That was it?
"But... you didn't..."
Why did you expect him to, Lydia? You only just had your first kiss today. Calm down.
The girl's knowledge of sex was unfortunately lacking but she knew enough to know that the deed had not been completed. This was a win-win then. He wasn't mad about anything, she hadn't disappointed him or done anything wrong, and she got to keep her virginity for another day when she wasn't an ugly crying mess.
The ball of anxiety in her tummy uncoiled a bit.
"What hurt sweets?"
Pouting, big-eyed, and sniffly but quickly calming from feeding off of his tempered energy, Lydia proceeded to point out her boo-boo's.
"My neck, and my lip."
Gingerly, she pointed at each little stinging cut‒ as if embarrassed, as if she were clumsy and they were all her fault. Her shoulder and left breast were next. None of the nicks were deep enough to scar, but a few were still bleeding. She was good enough to not complain about the bits of her that were tender and bruised. They would just have to be covered from her parents until they healed.
Once they arrived in her bathroom she noticed that the tub was already filled with warm sweet-smelling water. Betelguese set her on the edge of the tub to check the few spots that were still bleeding before he conjured a washrag and wiped at her stomach and breasts, cleaning her up.
"I can't heal. That's outside o' m'capabilities, babes. Would if I could."
He had never wanted to heal anyone or anything before but he did now more than ever. If it would take that horrible look out of her eyes, he would do it. He wanted to do it.
"Let's get ya in the tub n' cleaned up."
He helped her slowly slip into the warm water, keeping ahold of her hand once he had her settled. He still had that horrible feeling that must have been guilt clawing around inside of him. He also never wanted to see that look on her face ever again. He much preferred when she smiled and laughed. Her being sad and defeated like this made him want to go back to the attic and not come out.
"Tell me, babes, why'd ya think we weren't done?"
He got his pants back in place, zipped, and buttoned before sitting next to the tub to help her pin up her hair.
The water was lovely, exactly the perfect temperature and dressed up with the oils and soaps she preferred. His attentiveness was lovelier. Maybe being babied wasn't all that bad. Still, she wasn't one-hundred percent comfortable with her body and nudity despite her lust-driven bravery earlier. Once she was deposited in the tub and free of his arms, she crossed her own over her chest.
"Tell me, babes, why'd ya think we weren't done?"
Keeping her tarnished modesty intact, she drifted near the edge of the tub to let him wipe leftover blood away with a soft, damp cloth.
"Because we didn't… you know…" She hinted heavily, cheeks flush for reasons beyond the steam. When he paused a beat too long, she continued in a scandalized whisper. "... have sex."
That made him snicker, but once he saw the look on her face and how traumatized she seemed about it he sat hard on the floor and pulled a lit cigarette out of the air. Thinking back over the last half hour and how she had apologized to him...fuck. Again, that alien twisting sensation rocketed through his chest.
"Honey, y'know ya don't hav'ta…"
He caught her chin to get her to look at him.
"Have… eh… ya know what we did is sex, right?" That he had to explain this to her turned his gut further.
"Is that part o' why ya were so upset?" He leaned over the water towards her so their noses were almost touching, making sure she could see him, fingers moving back to play with her hair. "'Cause ya thought we didn't?"
"I thought‒ I thought we were going to… but… but that we stopped because… because of me."
Because she was weak and stupid and couldn't handle a little scratch or two. She wished very badly to hide from his gaze, as beautiful as it was, but couldn't bring herself to jerk away from the comforting scratch of his claws in her hair.
"I didn't mean to be such a baby about it…"
This was normal, wasn't it? Granted, her father and Delia's sex life was uninteresting‒ i.e. repulsive‒ to Lydia, she sometimes heard similar noises to the ones she made coming from their room. It made her feel small and ugly to think Delia could accomplish something that she couldn't. Her bottom lip trembled. She could feel tears rising again and clenched her eyes shut to force them back.
He saw her lip come out and the tears start again and he leaned in closer, almost dropping his cigarette, pressing a kiss to her lips gently.
"None o' that. Why're ya cryin' now?" He made an exasperated noise. "Ya weren't a baby. I'm just a lot, n' I mighta…"
He swallowed.
