Month 1

[captainryan]

Having a place to run, Ryan quickly sets up a routine. He heads out to the park usually twice a day for a good two hour run. It takes two more run ins with the gangs for the word to spread that he’s to be left alone – or else. After that, he either doesn’t see them or they respectfully look the other way when he passes by.

The morning jogs are even less eventful…at least until the moon approaches. It’s only when the jogger ahead of him stops at a drinking fountain (an interesting and useful American invention) that he realizes he’s been following her for twenty minutes. No, not following, stalking. She looks up, surprised to see him as close as he is, and misinterprets the look on his face as one of lust.

“Pervert,” she informs him none too kindly, and he can’t really blame her. How often do men look like they want to eat her? It does, however, settle the matter that he needs to get out of the city and soon.

“The full moon’s nearly here,” he says when the Ghostbusters have assembled for breakfast.

Comments

[gone_byebye]

"We'd noticed," says Venkman, of all people. "We've kinda been talking that over."

"When they're not making me open the same door twenty-seven times in a row," calls Ray from the kitchen; he's busy trying to feed Slimer.

"Oh, you love it and you know it," Venkman calls back. "Anyway. It would be really, really bad to try and keep you here for that. So we've been talking a couple of options over. How do you feel about a car ride out to Nassburg?"

"I still say we should attempt to contact Ray's cousin about the use of his dairy farm."

"You were outvoted three to one, Egon. You lost, fair and square. Deal with it."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

He arches an eyebrow, but he really shouldn't be surprised that they've been discussing this.

"How near to the town?" he asks, getting breakfast for himself. Is easier to ignore the enclosed space if he's eating, and if Ray can distract Slimer from his food, all the better.

[gone_byebye]

"There isn't nearly as much town as the name implies," says Egon. "Nassburg is primarily a farming community. The area we picked you up in represented the closest thing to an urban hub for miles. The old Spengler farm is officially inside the municipality's borders, but there's nothing in the vicinity except other, larger farms. There's not even a connection to the municipal water supply. It's all well water."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"I'm going to need miles. What's there to hunt?" He doesn't mind eating the farmers' cows, but he suspects they might. Water...he should be able to stick to the cows water troughs. Otherwise he's going to have to head closer to the wells, and thus closer to who uses them.

He starts eating.

[gone_byebye]

"White-tailed deer, for the most part," says Egon. "The area's notorious for them. Archers in the region get issued a permit to take down one deer with no antlers per day every day of the season until they kill their first buck. No one will notice if you remove a few more from the population."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Deer works. Deer works fine.

"Is it deer season now?" Ryan doesn't want to be shot, kthx. He's sure the archer will regret shooting him, too.

[gone_byebye]

"Not until the first full moon after the autumn equinox," says Egon. "We've still got a few moons to go. You should be all right."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan strongly hopes he's gone by then.

"That sounds acceptable. I should go tomorrow at the latest." He's very focused on the food in front of him right now. Later he'll be back to prowly and growly, but right now he's good for conversation.

[gone_byebye]

"Remember the car ride down here," Winston cautions. "Can you make it the same distance back up, or is that going to be a problem for you?"

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," he answers honestly. "I've never been in this situation before. I believe if we keep the windows down, I should be all right."

It can't be any worse than being in a crowded bar, right?

"But the more room in the car, the better."

[gone_byebye]

The Ghostbusters look at each other. Eventually, Peter says, "I should really stay home and mind the store."

"Whereas I'd better go up there myself in case you-know-what wakes up."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan doesn't really blame them. Were their positions reversed, he'd want to be as far away from the potentially man-eating werewolf as possible.

Not that he's mentioned the man-eating bit.

"You mean the dragon? You didn't destroy it?"

[gone_byebye]

Egon's look turns faintly indignant at that. "Of course not," he says. "It trusted us. It trusted me. It wasn't deliberately destructive or particularly dangerous, so we put it back to sleep in the well instead. We make a point of checking on it on a regular basis."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan arches an eyebrow at the man, not particularly impressed. "Fair enough," he says. "I just assumed that you would have captured or forced it to dissipate like so many of the other entities."

[gone_byebye]

"Then you assumed wrong," says Egon. "If you'll excuse me, I need to check on some of my equipment before we go."

Peter sighs as Egon gets up and leaves the breakfast table. "One of these days that man's gonna realize he's not fooling anybody," he says. "Sorry about that, Cap'n. Egon's kind of got a soft spot a mile wide where that dragon is concerned. Ever since it called him 'da-da'."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"'Da-da'?" Ryan repeats, bewildered. It...would explain the scent he was picking up from the man.

[gone_byebye]

"One of Egon's distant Colonial ancestors, Zedekiah Spengler, originally summoned the dragon," Ray says. "He was trying to make it rain, but he got a water spirit instead, in the form of a dragon. It decided Zedekiah was its father, so he kept it around until it started stealing the neighbors' pigs and goats. Then he put it back to sleep in the well on his farm, but it woke up a year and a half ago when we passed through town."

"We figure it must've heard Egon's voice and thought it was Zedekiah's," says Winston. "Anyway, it was bigger when we found it- a lot bigger. It started trying to bring Egon cars instead of pigs."

"And boats. Remember the ferryboat?"

"Don't remind me," says Ray. "We wound up having to lead it back to Nassburg with Ecto-2 and put it back to sleep in the well there. And even then Egon wasn't all that happy about it."

"He woke it up on purpose a while ago, though," says Peter. "Last June. Said he needed it for something in the other Ray's world. He seemed real satisfied when he came home with it, and it was a heck of a lot tamer, but you can't keep a dragon that size in the city, so he brought it back to Nassburg and got it into the well again. It's been sleeping ever since."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Part of Ryan is wondering what dragon tastes like.

The rest of him is focused on the conversation. "You've been able to visit the other Ray's world?" He hasn't said one word about being in a cartoon. Now he's wondering if they know.

HE WANTS TO BE 3D AGAIN.

[gone_byebye]

"Me? No," says Ray. "Egon? Yeah. He says the visual distortions there're just as bad as the ones at Milliways. It's like moving around inside some kind of bizarre movie or something."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"Such as more depth?" Ryan tries, looking from one Ghostbuster to the next.

[gone_byebye]

The guys look at one another blankly, then turn back to Ryan and shrug a little. "All I know is that processing all that visual information at Milliways gives me a whale of a headache," Ray says.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"I see," Ryan says a shade sourly as he stuffs a piece of toast in his mouth.

[gone_byebye]

"Sorry," says Ray. "I'll be coming up to Nassburg myself. I can at least try some new doors while I'm up there."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"Fair enough," Ryan says. "It'll be you and Dr. Spengler, then?"

[gone_byebye]

"Yeah. No offense, Ryan, but I got some stuff to do up at my dad's," Winston says, and there's nothing in his smell that contradicts genuine regret. "Sorry."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"Don't worry about it," Ryan says gruffly. He pauses a moment, then, "I appreciate everything you've done for me thus far. Thank you."

He'd be a lot worse off other wise.