Chapter 28: Saved

Beetle was leaving the bar and heading to the hospital, when he was stopped by an apparition who formed in a cloud of thick, tar-like smoke. He was met with a scowl of a thousand ugly wrinkles and a big, gaping neckhole to greet him.

"Juno, baby! Long time, no see!" he stepped back, throwing his hands up and hoping she wasn't going to call the cops, considering his recent bad behavior.

"Juice, you're coming with me. Now!" she snapped, pointing a cigarette in his face.

"This isn't concerning that little 'E' word is it, cause if it is, I'll blow us both to Satan's asshole before I let ya drag me to that!" he warned, crossing his arms in defiance.

"No, Juice. If that was the case, I wouldn't be seen talking with your ass! Now, come with me. It's about Lydia."

"Fine...But you better not be lyin'..." he grumbled, before the two dissipated in thin air.


Beetle arrived in Juno's office, across from her strangely empty desk. "The hell happened here? Didn't you use to have paperwork up to an elephant's asshole?"

Juno ignored him, pacing about the room, and checking her doors to make sure they were locked. She then pulled down the blinds over her windows before seating herself across from him and speaking. "Yes, and most of it belonged to you, Juice. Lydia, too, to a much lesser extent. Even my own dealings with you are no longer in existence." she spoke, with an air of disbelief about her.

"So, what're ya sayin'?" he raised an eyebrow, as he grabbed her pack of cigarettes from her desk and stole one.

Juno sighed, grabbing and pulling the pack to her once more, then pulling out a smoke of her own and lighting it. "I've been running over things for a couple of weeks now. The cops have dropped everything, including other cases that have nothing to do with us, due to accidental deletion. It would be impossible to get back what the computer doesn't have. The technology to recover it doesn't exist yet, and it would cost more money than the government can fathom."

"So yer tellin' me I'm off the hook?" He asked, nearly at a loss for words.

"We all are, apparently." She shook her head, inhaling her smoke with a baffled look on her face. "I was the one who gave Lydia the information about your name. I thought she'd use it to banish you for good."

"Ain't that fuckin' sweet of ya?" Beetle shot her his best fuck you, wrinklebag look.

"I had no choice at the time. You'd gone too far, you dope! And you know it!" she scowled at him, reprimanding him like she always did, the sweetheart.

"So, she deleted our shit?" Beetlejuice asked, blowing smoke in her face as he spoke just for the fun of it.

Juno glared at him, waving his smoke out of the way. "I have reason to believe she did. After she gained your power, I lost the ability to monitor her whereabouts. I'm almost certain she figured out what to do. They found her right under the location of the government's digital file system, completely drained and unconscious. She nearly erased her whole self from existence doing what she did. She's lucky to still be here."

Beetle inhaled his cigarette deeply, shaking his head as he flicked ashes in her tray for once instead of on the desk. Or the floor. "She really saved our asses, didn't she?" Man, he was back to feeling like a massive piece of shit right now. After all the scummy things he'd done, she still saved his ass, and nearly did herself in, to boot.

"Yes. We are indebted to her now, so we need to watch over her. I don't know why she did it. We were already off the hook. She had to be worried about you, Juice. That's the only motivation I can find. That level of benevolence doesn't usually end up in the Neitherworld." Juno admitted.

"Yeah, pretty sure I'm the reason she didn't go to Paradise or whatever. My curse held her back." Beetle sighed, scratching his head and fidgeting about. He wasn't good with guilty feelings already, and he was even worse with guilty feelings in front of his enemy-slash-caseworker.

"No doubt, it did, Juice. But it's over now. You need to take care of her now. Wait for her to wake up before you leave, anyway." she stated, confusing Beetle.

"Huh? Leave?" his face scrunched up in confusion. "We're still married, ain't we?"

"Yes, I'm afraid. That's part of the curse, and the curse is permanently binding. What I'm talking about is your summons." she clarified, which really didn't clarify anything. He was still pretty damned confused.

"Summons? The fuck?! I thought you said I was off the hook!" he spat, hitting his fist on her desk.

"It's not a court summons, you pea brain! The system sent out summons requests to over ten thousand ghosts in the afterlife to agree to acsension due to finished business. Lydia was the first to get hers. It came the moment she did what she did. She's probably the only one of us that was supposed to actually ascend. Yours and mine will be here within the next month." she stated, smirking.

"You mean their sending our asses to Paradise?! Are ya kiddin' me?" he began to cackle, slapping her desk and causing her coffee to spill out. "That's fuckin' rich!"

"You can thank Lydia for that. I know I will. I'm tired of this civil servant crap! It's about time I get a vacation." Juno smirked, taking a drag from her smoke.

"Oh, hell yeah, Juny Baby!" Beetle jumped up, grabbing her around the waist and dancing around with her, much to her distate. "Paradise...Yeah..." he mused, wearing a wicked grin. "Tropical beaches, martinis, hot chicks in tiny little bikinis..."

"You're married, you buffoon!" she scolded, slapping him on the back of his head.

"Oh, yeah. I was gettin' away with mahself..." he laughed, feeling like a kicked dog. Regardless, he was a free mutt, and he had Lydia Juice to thank for it. Thinking of her, he sighed, scratching his head and feeling like a dickwad again. "Heya, I'm gonna go see her. Guess the least I can do is make sure she ain't alone." he muttered, before pausing. "She is gonna wake up, ain't she?"

Juno sighed, blowing smoke everywhere. "I certainly hope so, Juice."