Disclaimer: Beetlejuice is property of Tim Burton
Authors Notes: Just a little oneshot blurb thing that came to mind after watching a clip of BJ combing his hair.
He was often told to be one of the nastiest being in the Neitherworld, due to the fact that he never bathed. He could've bathed if he wanted to. After all, not even ghosts and demons liked staying dirty all the time; regardless of the fact they were dead. Death didn't mean you weren't allowed to bathe. There was certainly no rule forbidding it
Well, there was in his case. He was never alive to begin with, so he never had the 'luxury' of bathing each day. He'd never had the time to get used to it. Even when he was a baby gheist, he'd never been washed regularly enough for it to become a habit for him. In fact, it had been so irregular, and so horribly scheduled that he assumed that was why he hated bathing to begin with. Whenever he had been bathed, something bad had either happened to him, or was going to happen to him. But, despite the fact he hated bathing, there was one form of self-cleaning he could often be found partaking in. Well, you could often find him doing it if you knew where to look for him. He never did like letting people see him do it. And for good reason, too; he had a reputation to keep after all.
It was his hair. The white-blond locks that seemed to be restricted to his family line only. He could have left his hair alone like he did the rest of his body, and let it become so dirty and moldy and scraggly and matted that it no longer looked even remotely like it's natural color. And well, lets face it, he could do it, too. But, the fact was...
He didn't want to. He was proud of his blond coloration. Black, white, lavender, red and blond, with a touch of green here and there. A mix of colors that suited him so well he wouldn't have it any other way. So, every couple days, he would hide away, hide far away in some place nobody would manage to get to him, and, defying everyone's thoughts of his opinions on cleanliness, washed his hair. It was the one thing he couldn't stand; things staining the color of his white-blond locks. Yeah, sure, he couldn't care less about what crawled through it, but if something stained it, and took away some of the bright, white-blond hue he was so proud of, he'd hide away as soon as he could and wash it out.
He knew that once his secret was out, that he'd be ruined, but for the time being, he didn't care. After all, he was still obeying his pride, and he was secretly doing something Lydia wished he do more often for the rest of his body.
He knew as well that Lydia probably had a theory about why his hair was always so... clean, compared to the rest of his nasty, dirty body. But, she could theorize all she wanted. After all, she knew that even if she asked him if he washed his hair, he'd give that same reaction he gave to the thought of washing any other part of his body; gagging, sometimes freaking out, and on the rare occasion, vomiting.
There was only one part of the ritual he'd do in front of anybody else (ignoring the fact he'd only done it in front of somebody once, and that it had been Lydia, who hadn't actually been there at the moment), and that was combing. It wasn't really cleaning his hair so much as straightening it out. Even a person who spent most of their day frolicking in a Rot Tub and eating insects hated having their hair in their eyes all the time. There was no blackmail material there.
That said, he hid his pride for his white-blond hair up his sleeves, and lived day to day as the ghost who acted for the world like he didn't care about the cleanliness of any part of his body. They didn't need to know that it wasn't entirely true. Only him, and even Lydia, for he was certain she already knew, anyway. Mostly because he'd begun stealing her shampoo when he couldn't get his hands on any. After all, he couldn't exactly go out and buy some when his ran out. Plus, he'd found that, recently, whenever he went to steal some of Lyds lovey 'Strawberry Fields' scented shampoo (which he honestly did enjoy the smell of. It reminded him of Lydia when she wasn't around), he'd wind up finding two bottle out. Her regular 'Strawberry Fields', and a different one; 'Berrie Blue'. 'For split ends and unruly tangles' it said on the back, and he knew that neither Chuck, Delia or Lydia used 'Berrie'. So he and Lydia silently kept the ghost's hair-washing secret. When he ran out, he'd hide her 'Strawberry' shampoo (along with some form of payment for the refill he was silently requesting), and would find a full bottle hidden in that same place sometime during the following days.
He didn't care that she knew. She never mentioned it, and didn't seem to care about the odd, lone quirk about his opinion on being clean. She did seem to enjoy the game of hide-and-go-seek he played with her when he needed new shampoo, and seemed all-too-eager to buy the ghost something that cleaned his body. After all, even if it was only his hair he enjoyed cleaning...
It was a start.