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Dr. Glass looked up at the sharp rap at his office door. "Come in," he called, glancing at his desk calendar. He was the faculty advisor to several students, but he didn't recall having made an appointment with any of them for today.
He remembered the sophomore's name as soon as he let himself in. "Good afternoon, Mr. Spengler," he said while the student opened a well-used and well-kept leather briefcase and removed a sheet of paper and a computer punch card.
"Good afternoon, Dr. Glass." Spengler was dressed rather warmly for the day, in a starched white Oxford shirt, dark slacks, and a solid blue bow tie. "I've come for my course selection conference. I believe I have already chosen an appropriate array of classes for the fall; I just need your signature."
"Mmm. Let me take a look." He stretched a hand across his desk and looked at the sheet the student handed him.
Spengler was one of those once-a-decade students who blazed through every course the physics department offered and demanded more; he was working as an undergrad lab assistant on Dr. Baker's grad student team and, if the rumors were anything close to accurate, doing better cloud chamber analysis than the doctoral students. Dr. Glass hadn't actually had him in class yet, but he'd heard about his phenomenal performance in Baker's Advanced Mechanics course - he'd only gotten one wrong answer the whole semester, and that was due to a misplaced digit.
He glanced down the list. Six classes plus two lab sessions - a heavier course-load than they usually recommended, but Spengler had been handling the equivalent since his arrival, and hadn't shown any signs of undue strain yet. Ah, he was finally going to have the wunderkind in one of his classes; he'd signed up for Quantum Electrodynamics. Baker was going to get him again in Optics. He'd signed up for Cosmology with O'Dell; that was going to be interesting. Lab sections for QED and Optics; Sumerian and Babylonian Culture with Kim over in the History department; Mythology and Literature - that must be a distribution class.
So must the last one. "Intro to Psychology? Egon, you really want to take an introductory-level course as a junior?"
Immediately, the sophomore turned red. Dr. Glass was suddenly embarrassed by proxy; Spengler fidgeted in the chair and tugged at his tie. "Um. Well. I, er, I thought it might be - that is, I've been told multiple times that I should work on my interpersonal interactions." His eyes flicked away; it was a reasonable explanation - why did it ring false? "I thought perhaps taking an academic approach might help."
Dr. Glass blinked. Apparently he'd intruded on some private reasoning of their star pupil's. "Is it a prerequisite for something else you want to take later?" he asked gently.
Spengler reacted as if he'd been stung. "What, I mean, why would, well, perhaps, but you won't need to - I promise, it won't interfere with my studies in the physical sciences - I just -" He caught his glasses as they nearly slid off the end of his nose, and fell silent.
The professor shook his head. "You don't need to justify it, Egon; I just wanted to make sure you weren't overloading yourself with an unnecessarily stiff courseload."
"I'm quite sure I can handle it, sir." This was familiar conversational territory; Spengler straightened up in his chair, his color going back to normal. "It's no harder than the loads I've been handling the last two semesters, and my GPA hasn't suffered."
"No, it hasn't." Dr. Glass inked his advisor's stamp, and pressed it to the sheet of paper and the punch-card. "Just be aware that you can drop it up to three weeks into the semester without penalty if you find yourself not getting enough sleep."
"I'll keep that in mind, sir." Spengler received the two slips from his advisor and slid them back into his briefcase, eyes glittering with relief and something that might have been guilt.
---
The introductory psychology sections were each over a hundred students, and the auditorium they piled into was all the way across campus from the physics building. Egon had scheduled six minutes for the walk, plus two more to find an appropriate seat. He made it in four and a half, and made a note to adjust his leaving time accordingly. Fortunately, the fifth row in the center section was nearly empty; he found a seat close to the middle, where he could see the podium, the chalkboard, and the projection screen easily.
Less than a minute before class was to start, he heard a ruckus behind him and turned around to see a knot of students press through the back door in a clump. Freshmen athletes, they looked like - at least, most of them were wearing high school letter jackets to ward off the early morning dampness. Egon turned back to his notebooks and made sure his pencil was perfectly sharp.