"M'just a lot, babes."
Sitting back down so he wasn't hovering over her, he took a drag off his smoke.
"Ya did good. Really good. 'Specially fer yer first." He watched her in the water, his forearms and chin resting on the edge of the tub, smoke curling out his nostrils and the butt clenched between his teeth.
"Ya really are beautiful, y'know?"
His fingers trailed along the top of the water causing ripples. Knuckles grazed her chest before he pulled his hand back to take his cigarette and let out a few perfect smoke rings.
He told her she was beautiful, and she believed it, and then things didn't seem so bad anymore. How silly she was to make such a big fuss out of nothing. He did like her. She didn't do anything wrong. There was nothing to worry about. The arms wound tight around her chest loosened, and she swayed into his touch until her cheek was resting on the edge of the porcelain and he had free reign to keep petting in that gentle way she liked.
"I don't think I want to sit here anymore."
The bleeding had stopped, and she was already clean from her shower that morning. The effort on his part to bring her here was sweet, though. When his caressing palm neared her lips, she tilted her jaw up to place a butter-soft kiss on the rough skin there.
"We can put on a movie. If you want."
There was a gently used television in her room, and she had movies. Listening to them was fun sometimes. Mostly, she was just interested in films based on books she had read. Watching them in any capacity, even up close, was simply impossible but she was eager to keep her new friend-turned-lover near. He was her first. Likely her only.
She wasn't crying anymore but she still didn't sound like she had earlier in the day. There was a shadow behind those pretty blue eyes that made his insides feel all twisted up. After she kissed his palm, he flicked away the cigarette and got her a towel.
"We can put on a movie. If you want."
He held the towel open for her and offered a hand out of the big tub. She looked so much smaller than she had when he peeked at her in the shower that morning. Currently, she looked more like a sad wet kitten than a faery queen.
"Yeah, sweets, that sounds wonderful. I didn't know you… y'know… watched movies…"
He bundled her into the thick towel and his arms before carrying her back to bed. With a lazy sweep of his arm, she was dressed in a long black sheer nighty‒ and nothing else, hair instantly dried and pooling around her shoulders like captured moonlight.
His jacket and shirt were ditched on the floor before he settled next to her on the pile of pillows.
"Whatcha' wanna watch, sweetheart?"
Lydia couldn't tell how see-through her conjured nightwear was, giving only gratitude and whispered thanks when he crawled in beside her and she felt the bed dip with his weight. Because she didn't know how much was on display, her movements were natural and she didn't make any more attempts to cover herself out of embarrassment or misplaced shame.
"I don't 'watch' movies."
She hoped that much would have been obvious by now but didn't blame him for misunderstanding. It was weird for a visually impaired person to suggest something like that, wasn't it?
"Most of the time, I read or take photos but it's nice listening to them. It can be frustrating sometimes when I lose parts of the story but I know all the stories on that shelf. I won't miss anything."
She missed so much, all of the time, but it was okay. Lydia saw a lot more than people gave her credit for.
"We don't have ta… put a movie on."
Frowned over at her, he contemplated her situation. He honestly didn't get it. She was so independent and she said she wasn't completely blind but the way she described her life she might as well have been. Picking up her little hand in his, he squeezed it softly.
"Let's figure somethin' else we can do….we could read a book together?"
He cringed at that but she said she liked to do that, right? Fuck. Yeah, they could read a book, and she would probably ask him and he knew he would do it for her but it wasn't the most appealing prospect. Starting to get frustrated, he felt the bed shift and grumble under them before regaining control and setting it back down carefully.
The entire bed shook, and Lydia recalled the exact sensation from when he was still bound to a bodiless form and unable to speak, frustrated with her for not understanding him. Was he frustrated now? The tentative confidence she was building wavered the tiniest bit. An idea came to her; a compromise.
"I don't mind watching movies, but if it matters to you, I can read Frankenstein again while you watch the movie, or…"
That did sound rather dull, didn't it? Like an old married couple that had completely lost interest in one another.
"Or‒ or I could read it to you…?"
Immediately, she regretted the suggestion, never having done such a thing in her life and unconfident in her narration skills.
