#@mirandamnit

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You sit at your desk, surrounded by several messy stacks of spreadsheets, stat recordings, and observation notes collected by Egon and Ray over the past week. The boys just pulled into the garage a few minutes prior, and you can hear their faint footsteps scrambling upstairs as they unload from their most recent call and prepare for the next. The phone on your desk rings and you pick it up. “Hi, Janine,” you say pleasantly, scribbling notes in your graph book. “What’s up?”

“The boys need an extra tomorrow and they're gonna send Egon down to try and convince you," she says flatly. “Here, listen.” 

Janine holds the phone out and Peter's voice rings out in the background. "Egon! You handsome son of a gun, just—hey! Janine! Snitch! Traitor!"

Janine puts the phone back on her ear. "Hear that, honey? He’s already on his way. Best of luck.” 

She hangs up the phone just as Egon trots down the stairs and wraps his arms around you from behind. “Hello, sweetheart,” he purrs. His stubble is coarse on your cheek as he nuzzles into you. The slightest hint of ozone clings to his jumpsuit, the slightest whiff of sweet chocolate in his breath. 

“Hey, Spengs.” You reach up and lightly stroke his jaw, still writing in your notebook. “What is it you're going to ask me?"

"I don't ever come over just to give you some affection?" He kisses the bottom of your jaw, sending a small shiver down your spine. You crack a smile, despite your best efforts. 

"Very rarely during work hours, Spengs. Unless you're trying to butter me up to ask a favor."

“Maybe I simply want to steal a few moments with the love of my life before my next call.” His breath is hot on your neck. 

“Ah, I see.” You snicker and put your pencil down, tilting your head to give him better access to your neck. “I bet you have no ulterior motives. Absolutely none.” 

He works his way down to the crook of your neck and you gasp, burying your fingers in his hair. He smiles, feeling your pulse against his lips. "So, there's a call scheduled tomorrow and we need an additional pers—"

"No."

“It’s a fairly straightforward assignment. All you’d need t⁠—hey!” he exclaims when you grab his hand and bite down on his wrist. Not anywhere near hard enough to cause actual pain, but enough to get a rise out of him. He takes your hand in his to prevent another attack. “As I was saying,” he presses a kiss to your palm and holds your hand against his face, enjoying the gentle warmth of your touch, “it’ll just be a quick job.”

You scoff. “My job is to clean up the messy data sets that you and Ray spew at my feet and make the numbers actually mean something. Nowhere in the job description did it say ‘get drenched in filth’ when Ray hired me. Everytime I go out with you boys, it takes me a week to fully wash the ectoplasm out of my hair."

"Have you considered premature balding as a solution? It causes Peter less difficulty in washing his hair."

“You’re right, Egon. That’s the perfect fix.”

He kisses you on your temple. “Good! I’m glad it’s settled.” He pulls away from you and starts making his way to the staircase. “We leave at 11:30 tomorrow night.”

“What?! Hey!" You nearly lunge out of your chair and seize him by the baggy sleeve of his jumpsuit. He peers down at you with soft eyes, the slightest ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. You groan and release him. "Fine. I'll go.”

Janine's voice crackles on the overhead speaker. "Boys! Get ready for your 9:00pm!"

He pulls you in for a final kiss on your cheek. "Thank you, sweetheart. Let yourself into the apartment. I'm going to be home late tonight."

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾☆.｡:*.｡.:*☆ ༓･*˚⁺‧͙

It’s a beautiful winter night with clear skies. 

The clock nears midnight as the five of you unload the Ecto-One just outside of an old, condemned city park. The grass is dead, the water fountains graffitied, the asphalt faded, the brick walls crumbled, but the park still holds a shadow of its former beauty. 

"A wraith is a fairly rare Class III semi-corporeal non-human entity that often impersonates the visages of recently deceased individuals,” Egon explains as you help him strap on his pack. “Injuries caused by them are almost unheard of, but caution is recommended nonetheless since they often manifest sickle-like claws. If possible, I'd like to secure an ectoplasmic samp⁠—hey! Hey!” His seriousness momentarily breaks and he snickers when you bite his wrist. He pulls your hand up to plant a kiss on your palm and holds it against his face, relishing the warmth of your touch. "As I was saying," he says snidely, “it’s a fairly simple procedure. Peter will contain the ghost, Ray will control the trap, Winston will neutralize the field, I’ll secure a few live samples, and you’ll stand very far back with the spectrometer to record the physioelectrical readings from the ghost. That way, your hair will be very well out of sliming range.”

