#pate writes

Early on I planned to run home during my lunch hour, just to check on things, but that plan fell through when an overwhelmed coworker asked if I’d be willing to help them out instead. Which I wasn’t, but I agreed to help them anyway even while my own stress level continued to climb. By the time I left for the day I was wound tight as a bowstring, both gunning to get home and anxious about what I mind find when I arrived. But I’d also realized that if he was going to be living with me, Beetlejuice was going to need some things. So I forced myself to drive at a normal speed and to make a stop at the chain department store in town, consulting the list I’d put together as items occurred to me throughout the day. 

Once or twice I did think about the fact that I hadn’t told him when I would be back, but he hadn’t asked either. And I didn’t have any way of contacting him to let him know I’d be late. I could, perhaps, find the Deetz’s home number, but it might be…. awkward to ask them to drop in on the specter who had terrorized them. So I just did my shopping as quickly as I could, loaded it all back into my car, and booked it for home. 

At first blush the outside looked perfectly normal when I pulled into the driveway and I let out a sigh at the rush of relief. Leaving all the bags in the car for the time being I mounted the steps, rifling through my keyring to unlock the back door only to find it standing slightly ajar. Intrigued but not yet alarmed, I stepped inside and shut it behind me, my eyes roving every square inch of the room for anything out of place but finding nothing of note. The kitchen was still messy from where Beetlejuice had made pancakes: the island countertop cluttered with dried spots of dripped batter, bits of eggshell, dusted with flour with the bag left sitting open. The dirty griddle still sat on the stove where I’d put it for him, the sink full of used dishes. Overall, I’d been braced for worse, but it was nothing a wipe down with a hot dish cloth and a load in the dishwasher wouldn’t take care of. 

In the living room the coffee table had been shoved against the far wall and in the center of the room it looked as though he had gone through the whole house scrounging pillows and blankets which he had then constructed into some sort of enormous fort. The couch was bare of seat cushions, and I even recognized the pillows and blankets off my (our?) bed. At some point he must have gotten bored with it because the blankets and quilts and pillows were now strewn all over the room, as if he’d burst out from inside like some sort of larvae escaping its cocoon. 

The signs of his habitation and how he’d spent the day were in plain sight, but I’d seen neither hide nor hair of the man/ghost/demon himself. “Beej?” I called, belatedly realizing he might be lying in wait to scare me in some way like he had when we first met. Going a little more warily now, I proceeded into the bedroom only to freeze in the doorway, dumbstruck. 

It wasn’t quite pitch black in the room, but only because a ghastly greenish radiance seemed to be emanating out from under the bed, throwing long, twisting shadows over the floor and up the walls. The wallpaper had torn itself free, curling into ragged scrolls and exposing cracked drywall that looked like a stiff breeze would reduce it to dust. The skittering of many small things with many small legs made me flinch and recoil as I picked my way forward, unable to see the source of the skin-crawling sounds while I sidestepped puddles of viscous goo that seemed to be dripping from the ceiling in thick, foul-smelling ropes. Something dark was seeping down the full-length mirror by the closet door, and in the poor light I couldn’t tell if it was slime or paint or blood. 

More of the spectral light was leaking out from the cracks around and under the door, along with drifts of thick mist and shadows that curled along the floor toward my feet like tentacles reaching out to grab me. This was so similar and also somehow so much worse than what I’d encountered in the Deetz house. My heart was hammering in my throat, but I did my best to keep my breathing calm and slowly reached for the knob to the closet door.  

Steeling myself, I gave it a twist and pushed it carefully open. 

Inside was much the same as outside. All my hanging clothes were coated in the same sticky residue dripping from the ceiling, a veritable swarm of small shiny insects scattered to the shadowy corners of the small room as I opened the door, and huddled at the rear wall, crouched on the floor and curled into a surprisingly tight ball, facing away from the door was Beetlejuice. His broad back was rising and falling rapidly, his hands clasped around the back of his neck, his head ducked low and out of sight. I opened my mouth to speak but found that I couldn’t make a sound, snapping it shut and taking a moment to collect myself before stepping fully into the closet. 

“Beej?” I said tentatively, moving closer. He didn’t appear to hear me, utterly unresponsive except for his quick, shallow breathing. I took another step, reaching out a little apprehensively to give him a gentle prod in the back, softly repeating his name. At the touch, at my voice, slightly louder this time, he visibly flinched and gasped, uncurling with startling quickness and turning to look up at me. 

His eyes were red rimmed and puffy as though he’d been crying but his cheeks were dry. His chin, on the other hand, was slick and shiny with drool that had dripped down his neck and onto his shirt front. His messy hair, which I had come to understand possessed some sort of mood-ring quality with its shifting colors, was a deep, dull burgundy. I had jumped back, surprised by his quick motion when he spun around, but the state of him was so worrying that I forgot all about the mounting dread I’d felt when I saw the bedroom, the messes left in other rooms of the house. I moved closer, his eyes riveted to my hand as I reached out again and laid it on his shoulder. 

“Beetlejuice, are you okay? What’s wrong?” 

For a long moment he didn’t respond, blinking at me with a look of acute confusion. Then he made a sudden sound, a gasping sob that seemed torn from deep in his chest and scrambled up onto his knees in front of me, flinging his arms around my legs and clutching them against his body while he buried his face into my stomach. Thrown off balance by the grabbing, I staggered and braced my hand against the sticky wall while my other hand bemusedly settled in his unkempt reddish-purple locks. It took me a few seconds to realize that the vibrations against my middle where muffled words, rendered incomprehensible by Beetlejuice’s face pressed tightly to the fabric of my shirt. 

“Beej, I can’t understand you,” I said, chuckling as I brushed my hand through his tousled hair. “You wanna tell me what’s bothering you?” 

His arms tightened around my upper thighs, his head shaking back and forth as if he were trying to burrow in even deeper and I grimaced at the thought of the saliva that would now be soaked into my clothes. Sighing, I peeled my hand off the wall, regarding the thin strands of muck strung between my fingers before wiping them off on my pants, which I would now have to wash anyway. When most of the mess was gone I laid my hand on his shoulder again, squeezing softly, rubbing soothing circles into his upper back while my other hand remained tucked in his hair. 

“C’mon, Beej,” I coaxed gently. “Did something happen? I can’t help if you won’t tell me what’s the matter.” 

I felt him sigh harshly, a blast of warm breath against my stomach as he finally pulled back enough to look me full in the face. His eyes were still red and swollen, ringed with bruise-like dark shadows, though I realized now that it wasn’t just from inflammation, his irises had actually shifted to a deep and very inhuman bloody red. His face looked haggard and drawn, like he hadn’t slept in weeks even though when I’d left this morning he had looked perfectly – well, not normal, perhaps, but certainly normal for his circumstances. Beetlejuice stared at me hard for another long moment before answering. 

“You left,” he croaked, and my eyes darted from his to the roots of his hair where a fiercer scarlet color was bleeding slowly up the strands between my fingers, like spilled ink spreading over paper. I grew aware of his hands, gripping my hips, holding me against him, digging into the soft flesh through my pants in a way that was bordering on painful. “You left,” he repeated, his voice coming out stronger this time, gravelly as ever but with a much more bestial rumble than I’d heard before. Something primal in me tensed fearfully at that predatory growl, hair standing on end up my arms and at the nape of my neck. 

With a gracefulness I wouldn’t have thought to expect from him, Beetlejuice rose smoothly to his feet, never blinking or releasing me from his burning gaze or his tight grasp as his arms unwound from my hips and his hands moved to grip my elbows, dragging my hands from him. 

“You said you wanted me here but you still left!” Beetlejuice snarled between clenched teeth that were sharper than I remembered, flecks of spit flying from his lips. I couldn’t help flinching when some of the airborne saliva inevitably spattered my cheek, feeling the bite of his short nails gouging my arms. 

“Beej, you’re hurting me,” I said, fighting valiantly to keep my voice even, a tiny tremor escaping. 

“You left me!” he shouted, his voice harsh and accusatory in his anger but colored unmistakably with pain and despair. 

I struggled to understand why it should trouble him so much, why my absence for one single day would cause him this much panic and distress. Slowly, I brought my arms up to press against the underside of his forearms, my hands curling around his elbows. 

“I know,” I told him, not wanting to discredit his statement which was technically correct. “I went to work, Beej. We talked about it last night, remember?” I watched his brow furrow, could practically see him digging back through the recesses of his mind to recall our conversation.  

“You… you left,” he nearly whimpered, the anger literally draining out of his countenance as every spec of hair I could see on him shifted to a dark plum. 

Like a bolt from the blue, understanding struck me. In the house, when Lydia had gone upstairs to talk with the Maitlands, that was when Beetlejuice had apparently turned on her. He must have assumed that her departure meant she was choosing them over him, when all she had done was leave the room. I felt my fear evaporate, my chest aching at this realization, at the knowledge that he was so sure he would be abandoned and forgotten as soon as he was no longer in someone’s line of sight that it would reduce him to this. What sort of horrible experiences would instill such a fear in him? 

“Beej,” I began hesitantly. “Did you… did you think that I would leave and not come back?” 

A quiet, keening wail left him, involuntarily it seemed as he pressed his lips together to silence it and abruptly released me to sink his hands into his own hair, his eyes squeezing shut as he backed away. That seemed the closest I was going to get to an affirmative. It took everything in me not to rush right over and pull him into my arms, but I didn’t want to spook or stress him anymore than he already was so I went slowly, one step at a time.   

“Who would do that?” I asked, mostly speaking to myself. I hadn’t been expecting an answer, but Beetlejuice gave one anyway, seemingly unable to stop himself. 

“Everyone!” he burst out, his voice raw with hurt. “Friends, roommates, my dad, every girlfriend or boyfriend I ever had! When my mom wanted me to move out, she just stopped coming home!” With a small plaintive squeak he clapped a hand over his own mouth, his eyes wide and round and fearful as they searched my face. I sighed deeply and moved closer still, tugging his hand gently but insistently away from his face. It came away wet, strings of saliva trailing from his palm to his chin and bottom lip. I wondered if maybe Beetlejuice, as a ghost or demon or whatever he was, was incapable of producing tears even when he might want to and the excessive drooling was meant to be some sort of caricature of the very human act of crying. 

Pulling my sleeve down over the heel of my palm, I dabbed at his wet chin to give him a moment to calm down while I thought of how to respond. “I’m sorry, Beetlejuice,” I repeated softly, tracing my fingertips across his cheek before I lowered my hand from his face. “I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry you were upset today, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when I’d be home. I didn’t even think about it, I’m not used to having someone waiting for me.” 

His eyes fluttered closed for a second when I touched him, and it didn’t escape my notice that he tilted his head to press his face into my hand, nor did I miss the oh-so-tiny mournful noise he made when I pulled away. I smiled warmly at him, though he didn’t see since he was avidly avoiding my gaze by staring at the floor, at his hands as they fidgeted with his clothes and with one another.  

“Would you like a hug?” I asked, spreading my arms in invitation, wondering if I was setting myself up for another awkward physical moment with him. But he just looked so forlorn and forsaken that I couldn’t stand it. Beetlejuice nodded adamantly and stepped into my embrace without a word, his face tucking into the curve of my shoulder, his arms lax at his sides as mine wrapped around him. He was tense, but after a beat I felt him sigh and relax against me while I stroked the back of his head and rubbed up and down between his shoulder blades.  

Gradually, tentatively, his arms came up as well and settled themselves around my waist. “It’ll be okay,” I assured him. “You’re going to be okay.” I said it that way very deliberately, since I was certain that at the moment he did not feel okay. His arms tightened around me, his fingers twitching against my back and fisting my shirt. I felt warm wetness against my collarbone, so he was probably drooling again but I muscled my way past the shudder that tried to crawl up my spine at the sensation. I noticed that, as Beetlejuice continued to calm down, the frightening transformation of my closet around us shimmered like a heat mirage and disappeared to reveal the small room exactly as I’d left it.  

