Work Text:
Beetlejuice groaned and opened his eyes. His head ached, the rest of him ached, and he really wanted to rip his left arm off at the shoulder and toss it in a dumpster. Worse still, this wasn’t even the sort of ache you got after a really fun party, the type that started with large quantities of suspicious alcohol and ended with people diving out windows to escape the police raid. No, this sort of ache was the one you got after you did something stupid, something you knew was stupid before you tried it, and then you had exactly how stupid it was rammed home by the uncaring bitch called physics.
Pro tip: In a fight, the ground always wins.
He groaned again and went to sit up, only to let out a hiss of pain as he tried to move his left arm. “Shit shit shit…”
One of his ears twitched as he heard someone approaching the door. Lydia’s door. He’d forgotten that he was in her room, not his. No locks on the door. No locks and here he was, in her bed, looking like (and he was quoting here), ‘chubby undead Link.’ A shirtless, unglamored, undead elf. He swore again, only this time with feeling. “Shit!”
The doorknob started to turn and he held it in place with a snap of his fingers. There was a pause, then Charles’s voice, “Oh, you’re awake. That’s good. Is it alright if I come in? I have fresh ice packs for your arm, and more aspirin.”
Um what?
He glanced down to his shoulder and splinted arm, over which were two packages wrapped in damp towels. They felt cool, and some of the coolness had seeped through the layers of towels and reached the sorest part of his arm. It took a few seconds for him to remember exactly what had happened; he'd been a bit loopy after that final impact. He'd gotten hurt so he brought them home, Lydia had gone behind his back and texted her dad, Chuck had come running like he expected a bomb or something, and… and hadn't blown a gasket when he saw Beetlejuice without the glamor.
What the actual fuck?
Surprise was accompanied by a rush of dizziness, and he lost his hold on the door knob. Charles must've taken that as permission, because he opened the door a moment later. Beetlejuice tensed. Hurt, low on juice, in someone else's bed… he was in a uniquely vulnerable position and every self-preservation instinct screamed at him to hide. He didn't get a chance.
"Glad to see you're awake," Charles said, coming over and setting down a glass of water, two pills, and two more towel-wrapped lumps, on the night stand.
"Why?" Beetlejuice asked, trying to figure out how to sit up without having to actually move. Gods/Satan but he was stiff, and not in the usual way he’d use the word. But his throat felt like someone had stuffed cotton down it and lit the whole mess on fire, and nothing he could remember looked as good as that cup of water.
He was stunned when Charles helped without being asked, getting him sitting mostly upright and using another pillow to prop him up. The motions seemed… automatic, and the touch was gentle. Like he wasn’t laying bare hands on a nasty piece of scarred up demonspawn. Beetlejuice almost fumbled the glass when Charles handed it to him, but managed to keep hold.
"We were starting to get a bit worried,” Charles told him, replacing the two old icepacks with the new ones. “You've been out for nearly six hours."
He choked on the water and started coughing, discovering a new sort of pain when the motion forced him to move his bad shoulder. Charles quickly rescued the cup, holding it until Beetlejuice got the coughing under control. “Six hours?” he croaked when he could breathe again. He glanced to the window and saw that the light was indeed the deep gold of late afternoon or early evening. He never slept six hours straight in an unsecured room, not ever.
“You woke up a little each time Lydia or I checked on you, but yes,” Charles confirmed. “We figured you must’ve needed it. Lydia told me you’d been using a lot of magic—” he said magic the way he always did, as if he couldn’t believe an upstanding man of modern science had actually formed the word and spoken it aloud, “—and that, plus the break, wore you out. On that note, you should take the aspirin.”
That made sense, but still. Six hours. Holy smokes.
Charles waited until Beetlejuice had swallowed the pills (as if they’d actually help), before speaking again. He sounded awkward and tentative, which was just weird coming from Charles ‘I jumped into Hell to rescue my goth daughter’ Deetz. “Do you have enough magic to put your, ah, glamor back on?”
There it was. Hadn’t taken long at all. Waiting for the inevitable request had been like sitting on an anthill: increasingly uncomfortable and painful the longer it went on. It was almost a relief to hear it. At least Chuck was more polite than most humans. There hadn’t been any un-funny screams or waving of holy items. That was a plus. Even so, the contrary part of him (which was a large part), couldn’t help but try to needle the oh-so calm and always professional Charles. He smirked.
