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It was an uneventful winter evening when Lydia had gone down to the basement to search through the boxes of storage for the tin of replacement needles she needed for her record player. She knew she had spares but as the record player was originally her mother’s, there wasn’t a clear rhyme or reason as to which box it’d be in. When Emily died her father had shoved everything of hers into storage with the promise of dealing with it later and despite it being two years now since her death, the boxes remained untouched. Lydia wasn’t angry at that fact, at least not anymore, they talked about Mom frequently but the idea of getting rid of anything or even sorting through what once belonged to her wasn’t something either of them were keen on doing. The boxes of clothes were the most difficult as her mother’s scent still clung to the fabric and one whiff made tears fall from Lydia’s eyes like hot summer rain. Maybe one day she could go through everything and make rational decisions on what to keep but it wasn’t anytime soon.
Lydia was still digging in hopes that she’d eventually find what she was looking for and wouldn’t have to resort to ordering spares online when a loud cracking sound emanated from behind her. The brunette quickly flipped around to see what the source was and was met with a shocking sight.
The floor length mirror that used to be in the guest room in Lydia’s old house was now nothing more than an empty wooden frame as the glass that had once been mounted in it was lying all over the cement floor in glittering shards. That however was not the shocking part, what was shocking was the being laying face down in an unmoving pile in the wreckage. There was no question as to the identity of the intruder, as the worn black and white striped suit plainly gave it away, but it did nothing to answer why he was here.
It had been almost two years since she last saw Beetlejuice waltz out the hole in her living room wall; why he decided to reappear out of the blue Lydia had no clue.
“Can’t help making an entrance, huh?” the young woman teased as she folded her arms with a smile.
The lump on the floor didn’t answer or move.
That was odd?
Lydia hadn’t spent a whole hell of a lot of time with Beetlejuice before he departed but she had felt she’d understood him fairly well. It was a strange sort of companionship they’d formed together over their haunted house stint and if there’s one thing she was certain of it was Beetlejuice’s love for attention.
She walked closer to the demon’s unmoving form, careful to sidestep the broken glass, and lightly shoved his striped shoulder with her slippered foot. There was still no response and Lydia furrowed her brows in annoyance.
“You’re so dumb, I’m not falling for this weird prank so c’mon, get up already, Juliet.”
Beetlejuice still didn’t react and Lydia was starting to get angry as she reached down to forcefully roll him over.
“If this is your big return, I’d have really thought you’d do-”
The rest of that sentence died in her throat as she pushed Beetlejuice onto his back and finally got a good look at him.
The man, well demon, lying on her basement floor was not the one she once knew. Instead of his usual jovial green hair, or even any of the other bright colors she knew it could turn, it was a dull unnatural gray. It wasn’t like the silver elderly people sported, this shade was sickly and devoid of depth, there was no nuance, it was just gray ash. But that was hardly the most shocking aspect of this unconscious Beetlejuice, the wounds and bruising all over his face and body were far more disturbing. His face was covered in small cuts with one large gash on his forehead still leaking the black ichor that was his blood. His nose had obviously been broken, the bruising on his left temple extended down past his cheekbone, and his lips were split in several places. Scanning over his body, Lydia noticed Beetlejuice’s fingers were all bent at strange angles while a few were even missing their nails and in the case of his right pinky the entire joint was gone leaving nothing but an inky stump. The worst injuries had to be the ones on his torso, it was impossible to tell how many he had but the amount of black sticky blood that had leaked onto his dress shirt suggested several and that they were quite severe in nature.
“Beej?”
Lydia leaned down and carefully tapped his face, there was still no response.
Fear started to rise in her chest, he couldn’t be dead, he was already dead, he had to be okay.
She carefully grabbed both sides of his face, the scruff of his beard digging into her palms, “Beetlejuice!”
There finally was a sign of consciousness as the striped mass groaned before his eyes slowly opened to look at her. Her monster tried to flash her one of his trademark smirks but it came off as more of a wince.
“Hey, babes.” Beetlejuice replied weakly, his voice nothing more than a harsh whisper.
Lydia let out a surprised gasp as she pulled him close as gently as possible to hug him around the neck. She felt her eyes start to sting with unshed tears, he’d been back less than two minutes and he already scared her half to death.
Beetlejuice slowly patted her back in return as he let out a soft sigh, “Man am I glad to see ya.”
She pulled away to look him in the eye, “Beej, what the hell happened to you?!”