The professor, a plump, rushed-looking man in a tweed jacket, ambled out to the podium and rapped on it with his knuckles. "Good morning, class. I'm Dr. Rocca, and this is Psych 101. Has everyone been able to get a textbook? The bookstore said they might run short."
There was a quiet mumbling across the back rows, but no one raised their hand. Dr. Rocca nodded. "Well, if anyone does have trouble, let me know. There are a couple of copies in the library if someone needs a stopgap. And now, onward. Which of you can tell me - what, exactly, is psychology?" And he was off and running on his opening lecture, a routine he clearly had memorized to the last laugh line.
Out of curiosity, Egon was taking advantage to glance around the room every time the professor called on someone to answer a question. None of the students here were familiar to him - most of them were freshmen, and none of them were in the physics department, or if they were they were new. The jocks in that gang were all sitting together in the back, he noticed. Half of them had notebooks out and were jotting things down as Dr. Rocca wrote them on the chalkboard; the others stared straight ahead, already bored, or whispered to each other.
One of them was sitting sprawled out in his seat, a baseball cap pulled down hard over his eyes. None of them were exactly well-dressed - Egon unconsciously brushed the front of his shirt and adjusted the tie he'd chosen for today - but this one was even more casual than the rest, in a pair of jeans so threadbare the seams were in immediate danger of parting and a t-shirt that had once been black but was now smoke-grey. Dark brown hair, worn fashionably long, peeked out behind the ball cap.
Egon turned back around and tried to focus on the lecture, elementary as it was.
---
"Very good, Mr. Caldwell, that's right, Freud laid the foundational vocabulary for psychology, even if we don't rely on his actual theories very much." Dr. Rocca chuckled, as if there were some private joke hidden in the question. "He's essentially responsible for establishing psychology as a science." His eyes lit on someone in the back row. "Yes, Mr. I-Can't-Take-My-Hat-Off-Indoors?"
A laugh rippled across the auditorium, starting from the back. Egon turned around. The freshman in the ratty jeans - he was wearing an identical pair today, if not the same ones - had his hand up. He pushed the cap back and leaned forward. "But that's crap, right? I mean, what Freud was doing, he was documenting things better than anyone else in the field had bothered so far, but he wasn't adhering to the scientific method in any meaningful sense." He smiled, and gestured to the crowd of jocks around him. "At least Jung was honest that what he was doing was philosophy as much as science."
"I don't think," Dr. Rocca began, "that you can say with certainty that Freud's methods weren't scientific - "
Egon's hand shot up. The professor looked at him, startled, then nodded.
Egon shook his head. "I disagree strongly. There are very explicit protocols for the scientific method. Freud was doing almost entirely case studies. Even if one grants the lack of bias in his work, and I must state that I do not, he clearly comes up with ex post facto hypotheses."
"Blondie's right," the freshman piped up again. "That, plus his sample is not only non-randomized, it's tiny."
"Well, what would you have done?" blustered Dr. Rocca, clearly thrown off his stride by the tone the discussion was taking.
"I dunno," the athlete shrugged. "Maybe nothing different, but I wouldn't have tried to call it science. Medicine, maybe."
"One could design a series of experiments even with a non-random sample, by randomizing which patients went into which treatment group," Egon noted, "but even so, the hypothesis has to be formulated and stated beforehand, and -"
"So, we're all at least agreed that Freud's methods were not up to snuff by, say, chemistry's standards, but that he framed the debate for the next generation?" the professor interrupted, trying to get his lecture back on track.
Egon shot a look back over his shoulder and met a pair of green eyes staring from under the baseball cap. The freshman gave him half a shrug, then a tiny nod, then settled back into his chair. The message was as clear as if he'd said it - let it go, he's wrong and we all know it.
Egon nodded back, more visibly, and turned back to his notes.
---
The library was unusually full. A thunderstorm raged outside, and those who were staying late to wait it out filled the chairs and couches while those who'd run in to get out of the downpour browsed among the stacks. Egon felt vaguely claustrophobic in the main lobby; he flipped through the card catalogue, jotting down numbers on index cards and tucking them into the front pocket of his briefcase.
