Chapter Text
“Lilac, gold, and cream,” Delia said confidently. She laid out the color samples like a poker player laying out a straight flush.
“No way,” Lydia retorted. “Black, black, black.” Everyone around the table stared at her. She rolled her eyes and conceded, “Fine. Black, black, and purple.”
“Personally,” Beetlejuice said from his position hovering over the table, “I find black and white the most tasteful color combo. It goes with everything. You can’t go wrong! Plus, it’ll be simple for me to redo the whole venue for you.”
“That is a good point,” Barbara conceded. “Cost saving is important for a wedding.”
“Our wedding was sage green, silver, and white,” Adam said, smiling dreamily at Barbara, who smiled back. Above them, Beetlejuice fluttered his eyelashes and made a kissy face while Lydia pretended to gag.
“Silver and white would be pretty too,” Delia said perkily, sorting through the pile of color samples.
“You could go totally crazy! Mauve and razzmatazz!” Lydia’s eyes began to gleam.
“Zaffre and tangerine,” Beetlejuice agreed.
“Maroon and puce,” Lydia challenged.
“What color is puce?” Adam asked. No one had an answer as Lydia and Beetlejuice picked up speed, spitting out random colors like a mobster with their first tommy gun and a fresh clip of ammo. As they did, the appropriate color samples appeared on the table, courtesy of Beetlejuice’s magic, though he didn’t seem to be aware he was doing it.
“Rose and gingerline!”
“Heliotrope and incarnadine. With a spritzer of sea foam green!”
“Yellow and chartreuse!”
“Indigo and mustard brown!”
“Red, white, and blue. Be patriotic.”
“Blood red and black. Be vampiric.”
“Fuck it! Do the rainbow!"
There was a small noise behind them, a tiny cough like a mouse that had accidentally walked into a room full of cats. They all looked and remembered that Charles was there too. It was the first sound he’d made since they’d started arguing colors. He was staring at the samples with a look of combined confusion and discomfort.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Delia said, hands flying to her mouth. “We didn’t mean to shut you out of the conversation. This is your wedding too! Your input is valued and important!”
Charles blinked, coming out of whatever daze he’d gone into, and shook his head. “No… it’s alright. I trust you to pick good colors for us both.”
“No no no!” Delia cried, leaping up from her seat and hurrying over to her fiancé, taking one of his hands in hers. “You are a partner in this, uh, partnership! We have to work together!”
He looked up at her, then at the mess of color samples, then back up to her. “It’s really okay. I don’t care about colors.” He gave a little laugh without much humor in it. “They all look the same to me.”
“Don’t be silly, Charles,” she laughed, patting his shoulder now. “All colors have their unique meanings and energy!”
“No, I really mean it,” he said, a little more forcefully. Delia’s eyes narrowed, her lips pursing. Like crystals, color was high on her spirituality/energy list.
Lydia decided to take pity on her father and stop the fight before it started. “Delia, just fyi, Dad’s colorblind. Didn't he tell you?"
By the stunned look on Delia’s face, the answer was a big fat no.
Charles, meanwhile, nodded sheepishly.
“Oh Charles, I’m sorry,” Barbara said, suddenly contrite. “All those times I asked for your opinion about the wallpaper and paint…”
“It’s fine,” Charles said quickly, waving his hand as if trying to bring down the energy in the room. The tips of his ears were a little red. “I just have red-green colorblindness. It’s quite common. I can still see red if it’s very bright, but usually, I see it as yellow or green or brown. For example,” and here he gave Beetlejuice a small smile, “I can’t spot a lot of difference in the samples, but I can see BJ’s hair when he throws a temper tantrum.”
Beetlejuice summoned a hat so he could tip it. “Glad to be of service, Chuck.”
Delia regarded her fiancé for a long moment, then asked, very slowly, “Charles… what color is my hair?”
Charles gave her a blank look. Like any man who had been in a long-term relationship, he recognized a potential trap when he heard it. “Um… it’s a lovely color?” When Delia kept staring at him, he shifted uncomfortably, then tried, “Brown?” He saw the looks on everyone else’s faces and immediately knew his error. “Oh. It’s red, isn’t it?” He shrank down in his chair. “I’m sorry, dear.”
Delia seemed to realize the terrifying aura she was emitting and quickly kissed Charles on the cheek. “No no no, nothing to be sorry about. It’s fine! I just learned something new about you, that’s all.” Bravely rallying, she gave him her best smile. “We’ll choose colors you can see too! Blue and green and yellow are wonderful colors! They have bright and naturalistic energy. Just the sort of colors we want.”
“Green’s a great color!” Adam agreed, grinning and giving his green flannel shirt a little tug.