Beetlejuice made no move to pull away or loosen his hold, and in all likelihood he would have happily stood there in my closet all night long as long as I kept hugging him. But when his stomach gave a long, loud growl powerful enough that I could feel his round midsection rumbling against mine, I broke away but made sure to keep in contact with him since he seemed to draw so much solace from it.  

“When’s the last time you ate anything?” I asked, and he have a lopsided shrug. 

“Dunno. Prob’ly the pancakes, I guess.”  

I shook my head and tutted at him with no real crossness. “Beej, you’re alive now. Not human, maybe, but alive. Which means your body needs things: like food, water, rest.” He shrugged again, rubbing his damp chin on the sleeve of his shirt. The violet tone had left his hair, which was green again but a pale, dull tone. I took that to mean he was feeling better, which was good.  

“Tell you what,” I said. “Let’s get some food in you, that should help you feel a little better, and then I’ll show you what I brought you.” At those words he perked up like a puppy hearing someone said ‘car ride’ or ‘treat’.  

“You brought me something?” he asked slowly, as if he was sure he’d misunderstood or heard wrong.  

I nodded, turning to exit the closet, tugging him by the hand after me and quietly relieved to see that the supernatural makeover in the bedroom had likewise disappeared like mist burned off by sunlight. “Sure did.”  

“Is it a bucket of spiders?” 

I laughed. “Not quite, but good guess.”  

“Two buckets of spiders?”  

I laughed again, clearing a space at the kitchen island to make him a sandwich while Beetlejuice settled on a bar stood. “Tell you what,” I said. “After you eat something, you can come out to the car with me and help bring it in.” 

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This was one of the very first parts I thought up when this story idea came to me and finally getting it out was so much fun! 

I am so soft for a soft garbage man. Hopefully you all are now too!

No ETA for chapter 8 but I’ll do my best!  Thanks for reading!!

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

I walked the short distance between my driveway and theirs, though my calves protested the incline as I scaled the hill. I caught my breath before I rang the doorbell, not wanting their first impression of me to be of a panting, red-faced person having a coronary on their doorstep. Getting my breath back, I pressed the ringer and knocked smartly for good measure. There were muffled noises of movement from the other side of the door, hushed voices and what sounded like stifled laughter. I frowned again but continued to wait. Following what sounded an awful lot like multiple voices shushing each other, the door slowly creaked open and a figure appeared in the narrow aperture. It took me a beat to realize that it was a teenage girl; her curly black bobbed hair, black dress and black combat boots nearly blended in with the darkness beyond the doorway. Her eyes traveled up and down appraisingly, taking me in and looking decidedly nonplussed. I smiled, feeling awkward, which was ridiculous. Just as the silence between us began to grow really uncomfortable she sighed and drawled, “Can I help you?”

I tried not to look or sound too relieved when I produced the stack of envelopes in my hand. “Hi! I live across the hill. I just stopped by because it looks like our mail got mixed up.” The teen’s gaze swept lazily from the proffered letters back to my face, a slow smile stretching her mouth as she pushed herself away from the doorframe and moved aside. “Sure thing. Why don’t you come on in?” Unconsciously I glanced past her into the yawning blackness of the foyer. It wasn’t an unreasonable request, maybe a little forward for something as trivial as exchanging mishandled mail. But something felt off about the inky shadows that lay unnaturally thick just behind the threshold. It was crazy to think so, but it was almost as if the darkness were watching me. The fine hairs on my arms and the nape of my neck stood on end in warning, but I shook off the sense of foreboding as simple paranoia mixed with my own social ineptitude. I returned her admittedly unsettling smile with one that I hoped was charming and friendly. “Okay,” I chirped, ignoring the sirens and alarm bells ringing in my head as I squeezed through the opening into the house.

I’d thought that there would be some lamps on somewhere inside, but I was surprised to see that the blackness was undisturbed by any source of light save for the small amount seeping in through the open door. Before my eyes had time to adjust, the teen shut the door with a jarring snap that seemed to echo around me and plunged us into total darkness. I swallowed and held myself still, not wanting to risk moving around and knocking anything over until I got my bearings. “Are, uh,” I stammered, forcing down the slight tremor trying to work its way into my voice. “Are your parents around?” I asked. From somewhere nearby the girl’s voice replied, “They stepped out.” Once again I could swear there were other voices in the room with us, moving around, giggling quietly. Trepidation was squirming in my stomach, trying very hard to build itself into full-blown fear but I muscled down the mounting sense that I had just made a very stupid mistake and plunged onward with social decorum.

“Oh. Well I can come back later when your folks get ba-” As I spoke I turned slowly in place, trying to discern where in the room the girl had gone. I cut off, going stock still as something moved in the dark. A shape, darker than the dense shadows around me, was suddenly there, looming directly over me and drawing a startled gasp from my throat. “Oh! Excuse me, I didn’t see you there,” I apologized lamely, blinking with watering eyes when a light abruptly snapped on as though the strange person held a spotlight between us.

At first I thought I must be hallucinating, maybe dazzled by the light which was oddly green? That had to account for the bizarre looking person still standing entirely too close to me. We were close in height, which put us at eye level as we took each other in. A man, I was relatively sure, dressed in an ill-fitting and very dilapidated black-and-white striped suit. His face was pale, almost gray, as though he’d spent decades living under a rock. There were odd patches of color at his temples, in the hollows of his cheeks, under his eyes. His gravity-defying hair was a shocking bright green, as was his scruffy five o’clock shadow. He grinned at me, the corners of his mouth stretching just a touch too far, his teeth just a little too sharp. “Hi,” he rasped brightly in a voice that sounded like he’d been gargling with crushed glass.

I gulped and shuffled back a bit, feeling uneasy at the faintly manic gleam in his eyes as they roved my face with avid attention. “He-Hello,” I replied, smiling, hoping the disquiet wasn’t showing on my face. “Are you… Charles Deetz?” He snorted loudly through his nose, flung his head back to give a dramatic chortle before snapping it back to face me, bending forward at the waist until his nose nearly touched mine. “Nope!” he answered with the same exuberance that was almost alarming in the eerie green light throwing his cheekbones into sharp relief. “Wanna see something?” Without waiting for an answer from me he raised both hands to the upswept rat’s nest atop his head, burying his fingers into the stiff strands, and began to rake them down his scalp with such force that the skin split open at the part. I watched, paralyzed by horror but unable to look away, as he pulled the skin further down, peeling his head like an orange to reveal sickeningly red facial muscles and white bone. He let his arms drop lax at his sides, the torn skin hanging down around his neck like a grotesque frilled collar.

Frozen, terror-stricken and trembling with shock at the gruesome display I jumped and gasped when his eyes popped open in their grisly sockets, round and bulbous and red without their eyelids. “BOO!” he shrieked, lunging at me with predatory quickness. The scream that had been building deep inside my chest burst out as I backpedaled frantically away, yelping when my calves connected with something solid while momentum continued to propel me backward. Losing my balance completely my stomach lurched as I realized I was about to fall, hard, into an open doorway with downward sloped stairs. I had the barest glimpse of the green-haired ghoul pressing his face back into place while a stooped figure also clad in stripes and green hair rose to his feet with a matching mischievous grin. My back hit first and I grunted in pain, trying to curl myself up to hopefully minimize the damage. I hissed with each impact, my shoulder, elbow, and shins throbbing by the time I finally reached the end of the staircase. “Hey, hey, hey!” I squinted, coughing on dust to see the man in the stripes standing on the landing and calling down to me, his hand on the doorknob. “Was that trip necessary?!” He laughed uproariously at his own joke and this time there was no mistaking the sound of other voices laughing along with him. “Stick around, babes! We’re gonna have a hell of a time!” He leered, clenching his top row of teeth over his bottom lip as he pulled the door shut, waving at me as he did so.

In the dark basement I hauled myself painfully to my feet, shaken and aching all over. I patted myself down in search of my phone before remembering that I’d plugged it up and laid it on my headboard in my bedroom in my house, which might as well be on the other side of the world for all the good it did me now. I raised both arms and felt blindly around, seeking out the handrail. My fumbling fingers found worn wood and I grasped it in both hands, feeling for the steps with the toes of my shoes before making my way up. It was slow going, the last thing I wanted was to misjudge my footing in the semi-darkness and take another tumble. Finally I made it to the landing, reaching forward to find the doorknob. I grasped it firmly and leapt back with an alarmed shout as a tiny voice squealed, “Hands off the merchadiiiiiiise!”

A string of curses left me as I teetered and tipped back, falling again, but my back met a smooth, sloping surface. It was… a slide? It was difficult to tell at first, but light began leaking in from somewhere vaguely overhead and I could see that I was indeed whizzing down a large slide like something from the state fair, striped black and white and green and leaving no doubt in my mind as to who was somehow behind this. I tried to stop myself as the slide spiraled much further down than the stairs had gone, corkscrewing and leaving me dizzy. Flinging out my palms and digging in my heels, I screwed my eyes shut against the burn of friction against my skin, gritting my teeth with the effort as I gradually, blessedly began to slow down and then stop. I gasped, my chest heaving as I craned my head around to take stock of where I was now and how far away the door back to the living room was. I groaned when I realized that I had slid so far down I couldn’t even see it. I carefully repositioned myself and sighed deeply as I prepared to begin the arduous climb back up. 

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And thus begins a totally and shamelessly self-indulgent bit of fic in which (as you can probably guess from the title) I get to marry Beetlejuice. This will be something of an AU/continuation of the events of the play but mostly it’s just gonna be the first person Reader being fluffy and angsty and domestic with everyone’s favorite stinky rat demon man.

Hope you liked!

It did cross his mind to shake her awake, but he eventually just slid his legs out from under the covers and stood, padding barefoot from the room and feeling his way to the kitchen. Wasn’t that what breathers did when they couldn’t sleep? They went to the kitchen for a glass of water or a midnight snack or whatever? He cut the corner from the living room to the kitchen too sharply, wanging his elbow on the wall. 

“Ow! Shit!” he yelled, gripping the throbbing joint in his opposite palm and rubbing it vigorously. Squinting his eyes, Beetlejuice realized that he couldn’t see in the dark anymore, at least not as well as he had as a born-dead demon from Hell. Grumbling to himself, he reached out with both hands to find the counter of the kitchen island and felt his way along to the refrigerator. Opening the door let cool white light illuminate the room as his eyes roved the inside of the appliance. He wasn’t really hungry, he didn’t think, but he was exceptionally bored. With that and little else in mind, Beetlejuice began pulling things out of the fridge and setting them on the island. He did try to be quiet, sort of, as he rummaged in drawers and cabinets in search of what he needed. 

Once all the essentials were laid out before him, he rolled up his metaphorical sleeves and got to work dumping ingredients together in a mixing bowl, smashing eggs together and depositing the runny, oozing yolks into the mix. Sure, there were bits of shell still in there but he liked crunchy textures so no big deal.

The sound of unsteady, shuffling feet drew his attention to the corner where he’d banged his elbow, where the kitchen led into the living room. His own little Sleeping Beauty stumbled into view, her eyes barely open, her hair mussed, still half asleep. 

“Beej?” she said blearily, blinking in the light from the fridge that he’d left open. “What’re you doing?”  

“Makin’ pancakes,” he replied at once, going back to furiously stirring the concoction in the mixing bowl. 

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, swaying gently in place while she took in the scene. “D’you know how to make pancakes?” she asked at length. 

