Betelgeuse perched his cigarette on his lips and laced his fingers together behind his head, posture relaxed. He puffed on the cigarette, the smoke curling out his nostrils. He could still smell her fear, could see the color that rose in her face.
"But‒ but you can't make fun of me. Or‒ or I'll be really upset."
"Doll, you wound me," he spoke around the filter clenched in his teeth, "I wouldn't ask jus' ta make fun o' ya."
She was quiet long enough that he almost prompted her but then she let out her first few notes and he froze. It was that stillness from the garden, something only the older dead could do. Here was another glorious part of her that she kept from everyone. If she was hesitant to sing for him, surely she didn't for others. Though, he should have guessed she would have a beautiful singing voice, he heard her offer her cries to the skies enough times.
It was an interesting choice of piece. It could have just been a song she liked. The girl liked older music. Or did she choose it because of the subject? Did she see him as the devil? That thought made his chest clench. Dropping that train of thought, he just focused on listening, like how Lydia listened to the bells.
While she sang, his jaw went lax, letting his still burning cigarette fall to his jacked and roll to rest near the crotch of his slacks. He was so invested in Lydia's performance that he didn't notice the smoke or heat until it touched his skin. Letting out a surprised hiss, he plucked the burning stub from the ruin of his slacks. Flicking away the butt, he returned his attention back to his girl.
She was going to finish the song, and ask to go home. To that fucking house on the hill. She seemed just as trapped there as he was. He wanted to free her from that. When she finished, he sent out energy to help guide her to his waiting arms.
When she sang, it was everything she thought it would be‒ except for the pit of nerves in her belly making her break into a cold sweat. The notes bounced back and forth and all around continuously, sounding as though a choir of herself was singing in perfect harmonious canon. When she stopped, the choir kept going.
For long seconds, she could hear herself singing back and was struck breathless. She had made that angelic sound? That was coming from her? An invisible force pulled her forward, knocking her from her stupor. Familiar arms caught her, ready to receive her weight after knocking her so off balance. No one spoke until it was quiet again, save her breaths.
"You need to warn me before doing that," she flustered, not actually expecting him to listen.
He had not spoken yet but she wasn't nearly as nervous or self-conscious as before. How could she be after hearing it for herself? Far from arrogant, she was humbled by her apparent gift and savored his silence for what it was. Praise. She, and not death, was the cause for his breathlessness at the moment.
When she thought he'd had enough time, she leaned up on her tippy-toes to breach the space between them and kiss where she approximated his mouth was‒ and she got it right! It made her beam as she pulled back. That's the first time she managed to guess right without his hands there guiding the way.
"Thank you for a beautiful night…"
It wasn't over yet, but this felt like the beginning of an ending.
"I'm getting tired, Beej. Do you want to… go somewhere and uhm… get a room or something…?"
"You need to warn me before doing that,"
This time he used more force than he meant to. Next time, he would be more delicate with her. Not that he would tell her that. He did hum a quiet agreement against her neck where he tucked her face after she came to him. Pressing a kiss to her soft skin, he leaned back, enveloped in the echoes of her voice. His mind was still caught in the vanishing reverberations when she kissed him. She kissed him. Not in the throes of passion, not because he kissed her first.
"That was… Lyds, I don't have words," he pressed another kiss to her lips. "You should sing more. I like it when ya sing."
"Thank you for a beautiful night…"
"Don't think on it, baby-girl," he toyed with one of the long loose curls along her face, "We could do this all the time, darlin', all ya have to do is say the word."
If she said yes she could have everything, anything. He would pull the fucking moon to earth for her. He was glad that Juno hadn't caught on yet, though knowing it was only a matter of time, he was starting to get antsy. If that old hag called him back, he would never get back to this. He would never make it back to Lydia. So many rules had been broken since she came to live in that house. The relations with her, the living, weren't necessarily forbidden but they didn't endear him to anyone on the other side.
He had murdered a man and would do it over a hundred times if it meant that she never looked like she did on that day again. He wasn't supposed to do any of the magics he had with her, not to mention taking her to the Netherworld. He didn't regret that either but the living in the land of the dead? Huge no-no.