He shoved his glasses back onto his nose as he slipped out of the staircase and began padding down the isles, feet headed for a section he knew by heart, even if he rarely dared go there. He glanced up and down the long passage by the windows. There was no one there to see him; he wasn't sure why he was worried, anyway - even if someone did, they'd be unlikely to report him to his advisors, and he wasn't sure they'd care if they did find out. Still, better safe than sorry.
He came around the end of the last shelf and stopped short. A long, lanky form sprawled on the floor, taking up most of the isle. Dark brown hair dripped down the back of the other student's neck; a familiar baseball cap sat on the floor next to him.
He looked up. "Oh, hey. Thanks for backing me up in class yesterday." He flashed Egon a broad grin; he looked like he was smiling for a camera. "I mean, not that I needed it, but I appreciated the amen from the science corner."
"Not an issue." Egon looked around for a convenient exit. "People not understanding the basic definition of science is a personal pet peeve of mine."
The athlete levered himself to his feet against the bookshelves on either side. "Damn. Foot's asleep." He held out his right hand. "Peter Venkman. Glad to meet you."
"Egon Spengler." Egon took the proffered hand and shook it; Peter's grip was firm, but not one of the bonebreakers he occasionally got from jocks wanting to put the rich nerd in his place. "I'm sorry to have interrupted you; I was just -"
"Nah, don't worry about it; I was actually looking for one of those copies of the textbook, and I kind of got sandbagged here." Peter scooped up the book he'd been reading and shoved it back on the shelf. Egon's eye drifted down the spine. Studies in Extrasensory Perception: A Review.
"I believe they're on reserve at the reference desk," Egon said levelly. He hoped he wasn't blushing again.
"Aw. man. There's twenty million people down there." Peter leaned against the bookshelf. He'd been soaked on the way here; today's t-shirt was a plain white one, shrunken and thinned by many washings, and it barely hid the muscles underneath - or his ribs. Egon looked away. He was sure he was blushing now.
Peter broke the uncomfortable silence. "So, what were you over here for?"
"I, ah -" Egon's eyes raked the shelves on either side. What was here that he could plausibly claim to be looking for?
Peter reached over and plucked the top index card from the briefcase. "Spirit Mediums in Nineteenth Century London. Whoa, really?"
"Er," Egon said, and stopped short.
Peter slid the card back and tugged out the other three. "Haunted lakes, shamanism in the 20th century, telekinesis in adolescents." He gave Egon a hard look. "You're into this sort of stuff? You, Mr. Science?"
A dam broke somewhere just below Egon's larynx. "While it's true that the vast majority of studies into the paranormal have been sloppy and unscientific in the extreme, that doesn't mean there isn't a body of evidence for a variety of phenomena, or that appropriate experiments and measuring tools can't be designed. The attempts at Duke to design experimental protocols, for example, were deeply flawed, but they represent a starting point, a jumping-off place for creating more thorough studies. I don't see why - "
"Hey, hey, take it easy," Peter murmured, something strange and sympathetic flickering in his eyes. "I wasn't trying to challenge you. I was just surprised, that's all."
Egon stopped and took a breath. Looking back, he muttered "I suppose it's not really relevant, anyway."
"So you're taking this course because it's a prerequisite for Dr. Harth's Studies In Parapsychology," Peter said, not bothering to make it a real question.
Egon's eyes narrowed. "How do you know about that?"
"I'm a psych major, or at least I will be once I declare, and I was warned off it by one of the senior linebackers. He said it's got a reputation as a blow-off class, but it hasn't been one since she started teaching it." Peter shrugged; the damp material clung to his chest as his shoulders moved. "And let's just say I have a . . . personal interest in certain aspects of ESP."
"You've had an experience?" Egon's eyes were wide.
"Not exactly." Peter's expression darkened. "I've had a couple of dreams, nothing big. And experience with frauds posing as psychics, that kind of experience, yeah."
Egon wanted to pump him for information, but restrained himself. An earlier part of their conversation hit him between the eyes. "You don't have a textbook?"
"No." Peter scowled. "Scholarship money didn't come in in time to pick up books before the first class. By the time I got there, they were gone."
"You can have mine," Egon blurted, realizing even as the words left that they were a bad idea.
Peter's scowl became a thunderhead. "I'm not looking for charity, Mr. Science."