“Nope!” he chirped back. “But I watched the Maitlands do this, like, every weekend before they bought it.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “How hard can it be?” Though he continued what he was doing like she wasn’t even there, Beetlejuice watched her out of the corner of his eye, wondering when the explosion was going to go off. He was making a mess in her kitchen at three in the morning, he was certain she was about to get angry, yell, scream. But she didn’t do any of those things. Instead she shuffled around the island towards the pantry, closing the fridge door as she passed it, and he could hear her moving things around in the laundry room before she reappeared with some sort of cooking apparatus. She laid it on the stove and plugged it in. 

“ ‘Lectric griddle,” she mumbled, yawning widely. “Less of a chance you’ll burn the house down. ‘M going back to bed, ‘kay? Try not to stick pancakes to the ceiling.” As she tottered off back toward the bedroom, Beetlejuice watched her with both suspicion and amazement. She just kept on surprising him, first with the marriage proposal, then the nice kiss (kisses! he reminded himself), letting him in her bed, trusting him not to destroy her kitchen? The more devilish side of him couldn’t help entertaining the thought of just trashing the place, giddy with excitement over the thought of her face in the morning when she walked in and saw what he’d done. 

But another side of him, quieter and more subdued than his deeply ingrained instinct for chaos, didn’t want to abuse her absurd faith in him. Which, for a demon, was just ridiculous. He was a demon, for hell’s sake! Chaos and discord, panic and dismay, those were his specialties! His entire reason for being! Screwing with breathers had been his bread and butter for as long as he could remember! So why wasn’t he dousing the whole room in flour and nailing sandwich meat to the walls and ceilings? What was it about this breather in particular that made him want to…. behave, of all things? 

The rest of the early morning hours slipped by and he still couldn’t answer his own question. He sat at her kitchen island on a bar stool, mercilessly vivisecting the results of his pancake making attempts which turned out flat and round and more or less pancake-shaped but were colored purple. She woke up late, he gathered, from all the swearing and running around and sounds of things falling that kept emanating from the bedroom and the en suite, finally rushing past him hopping on one foot as she wrestled on a shoe. 

“I’m gonna be so late!” she huffed, not even mentioning the mess he’d left on the counter or the pile of dishes in her sink. “I thought I hit the snooze but I must’ve turned it off… I gotta run, Beej, I’ll see you later!” And with that inauspicious exit, Beetlejuice found himself left alone in what was essentially a strange house. 

 He soon lost interest in the pancakes and instead occupied himself by exploring/plundering to his heart’s content. Though it wasn’t as much fun without the thrill of potentially being caught being somewhere he wasn’t meant to be by someone who had things they didn’t want him to find. It was, somewhat disappointingly, all pretty run-of-the-mill since until he came along she’d evidently lived here alone. She owned lots of book (yawn) and movies (less yawn), but no dirty magazines or erotica novels. Not even an issue of Cosmo. Just his luck… 

Beetlejuice had spent enough time watching breathers that when he got bored enough he flipped on the TV and surfed idly in search of something that held his interest. But with daytime TV it was mostly crummy talk shows, sitcom reruns and DIY home improvement. Switching it back off with a sigh, Beetlejuice slumped sideways on the sofa until he lay on his side, rolling over and stretching his legs out to dangle over the back of the sectional. How long had she been gone, now? Time had always been a slippery and irrelevant concept for him, born-dead demons and dearly departed souls didn’t care about time. It didn’t even exist in the Netherworld, so once he was shunted off to the Upperworld he never really bothered to try and get a handle on it. What would’ve been the point, when nobody could see him anyway. Thinking about the Netherworld gave him an idea, though. Wriggling his way off the couch, Beetlejuice bustled back into the bedroom. He was still wearing the pajamas she’d loaned him the night before, but what he was looking for now was in his suit jacket. Retrieving it from the back of the bathroom door where he’d left it, Beetlejuice rummaged in the pockets for a few moments before he found what he was looking for: an ancient and yellowed skull with leering, pointed teeth and three eye sockets. 

He hustled back to the living room and plopped back down on the sectional, crossing his legs and setting the skull facing him on the seat cushion. He snapped his fingers and immediately in his hand was an ancient silver coin. Conjured currency normally wouldn’t cut it with a speaking skull, but Beetlejuice prided himself on his convincing forgeries. He fed the drachma through the gaping eye socket on the forehead and waited. After a moment a reddish glow flickered to life in each of the three empty sockets and the skull tipped back, hinging at the jaw and opening the mouth like a Victrola. 

After another moment of silence, a familiar and harried voice emanated from inside the skull: “Netherworld Customs, how may I direct your call?” Beetlejuice beamed, folding his arms atop his crossed legs to lean in closer to the skull. 

“Hi, Maria!” 

His grin widened at the surprised gasp and the hissed string of swearing in Spanish. He could almost picture the deceased beauty queen at her desk, looking around to make sure no one was in earshot. 

“Lawrence!” she seethed quietly through her teeth. “I’ve told you not to call me here unless it’s an emergency! I’m at work!” 

“I know,” Beetlejuice replied, nonplussed. “You’re always at work. But I’m booooooooored.” 

He heard her let out an exasperated sound. “That is not an emergency! We have a bit of a crisis on our hands here, if you care to know!” Cooing appreciatively, Beetlejuice leaned in closer, bent double over his lap and resting his chin in his hands. “Oooh! Do tell!” He could hear her rolling her eyes in disapproval. 

“Living people, Lawrence! A girl and a man. They came through a door into the Netherworld and then left! The bosses downstairs are in an uproar, Juno is on the warpath!” At those words Beetlejuice full-on chortled, practically vibrating in place with glee at the knowledge that he’d had a hand in causing that old crusty battle axe even a moment’s worth of frustration. Miss Argentina scoffed reproachfully. “It’s not funny, Lawrence!” But he couldn’t stop giggling, wincing and yelping at a sharp cramp between his ribs from the uncontrollable laughter. “It’s pretty funny from here!” he wheezed, swiping at his face with the back of one hand. Oh yes, a pissed-off Juno might just be the funniest thing on any planet, so long as he was well away from the Netherworld’s most ruthless office manager. Silence continued from the other end of the connection while he got ahold of himself again, and again Beetlejuice could visualize the shrewd, calculating look on the fiery receptionist’s face as she drew her conclusions.

“You had something to do with this, didn’t you?” she surmised. Only slightly lying, Beetlejuice immediately argued his case. “Of course not, mamacita! I was only doing my civic duty, trying to help a couple dazed and confused newlydeads on their way to the other side! I drew a door for the two stiffs and before I could do anything the lil pipsqueak ran through! Nothin’ I could do! Cross my black little heart and hope to die! Again.”

If her aggravated, long-suffering groan was any indication, Maria was not convinced. “Listen to me, Lawrence, this is serious!” she whispered urgently. “If you had anything to do with it and you know what’s good for you, you’d better steer clear of the Netherworld until things quiet down!” Beetlejuice chuckled to himself, examining his own hand again which was now less of a pale, corpse-like gray and had taken on a rosier skin tone. Thanks to the blood that was now circulating through his living body! But other than him, his little biscuit maker and the dolts in the Maitland/Deetz house, nobody had any idea that he’d pulled off his plan to marry a breather and come to life! Chuckling to himself, Beetlejuice assured her, “I’m all over it, babes. You know me, I don’t like stirring the pot.” Maria huffed again. 

“I do know you, Lawrence! Which is why I know I’m wasting my time to ask you this, but please, at least try to stay out of trouble, won’t you?” She sounded so sincere and genuine that it actually made his chest grow tight for a moment. It was no fun yanking someone’s chain when they actually gave a shit about you even when you annoyed them, so he decided at the very least he could tell her what she wanted to hear. 

“I’ll do my best, babe.” She let out a pensive hum, then sighed. “I’ve got to go. Take care of yourself, Lawrence.” There was a click as of a phone receiver being laid back in its cradle. The skull’s mouth closed with a tiny creak, the lights in the eye sockets fading to nothing. What had started as some decent entertainment at a former coworker’s expense had left him feeling strangely wrong-footed and lonesome. Growing restless, Beetlejuice got to his feet and padded listlessly back to the kitchen, wondering again how much longer it would be before his new housemate/spouse came back home. At least then he’d have someone to talk to, someone to take his mind off this growing sense of unease. 

Hours seemed to go by in bursts of speed only to slow to an unbearable crawl. Everything he tried to distract himself from the downward spiral of his thoughts only worked for a hot minute before the feeling came back, a pressure building inside him that seemed to squeeze in his chest until it made it difficult to draw breath. How much longer would she be gone? 

By the time it started getting dark and she still hadn’t returned, Beetlejuice was all but in a panic. Which was bad enough before when he was dead, but now that he was alive? His heart was racing in his chest, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath, his hands were freezing, he was soaked in sweat and he couldn’t keep still, pacing through the house, debating just going out to look for her. But he didn’t have a car, he wasn’t even sure where she worked.

What if…? No.

He cut off that train of thought, not willing to let himself fall down that black hole but even as he very deliberately steered himself clear the yawning maw of the horrible idea opened wider and wider, threatening to swallow him. It was happening again. It was already happening again.

She’d said so just the night before, asking about divorcing him, when he’d be able to leave. Yeah, sure, she’d backpedaled hard when she saw that she’d upset him but she’d still brought it up! And that fact did nothing to stop him picking at his most recent wound.

“You’re leaving me? But I thought we were pals!”

“What’re you talking about? I’ve gotta find my mom!”

A soft, keening groan leaked out of his mouth before he could stop himself, agitatedly swiping at the dribble of saliva working its way over his bottom lip. This wasn’t like that, he told himself. She had said she wanted him here, she hadn’t even yelled at him when he woke her up with his pancake making. She’d said she would see him later, she said, she said!!

Beetlejuice strode purposefully to the back door, reaching out to grasp the knob and freezing halfway to opening the door. Where would he go? It did briefly cross his mind, very, very briefly… to ask the Maitlands if they knew anything about her. He dismissed the idea almost immediately, no way in hell was he about to go crawlin’ back to those losers and their pet breathers! So he stood at the back door, paralyzed by indecision, one hand gripping the doorknob while his chest heaved and his mind spun. There was a familiar ache blossoming in the center of his chest but now that he was alive it was so much worse. Tendrils of that painful tightness were crawling up the sides of his neck, constricting his windpipe, throbbing in the roots of his teeth and between his lungs and down his wrists into his hands.

Where was she? Why wasn’t she back yet? What if she didn’t come back at all?

Beetlejuice whined again, a pathetic sound even to his own ears as he leaned forward until his head thumped against the door. He pressed harder against it, turning his head side to side until his skin grew hot from the friction, not bothering with wiping his chin as a string of drool dripped from his lips to sink into the rug between his feet.

She’d come back, he told himself. She wouldn’t leave him alone.

Because if she did, he didn’t know what he’d do.

-------

Turns out when you keep getting left behind by people you start expecting it. 

No ETA yet on chapter 7 but expect lots of ooey gooey feels because I am a soft bitch. 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

I rolled my eyes and shook my head at the ceiling, but I felt uncomfortable heat rising again, and this time he noticed. His grin spread wider, flashing teeth and he chuckled. “Ah, your head says no but that blush says yes!” he crooned, pleased with himself, twirling his pointer finger at my face. I kept my mouth shut, unwilling or maybe unable to meet his eyes and only succeeded in giving myself away even more than I had already. Beetlejuice was practically giddy by now, mega-wat grin, dancing eyes, his newly cleaned hair fluffy and messy and vibrant green. I wondered if it might be a trick of the light, but I could swear it was shot through with magenta streaks. “Admit it, babes, you’re curious,” he said, lowering his gravelly voice to a husky tone that made my insides squirm as though filled with live eels. “You’re wonderin what kinda lay I am, aren’t ya? I know what I’m doin in the sack, lemme tell ya.”  

