Bug Princess and the Seven Months
A Beetlejuice fan fiction by Lady Norbert
Author's Notes: I had no intention of going more than two months without updating! I thought I'd be back at it shortly after my birthday celebration, in early September; among other highlights, I had dinner at Beetle House in NYC and Beetlejuice himself kissed my hand and wished me a happy birthday. (Yes, really. One does not turn forty every day; therefore, one must make a giant fuss.) Anyway, upon returning to reality, things got very crazy in a lot of different parts of my life, and truthfully, there just hasn't been much time or energy left over for creative endeavors. I hope you find this chapter worth the wait. I'm afraid I can't promise speedy updates, because it's the holiday season and I work retail, but I'll do my best.
This goes out to the Beetle Babes (they know who they are), whose goofy chatroom conversation inspired a particular bit of this chapter, and especially to bd-z, from whom I swiped a bit of headcanon.
Chapter Three: Her Gentle Grace
There were few things Beetlejuice loved more than a good party, and there were few people who threw a better one than Prince Vince. He let himself drift around the room lazily, now and then swiping a drink or a plate of hors d'oeuvres.
No matter where in the room he floated, or whose conversation he elected to interrupt, he maintained a vantage point from which he could watch his wife. It was really strange to see her decked out in shades of white, he had to admit; Lydia had never lost her fondness for black and other dark shades. The whites were appropriate to her rank, he supposed, with the whole 'light is good' mentality and so forth. Still, it was weird to him. Not a bad weird, though.
Turning his head for a moment, however, he spotted another familiar face.
"Yo, Will! What's shakin'?" he called, floating over to greet one of the only Neitherworld denizens who actually really liked him.
"Beetlejuice, my old friend," said the bard pleasantly, shaking hands. "It's been too long."
"Whatcha been up to lately? I ain't seen ya since Lyds had that report for school and we helped break the dam on your writer's block." Beetlejuice chuckled, wiping an imaginary nostalgic tear from his eye. "Ah, good times."
"I'm in the midst of a new play, actually!" Shakespeare beamed. "What you told me about Romeo attempting to woo Lydia away from Castle MacBeth gave me the inspiration. My hero climbs to the balcony in search of his lady fair, only to be confronted by the ghost of her long-dead uncle who tries to order him away from the castle. When he refuses to go, the uncle's ghost whips out a chainsaw and cuts off the balcony. The hero crashes to the ground -"
"Where does the ghost get a chainsaw?" Beetlejuice interrupted.
"Where did you get one?"
"...touché."
"I admit, it still needs polish." The playwright shrugged. "Perhaps you and Lydia can drop by sometime soon and give me your thoughts on the script thus far."
"I'm sure Lyds'd be up for that, if she's not feeling too sick."
"Ah, yes. The first few months are the most trying, as I recall." Shakespeare sighed a bit wistfully. "When my dear Anne was expecting our twins..."
"Twins? Who said anything about twins?!" Beetlejuice's eyes widened in comic mania. "Twice the chaos! Man, that'd be fun!"
"Mm. Lydia will likely not soon forgive me for putting that idea in your head." Chuckling, Shakespeare made a sort of shooing motion. "You'd best get back to your royal mingling. I'll come and give my regards to your lady before the night is over."
Smirking delightedly at the prospect of multiplying his offspring's reign of terror in the Neitherworld, Beetlejuice started to meander back in the direction of his better half. Before he could get very far, however, a voice arrested his attention.
"It's Beetlejuice, am I right?"
He did a pivot in midair and eyed the speaker. "Lord Milo, yeah? Vince's cousin? Hi, how ya doin'?" Speaking of twins...
"How do you do?" Milo was so similar in appearance to his sister that Beetlejuice wondered if he would be able to tell them apart if he met them on the street. The twins were purplish in complexion, though they had black hair like Vince and their other cousin, and small brightly colored wings protruded from their shoulders. He was pretty sure they were more for looks than for actual flight.
"So - what can I do ya for, Lordship?" Beetlejuice tossed a cockroach cluster into the air and caught it in his mouth.