"No, of course not, but my father - " Egon swallowed involuntarily " - works for a university out-of-state. I can probably get another textbook delivered in about a week."
Peter's eyebrows lifted. "Okay, then instead of trying to rescue poor little Petey, maybe I can hand you the cash - since I do have it now - and you can just order the book for me?"
"Sure." Egon glanced back towards the stairs. "Let's find a pay phone, and I'll call him right away."
"No hurry," Peter shrugged.
Egon allowed himself a wry grin. "If I don't do it now, I might well lose my nerve. I haven't called home in three days, and he's likely to be quite angry about that. My father is a . . . formidable personality."
Peter observed him closely, saying nothing for a long moment as his eyes traveled over Egon's face. Finally, he nodded. "I'll bet," he murmured. "Tell you what, I'm pretty sure there was a pay phone by the elevator on the second floor. That's a little more private than the ones in the main lobby."
"That will do nicely," Egon agreed. They made their way silently through the stacks towards the elevator, strangely comfortable despite the lack of conversation.
---
Egon was roused from his nap by a thunderous pounding at the door. "Spengler! Dammit, why don't you have a roommate? Spengler!"
He hauled himself to his feet, setting the ice pack down on the side table, and began undoing the locks on the door. Chain, thumb deadbolt, key. "Who is it?"
"It's Venkman. I'm bringing you your assignments from Psych." The voice on the other side was suddenly brassy, too bright.
Egon pulled the door open. Peter was sweating under his high school letter jacket. Egon blinked at his unexpected visitor. "How did you know where I lived?" he asked. "I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I don't remember telling you."
"I shook down Jun Li for your address." Peter looked vaguely guilty. Jun was one of the physics grad students, and happened to live downstairs in the same building. "But that's not important right now. I, uh, I thought you might want a copy of the lecture notes from today." He began rummaging in his backpack and pulled out a small sheaf of photocopies.
"That's very considerate of you, especially since you don't normally take half this many notes." Egon skimmed the copies; they were also in much neater handwriting than Peter usually used.
"Yeah. I wasn't sure how much detail you'd want." Peter scratched behind his ear; the ever-present baseball cap shifted and threatened to fall off.
"And how did you know I wasn't going to be in class?"
"Are you kidding? The whole campus knows about the explosion. I've never seen that many firetrucks on campus before." Peter's eyes fell on the sofa behind Egon.
Egon shook his head. "I'm so sorry; where are my manners? Come in, please." He gestured Peter over to the couch.
Peter stepped into the room and looked around. Most of Egon's living room was lined with bookshelves, groaning under the weight of textbooks, paperbacks, tomes, and binders. The furnishings were sparse but plush - the sofa, a small table, a wooden chair with carved arms, and a pair of lamps with simple glass-globe shades. A turntable sat on its own small cabinet, flanked by a pair of elfin speakers; there was no television visible anywhere in the space.
"This is an awfully big apartment for one undergrad living alone," Peter observed carefully.
"I know." Egon's mouth skewed. "Mother would rather I share a two-bedroom with a graduate student, but Father seems to think it would impair my productivity. It's the same excuse he gave for my not living on campus after my freshman year."
"Your what?" Peter blinked.
Egon shook his head. "Never mind. Would you like a soda?"
"Sure." Peter sank onto the couch, running his hand across the plush upholstery. "So this is your folks's stuff?"
Ice clinked against glass in the tiny kitchen. "More or less. The chair is the one from my desk set at home. The larger furnishings, Mother purchased when we located the apartment." Egon returned with a pair of sodas in matched glasses and handed one to Peter.
The freshman took a long sip before answering. "Wow. What are you going to do with it when you graduate?"
"If all goes well, I'll be able to take it to graduate school with me. If not, I imagine we'll sell it, and she'll do the same with another set. That seems wasteful to me, but - " Egon broke off and shrugged, taking a swallow of the fizzy liquid.
Peter abruptly stopped staring at the furniture and returned his eyes to Egon. "Anyway, I just wanted to give you the notes and make sure that you knew there's a test next class." He looked up at the bruise on Egon's forehead, then down at the tiny cuts on both hands. "If you're not going to be able to make it, you should probably call Rocca during his office hours tomorrow."
