Who's Shirty Now?

 

"Egon! What have you done now?" Peter Venkman called as he waved the request list for official merchandising at the firehouse's stairway. Dr. Egon Spengler poked his head over the banister and gave him an inquiring look.

Sighing theatrically Peter marched up the stairs and presented the request form to him, pointing out the underlined and highlighted item he wished to discuss.

"Hmm." Egon murmured, taking the form and walking back to the TV room's lounge then sitting down to study it. Ray and Winston glanced over from the game of Vulcan chess they were playing on Winston's new board before resuming their battle of wits.

Adjusting his red glasses Egon studied the application form a moment longer before announcing. "Ah, yes. A play on words. Probably referring to the empirical tests I run whilst 'busting."

"Empirical Tests? What 'empirical' tests?" Peter snatched the form back and glared at it accusingly, as if expecting an answer there.

However, Egon had caught the shuttering in Peter's green eyes before he looked away and quickly worked to ascertain what really had Dr. Venkman so upset. Ah, yes. The corners of his mouth quirked as he thought fondly how much he loved this clever, caring man. Best not to let Peter know, it would simply go to his already far too inflated ego.

Instead Egon schooled his features, remarking lightly, "The touch test, of course. You are always telling me not to rely so heavily on the meter readings, Peter. Therefore when I come across an entity that does not register as a spook, I do a 'reality check' as they say." He stood, deciding to give Venkman a little encouragement after all and stretched provocatively, "I reach out and touch it to make sure that they are mortal entities and not ectoplasmic ones."

"Uh, mortals...like, people, right..." Peter agreed distractedly. All that stretching physicist had him feeling a little...preoccupied.

"Go ahead and sanction the T-shirts." Egon added mildly, ending his stretch. "I think they will prove very amusing." The tall blond then lent over and planted a gentle kiss on his lover's lips before heading off towards his laboratory.

Peter stood there with a dopey look on his face for about five seconds before whirling and yelling "Well just see if I don't, buster!" after the departing scientist. Egon's deep chuckle was all the reply he got.

"What do they wanna do?" Ray asked for Winston and himself, as they both looked curiously up from their game. "Not another glow in the dark portrait series, I hope."

"Amen." Winston agreed.

Peter posed importantly, gave a quick look in Spengler's direction to make sure he had really left then started unbuttoning his shirt. They were tiny little buttons and slippery as all hell, so he abandoned the pose to deal with the blasted things as he said conspiratorially,

"The latest T-shirt they want to market is a doozey, its got Egon's head on the back, rather stylishly rendered, I might add." Ray and Winston rolled their eyes; Peter in love was a terribly gooey thing to have to deal with at the best of times. Peter in 'true love' was sickening. "Yeah, well," Peter pulled a face at them and continued, "they've picked up on one of our mad scientist's little habits and made a nifty slogan out of it to put on the front. I don't think we'd be able to stop these baby's going on the market if we tried." He confided, a touch unhappily. "By making them official merchandise we at least get to see some of the profits."

"So this little scene was about getting Egon to agree to something that was gonna happen anyway, whether he liked it or not." Winston surmised as Peter struggled with his cuffs.

"Right." Venkman agreed with a slightly pained smile. Sometimes the publicity didn't sit well with the other guys, he'd found it was easier to get them to cope with it if he helped break stuff to them, er, gently. "Hey, at least this T isn't from some shoddy back street operation this time. They sent me a sample, it's good quality, a nice cotton blend, even screen printing, double seam stitching..."

"But what does it say?" Ray interrupted impatiently.

"Weren't you listening?" Winston teased, "It's something about the way Egon pokes folks to see if they are real or not when we're on a 'bust. Something like, er, - nudge nudge, wink wink, haunt no more..."

"That's bad, Winston. How about - PokeEgon, he's gonna catch 'em all!" They groaned at that one together then turned to Peter to find out what the real slogan was.

With another look over his shoulder, Peter yanked his shirt off dramatically to reveal the T-shirt underneath. Winston and Ray burst out laughing as they read the boldly stenciled letters -

I've been poked by a Ghostbuster!

Empirical testing, indeed!

 

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