A/N: "Drive" is copyright Incubus. BJ belongs to Tim Burton. This story works better if you listen to the track on loop while reading.
Suddenly he was soaring through the air and ripping through dimensions, his head swimming in dizziness. He felt his body contorted and righted as he spun through realities, finally ending in a blaze as he fell to earth again.
He lay on the ground and sat up slowly, rubbing his head. Where the hell…?
Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
And I can't help but ask myself how much
I'll let the fear take the wheel and steer…
It's driven me before, it seems to have a vague
Haunting mass appeal…
Lately I'm beginning to find that
I should be the one behind the wheel…
He was in a dilapidated room, one on the verge of collapse. The floorboards were almost eaten through and he hovered to prevent himself from accidentally falling through. What was left of a moth-eaten rug was gray and brown in the center of the room and a bed with a broken canopy and ripped-up drapes.
Beetlejuice looked around, trying to make sense of it. Why was he suddenly in some room? The taboo couldn't have pulled him here, could it? But who called it? Who knew him well enough to actually want his company? He hadn't been a bio-exorcist for a long time. His advertisements were rare and far apart, if any still existed in print.
He examined the furniture more closely. Here was a dresser, gone to the termites that had nested within and had all died out. Over here was the bed, its mattress now nothing but a mat of springs with pieces of cloth still doggedly clinging to it. The drapes over the window were half torn down and didn't keep out the chilling draft that leaked in from the cold night outside through the broken glass.
He dared to touch down to the ground and heard a crunching noise. He glanced down and saw broken glass and porcelain all around him, and he hurriedly hovered again.
All the while something inside him was screaming to be let out before it was too late. But what was too late? When did any event going on right then turn into "too late"?
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there.
With open arms and open eyes,
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there,
I'll be there…
He tried to ignore the voice and went on. He pushed open the barely hinged door and went out into a deserted hallway. The banister blocking the dangerous single-story drop was missing bars and was hanging from just two poles, ready to break in half and send tumbling down any careless fool that used it to brace itself.
Something triggered in his memory and he tried to put the thoughts together: this present reality and the nagging in his mind that this wasn't new, it was merely changed. But changed from what?
Turning to the right, Beetlejuice started down the hall in a daze. He was so caught up in his rising dizziness that he barely noticed a flight of stairs leading up. When he shook his head to clear his vision, something clicked in his mind and his face completely loosened in dreaded despair.
Oh God no…let it not be this place…let it be anywhere but here…
But as he floated up the stairs, he was flooded with memories of this door, of this attic space. A broken display of a miniature town sat in the middle of the floor, covered in decades' worth of dust. A few of the little houses had come unglued and lay scattered on the floor with some toy cars and trucks. He reached down and picked up a white three-storied house and started to cry.
So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive,
Will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?
It's driven me before, it seems to be the way
That everyone else get around…
Lately, I'm beginning to find that when
I drive myself, my light is found…
She must have moved away since then…since so long ago. Had it really been fifty years? She could be someone's grandmother by now! And maybe that meant…but no, when she passed on, she wouldn't remember him.
Come to think of it…did he even remember her? He tried to picture her figure, what her body looked like.
I remember raven hair…and gorgeous eyes…oh and that red and black poncho! It always made her looked smaller than she was… He actually laughed at this, his breath stirring some of the dust on the miniature house.
Beetlejuice sighed and drifted into his precious memories, wanting to stop before he made himself cry but not really resisting. He dreamt of countless adventures in the living world and the Neitherworld…
The NEITHERWORLD!
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there,
With open arms and open eyes,
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there,
I'll be there…
His eyes shot open and he almost whimpered. That girl! There was no way…there couldn't be a way…
He thought hard of the Roadhouse, of the girl's looks. But his mind was locked. He couldn't remember what she looked like, or if there even had been a girl. Was it just his imagination, making him think that maybe, just maybe he saw her?
He clawed at his temples, trying to bring back his memory. What was keeping him from remembering? What was wrong with him? And why was that voice softly and steadily telling him to ignore it and go home?
He mentally fought the voice.
No! He said to himself. This seems too important to ignore!
Ah, but that's what you think. Trust yourself, Beetlejuice. This is nothing but tainted ground. Go home and resume your house cleaning.
Tainted ground?
Land haunted by a malevolent and insignificant spirit. So unlike you in your materialism. Just go home…
A spirit? A spirit…he was so close! So very close to remembering…
Suddenly, his head exploded in pain. He couldn't recall another time when it hurt so much, when it felt like his brain was splitting in two.
No…it happened before. Before your neutral period…fifty years…
Suddenly the pain stopped and all he felt was an inward longing, a desire for something that was missing in him. And before he could react, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Would you choose water over wine?
Hold the wheel and drive…
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there,
With open arms and open eyes,
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there,
I'll be there…