Chapter Text
“Hey, Melnitz...any reason in particular why you always pick my uniform?” Janine unbuckles her left elbow pad and throws Peter an unamused look from the other side of the car.
“You try busting ghosts in a skirt and heels sometime for a change”
“No- I mean, I get that. Plus, getting slime over clothes you actually like is never fun”
“Hm”
“But I can’t help but noticing it’s always one of mine you pick”
She’s rolling the sleeves up to her elbows and seems ready to reply; her eyes trail, almost unnoticed but not quite, to the back of Egon’s head and she seems to change her mind, settling for a shrug. Which, of course, makes Peter decide he can’t let it go.
“Y’know, a girl who had a crush on me in high school kept stealing my jackets” he drops with a calculated, nonchalant tone. Janine rolls her eyes, but he could have sworn Egon’s ears perked “She said it smelled like me, whatever that means”
“It means exactly that” Janine said, rolling her other sleeve up, refusing to bite.
“I read about that” Winston cuts in, glancing at them through the rear-view mirror “One book I read not long ago said everyone has their very own particular smell. Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing”
“I wonder what mine is” Ray mutters, pinching the front of his overalls to try and sniff at the fabric. Whatever it does smell like doesn’t seem to be to his liking.
“Yeah, but teenage boys don’t really smell that great. Y’know, that time when you don’t really get why deodorant matters and become suddenly allergic to showers?”
Ray looks like he’s trying to remember whether he did shower or not.
“It’s the cologne” Janine clarifies “Well, not exactly, it’s like...you can smell the cologne but also the person wearing it and it mixes just right”
“I don’t think many teenagers wear cologne” Ray muttered.
“Oh, Dr. V did” Janine says, sounding sure. Peter wants to argue, but she’s right.
“So, is that it?” Peter drones in his mock-flirt tone “Is it because it smells like me?”
Traffic chooses this exact moment to come to a halt, so Winston half-turns to look at them. Egon doesn’t raise his eyes from...whatever he’s supposed to be doing with a meter that isn’t even switched on. Janine takes out a bubblegum pack from one of her pockets and waves it.
“One, there’s always candy in the pockets”
Ray and Winston nod once as if that were a completely reasonable answer, Peter makes a face.
“You’ve been spending way too much time with Slimer” he declares.
“Says the guy who put the candy there in the first place” she pops a piece out of the foil and into her mouth. Egon mutters something that sounds suspiciously like ‘Touché’.
“Alright, what’s number two?” Winston asks, now curious.
“I usually only put these on for an emergency -like I did today- and his locker is the closest”
“That’s practical”
“Winston, the traffic is moving” Egon points out. The conversation seems to be over for a while, until Peter stretches, grunts and then leans forward, his charming expression back on.
“No other motive, then?” he asks, in the tone of someone asking to be trusted with a secret. Janine takes her time blowing a shocking pink bubble before answering.
“Three. I'm short, and so are you”
The smile practically melts off his face.
Three weeks later, Ecto-1 rolls back into the garage and Janine points them to a package that arrived sometime in the afternoon while they were out.
“Actually, Janine, that’s for you” Ray says, hands in his pockets, and smiles benignly as she opens the box to find a set of pink overalls in it. She examines them with critical eye “Do you like 'em?”
“They're perfect” she says, hugging it to herself. She would have chosen something different, yes, but it’s a nice color and it suits her. She has shirts of this same shade “Thank you”
“As long as you stay away from mine from now on” Peter says as he walks past her desk, but she can see a content gesture that doesn’t match his words on his face. The expression couldn’t have lasted long “Slimer-! Are those my cookies?!”
Winston settles on the chair across her desk, shaking his head. Janine’s looking at the colors again -pink on the suit and blue on the cuffs- and tries to figure what they remind her of, where she’s seen that combination before.
“Who picked the colors-?”
A light stumble, followed by a muttered curse and hurried steps make her turn to the stairs just in time to see a pair of boot-clad feet disappear up them. She looks at Winston to find him pursing his lips as though to stop himself from laughing, before jerking his head towards the stairs. She looks to Ray for confirmation and he nods too, with a slight shrug and a small smile.
“Who knew, right?” Peter says, peeking from behind the archives, a miraculously saved candy bar in his hand “The big guy has a good eye for these things”