Beetlejuice: Now and Forever part 2
Sorry for the delay, everyone! I had absolutely no clue how to publish new parts of the story, being new to the website and all. I hope you enjoy it, and I apologize for the extended cliffhanger.
He leaned in towards her so that his mouth was at her ear.
"Absolutely nothing..." he whispered.
. . .
Juno rushed into her office with her most trusted of workers close behind her.
"Where is he?!" she hollered "Where is Juice?!"
She turned viscously towards Miss Argentina, and stared venomous death directly into her eyes.
"I... I don't know, Juno." she whispered, neglecting her usual gusto in the presence of the fuming caseworker. "We've been searching... but... the power...it's concealin-"
Juno threw her cigarette to the ground and stomped on it loudly, causing the Argentinian to flinch in fear. "I know what the power is doing! I want him in my office NOW! We need to find him before he discovers that he even possesses the damn power!" she screamed in rage.
"He died for the second time-what?- three years ago?! He was sitting in the waiting room! And you didn't think anything of it!" the desk clerk looked down in shame like a puppy being chastised by its master. "You know what he looks like! You know what he was capable of before the second death, but now?" she inhaled jaggedly "Now it's so much bigger than you even know" hissed Juno.
The younger ghoul looked up at Juno, fear and remorse in her big and beautifully made up eyes. "I'll... I'll get right on it..." she said, fighting back tears "I won't let you down again..."
Juno leaned in towards the tall young woman and spat savagely "You better not."
At that, she expelled the ghoul from her office, and locked the door.
. . .
Lydia stared at Beetlejuice in surprise. She had been expecting an extremely elaborate outcome of dying after death. Her expression made Beetlejuice collapse into himself in a fit of maniacal laughter. He spoke between gasps of breath "Lyds!-You-You look like you- like you expected something-crazy!" at that, he broke into another round of spastic laughter.
She giggled in an odd and unexplainable mixture of nerves and relief. "Yeah, I kind of did." and she chuckled again.
She looked down and had a sickened expression of sadness on her pale lips. "I was so scared for you..." she paused "I'm glad that my premonition was wrong."
Beetlejuice snapped upright and placed his cold fingers on her cheek. "You... you were worried about me?" he said in an astounded and honored manner. "Babes, I... I didn't know that you cared that much... after what I put you through years ago..."
Her eyes met his. Beetlejuice's lip trembled "What... what did you think happened to me?" he slid his hand from Lydia's cheek to her hand that lay on the soft flesh of her thigh. He slid his fingers under her palm and held her hand tenderly. "You can tell me. I know how tough you are... Your fear for me won't affect my opinion."
Lydia looked down at her lap and back to Beetlejuice. "I thought that you were gone for good..."
She turned her hand over so that her palm was on Beetlejuice's, and squeezed his hand softly. He moved his other hand to her chin and lifted her gaze to his eyes.
"Even if that had happen... I'd travel through universes to find you... and say goodbye..."
Those words struck his conscience. What are you doing!? His fuming thoughts screamed. You're soft! You're so damn soft that it makes me sick! However, despite the rage in his mind at his tender words, Beetlejuice ignored the degrading accusations and held strong to his feelings. What was the worst that could happen?
Lydia had a soft look of astonishment at his words, her mouth hung open very slightly and the corners of her lips came to a small upward curve. Her eyes looked into his and shined with happiness. He beamed at her obvious recognition and acceptance of his statement. Simply knowing that this was a mutual arrangement was so fulfilling to him, and gave him the confidence to lean in and kiss her, and that's exactly what he planned to do.
He set his hand on her cheek and leaned his pale lips onto hers, holding he gaze until their lips made contact in a delicate and passionate touch. Lydia threw her arms around his neck and tucked her ankles under her backside so that she sat on her shins on the couch. Beetlejuice adjusted his position so that his right leg was on the couch and his left leg dangled on the ground as to make it easier for him and Lydia to continue their connection.
Beetlejuice lifted his other leg from the floor to the couch and crept forward on the palms of his hands and his knees while Lydia continued to hold around his neck. He set her down on her back, him on his hands and knees over her, fervently kissing her soft lips, and relishing the feeling of her kissing back. He took one of his hands from the soft fabric of the creaking couch to the back of her neck, lifting her lips closer to his, and feeding his now raging addiction to the taste of her skin.