Barbara looked at him, a little hesitantly. “You’re not colorblind, are you, Adam?”
Her husband laughed. “And if I said yes, what would you do?” He widened his eyes in mock horror. “Don’t tell me your hair is red too!”
She scrunched her nose at him and smacked his shoulder playfully.
“If it makes you sad humans feel better, you’re all freaking colorblind to me,” Beetlejuice said, examining his fingernails as he lounged midair, bobbing a little in the breeze from the AC. “I mean, you see, what? One color spectrum?”
Lydia squinted suspiciously up at him. “And you see more?”
“Duh. I’m a demon. I am so above you mortals. You should see your hair from my perspective.”
“It’s black.”
“Sure kid.”
“I don’t dye it.”
“I know.”
He waited, patient as a cat at a mousehole while she stewed and everyone else tried different variations of blue, green, and yellow. Lydia made it five whole minutes before she broke. “Fine!” she snapped, throwing down samples of azure and evergreen. “What color is it in demonese?”
“What color is what?” Beetlejuice asked innocently.
“My hair! What color is my hair?”
Floating over, he examined her hair, then regarded her with great concern, brows knitting together. “Black, Lyds. It's black. Are you alright? What other color— OOOF!” Lydia had thrown herself across his middle, knocking the breath completely from him. It was also enough to weigh him down, apparently, as they both hit the ground with a thud a second later. It wasn’t enough to dampen their spirits though, as they almost immediately began to playfully wrestle across the floor like two toddlers. Barbara and Adam seemed amused by their antics, levitating up out of the way, and Delia was content to ignore them, but Charles grew visibly annoyed as their play fighting got more intense.
“Lydia, BJ!” he scolded as they bumped the table.
“Sorry!” they chorused, trying to redirect themselves but hitting the table even harder by accident. Color samples rained down on them as Lydia got BJ into an armlock, only to have him sprout two more arms to tickle her into letting go.
“You cheating demon scum!”
“You two, knock it off!” Charles ordered, very nearly a shout, and the two froze in surprise. He noticed the stares he was getting and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I’m just a little tired. I’d like to get these colors picked so we can move on to whatever is next in the process. Lydia, BJ, could you both please focus for a little while longer?”
“Yeah, Dad, sorry.”
“Sure Chuck.” BJ kept his eyes on Charles as Lydia reseated herself. He was frowning a little, head tilted slightly. He kept watching Charles as they finally settled on a color scheme and moved on to decorations. Charles, for his part, didn’t seem to notice the scrutiny. Now that the color problem was out of the way, he was much more enthusiastic about the process, in part to keep his beloved fiancée from going overboard in the budget department. Everyone was bit surprised, then, when he excused himself earlier than expected.
“I’m feeling extra tired,” he explained, chagrinned. “I’m sorry, Delia. Can we resume this tomorrow morning? It’s my day off, so we can spend the whole day together. Maybe do some shopping?”
She lit up. “That sounds wonderful!”
“Sounds boring,” Beetlejuice said. “I can just juice up whatever you two need, you know. I’ve got a ton more magic to work with than I did when I first got here, and I redid this whole house on a near empty tank.”
“I thought you said you need to know exactly what you’re making before you can create it,” Barbara said, a teasing light in her eye. “So wouldn’t you have to go look at wedding stuff anyway?”
“I’ve seen weddings before,” he retorted. “Thousands of weddings. Probably millions! They’re all the same. Flowers, balloons, ribbons, and tablecloths. Poof! All done.”
Lydia smirked. “Question is, doofus, can you make them without stripes?”
Beetlejuice’s face went blank. “Uh… Probably?” He eyed some of the open wedding catalogs, then snapped his fingers. A floral centerpiece appeared on the table… with flowers, ribbons, and basket striped in black and white. Scowling, he snapped his fingers again. The centerpiece changed to a new one, but still in black and white stripes. A third snap, a third centerpiece, and a third set of stripes. The final and fourth time was the worst try of all. It looked like someone had photoshopped referee stripes overtop of the whole thing. Lydia had to poke it to prove it was real.
“Dude, it’s like one of those mirage paint jobs,” she said, a little impressed. Her friend was less than pleased.
“Shit. I mean, I can do it! I just need to practice.” He glanced quickly at Charles, then brightened and held up a finger as a literal lightbulb appeared over his head. “Or! New idea! Or I can just steal someone else’s wedding stuff and bring it here!”
“No stealing!” all the adults said as one, which made him recoil.
“Satan’s balls, that’s creepy! Are you lot possessed?”
“No, we’re grown ups,” Adam corrected. “With morals.”
“Gross,” the two children (if a teenager and fifteen hundred year old demon can count as such) said, then, “Jinks!” (Which proves they do count.)