"I'll be returning to class tomorrow. The injuries are all superficial." Egon smiled faintly. "I would imagine that, as a football player, you'd be familiar with wanting to get back in the game."
"From a twisted ankle or something, yeah." Peter's eyebrows drew together as he scowled. "Not from nearly being blown to smithereens."
"It wasn't that bad," Egon insisted. "If Jameson hadn't decided to try to speed up the centrifuge cycle by a factor of two, nothing would have happened at all; as it was, the only thing that was destroyed was the centrifuge itself."
"Of which a big ol' chunk smacked you in the noggin. Jun also mentioned a lot of broken glass."
"Well, there were a large number of vials in the centrifuge at the time." Egon looked sideways at Peter. "Why are you so concerned? I'm quite grateful to you for bringing the notes by, but - why are you here?"
Peter blew a long breath through tight lips. "I'm not completely sure about that, myself," he admitted. "I just - I heard the explosion, and I was concerned, and then someone mentioned it was the Physics building, and I and a couple of the other pledges ran out of the frat house to see what was up, and there was smoke pouring out of an upstairs window and then them carrying you and Dr. Glass off on gurneys." He licked his lips, nervously. "I was worried. You didn't look good."
"As opposed to my normal appearance?" Egon meant it as a self-deprecatory jab; Peter seemed to take it otherwise - his eyes flared with sudden fear before he found his voice.
"Uh, um, I wouldn't, I mean, I'm not, I wasn't saying - " Peter looked at the door and grabbed for the arm of the sofa to stand. "Um, maybe I'd better be going. Glad to see you up and walking."
Egon froze. He didn't want Peter to leave, although he couldn't have said why. In fact, he wanted to grab the freshman's arm and pull him back onto the couch.
Something in his spine twinged, and he did exactly that.
"What - " Peter said, and then the space between them shrank to almost nothing as his hands found Egon's shoulders, apparently similarly unbidden.
"Why are you playing dumb for the rest of your clique?" Egon asked, staring at Peter from less than a foot away and abruptly changing the subject. "You're obviously quite bright, but none of them have seemed to notice yet. In fact, their teasing of you after classes makes it sound like they think you're failing." This was not what he wanted to be saying right now, but he didn't know what he wanted to say yet, and he'd been wondering for weeks.
"I - just want to fit in with them," Peter said, eyes boring into Egon's as if they were compelling the truth from him. "I mean, yeah, this is an Ivy school and we're all smarter than average here, but if I play up my smarts they think I'm putting on airs. It's tough enough, fitting in with you guys without the right clothes and all that."
Egon relaxed his grip slightly. "You're embarrassed by your economic class?"
"Well, yeah. Wouldn't you be?" Peter swallowed. "I mean, Mom's basically paying for everything the scholarships don't cover by herself. Dad's not - I don't even know where he is right now, and he hasn't given us any money in three and a half years."
"That's ridiculous." Egon leaned back. "This is an academic institution. It's your intelligence and effort that matter here, not your wealth or lack of it."
Peter laughed bitterly. "Oh, man, I wish. It's not as bad here as some places, yeah, but if you don't have the right shoes, the other guys on the team know you're not really ready to play on their level. If I put on brainiac airs on top of that? Man, I'd be on the receiving end of a hazing you wouldn't believe. Especially - " He shut his mouth with a snap, and shook his head. "It's tough. You wouldn't understand."
"No, I suppose I don't." Shifting his grip on Peter, but not letting go, Egon eased forward again. "I've been beaten up for being a show-off, for being stuck up, and for my - unusual interests. But money has never been one of my worries."
"I'm not saying no one else has it tough - believe me, I get that," Peter said hastily. "This is just - I need people, Spengler. You don't, exactly. I mean, you do, but you could spend days alone and be okay. I can't; I need people around, or I'm not real." He looked up, eyes huge. "External validation, I guess. You know you're smart; no one needs to tell you that. And you don't need anyone to like you. I don't need anyone to tell me I'm smart, either, but I need people to like me."
"I like you, Peter." Egon bit his tongue as soon as the words were out. "For your intelligence," he added, but the sentence was already gone.
"Do you?" Peter's hand brushed the short curl that dangled in Egon's face back. "I wasn't sure, yet."
