Week 2

[captainryan]

Another week’s gone by and Ryan’s still trapped in the animated Stantz’s world. It’s frustrating knowing he can’t open the Door to Milliways himself, that he has to rely on the other man to get back. Not that he’s unreliable, he just tends to get distracted. Ryan would ask him to try the doors more often, but he’s seen the man come home covered in slime. He deserves some downtime.

Which he had yesterday. When Winston was teaching him how to shoot, the other guys had the day to themselves. Stantz can open a few doors for him today and one of those will lead to Milliways. He hopes. Ryan steps into the main room just in time to here something about baseball. An American sport, he thinks, dismissing it and heading towards Ray.

Comments

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"... and I'm sure some distant, faraway day, the Jags'll actually win a game. And I hope you're there when they do. But not me."

Ray looks up and waves to Ryan as Winston's attempts to recruit anybody else to come along to the game fall flat.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan nods in return. "Good morning, Dr. Stantz, Dr. Venkman. Morning, Winston," he greets the three men.

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"Hey, Ryan," says Winston, who's completely tricked out in Brooklyn Jaguars team apparel. "You wanna come see a real live American-style baseball game with me? I got two tickets to a Jaguars home game..."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Uh. Not really? Ryan's not all that fond of sports in the first place, but Winston gave up his day yesterday to train him.

"Is that the one that's a bit like cricket?" he says, not yet agreeing to go.

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"With the ball and the bat and the running, yeah," says Winston. "I can tell you the rules on the way if you want."

"If he says anything about the infield fly rule, do yourself a favor and run," calls Peter.

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Ryan's silent. He wanted to look for Doors today, but Stantz can do that without him. And while he may not like sports, he does get along with Winston. It won't hurt him any to take part of the day and do what the Ghostbuster wants to do.

"Fair enough," he says at last. "Dr. Stantz, if you get a chance, would you be willing to look for Doors today?"

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"Oh, sure," says Ray. "I wasn't doing anything much right now anyway. You two have fun, okay?"

Winston will never know how much he saved on stadium food by not having to bribe Slimer into accompanying him. Ryan, on the other hand, is getting treated to an explanation not only of the game, but of the history of the Jaguars (an extension team farmed out to Brooklyn some time after they'd lost the Dodgers). The overall impression one gets is of a rather less competent version of Arsenal, with a wider streak of broken hearts in its wake.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan listens, making the appropriate 'mm hm' and 'I see' sounds and staying completely neutral in his responses. He watches the game, but finds it brutally slow. It doesn't help that he's distracted by the scents of the stadium. He's used to city smells by now, but this place is full of the scents of human beings in addition to your standard ballpark smells. He winds up leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands over his nose and mouth like he's praying in an effort to muffle the scents.

He's grateful the Jaguars are a poor team. The seats are mostly empty.

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As the game draws on, the Jaguar pitcher throws, and as so often happens, the batter swings and connects. The ball soars up into the sky-

-where, in a rather sharp departure from the norm, it's surrounded by sudden streams of red and blue light.

"Holy- Ryan, are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

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"What?" Ryan answers distractedly, eying another fan and his hot dog. Mmm, food. But he turns his attention to see where Winston is looking. The next instant, his head is up, neck straining forward to try and catch some sort of scent from the light.

"What is that?"

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It smells a little like the ozone stink around a lightning strike, especially as the light swiftly circles the ball several times and grows brighter.

"No idea," says Winston, but that's not usually part of the game."

The lights vanish, and the ball drops again, the Jaguars fielder just barely missing his catch.

"Hey, uh... you mind if we stop by the library on the way home?" Winston asks. "I think I wanna look up the history of the stadium. See if anything weird ever happened here before."

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"Not at all," Ryan says, still looking at where the lights were. "Can we stop and pick up a sandwich on the way, though?" Ryan doesn't have any money, not here, which is why he hasn't asked earlier, but he knows what a bad idea it is to be hungry in a city full of potential food. So he swallowed his pride and requested the food stop knowing full well Winston has to pay for him.

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"Oh, yeah, sure, no problem," says Winston vaguely. "There's a gyro place down the street from the library. We can stop there."

Ryan's welcome to come into the library when Winston goes, but there's seating in the restaurant and the portions are pretty big. If he wanted to stay behind until it was time to get back to Manhattan that's not a problem either.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

YAY FOOD!

He means, uh, *ahem*, good.

"Thank you." Gyros, Ryan has found, are a bit like kebabs, and very good. The werewolf will happily chow down on one, after having ordered in an American accent so as not to draw attention. He eats fairly quickly for the portion size he's been given, and he'll join Winston if he's not finished.

What an interesting selection of books on the supernatural.

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Winston got the more mass-market ones, as it happens. He's not that familiar with the referencing systems in the books Egon and Ray normally consult. Still, as he digs through them all, he seems to be holding his own.

He stops at one particular book's picture of some peculiar-looking Native American art. "Huh," he says. "Whaddya know."

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"What have you found?" Ryan asks looking up from a tome on werewolves.

It's rather amusing actually.

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Yeah, the werewolf lore in this continuum is interesting.

"An old Indian legend," says Winston. "From a couple of different tribes. It says that the land the stadium is built on is the site of a battle between spirits of good and evil every five hundred years or so. Some kind of big ol' ceremonial fight, shaped by whatever's in the area when the spirits arrive."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"In this case, a baseball game. Was that the game we watched, or are the lights signaling something else?"

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"I think those might've been the preliminaries," Winston says. "You know, sorta signaling everybody to come on down. I dunno for sure, though. We should bring these back to the Firehouse and see how it measures up."

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"All right," Ryan agrees. He's the recruit here. Even if he wanted to argue, he wouldn't know what to say.

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Winston nods and gets out his library card.

The reception back at the Firehouse is somewhat skeptical at first. Most of it centers around the weird lights barely being enough to justify disrupting the game.

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"Supernatural is supernatural," Ryan points out neutrally. He doesn't usually say anything when they have these conversations, but this time he was there.

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"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we're about to have another Indian war break out," points out Ray. "Not necessarily, anyway. We can always check it in the morning."

"I guess," says Winston. "I'm kinda interested in this, though. Anyone mind if I just settle in for some reading tonight?"

"Just don't get between me and the TV and it's all good," says Peter.

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"I may join you for a bit," Ryan says. He wants to look over the collection of books the Ghostbusters have, and least before his nighttime run.

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Winston nods. "We've got enough books for it," he says. "I put bookmarks in the important ones. Have fun."

He's going to be smelling restless and edgy most of the rest of the evening. Winston is currently a very distracted man. The full extent of it isn't going to become evident just yet, though. Not until some time after Ryan heads out for his run, anyway; when he returns, it's to the sound of a phone call and frantic preparations. "Good, you're here," says Venkman. "Suit up. We got a problem in Brooklyn."