Everybody finishes getting ready and gathers together at one end of the park, eyes peeled for any signs of the wraith. Egon holds out the PKE meter as the group moves forward. A horrible shriek echoes through the park, sending a shiver down your neck, and what looks like a torn black cloak whooshes over your heads and retreats behind a brick wall in the distance. “Can’t be too sure,” Egon says flatly, raising his PKE meter in the air. “But I think it may be nearby.”

"And ooh! She's a chunky one!" Peter yells gleefully, dialing up the power on his proton gun and running after it. The other boys leap into action and you stay behind, keeping the spectrometer pointed at the wraith as it flies over them, swiping clumsily at them with sickle-like claws. Peter quickly gets his proton stream lassoed around the wraith with easy precision from his first shot. The wraith snarls and lunges at Winston, teeth bared, but he easily avoids it as he sticks another plasma rod onto the ground. “C’mon, honey. Don’t be like that,” Peter grunts, yanking the wraith back. “I know I’m not as cute as Winston but I'm really trying here.”

“We’re through, sugar!” Winston laughs as he sets up the perimeter. “We’re over! I got a thicker girl back home!”

The wraith seizes the stream in its oversized claws and slowly starts slipping it off. Peter’s stream sputters a bit and he ramps the power higher. “Guys!” he shouts, the humor completely gone from his voice. “She’s gonna get loose! Brace yourselves!” 

Just seconds later the creature breaks free from the stream and rushes towards Ray, who immediately pulls the taser from his belt and swings the crackling weapon at it, striking it across the face. It shrieks and flies around sporadically before turning its attention to you, claws bared. You instinctively throw your hands up to shield your face, dropping the spectrometer to the ground. The wraith’s huge claws slash deeply up the length of both your arms from elbow to palm as it flies past you, sending a horrid iciness through your entire body and nearly knocking you over. 

Egon runs over to you as the creature turns its attention to Peter in the distance, who’s pleading with it not to leave him again, ‘for the sake of the kids’ as he chases it around. "Sweetheart, are—?" He freezes when you turn around and lock eyes with him. Blood immediately saturates your shredded sleeves, runs freely down your hands and trickles off your fingers. His breath stalls in his throat. 

You stumble a few steps and collapse against him, weakly clinging to him for a few seconds before you crumple to the ground at his feet.

His mind screams for him to say something, to do something, anything, but he's absolutely immobilized with panic. 

“Ray! Grab the first-aid kit from the car! And call 911!” Winston sprints over to you and drops to his knees. “You’re gonna be okay, baby. You’re gonna be alright.” He tears the emergency tourniquet from the toolbelt on his jumpsuit and fumbles a bit as he unravels it. “Spengler, tourniquet her other arm.” 

Egon stands rooted to the spot, absolutely petrified, shivering and staring down at your unconscious form as your blood pools around his boots.

“Hey, babygirl, I need you to stay with me. Stay with me, okay?” His voice quivers with fear as he tightens the strap above your elbow. “You’re gonna be alright. Just keep breathing.” His hands and knees are drenched in your blood as he grabs a second tourniquet from your belt and tightens it on your other arm. 

Ray runs over and kneels down beside Winston with the first aid kit, eyes wide and face pale. “Oh my god…”

Winston throws open the first aid kit and quickly rummages through it. “Did you call 911?”

“Yeah. ETA four minutes…”

“Good work. Very good work.” He shoves a large bundle of gauze into Ray’s arms, smearing your blood on his jumpsuit. Ray looks ready to vomit. “Put these on the wounds with as much pressure as you can.” Winston tears open the wrappers and begins packing them on your arm. “Pile them on each other, as hard as you can. Don't worry about hurting her. You're not going to. Keep going until you run out." 