My stomach continued to writhe as I became aware that my pulse was picking up, thumping in my ears, my mouth suddenly dry as Beetlejuice rose slowly onto his hands and knees, his eyes locked with mine as he crawled forward across the vast expanse of mattress that seemed to lay between us. I gulped, feeling my heart pounding against my ribs as he came to hover, not quite on top of me but close, so much closer than we’d been since the enthusiastic kiss at the abbreviated wedding ceremony. I could practically count his eyelashes as his half-lidded eyes roved my face in a heated look. “I can take real good care of you, baby doll,” he promised in the same low, throaty rasp that made goosebumps break out up my arms. I held my breath and watched, frozen, as he leaned in with a self-assured smile on his lips. “Made Ava Gardener squeal more than once, I’m sure I could help ya get a good night’s sleep.”  

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his mouth and judging by his grin he was more than aware of it. I watched it drawing closer until it blurred, pressing against my own. It was different this time, softer, more insistent but without the overbearing crush of lips and teeth. I sighed through my nose, my eyes fluttering shut as he moved his lips against mine. He traced my bottom lip with the tip of his tongue, drawing it gently between his and sucking just slightly, with only the barest amount of pressure. Part of me was furious with myself for getting so worked up over so little actual contact; part of me wanted to sink my hands into his hair and hold him close until we absolutely had to come up for air. Instead my fingers tightened in the bedsheets. Beetlejuice broke off first, pecking his lips against me again before lowering his head to whisper to me, the scruff on his cheek tickling against my skin, his breath ghosting over the shell of my ear and the side of my neck. “Whatdya say, babes? Sure you don’t wanna go a couple rounds?” An involuntary shiver ran its way down my spine and he chuckled. “Is that a yes?” My eyes opened and I gasped sharply, my field of vision filled with Beetlejuice’s smug expression and his bare, pale chest covered in fine green hair. I scrambled to get my hands under me, pushing myself upright as stifling heat flooded through me from my scalp to my toes. Beetlejuice pulled back to let me up but didn’t retreat otherwise, grinning unabashedly at me as he knelt on the comforter in all his glory.  

“Where the fuck are your clothes?!” I demanded. He giggled. “Such language, babes!” he teased. “You kiss your husband with that mouth? Would you?” Beetlejuice puckered his lips and leaned towards me and I yelped, scrambling out and away from the bed with my pillow clutched to me like a shield. Beetlejuice was outright laughing now, and had our positions been reversed I had to concede that I would probably be doing just the same. I must look quite the picture, my cheeks flaming, my chest heaving, cowering behind a down-stuffed pillow. Against my will my eyes traveled over his body, taking in the curve of his shoulders and the shadow of his collar bones, the gentle swell of his stomach and the trail of wispy emerald hair that led to his naval and beyond. I swallowed hard and wrenched my gaze back up to his face, which was plastered with the biggest shit-eating grin. “Aw, what’s the matter, doll? You’re not a virg, are ya?” he purred. When I averted my gaze and my blush deepened, his eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. “Oooh, you are??” He shifted on his knees, looking eager as a kid at Christmas and I raised my pillow to hide his nether regions from view. “Don’t be nervous, everybody has a first time. I swear I’ll be a gentleman about it, so don’t even worry!”  

At that I scoffed, throwing the pillow at him. “Says the horny demon who stripped naked out of the blue!” I snapped, flustered and mortified and resolutely ignoring the tiny voice piping in my head that said to go for it. Beetlejuice caught the pillow easily and let it settle in his lap, much to my relief. “Just… slow it down a bit, will you?!” I entreated. “This has been the longest, weirdest weekend of my entire life and I just…. I need some time to think!” I leaned back against my dresser, pressed my face into my palms and tried to regain some semblance of composure. “Gee, babes, I wasn’t tryin to piss you off,” said Beetlejuice, and he actually did sound apologetic. “I’m not mad,” I said, sighing heavily. “I’m just… a little overwhelmed, I guess. Would you please put your clothes back on?” He didn’t answer, but I did hear him snap his fingers, followed by the creaking of the bedframe. I waited a beat before I dared to look. Beetlejuice, clothed once again, was sitting cross-legged on the far side of the bed, his arms folded around my pillow which he still held in his lap. “Better?” I nodded and tentatively settled back on my side of the bed. “Thank you.”  

Awkward silence lapsed between us for a long moment while I fidgeted with the hem of my nightshirt, debating whether or not to just go sleep on the couch myself. “You’re right, okay?” I said instead. “I’ve never really been with anyone and to be honest, this is not the way I always imagined it would happen. I mean, we’re married, but we don’t even know each other.” He frowned and gave a shrug. “That kinda thing’s never really mattered to me before,” he admitted. “I sorta have to get while the gettin’s good, before they change their minds.” I snorted softly through my nose at his complete lack of filter, surprised again by how forthcoming he was and deciding that I ought to return the favor. “I mean, you kept comparing this whole arrangement to a green-card marriage,” I went on, and he bobbed his head in a so-so gesture. “But just how much like a green-card marriage is it really? Like, will we be able to divorce in a year and then you just go on your merry way?” “What?” I jerked, startled by the tone of his voice: loud but hoarse as if the word had taken him unawares, blasting from him when he didn’t have the air to actively shout it out. His eyes were huge, a combination of fear and anger and despair flickering through them like a slide projector gone ballistic. There was no mistaking it this time as I watched color bleed up through his hair from the roots, blues and purples swallowing the dull green. “You’re already trying to figure out how to get rid of me?”

Whatever I’d been planning on saying next died in my throat as Beetlejuice almost visibly shrank in on himself, his arms curling tighter around the pillow, his hands fisting in the material. Panic flared bright and sharp in my chest as I hurried to backtrack, to explain. I found myself scooting closer to him, my hands itching with the urge to reach out, to touch him, to try and offer some sort of comfort. “No! No, nothing like that!” I assured him, my chest clenching when he held himself back out of my reach. Not wanting to upset him even more, I pulled them back, pressing my fists together in my lap to stop my fingers twitching with the want to reach for him again. “You just said it, though,” he retorted, but there was no bite to the accusation, the words came out hollow and resigned. “Will we be able to divorce in a year? You don’t want me here.” I sighed, angry with myself, pained by how distraught he looked and sounded because he was technically right, that was what I had said. “Beetlejuice, that’s not true,” I said gently. “It’s like I told you earlier, I want you to be comfortable here, this is your home now, too. But can I ask you something?” He wouldn’t look at me, so I levered myself forward, swiveling my head, trying to catch his eye. Finally he relented with a harsh sigh, dropping the pillow from his middle and raising his eyebrows in invitation.

I considered my words carefully, wary of how easily and quickly he might misinterpret them. “If you didn’t have to stay with me, would you even want to?” Beetlejuice frowned deeply, worrying his lip between his teeth at my inquiry. His fingers curled and uncurled in my pillow, his eyes fixed on them as he replied, “You sure do like to ask the hard questions, dontcha?” I chuckled and nodded. “I wanna figure out how this whole being married thing is going to work,” I said. “I wanted to help you and I don’t regret doing it, but… I also don’t want to get invested in somebody who’s just gonna take off the moment the mood strikes? Does that make sense?” He looked up at me for a moment, and I worried that I’d upset him further, but he quickly glanced away again. Now that I’d asked the one question that had been bouncing around in my brain like an errant ping pong ball ever since Barbara asked me a thousand years ago “What’re you gonna do now?” it seemed I might never stem the tide of thoughts and worries.

“Let’s say we decide to really give this a shot,” I rambled. “What if we genuinely just… don’t like each other? What if it doesn’t work? What if we both decide we don’t want to be married anymore? If we split up, what does that mean for you? Do you get to stay alive or do you go back to being dead since we didn’t fulfill the ‘til death to us part’ vow? Will we be stuck together, then? Making each other miserable? And what if one of us dies? Like if a tree falls on me do you get to stay alive then? I’d think so, since you held up your half of the vow, but do marriage vows to demons count as binding contracts? And if it turns out that we can’t divorce, even if we both want to, the only way out would be for one of us to die. If you died, you’d just end up exactly where you started and the whole thing would’ve been for nothing! It would have to be me, right? If I died then you did your due diligence and you’re free and clear? It’s not likely at my age, but after all we never really know, do we? Would it count if I kil-”

I was cut off by a pair of chilled and slightly sweaty palms clapping firmly over my mouth. Beetlejuice was leaning forward over his lap, both arms extended toward me, his eyes wide and panicked, his hair a mottled mix of purple and yellow with pale olive green barely visible in his dark roots. “I don’t know where you were goin there, babes, but I’m gonna stop you right there,” he said, his voice back to its normal gravelly timbre. His tone was more serious than I ever expected to hear from him. “You don’t wanna do that, for a lot of reasons: first is that nothing could be worth it, ‘specially not me. Second of all, if you off yourself up here, when you get to the Netherworld you have to work in Customs and Processing forever as punishment for punching out early. Like, forever forever. No holidays or weekend or pee breaks. It sucks, and I should know!” I reached up slowly and took his wrists, pulling his hands from my chin as I let my arms come to rest in my lap. I didn’t let go and he didn’t try to pull free.

“Is…” I began tentatively, afraid of upsetting him. “Is that what happened to you?” Beetlejuice scoffed good-naturedly. “Nah, babes. I was born dead! But my mom runs the department, so she just sorta put me to work. I was a ferryman.” Intrigued, I asked him what that meant and he only too happily obliged to share. His job, he said, had been to act as a guide to the souls of the recently deceased, directing them to the Netherworld and helping them get their footing on ‘the other side’. From what he said, it was a pretty easy gig and he was a natural at it. Sometimes, though, people didn’t actually want to leave. Beetlejuice himself had no problem with this preference and on the occasion when he met a ghost who, for whatever reason, had no desire to pass over to the Netherworld he would let them linger in the living world. He’d even give them a hand with their unfinished business. Which didn’t sit well with his mother/boss or her superiors. “So just like that, I was banished to the living world and cursed to be completely invisible until a living person said my name three times. I’m the reason why there’s a Handbook now instead of ferrymen. The Handbook always stays on-script.”

At some point during his story Beetlejuice had taken his hands back, sitting cross-legged in front of me so our knees were touching. He gestured animatedly as he talked, like he was giving a performance. Additionally, his hair had returned to its previous shade of mossy green, which I took to be a good sign. There was one piece from his tale that I found myself hung up on. “Wait, so…. Your own mother is the one who cursed and banished you?” Beetlejuice grinned, but the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yep. My mom’s a barrel of warm fuzzy feelings.” I frowned unhappily and curled my fingers around his without thinking. “That’s awful!” His eyes, laser-focused on my hand lying on his own, darted away as he pulled out of my grasp to scratch absently at his belly. “Yeah, well, what’re ya gonna do,” he said dismissively. “Ancient history, babes.”

I glanced past him at the digital alarm clock on the bedside table: it was almost one in the morning. I groaned internally, knowing that I would be dog tired at work tomorrow. It felt like we had made progress, even with the hiccups, and I thought that maybe we’d at least come to something of an understanding. “It’s really late, Beej, and I have to get some sleep. But before we turn in, I wanna know: are we really gonna take a stab at this?” He grimaced, uncomfortable with the mountain of uncertainty I’d raised. “I don’t really know how to answer your questions, babes. It’s not like there’s a lot to go on, I’m the only born-dead demon there is.” I nodded my understanding, moving my leg just enough to bump his knee with mine and prompt him to look at me. “I’m willing to try if you are,” I said. “Think we could figure it out?” Beetlejuice didn’t answer right away, his eyes studying my face intently as if reading something written across my skin. He seemed satisfied with whatever he saw, because he grinned his devilish grin and thrust his hand at me to shake. “Sounds like a deal, doll face!” I grinned back and took his hand, shaking it firmly. “I’m glad we settled that. I have to get to sleep now otherwise I’ll be a zombie all day tomorrow.”