The demon winced again as he attempted to sit up unsuccessfully before settling with propping himself up on his elbows, “Long story.”
Lydia knew whatever it was it couldn’t be good and decided to focus on getting him out of the pile of glass.
She grabbed both of his forearms, “You can tell me later, let’s just get you up first.”
Beetlejuice seemed bashful for a moment before accepting her help and with one large tug the striped menace was on his feet. He swayed violently at first as he grasped Lydia for support, his eyes shutting tight as he steadied himself.
“Okay, let’s get you sitting.” the brunette declared as she dragged him towards Delia’s old futon sitting unused in the corner.
Beetlejuice nodded curtly, his eyes still shut tight, “Sitting sounds good.”
Once they were close enough, the demon practically fell onto the plush surface, grimacing slightly as he clutched at his abdomen, dark sticky blood still streaming from the wounds there staining his hands.
There was no denying Beetlejuice was in rough shape and needed help, Lydia wasted no time making her decision.
“You stay there, I’m going to get some stuff for your wounds as well as some clean clothes.”
Beetlejuice’s eyes were closed as he weakly objected, “Don’t worry about me, babes, I got it under control.”
Lydia rolled her eyes, “Oh really? You don’t need any help?”
“Nah, a couple of bumps can’t bring me down, I’m fit as a fiddle!” the slumped bleeding figure on the futon assured with a wave of his hand.
“Okay then do a somersault.”
She knew he could do one, she also knew he sure as shit couldn’t possibly do one right now.
“I will!”
Beetlejuice made no attempt to move and silence stretched between them.
Lydia snorted, “So are you warming up or something?”
The demon frowned, “I’m going to do it, just give me a minute!”
More time passed and he didn’t so much as move his arm.
A loud clearing of his throat interrupted her watching amusement, “Maybe I, in fact, am not doing so good.”
“No shit.”
She expected him to quip back but instead he avoided her gaze as he licked at his split lip, “I think I’ll take you up on that offer if it still stands.”
Lydia smiled as she shook her head, “Let me go get the stuff.”
She turned and made it halfway up the stairs before shouting over her shoulder, “And don’t do anything while I’m gone.”
An unenthused thumbs up was the response as Beetlejuice tilted his head to rest on the back of the futon.
~~~~~~~~~
Lydia had no idea what she was doing but knew two things; firstly Beetlejuice needed his wounds covered they were actively leaking and even though he might be dead she doubted that was a good thing, and secondly he needed a change of clothes. While his suit was always a grimey mess, it was shredded in places where he was attacked and the striped fabric was clinging in sticky clumps to the aforementioned wounds. She settled on using an old twin sheet she could rip up for bandages, the unicorns decorating the fabric seemed less than enthused as she tore the strips needed. Then she grabbed a wash rag and filled up a bowl with boiling hot water in order to clean off, well whatever Beetlejuice could be covered in which she doubted was limited to blood. The final part was tricky as the only person in the house who had clothes that would fit the demon was her father.
Charles in all of Lydia’s life had dressed formally, even his pajamas were always a matching set, he simply didn’t do casual, and as it was the middle of the night and he was sleeping with Delia by his side she didn’t think it was the time to go digging. Lydia tapped her nails against the countertop in thought, the bowl of hot water cooling by her arm, when she remembered there were a few boxes in the attic left from the Maitlands' lives. It was a long shot and the Maitlands would for sure ask her why she needed their former clothes but Adam, while thinner and taller, had a better chance of having clothes for Beetlejuice to wear than anything in her own closet.
Lydia climbed the stairs to the attic and knocked on the old wooden door, after a few moments Barbara answered looking somewhat disheveled despite being dead.
“Lydia? Everything okay? It’s the middle of the night.”
The brunette wanted to kick herself, of course this would be highly suspicious, it was almost three in the morning and here she was strolling up to their room as if it was something normal she did daily.
“Hey, this is going to sound like a weird question but does Adam have any clothes up here I could have?”
Barbara gave her a funny look before stepping aside to let Lydia into the attic proper.
“Uhm I believe there’s a couple boxes in here, but why?”
Lydia was afraid of that question as she bit her lip, thinking up an excuse, “I uh was cleaning out my closet and was going to donate some things so I uh thought maybe I could clear some space up here too?”
Adam looked up from his book he was reading in the corner in an old wingback chair, “Well I mean sure, not like me or Barbara need them but it’s the middle of the night, why the rush?”
