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I still envy you, Pete. Your Wimpod is adorable.

[:C Please love him Roach!

Ray's smile softens as he leans against Egon.]

I guess it's possible. We did move around a bit when I was a kid. I guess it would have been possible for us to move to your hometown rather than Morrisville. I would have loved to have someone to collect frogs with as a kid.

[Honestly it would have been nice to have someone who would have help stand up to his brother as a child.]

Edited 2019-02-05 02:36 (UTC)

[Venkman's expression, on the other hand, turns a little more bittersweet..]

Unless the stars aligned perfectly in this hypothetical universe, I wouldn't've gotten to meet you guys as a kid. Carny moved around a lot- even if I did manage to hang around the same town as one of you- or both of you, in this case- we'd've packed up to leave within a few weeks, maybe a couple months.

Unless I wasn't a carny kid, but I dunno if I like that. They were as much of my family as blood, y'know?

[He takes a thoughtful bite of his egg. After a moment, his smile becomes a bit more sincere.]

The real question is- what about universes where we got to meet Winston a whole lot earlier? Because, I know I've thought about that, even before knowing about this parallel universe junk. About how things could've been even better if Winston had met us in college, or while we were professors, or something.

We could have performed so many experiments. Just think what we could've accomplished with two brains instead of one.

Well, if it's any comfort, our paths would likely have intersected again, had you still held an interest in psychology or parapsychology.

[A ghost of a smile appears on Egon's face as he places his fork down on his plate.]

It would have been wonderful to have met Winston at an earlier time period. Of course, that doesn't mean that I consider our relationship to be lesser for coming to us later, but imagine how many more experiences we could have had together.

[He pauses, taking a sip of his coffee.] But I suppose there is no sense on focusing on the past. If he ever arrives to this dimension, we must be sure to create as many new memories as possible.

Not to mention the sleepovers we could have had. I... have to admit I never got invited to one as a kid.

[Ray takes a drink of his bloody mary, smiling wistfully.]

Even if you didn't, there were those two years you studied Engineering. Unless you had zero interest in trains, we almost definitely would have ran into each other in college.

You still owe me for all those tutoring lessons I gave you on the subject, by the way.

[Pay up, Venkman.]

Still, it's a shame we couldn't meet Winston earlier! I like to think we would have been great friends back in undergrad, and would have saved us from getting into a lot of trouble back then.

[All those nights in the hospital...]

Edited 2019-02-05 03:19 (UTC)

Hey, same, Ray. I kinda fluctuated between being a sort-of popular kid and isolated, depending on the school. And I went to a lot of schools. ... And the popularity would usually die down once kids pegged me as a circus freak. Or I got into a fistfight. The two weren't always correlated.

[Venkman takes a sip of his drink.]

I tried inviting friends to my place a couple times. Since "my place" was usually a trailer home attached to a truck that moved around as the carny did... They either loved the free admission to the carnival and tried to disrupt things, or they thought I was weird- again, circus freak. Either way, I wouldn't see them again after a couple months passed, so it wasn't really worth it.

[An upside of being with two of the people he loves most in the world and who he's known for for over a decade, is that he can actually talk about stuff like this instead of just changing the topic or outright lying.]

... Oh, what? Is my love for you not enough repayment? [He bats his eyelashes.]

I know meeting him later doesn't change how much we love Winston, but still. We missed out on him for so long. And not having him here now... Well. He came into our lives fashionably late once, right? So maybe he will show up here, too.

[He can't start dwelling on his absence right now or he'll get all depressed again even with two of his partners right here with him.]

I was invited to a sleepover once in middle school. I believe they intended to "prank" me.

[Sip.]

Coincidentally, that was the last time they attempted to do any sort of antagonistic behavior towards me.

[He lets go of Ray's hand temporarily to hold Venkman's hand instead. Dammit. He can't eat and show affection if he only has two hands. He needs more hands to love his boyfriends. Maybe this is a project he and Ray need to look into later.

In the meantime, he tries to gently steer the conversation away from Winston--he knows that they'll just all end up getting sad if they spend too much time thinking about him.]

You know, Peter, I am curious about the fact that so many aspects of your childhoods seem to match up with the Venkman from my dimension, and yet your personalities still seem somewhat different. [A pause.] Are you sure there wasn't an important decision made in your life regarding your personality or how you express yourself?

[...Actually, this question may not be a better option.]

Thattaboy, Spengs. Traumatizing your peers from an early age. I love it.

[He really does love it. Venkman hates that Egon's childhood was the way that it was, but it's always a bit of a comfort to hear that he was able to protect himself, in his own way.

Venkman takes Egon's hand gladly, squeezing it for a moment. His expression darkens for a moment at the mention of his other self, before turning thoughtful.]