"Actually, I just had a question, if you would indulge me." Milo's expression was placidly bland, kind of like Vince's when he ran out of things to make him miserable.
"Sure, I guess. What's on your mind?"
"Your wife - I heard the herald introduce her as the Princess of Beetles. I'm unfamiliar with the title. Would you be so kind as to explain it to me?"
"Oh, that." Beetlejuice shrugged, and smiled. "Well, a bunch of months back, Wifey-Babes and I got ourselves into a bit of a scrape. Long story, but if you go back through the archives on Tumblr I bet you can find bits of it. Anyway, we were separated and she was pretty down in the dumps about it, so our good buddy Vince kind of adopted her to cheer her up. He calls her his sister ever since then, and plopped that tiara on her head to make it sort of official."
"Interesting. It seems I've been out of touch with my cousins longer than I realized," came the thoughtful reply. "We certainly didn't mean to be remiss in welcoming a new member into the family; news of such a thing never reached us out in the Dismal Desert."
"Guess you don't get much television out your way? That hack Monitor had his people all over it - all over a lot of what's happened these last couple years, actually. I kinda thought the whole Neitherworld was on top of the developments."
"Television? Ah, no. We have access to it," Milo clarified, and something about his tone didn't sit quite comfortably on Beetlejuice's ear, "but rarely find the interest. Still, I must be sure to pay my respects to Her Ladyship, now that I'm aware of the connection. I hope she's willing to forgive the oversight."
"Oh, if you're worried about givin' offense, you can rest easy on that score. Lyds didn't know any more about you than you did about her, as far as I know. Besides, my girl's not one to hold a grudge even when she really should - which is good news for me, know what I mean?"
"That's comforting. If you'll excuse me, I should explain the situation to my sister. We'll both look forward to getting to know you and the Princess better in the near future." And with a slight bow, Lord Milo left, making his way back to where Lady Anahita looked rather bored out of her mind.
"Huh." Beetlejuice watched him walk away. "I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I just had a conversation with the plot."
Given his wife's delicate condition, he decided not to enlighten her on the substance of his conversation with Lord Milo. After all, it might not have meant anything, and what was the point of possibly worrying her over nothing? She had enough on her mind, what with the kid.
One aspect of Lydia's pregnancy in particular tended to cause some discussion and contemplation among those who knew about it, and Beetlejuice imagined that Lydia herself thought about it more than anyone. It was sort of an open secret at this point; they didn't discuss it much with anyone in the Neitherworld except their own circle of friends and relations, all of whom were united in asking one question in particular... namely, just what was the kid?
"I wish I knew how to answer that question," Lydia was saying when he drifted back into her vicinity. She was conversing with Bee, Donny, Vince, and Ginger, who had since joined the group. "The baby has a mostly living mother and a mostly dead father. I'm not sure there's even a word for such a thing, to be honest."
"Could be babies," her husband retorted by way of announcing himself. "I just had the wildest chat with our old buddy Shakespeare - didja know he had kids? He mentioned his twins and I can't stop thinking about the possibilities." He grinned.
Lydia, her expression only very faintly disturbed, glanced down at her tiny excuse for a baby bump. "You think that's likely?"
"It's possible, dear," said Bee. "Junior and Donny are twins, you know."
"They are? Beetlejuice, you never told me that!"
"I kinda forget about it myself, more often than not," he admitted.
"We're fraternal," Donny added. "Brother is older than me by a good fifteen minutes, and we do look a lot alike - when he bathes - but not identical."
"So it runs in the family, is what you're telling me." She shook her head, slightly nonplussed. "Every time I think I know everything there is to know about you, along comes another surprise. Ooh!" She pointed across the room at the buffet spread, where a large tray laden with fruit had just been added to one end of the table. "Apples!"
"Apples?" Ginger repeated.
"Weirdest thing." Lydia laughed. "A lot of women get strange cravings when they're pregnant, but for me, it's just regular old apples. I can't get enough of them sometimes."
"Who can ever get enough of nature's toothbrushes?" asked Donny.