Ray follows as best as he can with violently shaking hands, struggling to blink back the tears stinging his eyes. “Egon? Can you help us?”

Egon stays completely frozen, unresponsive to Ray’s voice, his eyes wide and fixated on you. 

“Egon?” Ray’s voice cracks but he keeps to his task. “Are you o⁠—?” 

“No,” Winston cuts in calmly but firmly. “But we’ll worry about him later.” 

In the distance, Peter has the trap tucked firmly under his arm and his stream lassoed around the thrashing ghost, struggling to contain it as he avoids looking in your direction for fear of what he might see. “Eegs! Snap out of it, bud! I really need your help here!” Peter’s brow is drenched in sweat as he slowly loses his footing; his boots start sliding across the floor. “AGH!” He tries pulling his arms back but the wraith pulls harder, lurching him forward and almost yanking him off his feet. “Goddamnit! Spengler, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!”

Egon’s eyes dart up to Peter, but he stays completely still, eyes wide and fearful.

Peter turns his head briefly and immediately looks away when he sees flashing lights. He ramps up his stream to full power and, mustering all his remaining strength, throws the creature to the ground, momentarily stunning it. He drops the trap on the ground, slams his foot on the trigger point, then yanks the weakened ghost towards the glowing trap. There’s a shriek, a flash of light, and the ghost disappears. 

The trap shuts and Peter drops his gun to the ground with an agonized groan, his arms stiff and violently shaking. His breathing is intense and rapid as he struggles to draw enough air into his searing lungs. A sudden look of fury crosses his face. He shouts and kicks the trap across the asphalt. It clatters along the ground and crashes into the brick wall with a metallic bang. He then turns to Egon and stomps over to him, rage burning in his eyes. Peter seizes Egon by the lapels of his jumpsuit and harshly slams him into the wall, hitting the back of his head and sending sparks dancing through his vision. “What the hell is your problem?! Huh?! For a guy who claims to love her, you sure as hell were perfectly fine doing nothing and letting her fucking die on the ground right at your feet!"

Egon blinks slowly, staring down at Peter with blank, dazed eyes, weakly grasping his wrists.  

Peter slams him into the wall again, knocking the breath out of him. "Answer me!" he snarls. 

Egon stays silent. 

“Peter.” Ray tries to put his hand on Peter’s shoulder but he’s harshly shoved away and falls on the ground.

“ANSWER ME!” he roars.

"Peter!" Ray cries, clutching his elbow as he scrambles to his feet, tears flooding down his cheeks. 

Tears spill down Peter’s face as his rage melts into sorrow and he releases Egon, shielding his hand over his eyes and bursting into a fit of sobs. 

Egon stumbles and puts a hand out to catch himself on the crumbled brick wall. He takes a moment to regain his balance and stands himself up from the wall, leaving behind a smeared handprint of your blood. He looks down at himself. The entire front of his jumpsuit is stained a deep red, wet and sticking to his skin, clammy in the cool nighttime air. 

For a brief moment he fears that he's going to faint. The acrid scent of your blood hits him all at once, powerful and unavoidable.  It forces its way into his nose, down his throat, choking him, burning metallic and sour on the back of his tongue, clotting his airway. He bows his head, gagging, unable to catch his breath. His lungs burn for air but he can't breathe. His chest spasms. The world spins rapidly around him and his vision blanks as his entire body screams for air, but he can't breathe, he can't breathe, he can't breathe. 

Egon sinks to the ground. His throat constricts, the muscles in his stomach cramp, he gags, unable to breathe. He gasps in a desperate attempt to draw in any amount of air. His mind races: you've lost too much blood; you're in critical care; there's a very real chance that the bleeding can't be controlled; there's a very real chance that you're going to die.

There's a very real chance that you're already dead. 

Egon clutches his stomach. He doubles over, gags, and retches into the grass. 

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾☆.｡:*.｡.:*☆ ༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Ray trots over to Egon from the Ecto-One, relief glowing on his flushed, tear-stained face. “Winston called. He says that they’ve got her stabilized and that she’s doing well with the transfusions.”

Egon looks up from the broken spectrometer he was tinkering with and nods, trying and failing to force one of his typical half-smiles. 