Lydia threw her head back, gasping for breath with her eyes closed and mouth wide open. She opened her eyes and gazed seductively into Beetlejuice's acidic green eyes as she continued to huff for breath. She looked for words, but simply couldn't find the right ones. So, instead, she craned her soft, pale neck to his cool and dead throat and kissed it tenderly. Beetlejuice's body shuddered as he bent his head back, exposing his whole neck for Lydia to explore. She kissed his pulse-lacking throat and he burrowed his face into her own, kissing her pulsating neck and reveling in the heat she radiated. He inhaled the scent of her flesh and blood as he trailed kisses slowly and sensually from her clavicle to her lips. She smiled against his kiss, and shivered at the cold touch of his hands on her heated body.
She pulled her lips from his for a moment and placed her nose against his as she smiled, biting her lip slightly. Beetlejuice opened his eyes just as she did, and the look in her eyes was... beautiful. A mix of devilish lust and romantic heat. He stared into her eyes.
Beetlejuice suddenly began to sweat, as he removed his hand from Lydia and placed it on his chest. Lydia propped herself up on her forearms, leaning on her elbows, and looked at Beetlejuice with concern in her big, beautiful eyes.
"Beej, are you o-"
. "GAH!" he cried out suddenly, clutching his chest with both hands, and buckling over in pain.
"BJ!" Lydia cried, thrusting her back into an upright position and grabbing hold of the ghoul's shoulders. His body shuddered from the abrupt gust of horrible pain. Lydia raised her hands to his cheeks and lifted his face to look into hers. His expression was twisted in an agonized sneer of suffering. "What's wrong?!" she cried out in fear for her lover.
Beetlejuice's face loosened slightly as he stroked his chest in a circular motion with one hand, resting the other on his leg that was still placed on one side of Lydia's hips in a straddling position. He spoke in a strained whisper, his gravelly voice dripping with the obvious sound of unsuppressed pain "I..." he sputtered "I don't know... just- aaagh- not feelin' so hot..." Lydia placed her hand over his as he rotated it on his pained chest.
"Is there anything I can do?" she asked in a whisper.
Beetlejuice cracked a small smirk "Not until I know what's wrong."
. . .
Juno rubbed at her aching temples. She had been sitting in her office for hours, and was being bombarded with paperwork for everything other than the one thing she particularly wanted.
She wanted information on Beetlejuice.
As soon as she began to ponder over how long her assistant had been taking with the content on his whereabouts, the very same desk clerk burst into her office, out of breath and slightly shaking.
"Juno!" she exclaimed in heavily accented exasperation "I think I've found him!"
Juno snapped to attention and stood from her seat, placing her palms flat on her desk. "Where is he!? Where is Juice!?" she barked with eagerness at the turquoise skinned ghoul.
The ghoul swept a stray piece of hair from her forehead, and placed it back into her neatly done pageant hair. She braced herself for what she was about to say, and the lashing out she would soon be subject to.
"He... well, our radars picked up his signal... in..." she paused for slightly longer than Juno could handle.
"Where, girl? Where?!" she hollered.
The ghoul needed a moment to regain her crushed confidence. "He's... been traced... it's not a strong signal, because of the p-p-power and its camouflaging properties, but... well, taking that into consideration, finding any signal at all would require him to have spent an extended amount of time in a single location... and..."
Juno inhaled through her nose, trying to stay patient with the ghoul.
"Yes?" she breathed.
"He is in the land of the living."
If the old ghost had had a beating heart, it would have stopped right there. Those words were what she had least expected, and feared the most. She tried to stop her head from spinning at this horrible news. "You mean to tell me that Beet- or- Juice is in the living world with the power?"
The turquoise flesh of the beautiful ghoul turned a couple shades lighter at the sheer terror of how well Juno was taking this. "Y-yes..." she managed to sputter in the midst of her fear.
Juno straightened her posture and turned her face to the young ghoul. Her eyes were shut in a meditative sort of state. She rolled her lips between her teeth and released them, exhaling through the gaping slit in her throat.
"Very well... that will be all." she said in a half whisper, indirectly dismissing the ghost from her office.
After the girl left, she sat at her desk, lit a cigarette and finished it in one drag. She reached for another.
. . .
Night had fallen in the Neitherworld as Lydia Deetz sat with Beetlejuice's head nestled into her lap. She stroked his long, thin hair, and twirled it on her fingers as she sat in a sleepy and thoughtful bliss. Beetlejuice slept in complete silence, which surprised Lydia to an extent. She had expected obnoxious snoring as an emphasis of his obnoxious spirit, however, she knew that one factor of being dead was not needing to breathe, and to snore, one must be able to breathe.
She chuckled at the silly thought of a dead man snoring, and brought her face down to Beetlejuice's own, which was facing straight up towards the ceiling of the roadhouse. She kissed his cool forehead, much to the discomfort of her back, and then lay her head on the arm rest of the worn sofa.
She fell into a blissful sleep in the dark of the Neitherworld.