"Or we could just talk to each other."
If Lydia had learned anything from her disability, it was that people were all too eager to distract themselves from one another with thoughtless noise and media.
"Or… none of those things." Her heart lurched. "You don't have to keep me entertained. I'll be okay by myself if you want to be alone."
Be alone? No, nope, not gonna happen, not when the alternative was to lay in her bed with her all afternoon while she wore that yummy little slip. Suddenly, he had a wonderful idea, a devilish grin spreading across his face as it formed fully in his rat-like brain.
"Hey, babes, why don't I read to ya? I got a book I know you ain't read yet."
He leaned over to kiss her on the forehead before disappearing with a small pop of displaced air only to reappear moments later with an ancient book. The heavy tome was pressed into her hands.
"Ya said you've been seein' ghosts all yer life, right? Ya ever wonder 'bout the rules?" He vibrated with excitement.
"Well, this it. That's the handbook. All the secrets o' the afterlife. Well… the book is shit but it makes an entertainin' read the first go around, so whaddya say, doll?"
An old, battered pair of reading glasses were pulled out of thin air. Reading bedtime stories to her sounded like a boring prospect, sure, but if he could piss off Juno in the process? Well then, that made the mindnumbing mundanity all worth it.
At the phrase "ain't read yet", he had her curiosity. When he returned bearing what he claimed to be a volume containing all the secrets and mysteries of death, he had her attention. With childlike wonder, gentle hands traced the binding and the front cover, committing the details to memory. It was held close to her face for long moments so she could absorb what she could; The Handbook for the Recently Deceased. Art depicting a man and a woman staring off into the sunset.
"This… this is the handbook, isn't it?"
She had heard it referenced before by a stray spirit every now and then but none would ever diverge any further details about it when queried by the curious mortal. Betelgeuse wasn't like any of them, though.
"The one that everyone gets? Do you know…"
She fiddled nervously, terrified of the answer, and flipped through pages she couldn't read just for the feel of it.
"... if they print it in braille or not?"
"Lyds, it's a magical handbook…"
He watched her page through and run her fingers over the words, the print too small for her to hope to ever read the traditional way.
"Mine's a real old copy but yer with the Ghost with the Most." He pressed a hand to the ancient book and forced his will into it. Braille began flowing down each page.
Pulling her onto his lap, he read over her shoulder as she held the book up for him. He was used to reading in dim light and his specks weren't in the best shape so he started off a little slow. It wasn't like he didn't have most of the damn thing memorized. Because she held the book for him, his hands were free to wander the warm expanse of her body. He settled on a lingering caress of her thighs as he droned on. Once again, he was engulfed by the sweetness of her scent and could feel things starting to stir that he knew he had to control.
At least for now.
Her lips parted in delight as she felt little bumps forming beneath her fingers, right under the printed text so they could both read it simultaneously. The braille deformed the letters just a bit, but Betelgeuse's vision was excellent and this did nothing to deter his ability to read it. On the random page she found herself, her finger trailed across a phrase that made her frown thoughtfully.
Never trust the living.
Compared to the rest of what she had read so far in an excited rush, this was very blunt, firm, and easy to understand without further dissection. Just four words, resolute and leaving no exceptions or room for argument. It was a sensible rule, all things considered, but its existence still gave her a pang of irrational hurt.
"You can trust me," she pouted, making the incorrect assumption Betelgeuse actually followed any of the rules in this thing. "I wouldn't ever let anything bad happen to you…"
"I know I can, sweets," he reassured with a kiss to her cheek, practically able to hear Juno hissing that precise line in his ear as he did so. It was her favorite motto though in this case she might reverse it for sweet Lydia.
"That's mostly fer the newly-deads. They don't understand they ain't part o' the livin' no more‒" he pressed a kiss into her shoulder "‒ if you flip further in there's a section on scarin' breathers outta yer haunt. Iffin' ya can't scare 'em out, ya call someone like me, a licensed poltergeist and-or bio-exorcist."
The last sounded like something he had memorized and repeated a number of times.
"The book's basically to get ya started in the afterlife. Lotsa information, not nearly everythin' ya need though."
