WEAFF, snippet 3

[gilascave]

What Else Are Friends For?
part 3

Peter was standing on the rooftop of an office building, aiming his nuclear accelerator towards the herd of Grobiian demons. Tiny, annoying, class 2 creatures who were more noisy than anything else, the Ghostbusters had been called in to get rid of them by humans who thought *anything* supernatural was better got rid of. In this case Peter didn't really blame them, and he hadn't bothered making the suggestion that feeding the Grobiians twice monthly would keep the swarm under control. Well-fed, they'd hide in dark corners and sleep for two weeks at a time.

It was just as well, he knew, since Grobiian demons preferred bird entails and detested feathers -- which meant someone else would have to gut the birds for them. Peter didn't think the building's maintenance crew would want to take charge of providing bird guts. It was usually hard enough getting windows repaired and leaking faucets fixed without adding to the mix.

Peter could hear the other Ghostbusters scrambling up the stairway to the rooftop access door. He'd got up here first, and held off firing until the others could join him. Anything less than three streams would just stir the herd up and chase them away. Three or four streams centered on the group would capture them with no trouble at all.

He glanced away from the demons, out towards the edge of the roof. Egon was still scared of heights, he knew, and he wondered for a moment what that felt like. To walk to the edge and look over the parapet and see the street so many floors below, and be afraid.

He'd seen the fear in Egon's eyes, heard it in the nearly-hidden tremble in his voice. Despite the fact Egon never talked about it, Peter knew he still felt it every time they had a job that took them so high up. But he had no idea what that *felt* like.

Should he go over, now, and try it? See if the sight of the concrete below made him tense the way it always did Egon? There wasn't time, of course, with the others coming onto the roof and spreading out, already moving their throwers into position. Peter glanced towards the edge again as he moved aside, making room for Winston on his left. He was thinking about what it would feel like to fall, as he aimed his own thrower at the center of the demon herd, and when everyone was ready he yelled 'fire!'.

Part of his mind stayed on the roof's edge. Even as they wrestled the collected demons down into traps that Ray and Egon had thrown out, Peter was thinking more about it than the job he was doing. He knew, from centuries of human observation, that Egon's fear lay in part in the knowledge that a fall would kill him. Peter had no such knowledge -- his present body might be smashed into bits, but it wouldn't destroy *him*. He'd create a new body and infest it like a parasite, living on without even a scratch. But would the sensation of it create a fear in him, as well?

If he dropped the shields that disguised his true nature then his own powers would even protect him from being hurt. Fly away, or slow his fall, or bounce like a giant rubber ball -- his brain calculated a dozen ways in which such a thing wouldn't hurt him. Threatened to go on for a dozen more, but Peter wrenched his thoughts away, concentrating on the job as the traps slammed shut on the Grobiians.

Peter switched off his thrower and waited, testing the smell of the air for any sign of escaped demons. There was none, so his slipped the thrower into its holster on his back.

The edge wasn't so very far away. Ray and Egon were grabbing up the traps, checking them to see that they'd hold. Winston was talking -- Peter tuned him out, and he took a step closer. He could see the city spread out for miles, and he could tell that for every hundred living heartbeats out there, there was something else. Ghost, or demon, or simply a spot of pulsing supernatural energy, the city was brimming with life and death and everything in between.

Peter found himself at the roof's edge and he looked down. It was a long, long way down -- twenty stories, but that number didn't quite translate into what he was seeing. A very long distance, though not so far compared to the distance to the horizons he'd known in the various Hells. Not even far compared to the distance of the horizons of the countrysides he'd wandered when he'd first come to Earth. But still, he knew, this was long enough to strike fear into someone who knew he would die if he fell.

Peter felt nothing.

"Coming, Peter?" Egon's calm voice penetrated his thoughts and he looked over his shoulder. Egon was holding a trap, dangling from its cable and letting off a thin blue smoke. Pissed off Grobiians.

"Yeah." Peter stepped away from the edge to rejoin his friends. Ray and Winston were already heading for the stairs, chatting loudly about similarities between demons and flocks of insects.

"Are you all right?" Egon asked quietly, and Peter stopped when he would have walked past, and looked at Egon.

"Just wondering something," he said, and he saw something change in Egon's eyes. Worry, and the same tense fear that he felt in Egon when it was Egon who had to go too near the edge of a roof. Peter said quickly, "I was thinking how you have a fear of heights and wondering what it felt like. But I don't think I find heights frightening."

"I see." In a blink Egon sounded once again like himself -- the scientist observing something interesting, cataloging it and saving it for later comparison to something else.

As Peter realised that the tension had gone, he tried to put two and two together. "Did you think I was gonna jump?" he joked.

"Of course not." Egon frowned at him.

He didn't understand the reason for the frown, but instead of asking, he said, "We'd better catch up, or they're gonna think the wind got us." Peter gestured towards the door, and the surreal tinge in his day hadn't left yet, and it felt like it wasn't going to. Perhaps he should stay away from tall buildings until the day passed. But Egon fell into step beside him and they headed for the stairwell as though nothing more unusual than swarms of small demons had occurred.

They were nearly at the door when Egon said, "Perhaps Ray will assist you in finding something you are afraid of. If that's the next emotion you wish to explore."

"Ugh!" Peter shivered, forcing a more normal tone to his voice even if he didn't quite feel it. "He'll cover me with spiders or snakes, or tie me up and throw me in a closet. No thanks!"

Egon smiled. "A fear of being experimented on, perhaps?"

There was a look in Egon's eye that made Peter's world suddenly click back into place. Something -- whatever it had been -- fell away. He felt like himself suddenly; whatever that self was, he still didn't quite have any good idea. But he smiled and didn't have to force it. "Yeah! Hey -- we can't tell him, though, because he'll want to test it to verify."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Peter."

Peter gave him a suspicious look. "That goes for you too, you know."

The look of innocence that appeared didn't fool him a bit. But it did, however, make him laugh and clap Egon on the shoulder, and wish that whatever it was that was happening, would keep doing so. He hurried down the stairs with Egon following.

"You do know I'd bounce, right?" he called back.

There was a pause, then Egon just said, "I know."