DISCLAIMER: I make no money, I own no franchises.

A/N: Right, so…roolsilver, Darbanville, TheBlackxRabbit – this is for you! Wonderful, reviewing people that you are. I don't know if you'll be as happy with this chapter, seeing as I let the typing go where the muse willed, but here it is! One thing – Lydia is about fifteen in this story. Not a girl, not yet a woman, and other clichéd lyrics. I don't think at this point she's really ready for marriage and all that it entails. Personally, the movie ending seems better for her, with BJ returning years later when she's more mature and could handle a more physical relationship on equal footing. But my muse, she's sadistic.

PREVIOUSLY:

"Oh, well, if that's all," he said while a battered pay phone appeared in the air. "Why don't you just give 'em a ring while I go fix up our little honeymoon love shack!" And with that he planted a slobbery kiss on her wincing cheek and bounded off around the curve of the shore.

-SCENE BREAK-

Not ready to face the music just yet, or in fact ever, she kicked off the stupid sand-filled high heels and wandered off in the opposite direction of where Beetlejuice had gone.

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Two: In Which There Are No Poisonous Frogs, or Even Sharks

After five minutes of walking under the hot tropical sun, Lydia had rearranged the veil with some hair pulling (apparently someone had never heard of hair spray and her hairstyle was being sustained entirely by knots) so that it covered her face and peeled off the gloves with some difficulty. The ring had stubbornly refused to be budged and she had finally settled on simply dragging around the glove on one finger, but then the glove came off through the ring. And she had to tell herself that she wasn't creeped out at all by the corpsey ghost ring for several minutes before she even remotely believed it. The metal, not warmed by the sun at all, made her flesh crawl.

If it hadn't been so icky, she might have been grateful for the tiny bit of nothing in the muggy heat. She eyed the shade of the jungle dubiously, not really willing to risk poisonous frogs or snakes or anything that any place HE had brought them to might have.

Ten minutes later, Lydia came upon what was quite literally a shack. Hearing strange noises that almost sounded like power tools from within, she had hurried on, but momentarily she was right back where she had started, judging by the footprints in the sand. It was disturbing to realize that she was, in fact, on a deserted island, not just a beach. A very small, utterly deserted island. Alone. With HIM.

On the other hand, a poisonous frog might just be her new best friend!

She stomped determinedly through the underbrush towards the waterfall in the lee of the jungle – or at least she tried. The huge skirt of her awful red wedding dress kept getting stuck between palm trees and the layers and layers of tulle kept getting caught on everything from leaves to the other leaves on the tropical ferns, and occasionally an orchid, just to shake things up. Before she had gotten two feet in it had become necessary to hike the hoop skirt supporting the fluff all the way up to her hips where it was possible to sort of tilt it to slide between plants several feet apart. She sincerely and devoutly prayed that she found some kind of frog or something before Beetlejuice found her, because tromping through the greenery like this exposed everything on one side from the waist down, including the polka-dotted, heart-shaped underwear that was definitely NOT what she had put on that morning. For her continued sanity, it was necessary not to think too hard about that.

So focused was she on finding a path that she could fit through, that she didn't notice her meandering bare feet had led her straight where she did not want – around the back of the shack, where the taller trees grew farther apart, shading the ramshackle collection of walls leaning on each other like drunks stumbling home. In fact, when she stepped out of the shade onto the sand and blaring sun and lifted her eyes to see said shack, she was surprised enough that the skirt slipped from her numb fingers and snapped back into shape with a whoompf.

How lucky that this happened mere seconds after Beetlejuice had exited the front door. Hearing the noise, he poked his head around back and was treated to the sight of a stunned, slightly sunburned Lydia instead of an eyeful. "There you are, sweetie! I was just about to go get ya!" Seizing her wrist he towed her around front, saying, "You weren't trying to peek, now, were ya, pookie? You wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!" He cackled and swept her up in his arms bridal style. Her entire field of vision was eclipsed by lipstick red netting as the hoop skirt shoved it in their faces. He spit some out and kicked open the door, which fell off the hinges.

She pulled the tulle from her eyes and stared open mouthed at the horror beyond the lintel. A bordello could not have less taste. If asked, she'd lay even odds that he stole some of the furnishings from a sleazy motel or house of ill repute. There was a hell of a lot of hot pink and red striped velvet draped crazily all over heart shaped chintz furniture of a dubious nature, sprinkled with fringe and fuzzy handcuffs. There was more tackiness than a small shack should have been able to contain without going supernova and condensing into a black hole tourist trap. It was like a subspace anomaly – especially because it was, as the inside was at least ten times larger than the outside and that was just the front room. She could see bead covered doorways leading elsewhere. Never again would she believe that Otho was the most god awful interior decorator in the world that had managed to master a basic color scheme.

He shrugged and said, "I'm a traditionalist at heart." Then he snorted and guffawed.

Her hoop skirt got caught in the doorway as he attempted to carry her over the threshold and for a moment she thought she was saved as he pushed and heaved but couldn't fit her through. Refusing to put her down no matter how much she struggled, he tried tilting her to the right, then the left. He tried holding her upside down (she flailed, kicking him in the face when he tried to peep). She was starting to sympathize with a Christmas tree her family'd bought a few years ago that had taken up half their living room when the workmen had finally gotten it in through a window. The fact that it had then been partially denuded and decorated with hideous orange angels seemed like an ill omen of things to come.