Beetlejuice sat where he was on the bed, watching me through the open bathroom door as I brushed my teeth. Once we were both settled under the covers, he snapped out the light with a flick of his wrist. I lay on my right side, breathing deeply through my nose, trying to drift off. I was a bit distracted by my bedmate, who kept wiggling, adjusting his pillow, sticking his arms under the covers before pulling them out and then immediately sticking them back under. I sighed loudly and he went still, like a pet who waits until they think you’re no longer paying attention to resume whatever illicit action they’re engaging in. I said nothing, at least partially sure he was drilling for a nerve. He settled down again after a few minutes, and I heard his breath deepen and slow. Silence fell at last, broken only by the steady hum of the fan I kept on just for the noise. I had nestled more comfortably into my pillow, just on the edges of drifting off when Beetlejuice asked, “Just to clarify, sex is like totally off the table for tonight, right?” My eyes opened, glaring at the dark shape of my dresser against the wall. “Correct,” I answered simply, hoping that maybe now the matter was well and truly resolved.

It wasn’t.

“What if we just spoon?” he asked a few minutes later. I sighed again, but I was too tired to muster any real anger. “Just go to sleep, Beetlejuice,” I said. He’d mentioned that his name had power over him. I didn’t know if that would hold true now that he was alive, but maybe just hearing it would convince him to pipe down. I was right, for about two minutes. I felt him shift behind me, and I could almost picture him raising himself up on one elbow to face me. “Don’t I at least get a goodnight kiss?” I let out my breath in a hard exhale and he snickered, pleased with himself to have gotten under my skin. Not willing to let him win this round, I sat up and rolled to face him. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the room, so I could see him faintly lying on his back with one arm tucked behind his head. The self-satisfied grin slipped from his face as I leaned over him, his eyes going wide and round and roving my face as I cupped his cheek and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to his lips while lightly scratching the scruff on his jaw with my fingertips. I pulled away smiling, feeling victorious at the look of frozen shock still on his face. “Good night,” I said, rolling back over.

I was still smiling when I finally drifted off. 

-----

To quote another fantastic Beej writer: “Whoops, I angsted!” 

But hopefully the fluff and banter makes up for it. Coming up next: what does your demon husband get up to when you’re not around?

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to be tagged in future chapters, hit me up!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

At some point I heard mention of some sort of handbook, then Lydia asking insistently, urgently about using the book to find her mother. Parts of the conversation were incomprehensible to me, but I overheard enough to pick up on the fact that Lydia was taking the book upstairs? Were there other people in the house after all? The man? demon? ghost? that she called BJ (it was very ambiguous just what he was) yelled plaintively after her and I heard his words with perfect clarity: “You’re leaving me? But what am I supposed to do?!” There was a desperation in his voice that surprised me, as though he had suddenly found himself adrift and unsure without his partner in crime even though she had only stepped out of the room. He lamented his loneliness to an unknown audience, though it was difficult to determine how much of it was genuine emotion and how much was play-acting. But on some level I understood how he professed to feel. I wasn’t a stranger to loneliness and disconnect and unfulfillment. Perhaps there was more to him than I’d given him credit for. I paused in my ascent, frowning deeply. What was that? Where had it come from? This….person had terrorized and attacked me! I should not be empathizing with him!

“After all I’ve done for her! Alone… again…” Even with his grating, sandpaper-to-the-ear-canal voice, I couldn’t ignore the hurt that seeped into his tone anymore than I could ignore the twinge it caused in my chest because, in spite of everything, at the very least I understood that hurt. I was so taken aback by this revelation that I missed the next part of his speech, a portion of which was again delivered in song form and included allusions to a “super evil plan going down.” I licked my lips and resumed my uphill battle with renewed fervor. Whatever that moment had been, whatever those feelings may have been, I was more than ready to get out of here before anything else horrible happened.

As I drew closer to the landing, things upstairs seemed to go quiet for awhile. Minutes or maybe hours later, it was hard to keep track of time in this strange empty place, I heard more hushed voices. But these were unfamiliar. One was a man, whispering loudly for Lydia. Maybe it was her parents! Maybe they could get me out of here. I started shouting for help, but it became apparent that while I could hear them, they could not hear me. At long last, I was nearing the end of my ordeal. The landing was just a few feet ahead of me, if I kept going in no time at all I’d be able to pull myself up onto flat ground for the first time in what seemed like ages. I couldn’t help the grin that split my face when I finally, finally grabbed hold of the bannister at the top of the slide and hauled myself up and onto my feet. Triumph and relief were overwhelming me and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. But that decision could wait, it was time to get the hell out of this place!

All at once the activity in the house above me resumed with more ferocity than before: raised voices shouting things I couldn’t quite make out, a strange mechanical sound, a rumbling like thunder. Over it all I heard Lydia speaking loudly, practically screaming out some sort of rhyming verse: “Spirit nearest, hearts entwine! Love infernal, shades unbind!” The landing lurched under my feet and I staggered with a frightened gasp, grasping the door handle in one hand and the railing with the other. Everything shook, the house groaned around us as though it were trying to wrench free of its foundations. “Lydia!” “What’s going on?!” I had to agree with the sentiment, but I was more focused on getting the door open as everything around me continued to shudder as though in an earthquake. “I summon thee, lend Ceres’ breath! Devoted soul, released from death!” I twisted the knob, flung open the door, and hurled myself through.

Curiously I landed flat on my belly with a grunt, finding that I had apparently emerged from the fireplace on the opposite side of the room from the stairs to the basement. The sight that met my eyes could not have been stranger if it had been written in a script. The entire room was bathed in the ghostly bluish-purple light emanating from a squat machine placed on a plinth. Standing in the living room with their backs to me were two men and woman I hadn’t seen before. Lydia stood on the first landing of the stairs, looking down on us all. Her face looked pale and stricken in the draining violet light. A blood curdling scream made me leap to my feet. There was another couple in the room, a man in a green plaid shirt and brown khakis and a pretty blond woman in a floral printed dress. She was floating a couple feet off the floor, her eyes wide and round and unfocused as she shrieked again. “What did you do?!” demanded the man beside her, frantic, gripping her by the wrist and trying uselessly to pull her back to the floor. “I don’t know!” Lydia cried, thumbing wildly through a thick, battered book. “It was supposed to be my mom!”

The floating woman screamed again, sounding like she was in agony. The man beside her looked helplessly from one face to another of the assorted onlookers. “Somebody help! What’s happening to her?!” A familiar, gravelly voice sneered loudly from all directions, thrumming in the air, making the furnishings and décor rattle on the walls. “Exorcism: death for the dead!” There came a flash of burning red light and he appeared again, the man in the stripes. He looked different than he had when he chased me into the basement. Before, even when he was tearing his face off to scare me, there had been this playfulness about him, like it was all in good gross fun. That was gone now, his entire countenance was much more demonic. His hair, formerly bright grassy green, had turned a fiery, angry red as he pointlessly adjusted the frayed cuffs of his suit jacket.

“Hey guys! Awesome séance!” he snarled in sing-song, snapping his fingers in a whip-quick gesture that made the overhead light fixtures explode in a shower of sparks that rained down on our heads. “Lots of good, old fashioned chaos! You lose! In your faces! ‘Cause look who’s holding all the aces!” Lydia and the dark-haired man rounded on him at once, getting as close as they dared. “You did this!” the man shouted, pointing at him. With a smile that was all eye teeth, the furious demon jutted his chin at Lydia. “Nope. She did!” He then laid out his “super evil plan” for our benefit: unless Lydia would agree to marry him, Barbara, who must be the floating woman, would suffer an unspeakable fate. This was met with the expected responses of outrage and incredulity, so he promptly clarified that it was “a green-card thing.” When that still didn’t clear matters up, he snapped angrily, “I’m tired of being alone! And life is the only way out!” Once again, even though the rational side of my brain had me cowering against the wall with the others at his violent outburst, something in his voice made my heart go out to him.

Was all of this really just because he was lonely?

While I was occupied with my internal musing, Lydia agreed to his proposal, he snapped his fingers a few more times and floating Barbara lowered to the floor. Clapping and cheering happily to himself, the red-haired BJ attempted to dispose of Barbara and the man who I assumed must be her husband by sending them through a strange door that he drew on the wall with chalk. Just as it seemed things were about to start calming down, Lydia unexpectedly bolted through the door and disappeared in a green mist, followed quickly by a man in a smart suit who called after her. In the tense and stunned silence that followed, BJ let his head roll back on his neck and shouted to the ceiling, “Why does everyone keep leaving me!” Quickly composing himself, he announced that now we would all die. Todaaaaaay. In a panic I was shoved ahead of the nicely dressed Asian man who let out a shrill scream as the visibly smoking demon stalked toward us.

Even while it was still happening, I couldn’t say for sure how the minimalistic/modern living space spontaneously transformed into some sort of brightly lit studio gameshow set or why I was suddenly dressed in a silvery dress studded with rhinestones and a mermaid skirt. I was equally unsure just where the enormous board of rotating panels that loomed beside me had materialized from. Canned applause echoed from somewhere vaguely overhead when Mr. Bug Juice reappeared. He’d changed clothes again, now wearing a garish yellow blazer with pronounced lapels.  He produced a microphone from an inside pocket of his jacket and spoke loudly and cordially into it, gesturing grandly as if to a live studio audience. “Thank you all for joining us today for another exciting round of America’s favorite game: Extreme Hang Man!” Frightened whimpers above and to the right of me drew my gaze up, where the Asian man in the nice suit stood on a platform with a gallows erected behind him. A rope dangled from the arm of the gallows, ending in a noose around his neck. He caught my eyes, his own blown wide in abject terror but was apparently unable to move from the spot.

“As always, I’m your host with the most! How about giving it up for our three contestants!” BJ crowed, waving toward three cartoonishly proportioned podiums where the blond woman, Barbara, the man in the green shirt, and the other red-haired woman were standing as more applause sounded. Written across the front of their podiums in spikey handwriting were the names, “Barbara”, “Adam”, and “Delia.” Adam leaned forward over the top of his podium, addressing the demon. “Beetlejuice, this has gone too far!” he admonished, only for Beetlejuice to gesture forcefully with an angry growl: “Put a sock it in, stiff!” Adam gagged around a rolled up pair of fetid looking tube socks that were suddenly crammed into his mouth as BJ (or Beetlejuice, apparently) ran a hand over his hair, which was once again a dark green. Clearing his throat once, he grinned at his imaginary audience with much more strained mania than I’d seen thus far. “Aaaaaaand, here we go!” he said, and I gasped when the panels in the board spun of their own accord to reveal a series of underscores. “Let’s have our first guess! Babs! Pick a letter!”

Barbara’s mouth opened and closed a few times, at a loss for words as Beetlejuice pointed to a pair of floating digital numbers that appeared out of thin air above her head. “Ten seconds on the clock, Babs, chop chop!” Stammering, Barbara called out a letter. It quickly became clear what was happening; it really was just like a game of hang man with a live man. With each wrong guess, the platform he stood on would lower incrementally as if on hydraulics, tightening the noose around his neck and drawing a petrified wail from him each time. The trio of “contestants” were doing an alright job of guessing the words and phrases Beetlejuice put to them, even though his abysmal spelling made it a bit more difficult for them.