"Yes." Egon looked away, then back at Peter.
"Like me like a class buddy, or like me like me?" Peter's eyes scanned Egon's face for the subtle tells of truth and prevarication, far more sophisticated than his high-school language let on.
"It's hard to tell," Egon murmured. "I've never really had a friend before."
Peter froze and blinked, twice, hard. "You're kidding."
"No." Egon's gaze fell to his lap. "My parents have always tried to minimize my interactions with other students who were not my intellectual peers outside of school. And most of my intellectual peers and I have had relationships that more closely resemble respectful rivalries than friendships."
"I can't imagine that you have very many intellectual peers," Peter said wryly. Then he paused. "Well, there's one way to find out. This doesn't ever leave this room, okay, Spengs?"
"What doesn't?" Egon asked, slightly confused by the new nickname.
"This," Peter said smiling wickedly as he leaned into Egon and pressed a slow, smoldering kiss to his lips.
Egon's hands moved without his permission, sliding between the worn letterman and the too-thin t-shirt, feeling the muscles of Peter's back moving as he shifted his weight. Peter was warm and smelled of soap and coffee. Egon forced his mind to remain in the moment, to catalogue the sensations, new as they were. He was afraid that if he let himself think beyond that, he would panic.
Peter sat back on the couch. "How did that feel?" The baseball cap had fallen off and rolled halfway across the room.
"Like being struck by lightning." Egon's hands were still on Peter's sides; despite the calmness in his voice, his heart was jackhammering. "Er, in a good way, I mean."
"I'm not going to ask if you actually have the experience to compare it to." Peter edged closer again, one hand on Egon's arm, the other tentatively stroking his chest through the dress shirt. "But - you're okay with that?"
"More than okay, Peter." Egon looked down, his mind whirling through a dozen scenarios. "Is this a declaration of lust on your part, or was that merely experimental? I thought you had a girlfriend."
"I've had about six girlfriends so far this semester," Peter confessed, making a face. "I mean, yeah, I like girls too. But I'm crappy at long-term relationships. I don't have one right now, so don't worry, you're not helping me cheat on someone."
"If you let more people see the real you instead of the front you put up so they'll like you, you might not have so much trouble," Egon said, his voice chastising. "But you didn't answer my question."
"You might have a point there," Peter mused. "And yeah, I've kind of had the hots for you since you laid the smackdown on Freud in class with me. I'm a sucker for smart, leggy blonds." He favored him with a vulpine grin and ran his hands down Egon's thighs.
Egon shivered under his palms. "I find you attractive as well. Although you already have evidence of that, I suppose."
"That's me, experimental all the way." Peter glanced at his bookbag, still on the floor. "So, um, you interested?"
"In what?" Egon raised an eyebrow at him. "In dating? Given that we're both male, we might have some difficulty with that. It certainly won't help you fit in with your fraternity brothers. I'm quite positive my father wouldn't approve, although he might be sufficiently relieved that I'm showing sexual interest in someone that he might not actively object."
"Well, no, not publicly dating, exactly." Peter frowned back. "Because yeah, I really don't feel like being beaten up in the locker room. But - something less formal, maybe?"
"Friends with benefits?" The eyebrow was still up.
Peter shrugged. "If that's what they're calling it these days, sure. I was thinking more immediately, though." His eyes tracked back to the bruise.
"Oh." Egon's eyes widened. "You were propositioning me for sex?"
"You don't mince words, do you," Peter chuckled, and kissed him again. This time, Egon wrapped his arms around Peter's torso and pulled them together, chest to chest. By the time they came up for air, Peter was sitting in Egon's lap, his legs pressed into the sofa cushions on either side.
Egon looked up into his face, pale skin flushed and eyes dark on both of them. "I'm rather enjoying what we're doing, actually."
"Mmm." Peter leaned down and nipped at Egon's ear, at the tempting expanse of tender skin, just behind it, at the long slope of his neck. He nuzzled against the taut cloth at his shoulder. "It's not bad, I'll admit."
Egon tugged at Peter's waistband and ran his hands underneath his shirt, feeling the taut abdominal muscles trembling under his fingers. "Go slow with me. I've never done this before."