"Um," she said with blood rushing to her head, as a prelude to a hopefully convincing argument that he should just forget about her and go cavort in his love shack by himself. "Don't you think-"

"No, no, I've got it for sure this time, honey!" He righted her and strode forward confidently, the door frame stretching out of the way. She made a hasty grab for the edges but they popped through the door before she could get a good grip. He planted her in the middle of the room, then turned to survey his handiwork with pride while squeezing her to his side with an arm around her shoulders. "Here we are, snugglebunny!"

More than slightly queasy, she debated shouting at him about having the sense to just widen the door in the first place, but since she hadn't wanted to be able to fit through, she decided to leave it alone and hope next time he might not remember that he was a poltergeist at all and he would have to leave her outside.

Turning to her and wrapping his other arm around her waist, he looked deeply into her cleavage, which was thankfully covered by layers and layers of ruffles which he himself had put there. Bet he was rethinking that one now. He opened his mouth but before he could say anything, she blurted out, "Why don't you give me a tour?" hoping to stave off whatever inappropriate suggestion he was about to make.

He raised an angled eyebrow. "Okaaaay." He let her waist go in a sweeping gesture that took in the room. "This is the living room." She tried not to look at anything too closely, fearing for her virgin eyesight among the blinding and immoral furnishings.

With the arm around her shoulders that she had not been able to shake off, he marched her over to one of the beaded doorways. She was horrified to discover it was the bathroom. How was she supposed to pee or bathe or even brush her teeth if he could watch?! He said, "And this is the bathroom." Then he dragged her unresponsive feet away from the maroon ceramic room to the other doorway.

"And this," he announced grandiosely, "is the bedroom!" He shoved her towards the bead curtain and she was immensely glad that her dress wouldn't fit through this doorway either, until she stumbled through it unencumbered by clothes at all (except for the ridiculous panties).

Shrieking and trying to cover her chest with her hands, she almost missed him saying, "Why don't I slip into something more comfortable, too?" But because some things are simply more important even than not allowing perverted poltergeists to ogle your goods shirtless, she clapped her hands over her eyes and left covering her chest to her elbows. There were some things humans were not meant to gaze upon and live. One of them is Beetlejuice half-naked, never mind all naked. Catching her dad and her stepmom together was enough mental scarring for one lifetime.

"Put your clothes back on RIGHT NOW, or I'll…I'll…." Her shortcircuiting brain failed to come up with something even remotely threatening to a ghost. Was it possible to castrate him? Would he just put it back on, like Adam could tear off his head? She could, as his wife, conceivably threaten to make him sleep on the couch, but that would imply she would at some point let him sleep with her, which she wouldn't. EVER. She realized she didn't know him well enough to pinpoint any weakness which she could exploit. He was just too foreign. One might think she'd be an expert on ghostly entities after reading the handbook, but the thing read more like stereo instructions than insights into the soul.

He was laughing hard, slapping his thigh from the sound of it, and she'd never felt more exposed. Emotionally, besides the obvious clothing deficiency. Goosebumps prickled over her body under his gaze and her hackles rose as he whispered gloatingly in her ear, "Or you'll what?" Her heart beat a mile a minute – she'd thought he was still on the other side of the room, she hadn't heard him move. She was beginning to see a real disadvantage to not being able to see what he was doing.

But if he was behind her, she could open her eyes to make a run for it, because the important thing was that he was not blocking the exit now. She'd grab a drape from the living room and escape into the jungle – it'd be easy without the hoopskirt. There were no poisonous frogs that she had seen, but maybe she could build a raft and row out under cover of darkness. Maybe she'd get eaten by a shark! That was a comforting thought.

He brushed her undone hair away from her neck and stuck his cold nose in the juncture of her shoulder. She jumped, brushing against something at her back which she immediately shied away from. He inhaled deeply despite her sheen of sweat, and she took a deep breath and made a break for it – only to immediately run into Beetlejuice, standing in front of her. Her arms trapped between their chests as he glommed onto her, and her eyes seeing before she could slam them shut again, she was relieved to find that he was wearing the same blue plaid velour robe he'd had on when she met him. Sitting on the porch of a whorehouse. Which was kind of disgusting because judging from what she could smell of it now (cheap perfume, smoke, decay, and something else that made her stomach clench) he'd never washed it.

Smirking, he let his hand slide down over her butt. Her eyes went wide and she froze. "No," she managed to get out of a throat nearly paralyzed with dread.

He scowled but his hands stilled, gripping a bit tighter. "No?"

She swallowed hard and said, "NO."

Miraculously, he backed off, muttering, "Whatever." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and pouted, glaring at a corner.

She dropped her arms to her sides in shock. When his eyes slid speculatively over to her chest a second later, she remembered her toplessness and whirled around. She had a feeling, however, that he was just staring (a little resentfully, it must be said) at her backside now instead, and frantically looked for something to cover up with. The bed, not an option to even think about before, was now a godsend. A satin-quilt-covered, anatomical-heart-shaped godsend. The aorta turned into a sort of headboard bedside table. Practically running the five feet over, she snatched up the comforter and swathed herself in its ratty flannel-backed folds. Determinedly, she did not think about where it had probably been.

Turning around to find him glaring at the corner again and scuffing the shag carpet with his moldy bare feet, she said, "We need to talk."

He turned the glare on her now that she didn't have any interesting distractions visible. "No shit."