A/N: Oh look kids, the start of yet another fan-fic…Please don't hurt me! *hides for fear of being stoned to death by the people who watch her for other stories that are in sore need of updates*
Okay, so here's the deal. Fan-fiction to me, is something therapeutic I do when RealLife!tm becomes so dreary that I need something fun and frivolous to do to keep me from turning into a drooling zombie. So if I start to write something, and then stop for awhile, it's because I'm being beat over the head to do something constructive that will put food in my belly, instead of goofing off. =p
That aside, this latest literary escapade is the result of me re-watching a cartoon show that I was once obsessed with as a 5-yr-old. You should know which one I'm talking about. Then I went and re-watched the film.
A few things followed this;
1. I realized that BJ and Lydia could actually be cute together, and that the amount of hints for canon-romance in the cartoon is staggering. (In today's heavily-censored world, I doubt the show would have ever gotten a first season, let alone 4.)
2. I did tons of research on the 14th-15th centuries.
3. I learned more about the original script for the movie than I ever wanted to know.
4. I figured that since I had gathered all this nerdy character-related information, I may as well put it to use.
The title for this fic is based upon the Depeche Mode song of the same name. Check out the lyrics, please.
***
One big, dark…room. Lyds was right when she compared life to that. Beetlejuice thought to himself, lying awake in his Roadhouse coffin-bed, and feeling like he was following some senseless routine.
But of course it was senseless. Sleep-deprivation wasn't going to kill him after all, but there was a certain comfort in having a 'resting place' for the dead.
It's a room that locks you inside. It's a barrier. That wall between life and death. I'd like to tear it down…I guess I already did, just a little. Poked a hole through it so I could see.
He glanced over at the bedside table, looking at the tiny picture frame that held a snapshot of Lydia. Smart, beautiful, sweet Lydia. Then he looked down at his fingers, clasped together over the hill of his stomach. The red-tinted claws seemed to sneer at him, prompting images of hand-wrought violence.
Caught me bloody red-handed, you did. The joke wasn't funny anymore.
He felt a dizzying lurch inside his own mind as he yanked it forcibly away from such thoughts.
Gotta be presentable for the kid…Even if she's not a kid now.
Something in him struggled a bit, writhing like a hooked worm. A part of him that screeched in rage, demanding to be an active part of his psyche. It flashed him an image of crimson points trailing down soft ivory, dead-purple laving live-pink. He groaned, then squashed the darkness ruthlessly until it squealed for mercy.
Soon after came a loud shouting match with himself. Anyone who happened to peek inside would have likened him to the dog that chased it's own tail, then yelped whenever it actually sank it's teeth in.
He tugged on his hair in frustration, glaring balefully at the portrait of Lydia like some kind of wild-eyed demon. Love. Hate. Two emotions said to be at opposite ends of the spectrum, but with equal binding power.
Can't lose my babes. Can't lose myself. What's a ghoul to do?
Quite a problem, indeed. Certainly ghosts could change, but they only did so slowly. Spending the past eight years reeling himself in, trying to make the little breather happy…It wouldn't have been so hard for a six-hundred-plus year-old gheist like himself, if the kid hadn't gone off and grown.
He felt sexually-frustrated under normal circumstances, and that was with drop-dead-gorgeous, total strangers he could care less about. Then came along a soul who managed to make him happy for more than the five seconds it took him to laugh about a prank. A girl who could make him smile without lifting up her skirts. Someone who made him feel like he could be more than just a pest. Lydia, who liked him in spite of himself, even though they had met on the worst of terms.
Now here was his libido and his destructive nature, threatening to rear it's ugly head and scare her off for good. He had to separate himself, place his id in neat little boxes with locks and keys.
Normally, he would speak a phrase, like chanting a spell. Words helped him direct his power, focus it into coherent thoughts and pictures. This time was different. A simple phrase wouldn't be enough to accomplish the task at hand, and the desire in him was strong enough that his abilities took effect by thought alone.
Human or monster? Why do I have to contain both?
There was a tight, stretching sensation on his back, and something internal was pulling up towards the ceiling. He stared, dumb-founded at the color flowing from his hands and clothes to travel behind him. There was a moment of stillness, and he took the opportunity to wiggle his de-clawed fingers in glee.
Then something exploded from his shoulder and he screamed in agony. The other shoulder went, in a spurt of dark, sludgy liquid. The ghost started crawling shakily on his hands and knees, knocking over furniture as he jerked and swiped at objects in reflex.
He eventually doubled over into a ball, waiting for whatever was happening to be over. There were tugs and slick snaps along each of his rib bones and vertebrae, and then a series of clicks as something wobbled along the wooden floor like a newborn fawn, dripping fluid as it went.
Beetlejuice turned his head feebly to see what it was, and then sat up slowly with wide eyes. If ever a thing could be called a monster, this was it. It bore no trace of humanity, walking about on six jointed limbs, and sporting a large set of mandibles that looked like a combination of various different insects all layered together. It had stolen his stripes and the red of his nails, wearing the colors like a butchered zebra. The creature looked like a giant beetle, save for a long, maggoty set of worm-tails that trailed out of it's abdomen, and the dozens of filmy human eyes of all sizes and colors that covered it's body.
Beetlejuice's first, hysterical thought was;
It slices, it dices, it never needs sharpening and it keeps unwanted guests away…No assembly required.
The thing turned around and sized him up, the eyes squinting dully in his general direction. It opened it's jaws and skittered heavily toward him, drooling acidic saliva onto the floor. He shrieked in alarm and pointed a finger at the floor, turning it into a large square of fly paper.
His monstrosity shrilled at him in anger, twisting itself into the trap as it struggled. He wasted no time watching it and ran straight for his bedroom mirror.
"Lydiaaa!"