Shifting under her, he pressed his glasses back up his nose and glanced down to his avidly studying lapmate. He tried to gauge how she was taking the information that most newly-deads fought. She wasn't freaking out and she didn't smell scared, so maybe he hadn't broken her yet.
Poltergeist.
"Bio-Exorcist" was a foreign term that Lydia could immediately define using context clues but poltergeist, however,was a very specific type of ghost. At his use of that word to describe himself, everything came together in an instant. No amateur to supernatural experiences, the girl had made it a point to educate herself on the strange and unusual. She had only ever read about them, the most famous of which being the Bell Witch. Comparing what she knew about that ghoul to this one drew chills down her spine.
The Bell Witch, or "Kate" haunted the Bell family in Adams, Tennessee from 1817 to 1821, when it finally snapped and killed the father, John Bell. Like a woman, her weapon was poison. Having read in the handbook that revealing oneself to the living for purposes other than scaring was strictly prohibited, Lydia could conclude now that this was Kate's way of leaving plausible deniability for her murder.
The defining trait of a poltergeist, Lydia knew, was that it attached itself to young girls, usually with a negative connotation. Though Kate ultimately murdered the father, the focus of her attention for the majority the haunting was Betsy, the Bell family's youngest daughter. The daughter's engagement to a local boy is what set off the haunting in the first place according to folklore.
Was Kate jealous? Was Lydia tempting fate? Who would her poltergeist kill given the chance?
"Noisy ghost…" she muttered to herself in thought, remembering the loud and violent frenzy he went into that first night that got her into so much trouble. A sudden and surprising smirk curled her lips.
"Well, it's certainly accurate, isn't it? Tell me, insect beverage, how does one become a 'poltergeist'?"
Narrowed eyes began to glow as he sent her a faux glare. 'Insect beverage' was almost as bad as when she suggested 'Heebie Jeebies' as a nickname. He ran his hands up her sides almost seductively before starting to tickle her.
"Listen up, sweet cheeks," he purred, easily overpowering her and pushing her into the mattress to continue his assault, "as much as I hate it when someone says my name, babe‒ n' I do hate it‒ I dun like it when they tease me 'bout it none neither. Names have power, Ly-di-a. Do not forget that." Finally stopping, he manhandled her back into his lap, pressing a kiss to her flushed cheek.
"Let's see what other lessons we can teach ya."
The tickle torture was carried on for a long while, the same claws that sliced and nicked her carefully dancing along her ribcage to make her entire body spasm with laughter. She gasped out giggling apologies and promises to never ever do it again but he wasn't satisfied until she started begging. That's when he let up and returned them to their prior cuddling position. By the time he was done, she was breathless and worn out, sagging against him limp and flushed.
"You're mean," she complained light-heartedly, the handbook still held open in her flagging grip. It was clear to the ghoul she would be taking a nap soon but Lydia wasn't ready to depart yet.
"I'm sorry, Beej. Keep reading to me?"
"You're mean."
"N' nasty. Don't forget about nasty," he chuckled into her hair, he could feel her starting to go boneless on him and leaned them back into the pillows more.
"Aight, babe, what ya interested in?" He flipped to the chapter on haunting parameters and hesitated ever so slightly before starting to read.
It was very slight but it was there, the subtle sleepy nodding of her head. When he went to put the book down she jerked upright and protested, delicate fingers stubbornly running along the words stamped into the paper. Once her hands stopped moving, he knew she was gone. Carefully, he removed the book and set it on the nightstand before pulling her into a comfortable position across his lap with her safely wrapped in his arms.
Stretching out on her big bed, his eyes shut, just enjoying the sensation of her body in his arms. The sounds of her heart and breathing were a balm on his soul he didn't know he needed.
The peace didn't last long.
"Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, BETELGEUSE!"
The summoning ripped through his chest painfully, pulling him down, down, down through the Earth's crust and several planes of existence, right into the Nether. He found himself sat in a very familiar miserable room before an equally familiar and miserable crone.