“Probably. Why?” He ran claws through his hair and pretended to flip it like a flirtatious beauty queen. “My real face too hot to handle? Can’t blame you. I’m a snack.”
Charles just gave him the look. Beetlejuice had no real way to describe the look. It was something only Charles and occasionally Barbara could do, and it was seriously OP. Just a few seconds of directed look would leave him squirming and beating a fast retreat. The long ones where he couldn’t escape had even led to apologizing, which was just sick and wrong. He was a demon. Demons didn’t apologize. But the look had some sort of evil, mind-bendy power beyond his comprehension, and he found himself squirming, as usual, beneath it.
“That is not the problem,” Charles said, and let up on the look, much to Beetlejuice's relief. “The Maitlands are downstairs with Lydia, and Delia is due back at any time. They all heard what happened and they’re all worried about you, so they’ll want to come check on you now you’re awake. But I know you’re uncomfortable without your glamor, and I didn’t want one of them to come in and see you without your permission.”
Oh. Oh. Well, now he felt like a douche. And he felt something else, a weird sort of tightness in his chest. They were worried about him? Swallowing down a strange lump in his throat, he looked away and said, “Um. I have enough, probably. Not enough to keep it while I’m asleep, though.”
“Alright, we can work with that.” He frowned, but not at Beetlejuice. “We could move you back to your room with the locks. That would do for Delia at least, and the Maitlands are too polite to come in without asking, but I don’t want you locked in if something happens.”
“I can teleport if the house catches on fire,” Beetlejuice reminded him.
“I was thinking more along the lines of you getting dizzy and hitting your head again, or rebreaking your arm.” The frown deepened, his brow furrowing as he thought. “Lydia thinks you might have a small concussion, as well as a broken arm, and that worries me. The Maitlands could get in and unlock the door if you couldn’t, but we’re still left with the original problem.”
Beetlejuice couldn’t help but stare. He’d known Charles for a couple of months now, and they were… cordial with each other. They could share the same room without breaking out weapons, have friendly discussions about movies and other light topics, exchange pleasantries over dinner, things like that. But this… this concern felt like it was coming out of nowhere. And, as usual, his mouth started talking without checking in with his brain first. “Why the fuck do you care, Chuck? It’s my problem, not yours. What’s it to you if they see me? And another thing, why do you care if I get hurt? I’m a demon. I’ll live, or you know, continue existing, or whatever. It’s no skin off your nose.”
Now Charles did frown at him, but it didn’t seem threatening. “Because your glamor obviously means a lot to you, BJ. Just because something doesn’t affect me personally doesn’t mean it’s not important. You have a right to feel comfortable and safe in this house, same as everyone else.”
You have a right to feel comfortable and safe.
A right? Since when had that been a right, and not something earned? Was it a human thing? Was that why they’d given him a room here and not objected when he’d put locks on the door? He’d been really confused about that, since Lydia didn’t have locks on her door, and neither did anyone else. But, now that he thought about it, they had made a big deal about him knocking or at least asking permission before entering someone’s room. Realization smacked him across the back of the head like a 2x4, and he felt like an idiot. They didn’t need locks because they didn’t expect to have to defend themselves from each other. He’d been here for months and he’d never connected the dots before.
Maybe it was the way Charles said it. Lydia had told him things like that before, especially after she’d spent time with that shrink of hers, but it was so… weird hearing it from Charles Deetz. Charles always talked a little like some Shakespearian actor, as if the words were carefully measured before he spoke, so when they came out they had weight to them. Like they might be carved into a granite block for posterity. Like they were real.
Like he meant it.
“BJ? Beetlejuice?” A pause, then, “Lawrence?”
The sound of his first name woke him up from the weird funk he’d fallen into, and he realized he must’ve been just staring at Charles again like some idiot. Charles still looked concerned. He wasn’t frowning anymore, but the lines between his eyebrows were still there and deep as two canyons. “Are you alright?” He leaned over and put his hand against Beetlejuice’s forehead. It felt as warm as the icepacks were cool, and weirdly just as soothing. “You don’t feel as if you have a temperature, though it’s hard to tell with you.”
