It takes him a while before he can stop flinching at the sound of an ecto gun going off. He can't even stand the sight of them, can't watch his favorite movies if there is even one explosion. Makes it hard living in Amity Park.
Nathaniel couldn't leave if he wanted to.
When he's released from the hospital, somehow miraculously alive, they hand him back his civilian clothes, not one the white jumpsuits trainees wear and tell him he's being honorably discharged. He doesn't have a lot of other places to go after that.
Nathaniel puts on a t-shirt and jeans everyday and it hasn't stopped feeling weird, like he might as well be naked.
He takes his pension money and buys an apartment just on the edge of town. Everyday he has himself almost convinced to leave it, to not pay next month's rent and just get out.
Sometimes in the dark, his still oozing cuts glow.
Outside of Amity Park he'd have to face that this isn't normal.
So he puts on regular clothes and flinches at every ghost fight he stumbles across. He stays in Amity Park and makes a living chasing away the small fry Amity's ghost hero doesn't get into fist fights with, the kind that just open cabnets and doors or occasionally stand at the foot of a bed.
Nowhere else but Amity Park would take him.















