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It’s cute, really, that they thought he wouldn’t notice them scheming to bathe him.
It’s not that he can’t smell - well, maybe a little, after so many years of smelling the same way - but Betelgeuse doesn’t think it’s as bad as they say. Certainly not bad enough that it could warrant a bath, of all things.
It’s dirt, cigarettes, maybe a touch of mildew, and it’s him. Curled up in the corner under Lydia’s bed, as far from the edges as he can get, it’s a comfort to Betelgeuse.
Of course, Charles is looking for him. He’d drawn the short straw between himself, Delia, and the Maitlands on the question of “who will make Betelgeuse take a bath?”
It’s not that Betelgeuse likes to be dirty, but it’s all he knows after centuries. And his last encounters with water hadn’t been so pleasant. More recently, Delia and Barbara sometimes sprayed him with water like a cat, which was bad enough. A bath? God slash Satan forbid it.
“BJ…” Charles isn’t in Lydia’s room yet. Lydia is at school, so she isn’t going to rat him out; if Betelgeuse thought she was, he would’ve gone to the basement. He nibbles on the nail of his left pointer finger to try and calm his nerves, but it only hurts because he’s already chewed it down to the quick.
Charles moves further down the hallway, and Betelgeuse takes the opportunity to shift himself. Big mistake. He takes a gulp of air he doesn’t need as Lydia’s bed squeaks loudly above him. Charles’s footsteps are backtracking now.
Betelgeuse bites his hand, hard. The footsteps are close now, so close.
What do you think other people think of you, Lawrence, walking around caked in dirt?
“BJ? I know you’re in here somewhere. Please come out.” Charles’s voice is… soft, sort of. Betelgeuse weighs his options. He’s too nervous to zap himself out, and running seems like a bad idea.
Charles has never hurt him - no one in the house has, after that shitty sham wedding, even though they were undoubtedly mad at him. Betelgeuse’s hand bleeds as he hauls himself towards the bedskirt. Charles’s feet are visible through the sheer fabric, just barely inside the room.
If you don’t get in there, I’ll make you get in there, don’t test me, Lawrence.
“Sorry, Chuck,” he mumbles, finally crawling out from under the bed and leaning his chin on his elbows. His legs are still beneath the bed. Ectoplasmic blood seeps slowly from the bite mark on his hand.
Charles isn’t good with feelings, or anything resembling emotions. Betelgeuse knows this as well as everyone else in the house.
So Charles’s gentle, pitying look is something that almost scares him back under the bed.
I’m sorry, Lawrence, but if you weren’t so difficult, this would be so much easier.
I know, ma. I’m sorry, ma.
“Are you… alright?” Charles cautions. It’s so unlike Juno that it nearly startles Betelgeuse out of his anxiety. “Your hair, it’s… it’s purple.”
“Means I’m upset.”
“Ah.” Charles hesitates, then steps further into the room, slowly, as though he’s approaching a timid animal. When Betelgeuse doesn’t bolt back under the bed, he makes his way to the center of the room and sits on Lydia’s rug, about a yard away from Betelgeuse. He’s silent, and fidgety.
Different than Juno, then. She’d talk to - no, at him, stock still. Completely the opposite of Charles.
“...Will you let me bandage your hand?” It’s definitely not the question Betelgeuse is expecting. Instead of answering verbally, though, he pulls said hand back towards his body and holds it close.
His eyes, flickering across Charles’s face, ask What do you want from me in return?
“Are you upset because you knew we wanted to talk to you about, er, hygiene?” Charles flounders a bit, tugging at the neck of his tee shirt - it’s his rare day off.
Betelgeuse blinks. His mouth is so, so dry. He feels like his throat will bleed if he tries to speak. His mouth opens and closes. Finally, raspy: “T-talk about?”
He had pictured being forced into scalding water. He had pictured being held under the faucet, running hot enough to burn. Stop being so difficult, Lawrence.
Charles looks confused. “Well, obviously you have some… issues… with hygiene and such. Delia believes talking about it would be healthiest to begin with. Obviously we,” he laughs awkwardly, “we aren’t going to force you into the shower or anything!”
“Y’aren’t?” Charles’s face visibly falls, and Betelgeuse flinches. “M’sorry, m’sorry.”
Would you stop asking stupid questions, and just do what I ask of you, Lawrence? For once in your goddamned miserable afterlife?
Charles grimaces a bit. “You thought we…?”
“Happened b’fore.” Betelgeuse replies, burying his face in his sleeves. They smell dusty now, from having spent the morning under Lydia’s bed. “I don’t. I don’t like bein’ dirty, Chuck.”
“Can… can you walk me through why you don’t want to bathe, then?” It seems like something Delia would say. Good to know her little emotion coaching is working on her husband.
Betelgeuse wipes his nose, smearing blood from the bite on his hand on his face. Charles winces. “Didn’t. Didn’t like to bathe as a kid. Ma didn’t like that.” Charles nods, and seems to be waiting for him to continue, so he does. “She’d make the water too hot and I’d get burned and then she’d scrub me too hard and the washcloths hurt...”
He’s working himself up, his nails are bleeding from biting them. When did he start chewing on his nails. Charles, gently, with a nervous look, pulls them from his mouth, making a bit of a face when he feels all of the spit on the demon’s hands.
“Beetlejuice,” Charles says, serious as he can muster while ignoring the spit and blood dripping onto Lydia’s carpet. “We aren’t going to make you do anything you do want to do. Okay?”
Betelgeuse nods, sniffling a bit.
“Your safety and comfort is more important to us than… your, er, smell. We would certainly appreciate it if you took better care of yourself - for your sake and for the sake of our collective noses -” Betelgeuse laughs a bit at that. “But if the idea of bathing is going to send you into a panic attack like this, and make you hurt yourself, we… well, we don’t want that, obviously.”
Betelgeuse nods, then wrestles one of his hands from Charles. Unfortunately, it’s the one that isn’t bloody. “Promise?” He holds out just his pinky finger. “Lyds told me you can’t break a pinky promise.”
Charles extends his own pinky, reluctantly because of the spit. “Promise.”