Juno was in rare form. Fed-up and ornery were her go-to emotions but there was a particularly nasty storm brewing in the gray eyes staring across the desk at him. She was slouched low in her rolling chair, maroon talons clutching the arms and a cigarette clenched between her bared teeth.
"You think you're so fucking slick, don't you?" A deep lungful of smoke was sucked in and released through her throat-gash without her tense body language ever relaxing. "This is low, Betel. Even for you."
"Jesus fuckin' Christ, y'know ya don't hav'ta yell like that when ya summon me, fuck that shit hurts!" He snapped at the old bitch, rubbing his now clothed chest. No point in pretending it didn't hurt or upset him, Juno knew it did and she did it that way on purpose.
He slumped low in his chair. Clearly, she was pissed yet he wasn't entirely sure why.
"The fuck did I do now? Ain't broke any o' yer stupid fuckin' rules."
Technically that was true. No matter what he did to Lydia, aside from murder, he was within his rights to operate as he pleased. She was a living soul in the house he haunted, under his jurisdiction and his will as was his deathly right. Juno knew that.
Conjuring a cigarette, he glared back at the old harpy, sneering, "unless ya changed the rules again June-bug."
"Do you think I'm stupid?" After this many centuries, he couldn't honestly be trying to pull a fast one on her. "Where's your ring, Betel? Think hard but don't hurt yourself."
When his expression remained frustratingly vacant, as if he truly didn't understand the ramifications of his actions, something in Juno snapped.
"Fine," she smiled and it was an ugly, tight thing to look at. "Play dumb. You know, I hope you get away with it. Marry her. Enjoy your fifteen minutes of freedom. When you eventually get that poor little girl killed, it'll be your ass on the chopping block, and I'm going to make damn sure I have a front-row seat to your exorcism."
When she asked after his ring he glanced down at the finger it was missing from, momentarily forgetting he had so easily passed it on to Lydia… so what? There were no rules against the living getting ahold of the dead's possessions. Hell, that was how some ghosts performed their haunts‒ through valued personal objects. That wasn't what he was doing but it wasn't really any of Juno's goddamn business anyway.
"...Marry her. Enjoy your fifteen minutes of freedom."
Wait on fucking second. Did Juno think… marry Lydia…? The notion made a shiver run through him. He wasn't sure if it was disgust or ecstasy. Not long after entering Juno's employ, he had found the instructions for the ritual marriage between a mortal and the dead buried in the handbook and long ago brushed that exit-idea off as impossible and never going to happen.
"Junie, you honestly fuckin' think I'd bind myself like that? That's got more rules than I'm under now…"
...but it also meant freedom, so as long as Lydia was alive...
"Besides that's a lotta shit t'line up, n' I'm stuck in that fucking house, or did ya forget?"
Smoke rolled out his nostrils as he snickered, flicking ash onto the office floor.
"Ya gettin' senile on me, ya ol' bat?"
This worked to calm some of Juno's ire. Wow. He honestly didn't know, didn't see it. How fucking romantic.
"How long have we been doing this now, Betel? The better half of a millennia, at least."
This was their game. He tried to get out through the worst most unsavory means imaginable, and Juno rained on his idealistic jailbreaks every time. There was no escaping death. Not for her, not for him, not for anyone. Lady Death was a fickle whore and she always got her due.
Juno would be lying if she said she wasn't jealous at how he managed to weasel out of eternal civil servitude, but she would never stoop to his level, do the things he had to do to get what he had. It was beneath her. She was the law, in life and in death, and that is what she would always be.
"I can count on one hand how many women you've given anything to, much less a ring. If you'll recall, the other one who got your ring is the reason you're here."
It was considered a cruel faux-pas in the afterlife to purposefully remind other souls of their death. Juno was aware of this.
"History does repeat itself, doesn't it." This was not a question. "It's sad, it really is. I like her. She's a sweet girl. I understand why you like her too. I wish she didn't have to die so that you can see your comeuppance, but we both know you're not in the business of keeping things alive."
The grimy spirit before her looked as though he was ready to pitch another fit, but Juno was done. What she wanted to say was said, it was off her chest, and now she could go back to managing her other cases, all of which were much simpler and less headache-inducing than his.
"I'm sick of looking at you. Get out of my sight."
