I just felt like writing this last night...or in the wee hours of this morning, whichever you prefer to say. This is intended to run with the "Beetlejuice Afterlife" series of mine, which includes two stories thus far: "A New Beginning" and "Dark Shadows".

I've named the grouping this story will belong to the "Key Saga", wherein there will probably be several stories documenting some events that took place while my OC's, Kyle and Endri, were traveling Earth, looking for the Worm Gate Keys to take to the Neitherworld. This story and any other subsequent stories in the Key Saga all are set before the events that occur in "A New Beginning".

There is not even a mention of Beetlejuice or Lydia in this story! Guess I probably souldn't be posting it in the BJ category then, but they are Beetlejuice characters, just original ones. Please don't bother me if you have a problem with that or the fact that there is no BJ or Lydia in this story. I will not care. Just needed to make that clear, but I'm sure I'll never hear the end of it anyway. :P

Though please enjoy. Maybe let me know if you think my writing has improved. Thank you in advance for any comments!

— Key Saga —
Quitting with Bribery

Spencers13 / Jan 2, 2006
Beta Reader – Rachel
PG-13
TimeBase : Key Saga circa September, 1992; Episode 01

"Stop that!" Endri hissed, yanking the cigarette out from between Kyle's lips with a quick jerk of his fingers. He threw the offending stick of tobacco, nicotine, paper, and other smaller-known chemicals to the ground and stomped it under the heel of his thick black boot.

"Hey!" Kyle shouted indignantly, white eyebrows furrowing immediately. He stared his newly-acquired partner down with blue eyes of unyielding steel, pressing his mouth into a thin line and scrunching his chin in the process. "What the hell's your problem?"

"I told you to stop smoking. It's a filthy habit," Endri retorted, crossing his large arms over his large chest.

"Well, I happen to find it comforting, relaxing, and not to mention it looks a little cool in the process. So if you don't mind; you can't tell me what to do. So why don't you just head back down to the room, and I'll be there in a little while." The man pulled out a half-empty pack of Marlboros from one of the pockets on his cargos and tapped it against his lean hip. His fingers found a new victim and placed it between his lips, pocketing the pack and retrieving his lighter. He set it aflame and moved to light the cigarette and burn the victim to slow ashes when a large pale hand reached out and snatched the lighter from his fingers. For the briefest of moments, Kyle saw the flame lick across bare skin and winced reflexively, feeling himself wounded more than his companion seemed to be. Then the little light was extinguished as if it had never existed, and the phantom pain was gone.

Kyle glared at his partner, mouth stony around the cigarette still lodged in it. "Give. It. Back."

"No."

It was so plain, so straightforward of an answer, that Kyle was taken aback by it. "Excuse me?"

"I said no."

"Okay…why?"

"Because…I said…no."

The air almost crackled around the white and grey-haired man's head. "Listen, I don't know who you think you are, but you can't just waltz into my life and start telling me what to do and forcing me to change to your specifications! I smoke, Endri. If you have a problem with that, too bad. You should have thought harder about asking me to come along with you around the world, then."

If not for the sunglasses covering Endri's eyes, it would have been a lot easier to tell he was glaring at Kyle. "You stink, Bennington. It's in your clothes, your hair, stuck to the sheets after you get up in the morning. Hell, it has probably permeated your flesh. Washing does not help much in your case. Your breath is atrocious, and it's hard for me not to curl my nose in disgust when you stand close and talk to me."

"Well, obviously, you don't try hard enough because I've seen you do that," Kyle growled.

"My point exactly.… It's very hard for me to disguise how disgusting your habit makes you. Quit now while you still have your youth and health, before it strips you of it and sends you to the grave much sooner than you thought it ever would."

Kyle glared through eyes narrowed to slits of deep blue. Slowly, he reached up and pulled the unused cigarette from his lips and held it between his fingers as he crossed his thin arms across his scrawny chest. "Maybe that's where you're wrong."

Endri's head twitched a bit to the side in curiosity, long blonde hair swaying partly into his face but going ignored. Blonde eyebrows knitted above rims of black that hid eyes not meant to be seen by anyone. "And how am I wrong?"

"Your statement makes too many assumptions on my part. For instance, you're assuming I actually care whether I live or die."

Endri licked his lips and crossed his arms tighter, his fingers putting unconscious pressure around the lighter in his right hand. "And so from that statement…can I assume that you don't care whether you live or die?"

"It might be a fair assessment."

The blonde shook his head and turned, taking a few paces away. His boots crunched over the loose gravel strewn over the hotel's roof, sounding loud in the light ambiance of evening already surrounding the two men. They weren't exactly in the city, nor were they exactly in a country setting either. Rural, with plenty of trees to drown the sounds of traffic which was letting up more and more as the day waned on. Some stars were already out, and Endri found his focus on them, hoping they would light his difficult path now as they had many times before in the past.

"I thought you were over that."

Kyle huffed, rolling his eyes and paying more attention to the innocent cigarette in his fingers than the back of an infuriating beefcake. "Well, you know, sometimes things don't always go as planned."

"Like your attempt at suicide for example?"