Charles chuckled as he left the kitchen. “Remind me never to let either of you go into business college. Maxie Dean can’t take the competition.”
Beetlejuice looked at Lydia in pretend shock, “Chuck thinks you’re smart enough to get into college?”
“Shut up. Not all of us need to count on our fingers.”
“You only say that because you can’t grow enough arms to do it properly,” he sniffed, but even as he teased Lydia, he glanced again at the door Charles had left by.
The next week went by as it usually did, though a bit busier than usual. Wedding planning was in full swing and the house was bustling. Charles and Delia had a date set for mid-August, a little more than a month away, and neither one of them wanted anything to go wrong. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, since Charles was of an organizational mindset and Delia had enough perseverance to chip down a mountain with a nail file, but that was before they lived in a haunted house and Lydia befriended a literal demon of chaos. There was one exception to the normalcy of the week, however, and that was the chaos demon himself. Most of the family didn’t notice it, but the demon was always around Charles whenever possible. When Lydia, the only one who noticed the weird behavior, confronted him, he deflected and, when pressed, used a glitter bomb to escape questioning.
It all came to a head exactly a week later, when Charles came down the stairs looking like he got hit by a bus on his way to the bathroom. “Are you alright?” Barbara asked.
“I feel tired,” Charles admitted. “I slept fine, but I just can’t get my energy up.”
“Maybe a good meal will help. Adam’s making waffles.”
He looked at the door, then shook his head. “I think I’ll just have some coffee. I’m not really hungry.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He gave her a wan smile and went into the kitchen for his cup of coffee. He stopped in the doorway when he saw Lydia and Beetlejuice seated on the ceiling, her peeling bananas and him slicing them, then dropping the slices into a bowl on the table. “Do I want to know why?”
“It’s fun, Dad!” Lydia said, not looking ‘up.’
Sighing, Charles went to the coffee pot. Beetlejuice stopped in his slicing and sniffed the air, looking around frantically. His eyes landed on Charles and his whole body went stiff.
“Hey!” Lydia complained as BJ grabbed her and flipped her back upright, setting her on the table. He ignored her and floated over to Charles.
“Chuck? Hey Chuck? Charles?”
“Yes, BJ?” Charles asked, rubbing his forehead.
“You ain’t goin’ into work today, are ya?”
“I was planning on it, yes.”
“Wrong!”
Charles almost choked on his coffee as he found himself lifted off his feet. “Beetlejuice! What are you doing?”
“You’re staying home today, Chuck!” Beetlejuice said, with a malicious sort of cheer. He twitched his finger, levitating Charles out of the kitchen and into the living room, setting him down in his armchair. “You’re gonna relax.” A snap of his fingers and Charles was out of his suit and in a set of striped pajamas. “Ah, dammit. I was trying to make those blue. Sorry.”
“BJ! I can’t stay home! I have to go to work!”
Beetlejuice was suddenly in his face, hands braced on the arms of the chair as he leaned in close. His voice was a growl, “And that’s where you’re wrong, Chuckles. You’re staying home. If you don’t, I’m burning down your fucking office so you can't go to work. Got it?”
“BJ!” It was Delia’s turn to shout his name, having come in from her morning run. “That is the exact opposite of the calm flow I’ve been talking to you about!”
“D! Good timing!” He teleported over to her side and began waving her toward the kitchen.
Charles started to get up, but found himself stuck to the chair. “Lawrence Beetlejuice! Unstick me right now!”
“You ain’t the boss of me. Keep whining and I’ll change your coffee to decaf. Actually…” He snapped his fingers and Charles’s coffee mug was replaced with a teacup. “Drink that instead. It’s better for you. Got that straight from this little shop in China that does some freakin’ awesome herbals, and I mean the type of tea, not fun drugs.” He shoved Delia through the kitchen door and slammed it behind her, then vanished himself a few seconds later.
Grumbling, Charles took a sip of his tea. His eyebrows shot up and he looked down at the cup. Cautiously, he took another sip, then sighed and admitted, “Actually, this is pretty good.”
“Beej, what the actual fuck is going on?” Lydia demanded as Barbara was tossed down through the ceiling to join her and Adam. Beetlejuice dropped down after Barbara, then settled in a chair at the table. For once, he wasn’t hovering and his expression was completely sober.
“Look fam, we have a serious situation. I’ve been sensing something off for awhile, and it seemed to be centered around Chuck. Then today, when he walked in, I could smell death on him.”
Delia and Lydia both went white as sheets. The Maitlands grabbed each other’s hands and drew close.
“It’s not thick yet, but that’s why I made him stay home. I think…” Beetlejuice tapped the table with claws that had appeared without his realizing, unwilling to look at them. “I think he’s going to have a heart attack.”