With that, he was sucked back through the vortex in an instant, right where Juno wanted him; in his cage in the mortal realm, bound, unable to do more than perform weak parlor tricks. She knew it wouldn't stick, but another obstacle in his path couldn't hurt.
"I can count on one hand how many women you've given anything to, much less a ring. If you'll recall, the other one who got your ring is the reason you're here."
He seethed. How fucking dare she? Fuck Juno, fuck her. It was just a fucking ring. He could do as he pleased with his fucking ring. How dare Juno bring up that bitch?!
His vision started to go red and Juno's office started to shake. The dark memories from before started flick along inside his head like an old movie reel. Those thoughts were pushed down as Juno kicked him back to the house on the hill.
It was dark, either early morning or twilight. The house was extremely quiet... if this was even the same house. He knew the Deetzes planned on remodeling but this didn't even remotely resemble the same structure he had been haunting the past few decades. He was dumped into what used to be the living room. It looked like someone had puked primary colors over industrial architecture, the effect was disconcerting at best. He also noticed that Juno had completely put him back, binding and all.
Hopefully, he could get Lydia's attention and get her to say his name again.
He was doing his best to not upset the house with the energy Juno had stirred up. He was so mad, he shook as he ghosted up the stairs, feeling out all three Deetzes in their respective rooms, sleeping.
Slipping into Lydia's room, he found her small form curled up in the middle of the too-big-for-her bed. He crawled onto it, laying next to her, trailing his fingers through her hair in a thoughtless quest for comfort.
When Lydia awoke late that night as they had dozed off in the afternoon, he was gone. She thought maybe he went back to the attic for something or another and traveled there to search for him, learning the hard way that her nightgown was, in fact, see-through after an awkward encounter with Delia in which she screeched and demanded to know where Lydia had gotten such a thing.
Lydia didn't have an explanation. Days later, after much crying and torment and wondering why her lover had not returned to comfort her or tell her why he had let her embarrass herself like that, she braved another trip to his domain.
It was empty.
She still wore the ring. Marks of his affection still mapped her from lips to thighs, not that she could see them. She felt the tender flesh, remembered vividly how it got that way. Sam Cooke's record was still in the player, burnt out candles setting the scene to it all. Desperate now to feel his presence, she went far too hastily from room to room, even waiting for a chance to sneak into her father and Delia's private space to feel him out.
He wasn't anywhere. He was gone.
School was awful. They were not accommodated for someone like Lydia. Special books had to be ordered, and in the meantime, she was going to be given one-on-one tutelage from a "qualified instructor." By one-on-one, they meant Lydia and four other girls deemed unfit for public consumption. One of them was in a wheelchair, she learned from the sound of it, and another was in crutches from severe cerebral palsy. They didn't really talk much, any of them, but Lydia picked up things.
The bright fluorescent lights in school were unbearable. She wore her darkest veils and was forced to use her umbrella cane to navigate the halls. She hated having to use it. She would rather be at home in the dark where she knew where everything was and people didn't laugh at her. The first couple of days, her father walked her to and from school until she begged him not to, insisting she was familiar with the route and couldn't bear any further humiliation.
He relented.
A month passed. Then two. Then three. Betelgeuse never returned.
The bruises faded and the ring stayed. Confidence in her sanity was shaken. How could she be sure that she hadn't imagined all of that? Unlike the privileged many, she did not have visual memory to rely upon, not even an inaccurate one. Just a flurry of colors and lights and sound... and his eyes. Everyone else thought she was crazy, even her father and his wife. Perhaps it was wise to give what they were saying more consideration.
… but the ring stayed.
And the book. And the lurid nighty that neither parent had the gall to confiscate.
One night, she dreamt of him. It wasn't anything lewd, as she didn't quite dream the same way others did. It was all sensation. She could feel herself explicitly enfolded in his embrace, those wonderful claws dragging across her scalp and through her hair, from root to tip. The next morning she awoke and swore she could feel his presence again but didn't dare investigate. There was no point in opening that wound.
Even if he was real, he had gotten what he wanted from her. No, Lydia wouldn't be seeing Betelgeuse ever again.