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Only a Dream...
The hands held him down, tight across his chest and shoulders. Egon Spengler turned away from the hands, struggling to get away from the firm grip that held him down. Something was wrong, very wrong, this wasn't right. Why couldn't anyone else see that?
"Egon!" The hands gripped him tighter as he tried to pull away and held him still. "Egon, buddy, come on, don't scare me like this. If you keep this up I'm going to have to start going to myself for therapy."
The voice was familiar, soothing. He felt safe somehow, and it was enough to stop Egon's struggles.
"That's it," the voice was clearer now, relieved. "Come on, Egon. It's not fair to scare your buddy like this. Just open your eyes and show me you're all right."
He knew that voice, it was the most familiar thing in the world - but it shouldn't have been right? It had been years since he'd heard that voice... But that was wrong, too wrong, more wrong that anything else.
"Damnit, you're really out of it, aren't you buddy?" The voice turned away and was suddenly louder. "Where the hell is that ambulance?!"
Very familiar. Egon fumbled with one hand, clutching at the arm wrapped across his chest, fingers grasping at the thick material and clutching tightly. A cool hand pressed against his forehead and brushed his hair away from his face. For the first time, Egon noticed the heavy pounding against his skull and the slick warmth running down the side of his face. "Egon? That's it, Egon, take it easy."
"Peter." His voice was raspy to his own ears, and his throat burned with the effort it took to get out that one simple word, but he had finally remembered why it seemed so familiar and the pain was secondary to the relief he felt. "Peter," he tried again, and this time the pain was fading even more.
The arm across his chest tightened and the hand at his forehead slid down to cup his cheek. "Yeah, Egon, it's me. It's Peter. Oh thank God, now open your eyes for me, okay? Do you think you can do that?"
The sound that escaped him was more a whimper than anything else and he curled in tighter on himself. He didn't want to open his eyes, didn't want to risk opening his eyes and seeing that the world around him was the same one he'd seen in his dreams. The same dreams where Peter's voice was a memory.
"Okay, okay. Not yet." Peter gathered him closer, and Egon welcomed the closer contact. It warmed him and made it easier to convince himself that the dream was only that. "We called an ambulance, big guy, so just stay with me until they get here, okay?"
"Ray?" Egon managed. "Winston?"
"They're okay. We got the gooper but good, don't worry. He's in the trap now. They're just mopping up the rest of the Class Twos and Threes."
"Dream? It was... I remember..." He wasn't sure he liked the plaintive tone to his voice, and he knew Peter didn't understand what he was trying to ask. Peter's hand tangled through his hair. "Egon," he sighed. "Just relax, stay still. You're all right now. Whatever it is, you can tell me later, when you're feeling better."
That sounded like a good idea, and Egon willingly settled against Peter's hold as he heard the siren of the ambulance approach.
Egon felt consciousness returning to him as if from a great distance, and with it, a pounding headache. He opened his eyes slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the dim lighting of the room, then opened them completely.
He was in a hospital, he saw. He turned his head to the side and smiled at what he saw there.
Peter sat sprawled in the plastic chair beside his bed, head slumped to the side, arms and legs going in every direction. He looked a mess in his rumpled clothes, and tousled hair. Egon realized Peter must not have left since arriving.
There was no sign of Ray or Winston, and the fact that Peter had parked himself at Egon's bedside for what appeared, to Egon at least, to be nothing worse than a concussion, worried the physicist. The fact that he couldn't remember how he had ended up in the hospital only worried him more, and he reluctantly decided that Peter's sleep would have to wait a while longer. He cleared his throat, wishing for a glass of water, and asked, "Peter?" His voice was weaker than he'd expected, and the sound of his own voice only made the pounding in his head worse, but it had the desired effect. Peter blinked wearily, and lifted his head. "Huhn? Spengs!"
The look of relief on Peter's face did little to calm Egon's worries. "What happened?" he asked, ignoring the dryness of his throat. "Ray and Winston?"
"They're fine. It's you we were worried about for a while there, big guy," Peter told him. He leaned forward on the edge of the chair and examined Egon's face critically. "Your head's hurting, isn't it? Want me to call a nurse to give you something?"
Egon started to shake his head, realized that probably hadn't been a very good idea, and simply said. "No." Peter didn't argue. "Peter, what happened? We were on a bust, I remember that much."
Peter nodded. "Yeah. We got called to Macy's. There were a bunch of Class Two's and Threes running around, scaring the customers. It was a pretty simple bust, but then this nasty Class Seven came out of nowhere. It run straight into you." He grimaced slightly. "You fell down the escalator, buddy. Banged you up pretty good. Back and blue all over."
Egon frowned. Now that Peter had told him what happened he was aware of a dozen other pains and discomforts. He lifted his right hand and grimaced at the thick bandage that covered most of it.
Peter gave in a sympathetic look. "The sharp edges on the steps kind of tore you up. The proton pack, and your jumpsuit protected you from most of it, but your hand and face got a little slashed up. The doctor says nothing's likely to scar though. You'll just be sore for the next week or so."
Egon let his hand drop back to the bed and consciously tried not to think about the rest of him. "Did you get it?"