“I also don’t think any of us should be alone right now. You should come spend the night with Janine and me.” He jerks his head in the direction of Peter, who’s seated far away on the curb with a blanket and a thermos, struggling not to nod off. “Dana’s already on her way for Peter.”

Egon shakes his head. 

“Can I give you a ride home in the Ecto-One?”

Egon shakes his head. 

“Hey, I know we’re all worried, but YN’s well taken care of. Now it’s time to make sure we are, too.”

“I will be, Ray.” His own voice sounds hollow and dull in his head, as if it’s coming from behind a wall.  

“Sure, Egon, but right now is what my mind’s on.”

Egon stays silent.  

“Hey.” Ray pulls him into a tight hug. “She’s gonna be okay, and so are you.” He gives Egon a few rough pats on the back and releases him, planting a firm hand on his shoulder. “If you change your mind at any time, just give Janine or me a call, okay? No hour is off-limits. I'll come around to check on you tomorrow. Needless to say, Janine’s canceling the next few days of calls.” 

Egon nods, mutters a half-hearted ‘thanks’, and watches Ray walk over to Peter, who’s gripping the thermos in his hands so tightly that his knuckles are white. After a few moments, Egon stuffs his hands deep into his coat pockets and begins the three mile walk home. 

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾☆.｡:*.｡.:*☆ ༓･*˚⁺‧͙

The apartment is cold and quiet when he finally arrives. He easily navigates his way to the bathroom through the pitch black and cringes with the harshness of the light he flicks on. He crams all of his soiled clothing to the bottom of the trash can, jumpsuit and boots and all, and turns on the shower as hot as he can stand, only remembering to take off his glasses when they fog up from the hot steam that hits his face. He steps in and watches your blood melt off of his body and wash down the drain. The water is almost unbearably scalding, but he can’t stop shivering and finishes up as quickly as he can. 

Your scent still clings faintly to the bedsheets when he crawls into bed. It's always been soothing in a way, relaxes some of the tension in his tired joints as he clutches one of your pillows to his chest. He’s exhausted but doesn’t sleep. Instead, he stares blankly out the bedroom window for hours, staring at the pitch-black nothingness outside. 

He's still shivering a bit when he gets out of bed. It’s odd being alone so early in the morning. He tends to wake up much earlier than you, but can always depend on you being the first thing he’d see in his day, cozy and curled up next to him. Despite being alone, he instinctively takes caution to be quiet as he moves about the apartment during this hour, a long-built habit to keep from waking you up. He’s adjusted almost every facet of his everyday life to include you in some way since the two of you became an official couple.

In the kitchen, he absentmindedly grabs two mugs from the cupboard before pausing and putting one back. 

He wants to see you. It's close to five in the morning, still completely dark outside, but he abandons his empty mug on the counter, grabs a coat, and heads out the door. 

The morning is abnormally cold as he treks the two miles to the hospital, hands stuffed deeply in his pockets. The still icy air almost immediately seeps through his clothing like wet paper, chilling him to the bone. He shivers, shoulders hunched and nose stinging from the biting breeze as it carries away the frosted clouds of his breathing. By the time the hospital comes into view, the frigid sun is concealed behind a heavy overcast, bathing the city in a gloomy shade. 

The warmth of the hospital heating system almost brings a sigh of relief as he walks inside, past the empty reception desks and to the elevators. 

The charge nurse doesn't even glance up from her lewd romance novel as Egon strides behind her desk and grabs the clipboard, quickly scans it for your name, and rapidly walks down the hall towards your room.

He raises his hand to knock, but hesitates. Part of him fears seeing you, what condition you might be in, your reaction to his presence, or accidentally waking you up. 

A muffled laughter rings dully from the inside of your room, weak and tired-sounding, but unmistakably you. Your voice, which normally blooms warm and light in his chest, seems to fill him with an almost oppressive sense of dread that tightens in the back of his throat. He forces himself to take a breath and blinks back the stinging in his eyes. He came here for a reason and he’s going to go through with it. He knocks. 

“Come in.” 