“I’m fine. I’m just tired,” he mumbled. He felt his eyelids fall shut and he leaned into the hand, unable to help it. Sheesh, Lyds was right, I am a touch-starved degenerate. And, on top of everything else that hurt, his eyes were starting to sting. Great. He’d injured his eyes and now he’d probably start weeping blood. Good thing Lydia had black satin sheets. Bloodstains wouldn’t show up.
“Alright. Lydia and I will figure something out, so don’t worry about it.”
What right did he have, making his voice all soft and gentle like that? Beetlejuice did not know how to handle this. Normally, he’d crack a dirty joke to lighten up the tension, but he couldn’t find anything to say right now. Maybe he really was sick. Maybe he was dying. His chest felt tight, with tiny pains that ran out almost to the tips of his fingers, and it was hard to get the air he suddenly needed. It felt almost like being stabbed with bad art.
He felt a tremor run through him and he leaned harder against the hand. “You know, you don’t have to be nice to me because I look younger than I am.” He must’ve hurt his throat too because his voice sounded all hollow and pathetic. Juno would’ve kicked his ass if she’d heard him talk in that squeaky, crackly voice. “I’m still a demon. I’m over a fifteen hundred years old. I’m all grown up and everything.”
“You looking younger has nothing to do with me being nice,” Charles told him, still sounding terribly gentle. “But I am sorry that it took you getting hurt for me to kinder to you. You’re a member of the family, for good or ill, and I should’ve treated you like one before now.”
Something in him cracked, then broke, and the tears spilled out. God/Satan, but it was humiliating. And then it got worse, because Charles sat down on the bed and pulled him, very carefully so his broken arm didn’t get jostled, into a hug.
He’d never been hugged like this. Lydia hugged him quite a bit now, for all sorts of different reasons, and that was awesome. Hugging Lydia was a little like having a feral cat love you and hiss at everyone else. He loved Lydia hugs. This was different. Maybe it was the size difference, but a Charles type hug felt like being wrapped up in a warm blanket. He felt… protected? Was that the word? It was almost like when he’d been given a room in the house and told it was his, a place he could call his own where he could retreat to whenever he needed— but better.
Safe.
That was the word. He felt safe. And it was another punch in the gut to realize this was the feeling he’d been chasing his entire childhood, and had all but given up on. He felt a sob claw its way out of his throat, despite his best effort to keep it in.
“It’s alright, Lawrence,” Charles said, voice rumbling in his chest. A gentle hand rubbed his back. "Everything will be alright."
He didn’t have much of a choice about crying after that. Pressing his face into Charles’s shoulder, he sobbed. It hurt in more ways than one, but he couldn’t stop. It was so pathetic. He was so pathetic. The truth was he was nothing but a bunch of broken pieces haphazardly reassembled and glued into a rough demon shape. Toss a little bit of kindness his way and suddenly he couldn’t keep it together.
Sitting there, hurting inside and out, he fell apart. And Charles let him. Didn’t say a word beyond some comforting nonsense, didn’t pull away, just held onto him.
Once, he thought he heard someone at the door and a sharp word from Charles, but he wasn’t sure. Honestly, it didn’t matter to him. He knew, vaguely, that it probably should matter, but he just couldn’t seem to focus.
Eventually, the flood slowed to a trickle, and he was reduced to sniffles and wet coughs. His head ached worse than a three day binger, his throat hurt, his eyes felt puffy and burned, and he was getting enough brain power back to start feeling embarrassed. Charles shifted and looked down at him, smoothing back some hair that had gotten stuck on his face. He’d seen him do that to Lydia. It felt weird, but good, to be on the receiving end of such a tender gesture. “Feeling better?” Charles asked.
Beetlejuice tried to shrug, then winced, remembering that he had a bruised shoulder and broken arm. “Dunno,” he croaked finally. “Maybe.” He glanced at Charles’s shirt, or what was left of it, and winced again. Not only was there a big wet spot, but there were holes where he’d been unconsciously clinging to it and his claws had gone right through the fabric. “Sorry.”