"Like that…" the man nodded, not looking up, "and life…you know. Life never really goes as planned either."

Endri sighed quietly, but Kyle picked it out over the sound of a van buzzing by. "No…I suppose it doesn't."

"You're a stoic guy, Endri," Kyle chirped with fake enthusiasm. "Tell me, what's it like to not feel any emotions? Is it safe? Is it secure? Does it guarantee no one can hurt you? How long would it take for me to learn how to just…" he waved his hand noncommittally, shrugging with his facial features, "pack it in so I won't have to feel anything anymore?"

The blonde was silent but rigid, nothing moving on him save his hair and long black coat as they were pushed around by the wind. It took a while, and Kyle waited because he was a patient person in that respect. He could wait for a glacier to melt and never once mind that it was taking a few hundred years more than he thought it would. Infinite patience…especially when he was goading Endri.

After being partners with him for little more than six months, he quickly found getting under Endri's skin to be not only fun but an art form all its own. It was a delicate undertaking, crafted of finely-chosen words and just the right sarcasm to prick the man's skin and leave an opening for cutting remarks and aggravated arguments to get in there and leave their imprints. But Kyle was not out to simply hurt his partner. He also wanted to get in there and find something other than anger, frustration, and indignation. He wanted to find nice things like friendship and understanding. That wasn't so wrong, was it? To try to be friends? They were working together, after all, traveling across the globe looking for little metal and stone balls to implement into a grander scheme. Why couldn't they also kick back in the evenings after work was finished and watch a game, beers in hand and a bowl of popcorn between them? Never mind that Endri was also not for drinking. Okay, maybe root beers instead. Kyle did have to admit, the taste of beer was rather bitter to him nowadays.

"You do not want to be like me," the blonde said quietly, though quite loud enough for his partner to hear.

"Maybe I do?" Kyle went on, not missing a beat. He had that pinprick, had an opening in Endri's skin, and he was going to make damn sure it didn't close up before he had a chance to take advantage of it. "Maybe it'll help me? There's a lot of crap from my life I'd like to just forget, ya know? Every single member of my family dying around me, leaving me the only surviving member of my family's bloodline. My wife and daughter being torn apart before my eyes. My friends dying or moving off from me to protect themselves from that little dark shadow that follows me, taking down my loved ones left and right. The guilt. The accusations. The shouts of 'murderer!', 'killer!', 'inhuman!', 'crazy!' rigging in my ears every damn time I wake up and back again when I lay down to go to sleep. And lets not forget those nightmares, my friend. Every time I close my eyes, there's one waiting for me." He closed his eyes in illustration even though Endri could not see with his back turned. "Oh look! There's one now! I remember this one too. It's the one where corporations, governments, and secret organizations are all nipping at my heels for me to invent something that will push them one step ahead of the competition. And lets not go into the kidnappings and beating sessions to force my compliance…might be too graphic for you," he said as if talking to a child.

"And then, as if to cap off my hideously inept life, my blessing is also my curse." Kyle took a breath and wondered why Endri hadn't said a word or tried to get him to shut up yet. "Too intelligent for my own good, the doctors told me once. As I'm sure you know—and if you don't, then here's a little lesson for you—the left hemisphere of the human brain is predominantly for analytic and logical thinking. The right hemisphere is mostly for creativity and intuitive thinking, not to mention a big ol' helping of emotions. Now you see, there's this little connection between the those two hemispheres. It allows communication between them, especially of the emotional kind. In a male's brain, that connection between both hemispheres is small, comparable to a meandering country lane. It doesn't allow too much through at once, keeping emotional understanding and feeling at a minimum. In a woman's brain, that connection is much larger, like a four-lane interstate highway. That allows for much more emotion to be felt and understood. In a nutshell, it explains why women get all emotional and men like to pack it away. Now here comes the point to all of this: that connection in my brain is even bigger than a woman's. In short, I'm more girly than a girl, and there's hardly a shred of masculinity in me—all in the name of intelligence, I might add. I cry. I feel sad when I see others feeling sad. I cry for them. I hurt in ways a normal man would never admit. I think about things a normal man would never admit. Like friendships and love and 'oh, those curtains look horrible, the hotel should really change them' kind of things."

"Are you just trying to find a gentle way of telling me you're homosexual, Kyle?" Endri asked suddenly, startling the man for how silent he had been.

"What? No. No, I'm…ugh I'm trying to give you some insight into who I am, Endri. Who I am and what I feel and think about on a daily basis. So you can understand that I'm different from most people, that I can't help but let my emotions do the walking for me most of the time. And why it's so damn important for me to either find a way to not feel this crap anymore…or not feel anything at all."

Endri turned and leveled an expressionless look upon his partner. "So what you're basically saying is that you want me to teach you to stow away your feelings or you'll kill yourself."

Kyle smirked, lifting his still as yet unused cigarette, butt end up and pointing at it. "You know, Endri, you got this knack…an' it's really so fascinating to see you use it. 'Cause there's this little nail, and you keep," he made a little smacking motion over top of the cigarette end with an extended index finger, "hitting it on the head there. Right there, see?" He made a few more motions to drive the point home, squinting with one eye as he did so.

