ve never really had, and all those arguments you’ve had, they come back to you at once. You know this is your mind playing tricks on you, magnifying all your arguments, every little thing you’ve done wrong, but knowing and acceptance are two different things.
And you’ve never thought before that any of you could die.
You’re the youngest of them all; everyone knows that. To you, death is something that happens to everyone else. The most you’ve ever thought is that the four of you - all four of you - will go together. Just like what nearly happened when all of you went up against Gozer the Gozerian. Just like what happened when you all went up against Vigo or the Architect. You’ve all faced so much, and so many terrible things, that you just can’t seem to believe that a car could kill Peter.
You’ve faced so many things in the afterlife, behind the mysterious dark door called death that it doesn’t seem to have power over you any more - accidents, cancer, those happen to normal people. You all are normal, but normal isn’t your job.
Accident, they say, and so you’re grateful when Winston stands up immediately and says he’ll handle this. And quite because you’re afraid. Because looking at a still Peter Venkman will tell you that this isn’t a dream. This isn’t a nightmare either, no matter how hard you pinch yourself.
This is the real world. And reality has never sunk in so hard before.
This is how it feels to be Ray Stantz, disbelieving, right now.
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This is how it feels to be Egon Spengler right now.
You want to say your goodbye, but if you go and Winston goes, Ray will feel obliged to go. And Winston has taken you aside and told you firmly that you have to stay behind and look out for Ray because Ray isn’t taking this well.
You want to ask him if he thinks you are taking this well, if anyone can take this well, but you recognise it is your pain speaking, and you can see your pain reflected in his eyes. So you say nothing. Holding your temper has always been one of your strengths.
It’s irrational, really. This emotional attachment to a corpse. Because the only thing you will be seeing is a shell, an abandoned, cold piece of meat, which is far less that what it has been before someone came tearing down the Sixth. Because the thing that made the corpse special, this animus, this essential quality has fled.
And that is what you mourn for. For lost chances, for words unspoken, for the departure of this essential animating spark which made that still body so special.
It’s irrational. But if there’s anything you’ve learned, you are irrational. The human being is irrational, and you are no different. Irrationality, thy name is Egon Spengler.
Ray is sitting in the kitchen, staring blankly at the ceiling. You don’t sit next to him, because you’ve always been a private person, and this little private pain you clutch tightly to your heart. You’ve never known Ray as well as you’ve known Peter, and you’d never have known Ray if not for Peter.
You don’t know how to comfort him, and you don’t think that there is a logical solution for this. Peter would know, but Peter isn’t here. Not any more. If you can’t stop your own pain, how can you stop Ray’s?
So you sit, down there in the basement, he, up there in the kitchen, both of you silent, clutching your pain jealously and privately close to your hearts. You sit there, playing the guitar. It’s a cheap one that you bought the other day in a store on a whim. Another sign that you are a creature of fancy just as much as a creature of logic.
You know how to play it. You’ve learned when you were young. Your clever fingers dance across the strings effortlessly, but you’ve never put any heart into music. Not then, not now.
And the house is still, silent, the strains of music echoing as all wait expectantly for Winston to come home.
This is how it feels to be Egon Spengler, waiting, playing away your pain, right now.
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A/N: I was devastated when the spoilers said they would kill off Peter in the first reel. I mean, fine, but well, although the Ghostbusters grow old and all, it always seemed…terribly odd to focus on the next generation. It’s not the same. It’s almost like focusing on a bunch of cosplayers, or self-insert fanfiction, except the author is doing it.
Ah well. Here we are. The guitar is a reference to Egon and Ray at the guitar in the script of the second movie.
-Cymru