"I kind of got that from what you said earlier." Peter leaned back and began unbuttoning Egon's shirt, calloused fingers deftly undressing him. "Okay. We'll go easy. Even if you're the older one and are supposed to be corrupting innocent little me."
"You're hardly little," Egon replied.
Peter smiled slyly and rolled his hips against Egon. "Wanna find out?"
Egon realized, startled, that both he and Peter were fully erect already. Somehow he'd always imagined that came after getting the clothes off. Peter repeated the motion, and Egon closed his eyes and groaned as the pressure and friction struck sparks in his groin.
"Ooh, yeah," Peter whispered in his ear. "Make some noise for me."
"Just keep moving." Egon pushed the jacket from Peter's shoulders and peeled the shirt away. "God, you're gorgeous." He ran his fingers across Peter's ribs and rolled the hard nubs of his nipples under his thumbs; Peter arched his back and shivered.
"So are you." Peter slid Egon's shirt down his arms, stopping to unbutton the cuffs, then dug his fingers into the older student's shoulders. "Oh, yeah. Much better."
Egon shifted his grip to the small of Peter's back, the better to appreciate the feel of skin against skin. Their erections pressed tightly together through denim and gabardine as Peter moved against him, and he moaned against his shoulder.
"Give me a little rhythm to work against," Peter gasped, and Egon pressed his feet against the floor and tried to match the hypnotic cadence of Peter's hips. Peter's toes brushed his knees - when had Peter taken off his shoes? Never mind, he'd figure that out later.
Peter's breathing sped up. "Yeah, that's great, Egon, a little more." His eyes were closed, his hair falling into his face.
"Peter." Egon breathed his name like a prayer. "Peter, please."
"That close already?" Peter laughed gently into the curling fuzz of Egon's hair. "Man, I'm good. Hold on tight; the ride might get a little bumpy."
"Holding on," Egon murmured back. He couldn't imagine doing anything else; this, the friction between them, the smell of Peter's skin, the feel of his body moving under Egon's fingers, this was almost perfect.
Peter added a swivel to his thrusts, grinding against Egon in two dimensions. "Tighter."
Egon pressed him to him as hard as he dared. "As tight as I can, oh, Peter - "
Years of pressure fountained up him, through his spine, out of the top of his head, it felt like; he was trembling under Peter, shaking with something too long unexpressed. He shouted something, a harsh syllable that didn't quite make a word, as the tremors resolved into distinct pulses, a rhythm that Peter matched.
Egon opened his eyes to find Peter watching him, their faces barely inches apart.
"Okay, we're going to have to do this again," Peter said, his voice thick, "because that? Watching you come? Was the hottest thing I've ever seen."
Egon breathed heavily, searching for his voice. "Prove it."
"Your wish - ah! - is my command," Peter whispered, his eyes squeezing shut. His thighs tightened on Egon's, and he growled deep in his throat; the growl bubbled up into a roar through clenched teeth as he throbbed against Egon's hips, tangible even through the denim.
Peter collapsed against Egon; he wrapped his arms around him, keeping him upright until he regained his balance. One hand reached upwards to absently stroke Peter's hair.
Peter smiled against his shoulder. "See, we didn't even get all the way naked. Slow enough for you?"
"I feel, given the success of this experiment, that an increase in velocity might not be amiss," Egon said carefully.
Peter snorted. "Just so long as all explosions are below the waist. I don't want a goose egg like that."
"The centrifuge was rotational, not oscillatory." Egon watched Peter's reaction, eyes twinkling.
"That's not - ah, forget it. This isn't safe, anyway." Peter shifted so he was lying across Egon's lap rather than sitting in it. "But the search for knowledge never is, right?"
"Of course not." Egon kept stroking his hair; one tail draggled further down in back than the rest. "But we keep at it anyway."
"Mmm hmm." Peter closed his eyes again. "You're only taking Psych 101 because it's a prerequisite for Dr. Harth's Studies in Parapsychology class, aren't you?"
"You already asked that question. Is it that obvious?" Egon worried.
"Nah, don't worry about it. Listen, do you think they'd let a freshman sign up for it, if he had all the prereqs? You're gonna need a study partner, right? . . . "