“It’s not a problem,” Charles said firmly. “Here, lie back down, keep taking deep breaths. I’m going to go get you another glass of water and a washcloth. That will help.” He was talking like Beetlejuice was a scared kid, not a full grown demon, but Beetlejuice couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed. And he didn’t fight when Charles laid him back on the pillows, replaced the cold packs, and all but tucked him in. “Be right back.”
He closed his eyes and tried to breathe like he’d been told, though it was hard through his stuffed up nose. If crying wasn’t bad enough, the aftermath was awful. His ear twitched again, cueing him to the fact there was someone outside the door. Man, he missed his ears when he had to make them breather shaped. He had no idea how humans managed. It was so much harder to hear, and there was no way to pinpoint exactly where a sound came from. He sat up on his good elbow, ears perked when he heard voices.
“Everything’s fine. He’s just feeling a little ill. Broken bones can do that sometimes.”
“Are you sure you don’t need some help? You were in there a long time. I can take over for a while if you need. I helped Adam when he broke his leg, and I’ve had a few breaks of my own.” That was Barbara’s voice. Shit. Frantically, he tried to reinstate his glamor, but the power fizzled on him. He was too tired and emotionally drained to summon anything, not even enough to cover the scars, which was the easiest, and most crucial, part to do. She was going to phase in through the door and see him like this. Logic flew out the window and made room for panic to run circles inside his skull, screaming bloody murder. She was going to see him.
The panic paused its mad dash when Charles spoke next.
“No, that’s alright. Tell Delia I’ll be down to see her in a little bit.”
“Lydia’s worried, and Delia's going to be in a tizzy when she gets home and hears what happened”
“I’m sure Lydia is worried, but everything’s fine. I’ve got things under control, and I'll explain everything to Delia.” There was a beat, then Charles said again, with an undercurrent of steel in his voice, “I’ve got this.”
“O-Okay.” Barbara seemed taken aback by his tone. “I’ll let everyone know. Should… Should I bring up dinner when it’s done?”
“I’ll see if he’s feeling up to it.” Charles waited for what seemed a long time before he opened the door, apparently waiting for Barbara to leave. He shut it firmly after him, then approached Beetlejuice. “Drink all this, it will help with the headache and sore throat,” he said, once again helping him to sit up and handing him a glass of water. Beetlejuice obeyed and it did help ease the headache, so did the tissues.
“I feel like an idiot,” he muttered, blowing his nose.
“Why? For crying?” Charles seemed surprised. When Beetlejuice nodded, he closed his eyes for a moment and there was a brief flicker of pain at the corners of his mouth and eyes. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone cries, BJ. ”
“Demons don’t.”
“Well, they obviously must, because you just did.”
Hard to argue with that. He did try to protest when Charles used a damp washcloth on his face as if he were a two year old though. “Hey! I’m not a baby.”
“I’m well aware. Trust me though, nothing itches like dried salt in your beard.”
Beetlejuice let that sink in for a second. He was normally slow on the uptake, but maybe blowing all that snot out of his head had made some room for thinking, and he caught the implication. His eyes flicked up to Charles’s, and the other man gave him a small smile. “Here. This one is for your eyes.” He handed Beetlejuice another washcloth, this one having obviously been run under cold water. “Are you feeling hungry? Lydia’s making chicken noodle soup. One of Emily’s recipes.”
“Um… a little? I guess.”
“Will you be alright on your own for a bit?”
He shifted uncomfortably, but nodded. He could use a few minutes alone to sort out his stupid emotions.
“Lydia will be up here with dinner in a half hour or so, but call if you need us before then.”
He nodded, throat tight, but managed to croak out, “Thanks,” before Charles had completely left the room.
Charles gave him a smile and said, “My pleasure.” before closing the door.
Beetlejuice put the cold washcloth over his sore eyes and, after a few minutes, realized that he felt… okay. Sure, his body still ached, but he felt surprisingly good. He wasn’t sure what this was, but he thought he might be okay to take another nap and not worry about someone coming in. Not with defenders like Lydia and Charles keeping watch for him.
Lydia and Charles. There was an odd thought, but it was a nice one. A really nice one. It hadn’t been the most relaxing day, but as he drifted off, he found that he was smiling anyway.