The teen shifted uncomfortably, quickly coming up with an excuse, “I couldn’t sleep, I had uh a bad dream! Yup that’s what happened and so I started cleaning out my closet to distract myself and then I thought about you guys!”
Barbara smiled sadly at her as she placed a ghostly arm over her shoulders, “The wedding again?”
Lydia looked down and nodded curtly, the events of that night had caused nightmares for herself for sometime. The feeling of striking someone through the chest as his bones snapped and flesh tore haunted her for months, she never told her family that’s what caused her nightmares, they just assumed it was the wedding itself. She could never bring herself to correct any of them, after all what Beetlejuice had done to them wasn’t okay by any means, so she understood if none of them would ever forgive him but that part of her that connected and understood the motives of Beetlejuice couldn’t help but be horrified at her actions.
Adam interrupted her thoughts by returning from the far corner of the attic with a box marked “Old Clothes” in what was once Barbara’s elegant handwriting, “Well, either way, kiddo, don’t suffer anymore thoughts about him, okay? He’s not coming back to this house, I guarantee it.”
Lydia bit her lip at how wrong Adam’s statement was, “I won’t, and thank you for entertaining me about the clothes.” she added as she took the box from the specter’s hands.
Barbara reached out and lovingly patted her husband’s back before offering an understanding smile to the teen, “Of course Lydia and if you ever want to talk instead we’re here to listen.”
She nodded curtly again but this time with a smile before mumbling her thanks once more and turning around and making her way back down the stairs. Lydia hated how she was deceiving the ghostly couple but the situation in the basement was confusing and intense enough without adding two disgruntled former employers to the mix.
She made a quick pit stop in her room to go through the assortment of clothes hoping there was something usable. As luck would have it, beneath Barbara’s old sundress and turtleneck sweater there was an oversized shirt splattered with paint stains featuring a snoozing dog wearing a sleep mask that read “Pug Life” and a pair of sweatpants that looked to be in a pristine state as they definitely would have been too loose on the lanky man in the attic (Lydia assumed it must have been originally bought in the wrong size for its intended owner) but it appeared large enough to fit Beetlejuice’s frame comfortably.
Clothing draped over her arm, Lydia grabbed her other supplies still in the kitchen; the shredded unicorn sheets and the bowl of now perfect temperature warm water, and made her way back down the basement steps once more.
Beetlejuice, true to his word, looked the same as how she had left him. The demon’s head was thrown back resting on the futon while his multitude of wounds continued to leak their black ichor onto his clothes.
“Please tell me you’re the normal level of dead?”
The demon weakly opened one bruised eye in response, “I’m starting to think I’m not looking my best here, babes.”
Lydia sat down her supplies on top of a storage tub nearby as she gave him a wry smile, “Hence the stuff I grabbed.”
Beetlejuice glanced down at the assortment of items, his gaze lingering on the bowl of water, “Oh goodie, more torture, just what I wanted.”
The brunette rolled her eyes as she dunked the wash cloth and wrung out the excess, “You’re such a baby.”
The striped conman watched her actions with a frown, “I’ll have you know I’m not a crybaby, I’m THE crybaby.”
“Well cry harder then, baby.” and with that Lydia pressed the wet cloth to the bleeding wound on his forehead.
“Fuck!” the demon grimaced at the touch, scrunching his eyes shut tightly as Lydia cleaned the large gash.
What was strange was as she pulled the cloth away to inspect the injury it was completely unlike any she’d ever seen. If the black liquid that had finally started to stop weeping from the wound wasn’t a give away that this man wasn’t human the strange inky abyss that undulated slightly under her gaze deep within the cut definitely was.
Lydia shook her head slightly as she rinsed her cloth and moved onwards to the multiple splits on his lips. She dabbed delicately at the flesh and was struck by a strange wave of intimacy at the action as Beetlejuice watched her with unblinking golden eyes. Lydia pulled back to stare at him momentarily gauging how she should phrase the next statement.
“You know what I’m going to ask.”
That trademark smirk crawled across his face, “You want to see my goods.”
The teen fixed him with a flat expression, “Absolutely, nothing I want more than to see a dead guy’s junk especially when he’s leaking goo all over my futon.”
Beetlejuice leaned forward and winced as he began pulling off his jacket, “Fucking knew it.”
