milliways_bar | (no subject)

Ray, who does not currently have an entrance post, is nonetheless in the Bar for breakfast. New York City gets too zooey at this time of year in the Ghostbusters universe for him to properly enjoy his chocolate frosted sugar bombs. He looks up.

"Oh, hey, Jonathan."

"Hey", Jonathan answers with a wave.

Ray slides down from his stool and heads over in Jonathan's direction. "How's it going? You look like you've been in the grinder for a week solid."

"Been with Andrew", Jonathan offers by way of explanation. "He's not coming out of his room much."

"Figured as much," Ray says. "I saw him when he was down here for a while. Gave him one of the traps. I'm giving a couple of them to Security for good measure, just so's you know. Um, is there anything I can do for you guys? Any way I can help, I mean? My, uh... I've been in a..." He hesitates. "If there's anything you need to do that you can't get done, either of you, because of the circumstances, I can try to handle that until you're up for it is what I'm trying to say."

"...there was something we were working on, but it's in our world, so you probably can't... time doesn't pass there while we're here anyway."

Ray nods. "Okay. I thought I should ask, just in case. You guys have enough to deal with."

Jonathan nods. "It's just a thing... something we know happened in another timeline - Faith's - but we think we've got a chance of stopping it in ours."

"... I think Andrew mentioned that. Big-time oncoming demon onslaught of some sort?"

"Yeah. Revenge on a group in LA that stop what the big bad's trying to do. In Faith's timeline, they all got wiped out."

"Mmm." Ray thinks. "Last time I talked to Andrew before, we were discussing the possibility of using proton assault cannons. It turned out not to be as practical as we would've hoped. I might still be able to come up with something, though, if you think it'd help at all."

"Anything you can do'd be useful", Jonathan says grimly. "We were hoping the Council'd let us take some Slayers to the fight, but..."

"Bureaucracy and failures of trust all 'round," Ray says. "Yeah, Andrew was spitting nails about that. Do you have anyone who can be spared to handle a proton pack or a couple of dozen traps or something?"

"If we can get some fighters together here, then probably."

Ray nods. "Okay. Let me know if you do. I don't want to go to the assault cannon unless absolutely necessary, mostly because I've never built one to a point where I felt safe testing it, but under the right circumstances I can loan you guys some packs and teach you how to use them. You can't really do much that requires your hands while you're using them, though, so you'll have to get people who weren't planning on fiddly gestures or hand to hand combat."

Jonathan nods. "We've got enough people to choose from, here."

"Excellent," Ray says. "Let me know when you need them, although I"m going to need some lead time to assemble the things and get the radioactives."

"Will do. We'll give you as much warning as we can."

"Great. In the meantime, you can probably expect to see me in and out of this place a lot over the next few weeks. I hate October."

"Halloween's a hotspot for you, then?"

Ray nods. "Halloween at one end of the month, Gozer Day at the other, and my birthday smack in the middle," he confirms. "Not to mention that Halloween levels of trouble usually stay high until November eleventh, since no one bothered to tell the more old-school spirits about the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Add in Dia de los Muertos and the extended Days of the Dead afterwards, and..." He spreads his hands. "No fun at all."

"It was the opposite in Sunnydale. Giles says the vampires thought Halloween was tacky."

"We don't get that many vampires back home," Ray admits. "It's essentially the time of year when the various spirits' efforts at causing trouble come to a head, that's all. At least Chinatown isn't that much of a problem most of the time- they tap off the worst of theirs over the course of a month before October rolls around."

"Well, at least you know when the busy time's going to end."

"Yeah," Ray says. "Thank the uncaring forces of the Newtonian physical universe for small favors."