Peter took the pitcher sitting on the table beside the bed and poured a small amount of water into a paper cup. "You bet, partner. Trapped that little slime bucket. Winston took it back to the firehall and promised to throw it into the containment unit first thing." He slid a hand beneath Egon's head and eased him up enough to drink without spilling all over himself.
Egon sipped the water slowly, then Peter eased him back against the pillow. "You should go home," he said, the words coming easier now that his throat was no longer so dry. "You look terrible, Peter."
A ghost of a grin crossed Peter's face. "I look bad?" he asked shakily. "You've got nerve, Spengs." One hand reached out and encircled Egon's wrist. "You didn't look so hot yourself for a while there. Had us all scared, buddy."
"Head wounds often look more serious than they are," Egon reminded him gently. "You know that."
The psychologist ran a hand through his hair. "I know. But it was kind of hard to remember with you bleeding all over me." He grimaced. "I think my uniform's a total loss."
"Sorry about that," Egon managed not to grin, as difficult as it was. "Next time I'll try to be more careful."
"And that wasn't even the worst part!" Peter gave Egon a reproachful look. "You were seriously out of it, big guy. You kept babbling about dreams and Kylie and some guy named Edward-"
"Eduardo." Egon's voice was barely a whisper, the half memories coming back to him. All at once the images he'd seen while lying unconscious on the floor of the department store rushed over him, nearly overwhelming in their sheer detail - and the feeling of helplessness that accompanied them. "It was a - dream, I suppose. A hallucination, maybe. It lasted years, it seemed."
"Looks like it really hit home," Peter said softly. "You kept asking me if it was really just a dream and you had a death grip on my arm. When the paramedics finally showed up they couldn't get you to let go. I ended up going with you in the ambulance. Wasn't until they gave you a sedative that you finally let go."
That made sense. What little Egon remembered of his brief period of lucidity in the department store largely involved overwhelming relief that Peter was really there and an equally overwhelming fear that he would vanish again. "The dream... It was the future. Ten years from now. We weren't working together anymore - no more ghosts. You and Ray and Winston had gone on. I was working at New York City College." He closed his eyes. "Janine was one of my students."
He heard Peter's amused snort of laughter. "And was she still chasing you around?"
"Janine does not chase me around," Egon informed him, turning his head slightly toward the sound of Peter's voice.
"I bet she doesn't," Peter said dryly. "So tell me the rest of it, Spengs."
"There isn't much more to tell," Egon admitted. "The students eventually became new Ghostbusters when ghosts started reappearing. It was just-" He turned his hand in Peter's grip until both their hands clasped together, and he could hold on to his friend tightly. "It was just that you were gone. You, and Ray and Winston, and I hadn't seen you in years. Then, I heard you calling me, telling me to wake up, and all I could think was, 'why is Peter here?' " The feeling of abandonment, loneliness, the feeling that everything in the world was just completely insane, returned, but it was a mere echo of what it had been before. "I almost didn't recognize you, Peter. It... it hurt." His voice dropped to a whisper as he spoke, until the last two words were barely more than a breath.
"It seemed that real?" Peter's voice was soft, sympathetic.
"It did. I can't explain it, Peter. It was only a matter of minutes that I was unconscious, if that, yet somehow, those ten years felt more real that everything else." His grip on Peter's hand had tightened until he feared he'd inflict harm if it became any tighter. He opened his eyes, meeting and holding Peter's gaze and the reassuring comfort it carried. "I don't know how, but it did."
Peter sighed and gently brushed Egon's hair away from his face. Egon remembered Peter doing that before, while he lay semi-conscious, and held onto that feeling of familiarity. "The mind plays funny tricks on us sometimes. It may have seemed real, but it wasn't. Just remember that, all right? I'm right here with you, and I'm not going anywhere until you make me. And Ray and Winston will be here as soon as they clean up and deal with the traps."
"I will remember that," Egon told him. "But I may need to be reminded occasionally."
"I'll remind you all you need. We all will." Peter raised their clasped hands. "Whenever you need something to hold on to, Spengs, I'm game."
"Thank you, Peter." Egon studied the hands for a moment, seeing something else entirely. "I knew something was wrong, the entire time. It all felt so wrong, Peter, yet I couldn't say anything, and no one else seemed to notice. That was the worst part, that I was the only one who thought it was wrong."
"It was wrong," Peter told him, "things working out like that. You've got a funny subconscious, buddy. Whatever you ate before we went on that bust, don't ever eat it again."
Egon smiled tiredly. "I won't."
Neither said anything for a long moment. Egon felt himself drifting back into sleep. "That's it," Peter's voice said calmly. "Just relax. Get some sleep. Tomorrow you'll feel a lot better, I promise. I'll be right here, and Ray and Winston will be here then too - and Janine, of course, but we both knew that." The smile in his voice was evident. "And you aren't allowed any more bad dreams, got that? You've had your quota for the day. Just forget that Edward guy-"
"Eduardo," Egon murmured sleepily.
"Egon, he's not real, so I'm fairly certain he won't be bothered if I get his name wrong. Just forget about it for tonight. It wasn't real. It never will be real.
"And when you wake up again, I'll still be right here."
End
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