I dunno. I mean, it's hard to look back on your own life and pinpoint what decisions might've set your personality in stone one way or the other. We were both carny kids, both frat brothers, both psych students, both professors, both Ghostbusters, right? So all the important steps are there.

[He taps his plate idly with his empty fork, drawing back on years of work in the psychology field.]

Early childhood's where a lot of shit happens. Know you said that his sounds similar to mine, but could be that his parental situation was different from me. Maybe my- his dad was around more often, or his version of my ma wasn't in the hospital so much. Or the other way around- maybe Dad never bothered comin' home at all, or Mom died earlier than she did for me.

College, too. Maybe he got further into the frat bro lifestyle than I did, or he kept going with football for longer than I did. Or vice versa, again.

[Venkman pauses, taking another sip of his drink. He narrows his eyes.]

Like... there was that time I got drunk at a party and yelled at a bunch of people to leave you alone- the, uh, night we kissed for the first time, Spengs.

I know that after that, I kinda started to pull away from the fraternity guys and stopped caring as much about my image. More about you and Ray. Sure, I still kept up appearances- dated women, tried to act like your average red-blooded American jock- especially since it was even more important, now, to keep you safe- but I distanced myself more and more from those kinda people. Could be that he had the opposite reaction- played it up twice as hard and went too far?

[Egon frowns as he idly traces circles with his thumb into the back of Venkman's hand.]

I don't believe I ever asked him for the specifics surrounding his parental situation--though, if I remember correctly, his mother did not die until he reached college.

[A pause. Spengler blinks, raising an eyebrow.]

You made a conscious decision to distance yourself from the fraternity culture after that...incident? [Hmm.] If I remember correctly, the Peter Venkman I knew continued to interact with and intergrate himself with the hypermasculine society. Perhaps as a way to protect himself as well as us.

[He shoves the rest of the coffee cake into his mouth.]

Of course, this is just conjecture. Ray, on the other hand, remains relatively unchanged. It could be that he made the same or similar decisions throughout his life that made him unwaveringly endearing.

[Yes, Ray is adorable.]

You know a part of me regrets not coming with you to the party, if only to see you two kiss for the first time.

[He’s a hopeless romantic he can’t help himself.

Ray soon smiles sheepishly at Egon’s comment about him.]

I’m guessing I was seen as “that weird kid that everyone thought would go nowhere in life” in your dimension too?

[He says this in a joking tone, but his averted gaze makes it clear that it still hurts him a little.

Not that he really thinks about it much anymore, especially now that his entire hometown happily welcomes him now that he’s a celebrity.

But a small part of him wished they were like that to him when he was a child.]

God. You know, if that's the case, I guess I can't even blame him that much, 'cause it definitely crossed my mind too. That it'd be so much easier to play up the image more and keep hanging around those kinds of people.

But I couldn't do it. Not to myself, and not to you guys. I didn't want to hang around the frat jocks who'd've made your lives hell in high school, and who still pulled that kinda stuff in college. And I... I didn't wanna turn into that kind of person. Even if it would just be an act. Sure, it'd be easier, but that didn't make it the better choice.

So I started hanging around you two more and more openly, and yeah, there were some comments, but nothing I couldn't handle. And I could always point to my track record with women as evidence if I needed.

[And then...

Venkman lets go of his fork again and reaches out with his free hand to take Ray's. He meets Ray's eyes, and his tone is more solemn than it's been the rest of this brunch- even when talking about his own childhood, Venkman's tried to sound flippant. But this is serious.]

Ray, I know that any version of you turned out a hell of a lot better than anyone else in that town.

[Egon nods solemnly, listening to Venkman speak. The fact that such a decision could dictate someone's life and personality and interactions with others in such a way...frankly unnerved him. Was it a bad decision? A good decision? The mortality of decisions is contextualized within the confines of society.

He's about to make a comment when he notices Venkman moving to grip Ray's hand. Ah. Right. He turns to Ray, as well, and goes to hold his other hand.

It's fine, they're a gay triangle now.]

I agree with Peter. You've enriched our lives in such an astounding way despite everything, although you still should not have been subjected to these ills of society.

It’s a shame the other Peter isn’t here. I betcha it would be a lot easier to figure out what makes you two tick with him here!

[He grins at the both of them, and would probably wave off their concern if he had a free hand.]

Aw, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, you guys! I like to think that I turned out pretty well, and regardless of what my childhood was like, I have great friends and partners now!

[He gently squeezes both of their hands.]

... But thanks for being there for me anyway. It means the world to me.

Nah, I'm pretty sure I'd punch the other me in the dick if I met him. Even if it turns out he did have good reasons for being the way he is.

'Course, Ray. Always will be. [He winks.] You can't get rid of us if you tried.