"I made sure to have plenty on hand," said Vince. "I know how fond you are of them, Donny, and between that and my dear sister's situation, it seemed only proper."
"Thoughtful as ever, Vince. Beej, can you go grab me a couple?"
"Sure thing, Babes."
He meandered to the other side of the room and gave the fruit a thorough examination before selecting three. A little farther down the table, he observed two of the less refined courtiers arguing over... a piece of shrimp, maybe? He wasn't quite sure.
"You didn't want it," one was protesting.
"Of course I did! I licked it, it's mine!"
Snickering, Beetlejuice decided that he didn't really want to know. As he started to turn away from the table, he found himself accosted by another royal cousin - the Countess, this time. She was kind of like a prettier version of Vince, not that he'd ever stopped to imagine such a thing, and the eyes which scrutinized him were sharp.
"It's... Lilura, yeah?"
"Quite. We meet at last, and I'm told that it's none too soon since you somewhat married into the family by way of your wife's adoption."
"Heh, yeah. Crazy the way this old world works. Listen, I need to get these back to the wife - care to join us and we'll get all the formal introductions done at one go?"
"Certainly. Lead the way."
She allowed him to escort her back to where the others were still talking. "Hey, Lyds, the plot keeps following me around, I think," he said, presenting her with the apples she'd requested.
"Oh, good, Lilura," said Vince, his voice almost uncharacteristically cheerful. He extended an arm toward her, which she immediately took. "I've been hoping you two would get acquainted. Lilura and I were raised together for a time during our grandfather's late reign - we were as close as brother and sister might be."
"Aren't we still, Vince?" the Countess asked sweetly, smiling up at him. There was something unsettling (and a little sickening) about the way she hung on him.
"Of course! And now with Lydia in the family, the girl cousins fully outnumber the boys. The two of you and Anahita will no doubt want to have tea sometime, and go over all the sordid family history."
Lydia smiled. "I'm at your disposal, Your Highness," she said, before taking a bite of the first apple. "Mmm. Lovely."
"Bug likes apples, does he?" Vince's look for Lydia was fond.
"Bug?" Lilura repeated.
"My kid," Beetlejuice explained. "Kid-in-progress, anyway. Bug Juice."
"Well, goodness, Vince. The day is just full of surprises," she said mildly. "Not only did you not tell us we have a new cousin to enjoy, but you kept it to yourself that you're to be an uncle!" She swatted him teasingly, but there was an edge to the gesture that didn't strike Beetlejuice as entirely playful.
"My apologies, Lily. I should have been more thorough in my correspondence," he said. "And my word, where are my manners? I haven't even introduced the rest of my friends! The herald made Lydia and Beetlejuice known to you, of course, but this is Ginger the dancing spider, and Beetlejuice's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Juice. And this is Donny, his brother."
"Donny and Vince are thick as thieves these days," Beetlejuice said, pillowing his elbow on his brother's shoulder. The whole interaction had a really weird vibe about it; something was incredibly off. But the only thing he could pinpoint for certain was that Donny, normally the social butterfly (er, Dobsonfly) of the family, seemed oddly subdued and uncertain. At Beetlejuice's words, however, he brightened a bit.
"Well, with you two in the Outerworld so often, we've come to somewhat rely on one another for companionship in your absence," Vince replied. "Really, I'm only sorry we weren't acquainted sooner."
Lilura looked up at her cousin's expression again, as if absorbing something from it, before turning to Donny. "I'm exceptionally pleased to meet you, then, Donny. Any friend of my favorite cousin's is a friend of mine."
"Mine. Oh hey, Lyds, that reminds me of something I overheard at the buffet table."
She finished chewing and swallowed her mouthful of apple. "What's that, Beej?"
Trying (and failing miserably) to hide a smirk, he left Donny to return to Lydia's side, putting his chin on her shoulder so they were cheek to cheek. Then, turning quickly, he dragged his long striped tongue across her skin. True to form, she gave a shriek, more of amusement than disgust, and wiped her face with one hand.
"Beetlejuice, what are you doing?" asked Ginger, baffled.
"What? I licked her, she's mine!"