He walks inside. You’re propped up in your bed on top of a mound of hospital pillows, snickering at a particularly crass magazine gifted to you by the charge nurse. Your entire face brightens at the sight of him. “Hey, Spengs! Did you come here from the lab? You’ve got a lab coat on.”

Your statement throws him for a loop and he looks down at himself. Indeed, in his absentmindedness, he grabbed a lab coat instead of a regular one. That explains why he was so cold on the walk⁠—a lab coat was nothing against the frigid New York winter. 

You laugh weakly. “Did you disguise yourself as a medical doctor to sneak in here? Is that why you've got your lab coat on? It's not even six in the morning yet. Visitors aren’t allowed for another three hours.”

It takes him a moment to summon his voice as he shuts the door behind himself. "I wanted to see you."

You smile bashfully and dog-ear the magazine, setting it aside as Egon stiffly sits in the chair beside your bed. “Winston stayed with me for a while. I sent him home to get some sleep. Had to pull a few teeth to convince him.” 

You grab his hand and gnaw very lightly on his wrist, trying to get his usual reaction of charmed annoyance, but he quietly accepts it without fuss. In your thin haze of drugs you very briefly consider actually sinking your teeth into his arm to get a rise out of him, but before you can decide on violence he gently grabs your hand and presses a kiss to your palm. 

He’s a bit taken aback at how frigid your hand feels and holds it tightly to his face. Your touch, normally so warm, is icy-cold, sending a dreadful shiver down the back of his neck. Lowered body temperature, cold skin⁠—symptoms of someone suffering from severe blood loss. His breath hitches and he struggles to gulp it down, forces himself to breathe deeply and deliberately through his nose to keep himself steady as tears start welling in his eyes. 

You reach up with your other hand and caress his face, stroke his cheek with your thumb, run your fingers through his thick hair. “You haven’t slept at all, have you?” you ask quietly, noting the darkness under his eyes, the aching exhaustion written so plainly on his face.

He shakes his head, still holding your cold hand tightly to his face with both of his, as if warming it back up with his own body heat would breathe some energy back into you.

Your sleeve slips down to your elbow, revealing the thick swathes of bandages layered across the entirety of your forearm, stained rusty in several spots with dried blood, the empty IV cannula taped to the inside of your elbow. 

His resolve shatters. A sob spasms in his throat and the tears burning in his eyes begin to spill over. He rips his gaze away from you, ashamed. 

“Spengs?” You tilt his head a bit to face you. 

He reluctantly meets your eye, clenching his jaw as tears run down his cheeks, utter despair etched on his tired face. “I’m sorry…”

Your heart plummets to the pit of your stomach. You’ve never seen him cry before.

He swallows, trying to compose himself as tears continue flooding down his cheeks. He swallows again, harder, failing to suppress the lump built up in his throat, unable to force out any more words.

“Hey, hey, hey," you coo, stroking his wet cheek with your thumb. "It's going to be okay, Spengs. It's going to be alright." 

He shakes his head and accidentally knocks his glasses askew against your hand. This was his fault. This entire thing was his fault. “Y⁠—...I didn’t…I⁠—...I’m sorry," he chokes out between gasps. "I’m sorry.” Another sob breaks from his lips and he lowers his head. 

You’re saying something to him but he doesn’t comprehend it through the thoughts reeling through his head. He was the one who coerced you into going when you didn’t want to. He was the one who put you in danger. He was the reason you were so badly injured, and, when you turned to him for help, he did nothing. He did nothing. 

He falls to his knees and his glasses clatter to the floor. He clutches your hand to his face so tightly that it’s almost painful, loudly and openly sobbing, unable to catch his breath as his entire body spasms with the force of his cries. 

He feels your arm weakly reach around his shoulder and struggle to try and slowly pull him forward. He releases your hand and leans fully against you, wraps his arms tightly around your middle and buries his face into your neck. He wants to be close to you. He wants to be as close to you as he possibly can, to feel your presence, to feel you alive and pressed against him. 

Your scent, normally so comforting, is muddied beneath the strange smells of the hospital, of plastic, latex, cotton bandages, greasy topical medications. And, beneath it all, the sour, metallic tang of blood, of how closely you came to death. Panic bursts in his chest. He tightly clutches you to the point that his hand cramps and he nearly tears through the thin fabric of your hospital clothes. His breath grows shallow, rapid, frantic, desperate as he labors more and more to draw air into his lungs. 