... Now, if we're all done thinking about our tragic backstories, all in favor of talking about something else? Like, Egon still doesn't know all about the ghosts we've had to deal with, and vice versa.

[After a moment of hesitation to glance towards the other tables, Egon leans forward to kiss Ray on the cheek before pulling his hand away. He goes to eat the rest of his abandoned sandwich.]

Aye. [He takes a bite.] You appear to have dealt with various supernatural phenomena that do not entirely relate to ghosts or spirits. I was wondering if you could tell me about those cases and how you dealt with them.

[Ray smiles at the kiss, and gently touches his face afterwards.]

Spengs told me about how they had a run in with this Vigo character! I gotta say, from what he’s told me, I think we have a strong contender to beat the chicken guy for dumbest plan. It seems like his entire plan was to possess a baby? Egon, you sure you have no idea what his plan beyond that was?

Ray, nothing can beat chicken guy. Chicken guy got the power to make anything he wanted disappear or reappear just so that poor demon could save face, and he still just wanted to eliminate chickens and nothing else.

And then we tricked him with robotic chickens.

Robotic chickens. Demons being embarassed by chickens only further points towards my theory that any higher being that exists and may or may not be God may be a chicken.

[Stated in an incredibly flat tone.]

Well, that wasn't his only plan. He intended to use the psychoreactive slime under the city to somehow gain control over the population. However, we were able to weaponize it against him and neutralize him effectively. I am unsure whether he expected the slime to be positively charged, given the general attitude of New Yorkers.

... Okay I guess Vigo isn’t as bad as the chicken guy.

[Sorry chicken man.]

Oh yeah I almost forgot about the slime! Knowing the state New York usually is in our dimension, I’m betting he didn’t expect it to be positively charged at all. Still it’s a shame I wasn’t able to see the slime myself!

... Ok, tell me more about this slime again. Because I know we told you about the slime that coats the pillar of Manhattan, and how that leaked into the sewer system once, and I still don't get how there's two separate supernatural slime sources in the sewer system, completely independent of each other.

At least, I assume they're separate. Ray, you and the other Egon would've noticed if that slime had, uh, psycho-reactive tendencies, right?

I believe the slime had been placed in the sewer system several hundred years earlier by worshipers of Gozer. Once the slime had grown in volume and become charged with negative psychokinetic energy, Vigo noticed this and decided to utilize it for his plan. [He shrugs.] Waiting for hundreds of years in slumber did nothing to help him--he should've spent more time studying the effects of the slime.

[He puts his fork down and glances towards Ray.] We did perform a few experiments regarding how it reacted to differing emotional states, both negative and positive. For example, insulting it, regardless of the speaker's tone, would cause it to react, although yelling usually caused it to react more violently.

Edited 2019-02-06 01:40 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the Mood Slime is an entirely different thing, since I have no idea why worshipers of Gozer would want to build a support beam like that that would stop giant earthquakes from happening. And while it could have some minor psycho-reactive power, it doesn't seem to be nearly on the same level, anyway.

...

You know you got really quiet when I asked about the experiments earlier, Spengs. What was that about?

Fair enough, but still, two different sewer slimes? Maybe they came from the same place initially, and developed different niche uses, and were utilized by different people. I dunno.

Huh. So you guys wound up screaming at slime for science.

[Despite this Venkman's dislike of his other self, there's a great deal of similarity between the two. They both love their partners, though one is better at showing it. They both have similar senses of humor, though one takes jokes too far sometimes. They both take pride in their public appearance and overemphasize their own importance, and it's hard to tell if either of them are as egotistical as they act.

But more than anything, they both seem to have a knack for knowing when a conversation is going to end in them getting to make fun of their partners, and they both love to take advantage of that. To the point that somehow, some way, Venkman winds up briefly echoing his own alternate self word-for-word.]

What kinda tests did you try for the positive reactions?

I would not discount the theory of evolutionary slime.

[Egon's body language stiffens ever so slightly--something only really noticeable to the people who've spent years around him. Or at least, someone who's spent time around some version of Egon Spengler.]

We exposed it to music and songs, gave it nurturing, supportive words. [He clears his throat.] Ray...mostly handled that aspect.

[He attempts to pick up his fork and start working on another piece of cake.]

[Hm, well Egon's getting weird about it again, but so far it just seems like normal things to him?]

Yeah! Spengs told me already that it responds especially well with the song "Higher and Higher".

Apparently we used it to control the Statue of Liberty

Edited (fuck i forgot that conversation) 2019-02-06 02:25 (UTC)

[Venkman's eyes narrow ever so slightly. He damn well noticed that change in posture, Egon. Tread carefully.]

What, you didn't want to sweet-talk the mood slime, Egon?

... We did what with the Statue of Liberty.

[That manages to briefly distract Venkman from examining Egon further, at least. But it won't work for long.]

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