Lydia sighed as she watched him undress, either he recognized she was helping or was too exhausted to tease and torment as usual but he didn’t speak further as he tugged down his suspenders, pulling off his tie, and began unbuttoning his dress shirt. A part of her wanted to assist him as she watched him struggle with the buttons, his missing pinky joint affecting his coordination but stopped herself as it felt too- Lydia wasn’t sure what maybe personal?
Eventually Beetlejuice got the last one undone and slipped one arm gently out of his shirt followed by the other letting the fabric fall behind his waist. Lydia couldn’t help sparing a quick look over his exposed abdomen; there were gashes in varying degrees of severity from collarbone to navel, all streaming blood slowly down his pale skin.
“Am I as sexy as you always imagined?” interrupted Beetlejuice.
Lydia dunked her wash cloth again, “Yup, I’m basically as wet as this bowl.”
Beetlejuice laughed before hissing in pain as she purposefully wiped harshly at a deeper cut, “I should’ve seen that coming.”
“You would think..” the young woman mumbled as she cleaned at the edges of the wound, the undulating dark mass beneath his skin where muscle should be still a very strange sight to watch.
Silence passed between them as she slowly worked through cleaning his multitude of abdomen injuries before Lydia broke the silence, “Are you going to tell me this ‘long story’ yet or am I supposed to guess why you look more like roadkill than usual?”
Beetlejuice sighed as he leaned his head back again, this time to stare unblinking at the ceiling, “What’s to really tell? Ya didn’t think you breaking into the Netherworld and me killing my mom meant everything was right as rain, did ya?”
“What do you mean?”
The demon sighed again as he looked back at her before continuing, “C’mon Lyds with what happened here; there’s consequences for breaking the big rules like that.”
Lydia grabbed one of her long unicorn sheet strips and began wrapping it around his chest, avoiding looking at his face as she hugged him close to pass the fabric behind his back. “So they, whoever they are, did this to you? Be-because of me?”
She could feel the rumble of his voice through his chest as she tied a knot to keep the bandage in place.
“Yeah, I uh I couldn’t let em take it out on you.”
That was a surprising answer and Lydia looked at him with confusion, “They were going to take it out on me?”
Beetlejuice licked his cracked lips as he avoided her gaze, “Why else do ya think my mom wanted to drag you back? It wasn’t for a painless eternity.”
Lydia hadn’t considered the implications, she always assumed Juno just wanted her dead for going to the land of the dead.
When she didn’t say anything Beetlejuice continued, “Which I did kill her with the whole sandworm thing, even if it was because of you, so I knew I was in deep shit I just couldn’t let them hurt you over it.”
She just stared at him for a moment, completely at a loss at his statement. Beetlejuice took this beating for her? He protected her from this torture?
“But why?” Lydia had only known this demon for a few days and yet he put his neck on the line for her yet again.
For the first time since his reappearance that ashy gray started to fade to make room for a barely visible pink, “I just- ” Beetlejuice studied her face as if he was searching for his own answer there, “Felt I had to.”
Lydia felt her cheeks grow hot for some reason and glanced away to tuck her hair behind her ear, “Well, thanks, you’re welcome to stay here until you’re better.”
“Oh cool and you’re er welcome?” Beetlejuice rubbed at his hair with his full fingered hand.
Content with her doctoring and feeling the need to create some distance, Lydia began cleaning up the supplies, she practically shoved the outfit she found for him into his chest as she finished, “Here I got a change of clothes for you to use and I’ll go grab you a pillow and some blankets.”
Beetlejuice blinked at the bundle but ultimately took it without complaint. Lydia quickly turned and briskly walked up the stairs to gather the bedding from the linen closet as well as her thoughts. What he had told her made her feel incredibly strange; she was sad and angry but she wasn’t sure at whom exactly. The people who did that to Beetlejuice or herself? Lydia knew there were rules about the living and the dead, that was the point of the handbook but she’d been so shortsighted to realize there could be consequences for disobeying them and now someone else paid the price. It didn’t seem like Beetlejuice blamed her or was even upset about it which only incensed Lydia more; he should hate her for letting him take the blame or at the very least killing him but instead the demon regarded her fondly and like the choice had been easy which only made Lydia confused. He was a selfish, narcissistic, demonic entity and he had selflessly acted on her behalf twice now for reasons that didn’t make sense.