“Egon. Egon, Egon, breathe,” you say gently, slowly. “Breathe. Breathe, sweetheart. I’m here. You’re here.” 

He struggles to follow your instructions as you guide him through his breathing, very gradually calming him down until eventually, his harsh sobs die down to feeble, exhausted weeping. Relieved a bit, you release him from your grip and lie back on the bed, completely spent. “Come up and lie down with me, Spengs.”

He does as you ask and crawls onto the bed, lays his head on your chest. You wrap your arms around him and rest your cheek on top of his head, gently running your fingers through his plushy hair, trying to give him some semblance of comfort. “It’s going to be okay.”

Things might be okay eventually, but he fears they’ll never be the same. “You should be angry…” he croaks. 

“No, no. God, no.” You run your fingers along the bottom of his jaw, feeling the prickle of fresh stubble. “Do you remember when you were working on that new neutrino wand prototype?” you ask. “The one that you’d worked on for almost a year? We were both in the lab and I went over to the cabinet for something and accidentally knocked it onto the floor, and it just exploded into a million pieces all over the room. Of course the noise got your attention, and you looked over and saw a year’s worth of work completely destroyed on the ground, and when you looked at me I just started crying. Just full-on celebrity tabloid ugly crying. I felt so bad that I ruined something you put so much effort and time into, and I was so scared that you were going to be absolutely furious. 

“But, you weren’t. You came over to me from your desk, crunching all the little pieces under your shoes, and you sat me down, and you held my face in your hands, and you kissed my forehead, and you spent so long answering the same question over and over again that you weren’t angry until I calmed down.” 

He remains quiet and blinks slowly, staring blankly at nothing through clouded eyes as tears flow down the side of his face, soaking into the fabric of your shirt. You cradle his head to your chest, holding him just a bit more tightly. You lean forward just a bit and graze your lips lightly across his brow, planting a small, delicate kiss. A bit chapped, but warm, soft. Gentle. 

Everything about you is so gentle. His own hands are rough and calloused and scarred, so often sporting a new cut or burn, always covered in ectoplasmic filth or soot, and most recently, blood. Your hands, so delicate and small compared to his, now caress his face with trembling, weak fingers. You absentmindedly trace the contours of his face: his brow, the bony bridge of his nose, his stubbled cheek, wipe away drying tears with a delicate thumb. 

Guilt wells in his chest. You’re the one who almost died, who has weeks of pain and recovery to endure, who’s permanently scarred for the rest of your life, yet he’s the one seeking comfort from you. He closes his eyes, fresh tears rolling down the side of his face. "I'm sorry." 

"Spengs…" you mutter, wiping your thumb under his eye. "Just a couple of days for observation and a few more IV antibiotics and I should be good to go." 

That’s not the point, he wants to say, but he’s far too tired to pursue that line of dialogue. He hiccups. Fatigue begins bearing down on him, weighing heavily on his entire body.

“Try to get some rest,” you say quietly. “You'll feel better.” 

For a while the two of you lay in complete silence, only occasionally broken by a sniffle from Egon or a soothing hush from you. He gradually grows heavier in your arms as sleep finally begins overtaking him. Then, almost inaudibly, he asks, "What would you have done?"

The question sends an unpleasant shudder down your spine. "I don't know. I never want to find out the answer to that."

The two of you fall back into silence. Drowsiness starts creeping onto you. You stretch your jaw into a wide yawn and nuzzle your face into his hair, relishing him in your embrace as the two of you slowly begin drifting off. 

"You’re not angry?" His voice, tinged with stress and uncertainty, tugs you back to wakefulness.

"Of course not," you say airily, groggy with fatigue as another yawn swells in your throat. “I don’t mind saying it as many times as you need to hear it.”

Another silence. 

“Egon,” you mutter almost inaudibly, spending the last of your energy before you’re overtaken by sleep. “I love you.” 

Tears well in his eyes, but he takes a deep, slow breath, and they dissipate. “I love you

Part 2