The words and phrases themselves were all rather baffling: things like “Sandworm” and “Breathers suck” and “Why don’t you love me, Mom?” I cringed as Barbara correctly filled in the sentence “Everything is pointless”, causing Beetlejuice to let out a frustrated growl and the man on the platform a relieved sigh. The irate demon made another forceful gesture at the board, setting all the panels spinning at the same time as the next puzzle appeared. It took up the entire board and I glanced up at the man on the platform, who had blanched to a sickly gray. Beetlejuice cackled wickedly, pacing over to the three podiums. “Time for the sudden death round!” I worried my lip with my teeth, wracking my brains to come up with some sort of plan. This whole thing was getting out of hand, someone was going to get hurt. Or worse. I had to put a stop to it, but how? Clearly Beetlejuice commanded forces that I had no way to match, but there had to be something I could do. Fighting him was a no-go, I wasn’t sure I was wily enough to outwit him, which really only left me one avenue: give him what he wanted.

Well, what did he want? To be alive, it would seem, as evidenced by the many times he had said so aloud since the botched séance. And the only way to accomplish that was… The man on the platform whimpered piteously as Adam guessed a letter that was somehow not present in the ludicrously long puzzle and I steeled myself, realizing what I had to do and surprised to find that I was feeling very at peace with my decision. Beetlejuice had come to stand at the base of the scaffold, reaching out a hand to gleefully jiggle one of the rather flimsy legs and causing the whole construct to sway gently. Up on the platform the man gasped in fear.

Without preamble I stepped up to him and said point blank, “I’ll marry you.” 

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Thanks for reading! And if you’d like to be tagged in upcoming chapters, give me a shout!

Chapter 1

 I felt warmth creeping into my face as he draped an arm around my shoulders, and the next second I was yelping in distress and alarm as he swung himself up and deposited his full weight against me. I scrambled reflexively to catch hold of him bridal style, under the knees and around his back, straining under the unexpected burden. “Ain’t it just like in the fairy tales?” he giggled, batting his eyelashes at me as I staggered forward through the doorway into the laundry room. Mercifully, Beetlejuice lowered his feet to the floor and stood, striding through excitedly into the kitchen and turning in a full circle as he avidly examined what I supposed would now be our shared living space. I pulled the door shut, smiling despite myself at his infectious enthusiasm, leaving him to wander around and plunder while I padded to the bedroom to find my phone.  

It was on the floor, presumably the vibrations caused by a missed call or two had sent it toppling off the headboard, but at least it was undamaged. I checked my messages, discovering with an unpleasant start that a full two days had elapsed between first going to the Deetz house and coming back. There were a few missed texts and calls from my mom, which I would have to quickly think of some explanations for or she’d be on a plane, train, or hot air balloon to come and make sure I was okay. I didn’t want Beetlejuice to overhear me, so I quickly typed out some malarkey about going to a movie Friday night and forgetting to take my phone off silent. It was watery and wouldn’t hold up, but she’d have no reason to suspect I was lying, and I did feel a guilty twinge at that. I sighed heavily and flopped face first on my bed. What a way to spend a weekend…. And tomorrow was Monday, back to the grind. But everything about my life had suddenly been turned completely upside down and no one knew. How could everything be so different and also still the same? My stomach gurgled angrily, reminding me that I was famished and dehydrated and so, so tired. I hauled myself up and returned to the kitchen, passing Beetlejuice in the living room examining the odds and ends on my bookshelves. “Nice digs, babe,” he said, taking a decorative ceramic ball from a pedestal vase, idly tossing and catching it like a softball as he followed me into the kitchen. I didn’t reply, going to the fridge and pulling open the door while he lounged against the counter, watching me reach in and pull out a bottle of water.  

Twisting off the cap and tossing it on the island I tipped my head back and drained the whole bottle in one go, not caring that some of it washed down my chin and onto the front of my dress. I tossed the empty bottle in the trash can by the still open fridge and dove back in for a second, going slower this time and gasping for air in between swallows. Beetlejuice was regarding me with hooded eyes, running his tongue over his teeth as he chuckled in amusement. “Gee whiz, babes, you sure are…thirsty,” he said, waggling his eyebrows and putting an extremely salacious emphasis on the word ‘thirsty’. I waited until I’d got my breath back, fixing him with a knowing look as I said, “Well someone, not using any names, but someone locked me in a cellar for two days.” At that his eyes widened, sucking his tongue back into his mouth and rolling his lips between his teeth. “Oh, right… Yeah, um… my bad,” he stammered. I raised my own eyebrows in triumph, harrumphing through my nose just so he’d know I wasn’t above calling him out. “I’m starved, too,” I said, turning my attention away from the fidgeting demon and back to the contents of the fridge. “But everything in here is either spoiled now or has to be cooked. I don’t wanna cook.”  

My stomach growled loudly again. Just for something to shut it up I grabbed a pack of hotdogs. They were already cooked and, while not exactly a filling or nutritious meal, they’d tide me over. I shut the door with my elbow, plucking a sausage from the pack and raising it to my open mouth, pausing halfway through the motion at a tiny whining sound. Beetlejuice was staring at me, his mouth hanging slightly open in a wolfish grin and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a bead of drool working its way down his bottom lip. Considering what I was doing at the moment I didn’t have to wonder what was going through his mind. With a disapproving scowl I bit off the end of the hotdog, my teeth audibly clicking together, gratified when Beetlejuice cringed and recoiled. He picked up on my metaphor, then. I sighed through my nose as I chewed, extending the package towards him as a peace offering. “Want one?” I asked around the half-chewed sausage. He eyed it dubiously, glancing from the proffered package to my face. “Is this innuendo?” he asked, and I rolled my eyes. “Just take one.”  

Grumbling to himself, Beetlejuice reached in and withdrew a sausage. I didn’t even care that I could see the dirt on his fingers when I reached in after him and took a second myself, it would give my immune system something to do. It was much more entertaining to watch Beetlejuice sniffing the hot dog like an exotic cigar. He leered suggestively as I watched him, locking his eyes with mine as he let his mouth fall open and slid the whole hot dog in right to his own fingertips, closing his lips around them and pulling them free one by one with soft, wet pops. I rolled my eyes again and shook my head hopelessly. The look that came over him, his eyes growing huge, his big, show of chewing slowing into almost stillness. He looked at me. “I can taste it!” he garbled. I frowned, not understanding. “Well… yeah?” He shook his head, making a vague gibbering noise as he rushed toward me excitedly. “No, you don’t get it!” he went on. “I’ve never been able to taste before! Why didn’t anybody tell me tasting things was so good?!”

Bewildered I obligingly held up the package as he delved back in with his dirty fingers and pulled out two more, shoving them into his mouth. He laughed, spraying bits of food. “Ha! This takes me back! There was this one time I was hangin with old Henry VIII, that was one wild sonovabitch, lemme tell ya! Anyway, long story short, me and King Henry and… oh yeah, Nikola Tesla got in there somehow or another… so the three of us and a jar of horseradish sauce, if ya know what I mean… Spiciest ménage of my afterlife! Literally… Holy crap, did it sting…” In fact I didn’t know precisely what he meant, but I was afraid that if I said so he would explain so I quickly changed the subject. “I have an idea.” Licking his fingers and then wiping them off on the ruffled front of his tuxedo shirt, Beetlejuice gave me a nod. “Shoot, babes.” I held up the hot dog pack. “Let’s get some real food.” His brows furrowed in confusion. “Real food as opposed to…. Imaginary food?” I laughed and clarified. “Something good, I mean. Something we actually want and not just what’s around.” Beetlejuice pulled a face as he eyed the nearly empty plastic package. “Yeah, it was exciting at first but I’m kinda over it now. That’s what she said,” he agreed, apparently unable to stop himself from making amorous asides. 

I sighed through my nose but smiled in a long-suffering sort of way as I chucked the remainder of the pack in the trash, plucking a menu from beneath the magnet that held it to the side of the fridge. “There’s a really good Cantonese place in town,” I said, my eyes scanning the menu items. “And they deliver. Chinese work for you?” He shrugged. “Babes, I ate a live duck once. I’m not picky.” I laughed out loud before I could think to stifle it, suddenly struck by just how crazy this whole situation really was. When I managed to get ahold of myself again Beetlejuice was watching me with a strange expression, smiling crookedly. “I gotta say, you’re taking all this surprisingly well,” he remarked. I sighed tiredly, the laughter still tugging at my lips. “I don’t think it’s really hit me yet,” I confessed before trying to get the conversation back on track. “How bout this: I already know what I want, why don’t you figure out what you want while I get a shower, I’ll order while you’re in the shower and by the time you’re done the food should be here.”  

Beetlejuice had been nodding along absently as I spoke but he gave a sudden start, taking a large step back from me and raising a palm in a warding off gesture. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! pump the brakes there, doll,” he said, his face unusually business-like. “You think this happens all by itself?” Beetlejuice made vague gestures up and down his person. “I put a lot of work into my aesthetic, babes. I been working on this patch of moss for months, and you want me to just scrub it off?” He pressed a hand over his heart as if deeply offended. I folded my arms and cocked an eyebrow at him, unmoved. Seeing my reaction, Beetlejuice frowned and mimicked me, crossing his arms over his chest. “Nope. Nothin’ doin’. I’m a demon, babes. Demon’s don’t do showers.” We glowered at one another in silence for a few moments, a stalemate. I sighed heavily and let my arms drop. Taking a hard line was getting us nowhere quickly, so I changed tactics. “Look, Beetlejuice,” I said, noting that he flinched marginally at the sound of his name. “We’re… married now. Which means my house is now your house. And I want you to be comfortable here. But if you’re gonna be making yourself at home; going through the fridge and using the dishes, sitting on the couch and so on, you need to practice at least some basic hygiene or I’m gonna be constantly having to clean.” His frown deepened, unconvinced, so I pressed on. “Call it compromise, isn’t that part of the whole ‘being married’ thing? I’m asking you to be squeaky clean all the time, just a shower like a couple times a week. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” He cocked his head to the side and made a face, a vague uncooperative groan emitting from deep in his throat.  

“Alternatively,” I added. “I could get those horrible plastic furniture covers like my Great Aunt Muriel used to have.” I dipped my chin and raised my eyebrows, looking up at him through my lashes. “Are you gonna make me be like my Great Aunt Muriel?” Beetlejuice’s stoic veneer cracked as he snort-laughed through his nose, letting his own arms fall to his sides with the longest of long-suffering sighs. “Fiiiiiiine, I can be a team player. If it’s that big a deal I guess I can…” His face wrinkled into a look of utter disgust as a shudder passed through him. “Shower.” He gagged on the word. I chuckled to myself, wondering again how much of it was genuine distaste and how much was just exaggeration. I gave an affirmative nod to his acquiescence and headed for my….our? bedroom. Beetlejuice followed me. “Hey, Beetlejuice?” I called back to him, hearing his breath catch and his footsteps falter. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” I stopped at the foot of the bed, kicking out of my shoes while he took to looking around the bedroom. “I’m an open book, babes,” he said. “Just, uh… go easy on the B-word there, ‘kay?” I frowned to myself as I passed into the bathroom. Maybe there was a good reason why Lydia always called him by a nickname.  

“Okay, Beej,” I said, trying out Lydia’s preferred diminutive to see how he took it. “Can I ask if there’s any particular reason besides your moss that you don’t like showers? Is it like a phobia thing?” He laughed, a harsh sound. “Phobia? Me? As if, babe. No, nothin’ like that. I’m from the Netherworld. You know what they don’t have in the Netherworld?” I shook my head and he went on. “Well, they don’t have a lot of stuff, really, but the one I’m referring to in particular is showers. Everybody’s dead, no one cares about being clean. And when I got banished to the Upperworld I was invisible, intangible; even in the rare occasion I got summoned it was to scare breathers. Nobody was rolling out the welcome wagon and offering me the use of their facilities.” I frowned, intrigued and a little disturbed by parts of his explanation. He’d been banished to the living world? Why? By whom? Filing those questions away for later, I pressed on with our current topic. “That makes sense,” I conceded. “So it’s not that you don’t actually like cleanliness, it’s more that you never really had the opportunity?” Beetlejuice shrugged, leaning bending at the waist to inspect framed photos I kept on the lower half of my bookshelf. “I guess, maybe. But I also have a reputation to look after. And there’s my clients to consider, they have certain expectations, y’know?”  