She gave him life for a brief minute and he decided that was enough to kill his mom? Juno terrified Beetlejuice and yet he ran back in and protected Lydia from her because she married him and killed him all in one breath? Then he kept up the excuse when he was literally being tortured on her behalf and even now laying in her basement bruised and broken was still claiming it was because of some type of undeserved loyalty to herself. Lydia grabbed her softest pair of sheets, her favorite blanket, and two pillows from the closet and started her way back to her strange guest.
There had to be more to Beetlejuice’s actions, he must want something from her to do all that and then return to her house but she had no idea as to what. Maybe he wanted to marry her again? But that didn’t make sense either, he claimed life was way too much and actually hated the whole experience so that couldn’t be the answer but that was the only one Lydia could think of. As she walked down the stairs to rejoin her antihero, she felt she still hadn’t gained any clarity on the situation.
Beetlejuice was standing up now and seemed to just be finishing dressing in Adam’s old clothes, tugging the paint splattered pug shirt over his head with small grunts of pain. He looked up at her approach and grinned, “Gotta admit this fit is pretty solid.”
Lydia smiled as she sat down the bed things and reached to pull the lever to recline the futon. “I thought you’d appreciate the pun.”
Beetlejuice looked away awkwardly as he folded his arms across his chest, “I appreciate all of this if I’m honest.”
She glanced at him as she grabbed the sheet to fit onto the old lumpy surface, “Well, I appreciate you kinda taking those lumps for me so no problem.”
The demon made a strange kind of breathy sound but didn’t say more as she finished her bed making. With a final fluff to the last pillow Lydia announced, “Alright, it’s all yours.”
He shuffled forward at the same time Lydia stepped back and there was a charged moment where they both simply stared at each other in close proximity. Her monster was already looking better, green was starting to curl through the roots of his gray hair and the gash on his head was already healing to a scabbed cut. His golden eyes watched her with intensity and some type of emotion Lydia couldn’t understand and she stepped away.
It was late, the fatigue of all she’d experienced was starting to set in and the way he was staring at her was making her heart race for some reason, “Well, uh, goodnight!”
Broken from the spell, Beetlejuice gave her a soft lopsided grin as he looked down at his feet, “Night, Lyds.”
She gave him her own slight smile and made her way up the stairs, ready to get some sleep and process what the hell was going on with her at the moment.
~~~~~~~~~
Lydia tried, she really did, to fall asleep but no matter how she tossed or turned there seemed to be constant thoughts about a certain demon in the basement. This time it wasn’t a matter of thoughts of why he did what he did, it was if he was truly okay now. Was he comfortable? Glad to be back? Were his wounds infected? Could he even get infected wounds? Was he sleeping okay? It was a stream of worried questions running through her head and after an hour or two, Lydia determined she’d just check on him. She wasn’t really worried she reasoned as she made her way down the two different flights of stairs, but that pit of anxiety gnawed at her just the same.
The basement was dark, Lydia had to squint and she could just make out a lumpy shape on the futon. As she got closer, she could faintly tell his hair was now half green and half gray, a sure sign he was improving. He had his four fingered hand splayed on his chest as he snored softly, it appeared the start of a new digit was starting to grow on the stump, inky blackness no longer staining the tip. As for his face, Beetlejuice was starting to appear more himself, his eyes were always bruised but now they were a warmer tone brighter in color than the now faint scabs on his lips and forehead.
Lydia sighed a relief, being dead had its perks and her monster was healing at an incredibly rapid rate. Watching her former spouse sleeping softly made her own exhaustion hit her like a bus and she stifled a yawn. She momentarily thought about heading back to her room but decided against it, she couldn’t leave Beetlejuice down here alone.
~~~~~~~~~
Beetlejuice was jostled awake by the feeling of something warm grabbing him around his midsection. His eyes groggily opened, he was beyond tired, feeling every bit of his millenia age. Thankfully Lyds’ doctoring had helped speed his demonic healing along and he no longer felt like a leaking water balloon. He lurched at the connection his brain finally made when a soft leg curled around his own under the blanket and blinked his eyes rapidly to make sure he was seeing things right.
Sure enough his realization was correct as he spied Lydia’s dark waves streaming across his chest. If his heart beat he was sure it would’ve stopped dead at the sight of Lydia Deetz snuggling tighter into his side. He reverently wrapped his arm around her, certain she’d shove him off the second he did, but the young brunette sighed in contentment.
“Glad you’re back, Beej.”
“Me too.”