"And…how had this come from you quitting smoking?" Endri asked, lifting one brow in both question and amusement.

Kyle stopped playing and rolled his eyes. "Because, blondie. I told you, smoking calms me, relaxes me, helps me deal with the crap heap that is my life for a little while. You take that away from me—"

"And your security blanket will be gone."

The man made a general nodding of the head and curling of his hand in wide circles motions. "Youuuu could say that…I guess. If you wanted to get technical."

"That was not technical. Everything you spewed at me for the last five minutes was technical. I simply took it from cuneiform and spoke it in plain English. Or would you rather I said it in another language? I could be going quite a while before I'd make a full circle."

Kyle shook his head and closed his eyes, suddenly realizing that not only had he wedged a little something under Endri's skin, but Endri had a nice wedge of his own under Kyle's. "Despite your fine efforts at making me feel better…oh wait…you're not making me feel better," he growled, opening his eyes and glaring with the beginnings of dislike and impatience.

Endri sighed and reached up to rub at his forehead. "Look. I…will be honest. I am not good at talking and negotiations. I would much rather knock you out every time you even thought about picking up a cigarette until you made the connection between unconsciousness and nicotine cravings. But instead…I'll make you a deal."

Crossing his arms again, Kyle weighed the situation carefully. "A deal between only being able to dream of smoking and…?"

"You give up your habit and never take it up again…and I will help you to deal with the emotional baggage you're carrying." It was said flatly and matter-of-factly.

"So…you'll show me how to pack it up?"

"No…I will show you how to organize and understand it."

Kyle stared at him, not too convinced and sending that message in waves.

"Your emotions are scattered. They…they speak first and ask questions later. You say you think and feel differently than normal men because your brain is physically different."

"Which is true."

"And I'm not doubting that. What I'm suggesting is that we tailor some therapy for your specific problems…help you deal with them one at a time, until at the end of the day, you will realize that there is more to life than the pain of your losses and other's misdeeds."

"All that and I can even keep my humanity?"

"That's right." Endri had been smirking from that last comment, but it faded, as uplifting expressions on his face were oft to do. "I don't want you to end up like me, Kyle."

"And how is that, Endri?"

"You should know. You yell at me often enough for it."

Kyle snickered, blue eyes training down to the cigarette in his fingers and studying it. "You know…you're right. I don't want to be like you. You're…not very nice." He looked up with a flick of his eyes, seeing that his partner was smirking in amusement. "But," the man sighed, standing straight and flicking the nicotine stick away from his person, watching it bounce over the gravel before coming to rest out of sight, "what the hell. I don't exactly have much to lose do I?"

Endri stood silent and still, regarding his partner across the six feet that separated them with just the slightest bit of approval…and relief. "I'm glad you see it my way."

"Your way or the highway, right?"

"No. My way or your way. One will end relatively happy…the other in death. I would hope the choice is not a hard one."

Kyle nodded, nibbling on his lower lip and getting that far-off look in his eyes that meant he was thinking about something. "No…not really that hard at all."

Endri smirked and extended a hand toward his partner, not realizing that to Kyle, he looked like some ethereal creature beckoning him toward certain doom or eternal salvation. The lighting of the pole lights behind him that sent a glow about his body like a heavenly halo and the fact that the only thing not black on him was his skin and hair didn't help much either. Nor really did the breeze that chose to push past them at that moment make Kyle that much more confident, considering the chill it sent through his thin body. Or maybe that was the shakes starting already? Nevertheless, inexorably drawn forward because it was his best choice and a promise of some very interesting time to be spent with his partner, Kyle stepped up and past the blonde, allowing the large hand that rested to his shoulder to remain as they walked to the steps. That it was there was like a promise itself—that Endri would offer all the help he could and never give up until Kyle felt better about himself and his life.

Kyle felt the reproach for himself building up, as it had many times in the past. He told himself he wasn't worth the time or effort, that it wouldn't work anyway. Give up, give up. Endri didn't care anyway. Give up. But that hand on his shoulder was warm and it pushed those thoughts out of sight for the moment. And it was in that moment, when they began descending the steps back into the hotel, that Kyle understood and believed wholeheartedly that his partner was a good man deep down. It was so deep it was hard to believe it was there, but it was there all the same. It was the same feeling he had the first time they met, the first "official" time, when Kyle was sober enough to understand "long blonde hair" did not necessarily equal "female". That feeling had been muddled by a hangover and nervousness, but it still had been felt then, and now it was felt again, unblemished and stark in its intensity.

Endri was a decent guy, no matter how he tried to cover it up. And Kyle would never think otherwise again.… Until they fought next, anyway.

And, as if his head was coming out from a thick bank of storm clouds into the bright sunshine, it dawned on him. That jerk had gotten him to quit smoking with a bribe! How weak-willed was he! Weak enough to believe in the false promises of a stoic ass? Or strong enough to believe in the genuine promises of his good-willed partner? And damn it if Kyle forgot to factor in "time". And he was supposed to be a genius.