I stilled in the process of grabbing some clean lounge-around clothes to change into, fixing him with a curious look. “You have clients? What do you do?” At my question he turned, smirking like the cat that ate the canary. “Baby doll, you are hitched to the Underworld’s leading bio-exorcist!” he preened, tucking his thumbs into the shoulders of his waistcoat. I had no idea what that meant, but he looked so proud of himself that I quickly made the appropriate impressed noises and expressions. “I’m gonna jump in the shower,” I said. “Check out the menu and pick out whatever you want! I won’t be long.” I flipped on the light switch and stepped in, depositing my things on the counter before turning back to shut the door only to find him standing there, regarding me with hooded eyes and a lascivious grin. “You know,” he drawled, making a show of nonchalantly walking his fingers up the door frame. “We are married, like you said. So what’s stoppin’ us from….” He trailed off coyly, glancing at the shower stall and gesturing first at me and then himself, raising his eyebrows. His leer widened as I felt warmth spiking in my cheeks again. By way of answer, I took a step back and shut the door firmly in his face.  

Shucking the heavy red wedding gown and leaving it puddled on the floor, I stepped quickly into the stall and closed the door. The steaming hot water felt positively divine, sluicing through my greasy hair, down my back, over my shoulders, and I could have gladly stood under it until it ran out. But I knew I needed to save some for Beetlejuice, and I also couldn’t shake the worry that he might try to sneak in, so I hurried through my ablutions at breakneck speed. My oversized nightshirt clung to me a bit in the humidity created by the closed bathroom door, and I felt clean but uncomfortably flushed in my long pajama pants for the same reason. Still, I didn’t dare go for something more revealing. The last thing I needed was to give the one-track-minded demon any ideas. Beetlejuice had settled himself on the couch and glanced up from the menu in his hands as I entered. He’d loosened his bowtie, which hung limp around his opened collar, and popped the buttons on the snug waistcoat that stretched tight across his round middle. “You’re up,” I said, thumbing toward the bathroom. “I laid out some towels and a change of clothes for you.” Beetlejuice made a face again and slid down against the back of the sofa until his chin met his chest, letting out a long plaintive groan.  

I shot him an indulgent smile. “Go on, the sooner you start the sooner it’s over,” I said as he peeled himself off the sofa. I swiped the menu from him as he passed me. “Decide what you want?” He stopped himself midstride and doubled back, grinning ear to ear. “Well, if you’re offering-” I cut him off, “To eat.” Beetlejuice tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, the grin only widening. “That doesn’t actually discount-” “From the Golden Dragon!” I clarified again, still overheated from my shower and hoping he would think that’s why my face was so red. Laughing all the way to the bathroom, Beetlejuice left and I heard the water start running a short time later. I called in our order, waiting around in the kitchen for the delivery guy. There came a knock at the door about twenty minutes later and I answered it, relieving the winded teenaged boy of his numerous paper bags. I cleared everything off the coffee table, dragged it closer to the couch and laid out our rather extensive spread, practically a buffet in its own right. Beetlejuice emerged from the bathroom, still pale but significantly less grimy, wearing another oversized nightshirt of mine that fit him rather well and a pair of my own sleep pants. He was scowling.  

“Polar bears in hats? Seriously?” he griped, picking at the plushy material that was indeed decorated with smiling polar bears wearing winter caps. I grinned at his discomfort, enjoying the turnabout as I plopped myself on the couch. “That happens to be a favorite pair! I thought it’d at least be more comfortable than your suit pants. Come on, lets eat before it gets cold.” Grumbling under his breath he sat himself heavily next to me and we tucked in. Not much later I sat back, full and satisfied and still with a lot of leftovers. It was beginning to get late, and I knew I’d have to get up early in the morning to get ready for work. I left Beetlejuice amusing himself by eating the packets of duck sauce and spicy mustard while I cleared the table and put away the rest of the food, rapidly approaching the part of the evening I’d been most apprehensive about.  

Where was he going to sleep tonight? 

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Comfy boy hours! Even if he’s not too terribly thrilled by her selection. 

I’m really on a roll so hopefully Chapter 4 won’t be far away! 

Thanks for reading!! 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

I could practically hear the wheels in his head turning, his expression softening from skepticism into slack-jawed surprise and back again as he debated internally. I watched, amazed and curious, as shoots of different colors flared in his hair like a neon sign: purple and red and blue and yellow. After taking a long moment to think it over, he looked back at me with eyes wide and round.

“Why?” he asked, his raspy voice so quiet it came out like a croak. My throat tightened and I had to swallow hard to force the feeling back down. No one had ever looked at me with that kind of vulnerability, no one had ever spoken to me with such bald openness, and I wondered if he was even aware of just how transparent he was in this moment.

I flashed him a lopsided smile, relieved when my lips didn’t tremble and the burning in my eyes subsided. “You said you were tired of being alone,” I explained, taking a deep breath and mustering my courage. It was my turn to be open. “I am, too. So… let’s get married.” His brows knitted together, his eyes darting back and forth as he thought, his tongue darting out to wet his parted lips. “You’re… you’re serious?” I nodded firmly. “That way, neither of us has to be alone anymore.” From above and behind us, someone cleared their throat. Beetlejuice turned to look and I leaned sideways, peering over his shoulder at the man on the platform. He was still sweating bullets and pale as milk, but he was trying to smile in a friendly way that ended up more of a grimace.

“It just so happens, I’m ordained,” he announced. “I could marry you right now!” At the podiums, Delia let out a sharp cry of alarm. “Otho!” she chastised, aghast. “What are you doing?!” “Oh, shut up, Delia!” Otho nearly shrieked, his voice ratcheting about an octave higher. “I can’t die in Connecticut! Mr. Ghost Demon, sir, if you’ll let me down I’ll gladly perform a civil ceremony!” Beetlejuice beamed, his previously serious and rather melancholy demeanor wiped away as easily dry erase marker off a board. With a snap of his fingers and a tremendous puff of brilliantly green smoke, the scaffold and gallows disappeared and left Otho standing on solid ground, his hands patting himself down all over as if to make sure it was still in one piece.

“Anything can happen in a live show, folks!” Beetlejuice said into his mic, turning once again as if addressing an audience. “We’ll be right back with the wedding of the century! Eat your hearts out, Will and Kate!” Tossing the mic carelessly over his shoulder (it landed somewhere with a shrill scream of electronic feedback) Beetlejuice reached up and began fussing with his bow tie, smoothing the ruffles down the front of his green polyester button-down shirt. “Let’s get this show on the road, Skippy! What’s first?” he asked, practically bouncing over to Otho and slinging an arm around his shoulders like they were old school friends. Jumping and uttering a tiny frightened sound, Otho cleared his throat and took a moment to compose himself before turning on a winning, charismatic smile of perfectly white teeth. While they worked out the particulars, Delia and the Maitlands converged on me like a flock of extremely concerned birds.

They all began speaking at the same time. “You don’t have to do this!” Adam insisted, whispering vehemently so Beetlejuice wouldn’t overhear. “He’s right, we can figure something out together!” Barbara agreed. “We can’t let you go through with this!” Delia tittered anxiously. “He’s a demon!” “He’s dangerous!” “His vibes are atrocious!” I raised my hands in a supplicant gesture, trying to get them to calm down when I felt a cold, clammy hand take me by the elbow. “Shake a leg, babes! It’s showtime!” Beetlejuice tugged me resolutely after him to where Otho stood with his hands clasped loosely in front of him like a very posh reverend. The specter had undergone another wardrobe change, now wearing a somewhat shabby and extraordinarily garish tuxedo of red crushed velvet, his verdant hair slicked back flat against his head. It took a very long moment for me to realize that since pulling me away from the three distraught sympathizers, Beetlejuice had been talking animatedly.

I had thought that I was making, if not a rational decision, then the only logical choice I could make. Now that the moment was upon me, I found that I wasn’t quite as at peace with the whole arrangement as I’d thought I was. Beetlejuice’s words, which were still issuing from his mouth at a startling rate, did not penetrate the cottony fluff that seemed stuffed in my ears as he steered me forward. Was this what getting cold feet felt like? I wasn’t sure, I’d never been engaged before, I’d never been anything before. What had I gotten myself into?

Beetlejuice pulled me up short beside him, turning and glancing me up and down. “Hmm,” he murmured thoughtfully to himself. “Just a sec, doll. Needs a little…” He trailed off, snapping his fingers and enveloping me in a puff of red smoke. It cleared a moment later and I looked down at myself to see that I was now clothed in a long-sleeved dressed of frilled layers with a high, lacey collar. It was also bright red to match his tux. At my right side, Beetlejuice grinned toothily and took my hand, tucking it into the crook of his left elbow and turning us both to face Otho. “All right, sunshine,” he said, grinning ear to ear and bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. “Do your stuff!”

Otho’s eyes darted from Beetlejuice’s to mine, his mouth pulling into a thin line and his eyebrows rising marginally as if to say, “Sorry”, and then he cleared his throat and began to speak. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today before these witnesses to join this… erm…man and this woman in wedded bliss!” Behind us I heard scrambling footsteps, craning back over my shoulder to see Delia and the Maitlands rushing forward as if to put a stop to the proceedings. Without turning, Beetlejuice made a sharp, dismissive gesture with his free hand and the three of them stopped suddenly as if they’d collided with an invisible wall. “Can we just, uh, skip to the important parts?” he asked/instructed the reluctant officiant. Flustered and put on the spot, Otho’s mouth opened and closed like a fish a few times but he did as he was asked.

“If you’ll both just sign your full names to this marriage certificate,” he said, withdrawing a flat leather pouch from an interior pocket of his jacket. He opened it, rifled through for a moment, and pulled out a single slip. “Got a pen, pal?” Beetlejuice asked, plucking it deftly from Otho’s fingers as he dove into another pocket in search of a pen. When Otho produced a pen, Beetlejuice gestured for him to turn around and pressed the certificate to the man’s back, signing his name on a line at the bottom of the document before presenting the pen to me with a flourish. “M’dear,” he said with an enormous rakish grin. I watched my hand reach mechanically forward and take it from him but it wasn’t acting on any conscious input from me. I raised the pen to the paper and wrote my name on the dotted line. Otho spun back around, Beetlejuice insistently stuffing the paper back into his hands. He read the document carefully, shot one last sorrowful look at me, and added his own signature to the final line before shoving the pen back into his pocket without replacing its cap. “Very well then. Lawrence Betelgeuse Shoggoth; do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, and forsaking all others for as long as you both shall live?” Beetlejuice was beaming at me, his hair such a vibrant shade of green it was practically glowing. “I do!”

I blinked dumbly, momentarily thrown by the unexpected normalcy of at least part of his full name as Otho turned at last to me. “And do you… yada yada yada, so long as you both shall live?” he asked, cutting an anxious glance to Beetlejuice who was making an impatient “hurry it up!” gesture. I opened my mouth but couldn’t make a sound, my mind going totally blank. I could hear muffled thumps and voices behind us, as if Barbara, Adam and Delia were trying to get through whatever invisible barrier Beetlejuice had erected between them and us. My eyes turned to the expectant face of the man beside me. Beetlejuice’s eyes were fixed on me, his grin slipping slightly as I kept my silence. I heard myself say the words in my head before they made it to my lips: “I do.”

Exhaling quietly, Otho concluded, “Then by the power vested in me by the state of whatever, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.” Without further adieu, Beetlejuice slipped one arm around my waist, grasped the back of my head with the other hand and crushed his mouth against mine as he spun me dizzyingly around, dipping me so severely I gasped against his lips, sure that I was about to hit the floor. But he held me up with apparent ease, cantilevered at a steep angle to the floor, and took my gasp as an opportunity to slip his chilly tongue into my mouth. The scent and taste of him flooded my senses; damp soil and stagnant, mildewy water, dead leaves and the sickly-sweet odor of long-wilted flowers. It was wet and melodramatic, slightly musty and interspersed with an almost painful press of teeth. He was also making no attempt to be quiet about it, moaning lewdly against my mouth.

How much longer was he planning this to go on, I wondered? Laughing softly through my nose, I figured I might as well play along and raised my hands to his face, cupping his jaw. His bristly scruff was rough against my thumbs as I ran them up and over his cheeks, my fingers coming to rest in the short, thick hair at the base of his skull. A jolt passed through him as he sucked in a sharp breath through his nose and his eyes snapped wide open. Just as quickly and easily as I’d gone down he swung me upright, separating from me with a sound like a plunger being pulled from a sink. We looked at one another in silence for a beat, my eyes rising to the top of his head where I could swear strands of his hair were turning a soft cotton candy pink. Clearing his throat and averting his gaze, Beetlejuice lifted his hands up to his face. He spread and wiggled his fingers, rotating them at the wrist to scrutinize the front and back of his palms. “Huh,” he grunted, underwhelmed. “That seems pretty anticlimactic.” “Was something supposed to happen?” I asked. He gave a noncommittal, one-shouldered shrug. “I mean, I thought so, but maybe-”  

Beetlejuice cut himself off with a sharp cry, doubling over, his face crinkling as if in pain and his hands pressed flat against his chest. All of us jumped back, alarmed, unsure what to do as he let out a strangled gasp, curling further in on himself, staggering unsteadily and grunting, his eyes pinched tightly shut and his teeth bared. After a moment he relaxed, head hanging down, trembling arms braced against his thighs as his back rose and fell in deep, shuddering breaths. “Wow,” he said, somehow even raspier than before. “That was a thing.” Blowing out one last hard exhale he righted himself, hands on his hips. “So! When do we eat the cake – oh….” Beetlejuice froze in place, his mouth a tiny o, his eyes the size of saucers. “What was…? There it is again!” He dashed the few feet over to me, so fast I thought he might bowl me right over, seizing one of my hands in both of his and mashing my palm firmly against his chest. “Do you feel that?!”

I stiffened at the unexpected closeness and contact, but I tried to figure out what he was talking about. Truthfully, I didn’t feel anything at all at first, but when I concentrated I did indeed distinguish a rhythmic thump. “Your… your heartbeat?” I asked. A harsh gasp tore from him, his face going totally slack in shock. “I have a heartbeat?” he repeated numbly. “I’m… alive?” He let out a bark of laughter, then another, then launched into a full-on bout of hysterics ranging from deep belly laughter to high, tittering giggles as he flung both arms around my waist, lifted me up and spun me around, so overcome by his elation. “I’m alive! I’m aliiiiive! Thank you! Thankyouthankyouthankyou! I’ve never been so happy!” With another loud gasp he stopped again, the skirt of my dress swinging around us as he plopped me unceremoniously back on my feet. “I’m happy!” he said, the word coming out as a reedy squeak.

His joy was so contagious I couldn’t help smiling myself. Even the others, glancing uncertainly to me and one another, were looking at the very least hopeful that maybe it was smooth sailing from here on out.

It was not.

“Oh God, what if it doesn’t last?” he whined, twisting his hands together anxiously. “Oh God, it’s gone! The happiness is gone! What if it never comes back?! Now I feel bad! Ugh, why does it feel like I swallowed a bowling ball? And like somebody melon-balled out my heart?! That’s not fair, those feelings don’t even go together! Now I’m mad!” We all stood stupefied by the intensity and speed of his emotional 180. He rounded on us in a fury, charging towards no one in particular and raving about how society failed to teach men how to properly process their anger. The others clustered loosely together, safety in numbers after all, and I stepped toward him, laying a hand lightly on his arm and making a soft shushing motion with the other. He stopped when I touched him, chest heaving, jaw clenched, eying me hard. “Just take a deep breath,” I urged, taking care to keep my voice as calm as possible, demonstrating for him the long slow inhale through the nose, the long slow exhale through the mouth. “Try it,” I said when he looked doubtful, still practically panting but at my insistence he begrudgingly copied me, sucking in a huge lungful of air and puffing his cheeks out. We exhaled at the same time and repeated the exercise and I was relieved to note the tension draining out of the set of his shoulders and the forearm which I still had my hand curled loosely around.

“Better?” I asked. He grumbled something under his breath. All eyes turned in the same direction then as a door opened in the wall, emitting drifting mist that glowed faintly green. Lydia emerged from the murk, followed closely by the tall man who had run through after her, presumably her father. Both of them stopped dead, faces freezing into nearly identical masks of confusion as they took in the scene before them: Delia and the Maitlands huddled, Otho hiding behind them, while Beetlejuice and I stood together in ostentatious red wedding apparel. “What the hell?” said Lydia, her father too befuddled to reprimand her for the swear. The door swung silently closed of its own accord behind them, awkward silence filling the room until I cleared my throat. “Are you Charles Deetz?” I asked. Charles Deetz nodded mutely. I raised my hand in a half-hearted wave. “Hi. I’m your neighbor. I brought your mail.”

Delia raced forward then to Charles and Lydia, flinging her arms around them while the Maitlands kept their distance for the time being, turning their attention to myself. “What’re you gonna do now?” Barbara asked, trying not to make it obvious that she was talking about the now no-longer-dead demon standing next to me. I raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t even stopped long enough yet to think about what would happen now. “I… have absolutely no idea,” I admitted, turning to see that Lydia had pried herself free from Delia and had marched over to Beetlejuice. She stopped right in front of him, glaring defiantly, arms crossed over her chest. “That was a crappy stunt you pulled,” she said matter of factly. Beetlejuice, unimpressed by her demeanor, held his ground. “Don’t gimme that, half pint. You started it!” he growled back. Lydia’s glower faltered, replaced with total incomprehension. “What? What are you talking about?” Beetlejuice pointed triumphantly, nearly poking her in the face as he said, “See! There you go again!” She batted his hand away and considering his shaky handle on the whole emotions thing, I thought it best to intervene before things got out of control. I looped my arm through Beetlejuice’s and steered him purposefully away from the irate teen and towards the door. “Come on, honey, we don’t want to overstay our welcome.” Charles and Delia, who’d been cooing and fussing at one another, seemed to remember their unexpected guest at that point and called after me. “Wait!” Charles began, bringing himself up short, unsure of what to say. “Will you… be all right?” He shot a quick glance at Beetlejuice as if to add “with him?” I felt Beetlejuice tensing again next to me, leaning into him and laying my other hand against his bicep. “We’ll be just fine. It was, er… very nice to meet you all!”

With that, I opened the front door and walked out with a husband in tow. As we descended the steps, from inside I heard someone, it sounded like Delia, shout, “Congratulations!”

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Ah, weddings. Tears, emotions, full blown meltdowns and threats of physical violence... 

Thanks for reading! Up next, domestic bliss with the Juice man! PFT!

If you’d like to be tagged, gimme a shout!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

The faces around you, the men around you, were not familiar. There was no uniformity to them, they were a hodgepodge of ethnicities and styles of dress and builds. Most appeared intrigued by you, some were leering meanly, elbowing their neighbors to share muttered words that drew ugly laughter from those in earshot. All, you noticed, bore numerous weapons on his person, leaving you at a distinct disadvantage. Last of all your eyes fell on the bulky form closest to you, kneeling at your side and dripping wet just as you were; it could only be him who had pulled you from the water. He wore black from head to toe, wool breeches tucked into worn boots of black leather, his dark tunic plastered to his body and exhibiting his impressive physique. “Ah,” he said congenially. “Still among the living, volchitsa. You are a tough one, no?”

His voice was deep, rumbling from far down in his broad chest, heavily accented, but his English was fluid enough to suggest long practice and easy familiarity. At his light, teasing tone there was a ripple of laughter from the men around the two of you. You raised your head with deliberate slowness, meeting his eyes in a defiant glare. It was him, of course it was. Prizrak, “The Ghost”. Zhuk stared right back, seeming unbothered and even amused by your contemptuous expression. You sized one another up, this was the first time you’d ever been in such close contact. His skin was pale, almost gray, his chin and jaw and cheek bones dusted with stubble. His eyes were a deep emerald, so dark they appeared black at first glance. A scar bisected his left brow. His sodden hair, swept straight back from his forehead, looked green as well, but it must have been a trick of the light. As if reading the confused expression on your face, his shoulders bounced gently as he chuckled. “Taking it all in, I see. You’ve made quite a mess, volchitsa. Just look at what you’ve done to my ship.”

Zhuk rose easily to his feet, gesturing up over your heads. You stood on wobbly legs, willing with every ounce of resolve you possessed to keep your trembling knees from buckling under you as your gaze followed his gesture. Torn sails, splintered wood and snapped rigging hung down from the masts like Spanish moss, your work, of course, and you felt a surge of fierce pride but said nothing. Zhuk waved one of his men forward to report on the damage, speaking in rapid Russian as though you weren’t even there. As their conversation continued a loud, low rumbling from behind you caught your attention and you turned to look, crying out in alarm and backing hastily away as the face of the sea monster appeared at the rail.

When your eyes met, it’s pupils contracted into dangerous slits, recognition burning in the sickly yellow orbs. Its hide was mottled with angry red burns, and you reflected on it’s predatory speed as it feasted on your men. You swallowed hard, wondering if you would now meet the same fate. “Now, now, none of that,” Zhuk called, sounding like a patient parent scolding an ill-behaved child as he turned to see the beast rearing over the side of his ship. “She only just got here, but I understand your feelings. Come, drakon, let me see.” Still growling at you with thin lips drawn back over teeth like ivory daggers, the sea serpent did as he said. Your eyes widened in disbelief as the monster that broke your ship in half laid its enormous head in Zhuk’s arms while he carefully examined the wounds he could reach. It was like watching a loyal pet with its master, except the pet was a vicious sea serpent and the master a notorious pirate. He was even crooning to it in his native language. “Well done, moy drug. Go on now, back to your home. Rest and heal,” he said to it, pushing its head away with teasing fondness. It withdrew obediently, pausing long enough to snarl at you once more before slipping down the side of the ship and disappearing into the water without so much as a ripple.

You stood in stunned stillness, chest heaving slightly as the crew began setting to work clearing rubble off the deck. Zhuk was again speaking in Russian to one of the men, his bosun, perhaps, but only you seemed at all affected by the bizarre interaction that had just taken place. All at once you made a realization, and the shock of it made you gasp. “It was you!” you rasped, rounding on him. “You sent that beast after my ship!” All movement stopped, every man frozen in place as all glanced apprehensively between you and their captain. Zhuk said nothing, unmoved in the face of your furious accusation. His expression was inscrutable, but when he spoke again it was with the same judicious tone as before. “You and I need to have a little discussion, volchitsa, but this is not the time nor the place.” Zhuk turned back to his crewman. “Bosun, show our guest to her stateroom.”

With that he turned away as the crew resumed their duties and got repairs underway. The man he’d spoken to in Russian, the one you had correctly assumed to be his bosun, moved to stand at your elbow and gestured you forward towards the doorway that led below deck.

[TBC]

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[Translations: “Breathe, sweet thing. You must breathe.” “That’s it, come back now. Breathe for me.” If they’re wrong it’s all Google’s fault.]

I’m not telling yet what volchitsa is, but ya’ll can probably figure it out.

If you’d like to be tagged in upcoming chapters (??) let me know!