"I'm getting tired, Beej. Do you want to… go somewhere and uhm… get a room or something…?"
That made his chest clench. She hadn't asked him to take her back to the fucking house on the hill. She wanted to get a room. She wanted to get a room with him. That meant she wanted more with him. Not to forget that she said she loved him several times this evening without coercion. He let out a shaky breath and ran his hands up and down her arms.
"Bunny, I'd love nothing more…" he licked his lips and stepped her back slightly, then slid from his spot on the pew to kneel before her, holding her hands in his.
"Lyds, Lydia my love, please, please say you'll marry me."
He was staring at her hands clasped in his, knowing that as far back as he was she wouldn't see him anyway. His hands shook slightly holding hers.
Her scent spiked again in that way he loved but this time it didn't hit quite the same. This was very familiar to Lydia. They had been here before, done this. Only now was the pattern clear. His frightful mood swings came right after she rejected one of his proposals.
Once she understood, it hurt. Didn't he love her like he said? Trust came with love, she thought.
"In the garden…"
The whisper hung like death over their heads, waiting for its giver to complete the thought.
"... that wasn't a 'game'."
She wasn't asking a question. Again, her too small hands shook within his. He wanted to scare her into saying yes? Bully her into being his wife? What a great romance! A lovely story to tell their children. That bleak thought inspired a cross between a laugh and a sob, the horrible sound riding the acoustics and preceding a third and final…
"No, Betelgeuse."
Rage and singular sadness were stronger than fear now that she understood what he was doing. She loved him, God help her, but he was a bad man. To love him, for Lydia, was to not enable behaviors that contributed to that. He would be angry, she knew. He might even hurt her. Hurt someone else. But he could not be allowed to have his way here. That was how Lydia would show him her love.
"I'm not saying never… but I am saying no. Here. Right now. To you. No."
Thrice he asked, and thrice he was rejected.
No sooner than the word left her lips he dropped her hands and moved several staggering steps back. The pews around them started to shudder and shake. He wouldn't slip into the snake, wouldn't allow it. He couldn't guarantee her safety in that form, even though he knew the lack of restraint would dull the pain. That's what happened everytime she said no. It was pain. Not like with the curse, no, this made that seem like nothing.
The pews flew against the walls on either side of the large sanctuary. Candelabra and small furniture began to float and circle around them. He had his hands up over his ears, his head lowered.
"No, no, no…" It was barely a whisper, then his head snapped up and he had her by the uninjured bicep, instantly there at her side to jerk her around so that she was facing him.
"WHY?!" The rage, pain and panic in the one word hit like a slap. "Good enough to take ya places, good enough to be in yer bed, good enough to KILL A MAN?! But I ain't enough to be yer HUSBAND?!" The bells high above them started to resonate with the amount of energy he was just bleeding off. "Do ya have any idea how many rules I've broken for you!?"
His breaths were heaving, spirit pulsing. He didn't even have enough control to peel away his humanity. It was just pain. Had it been normal pain, he would have been able to move past it. Had it been just the rage again, he would have been able to push through‒ but that layer of panic, of knowing he didn't want to be separated from her, and knowing it was only a matter of time before Juno realised he'd found another loop hole brought it all to a head. At this point the thought of exorcism didn't even bother him. The notion of losing her forever was all consuming.
"Three fucking times," his voice was evening out as he scrabbled for control. The bells above them were swinging back and forth not yet ringing.
She could feel Notre Dame crumbling around her, the bells above weeping from the calamity, but stood her ground with resolve. He got a fraction of a flinch when he shouted in her face like that, but Lydia had steeled herself. She knew bullies. That's what he was at his core, when he wasn't being charming and thoughtful and sweet and everything else that she loved. He was a bully.
Her expression remained mostly stoic if pinched with emotion, but tears fell freely as he tore into her just like she knew he would. With the patience of a saint, Lydia endured his blustering until it seemed he was finally out of things to say.
"Three fucking times."
"The first time, I thought you were joking."
It was cruel but honest, and he deserved the truth unfiltered.
"The second time, I told you why. I don't think you even heard me. The next thing I knew, I was running for my life."
Now, she knew that her life was never in danger but at the time it had been traumatic and terrifying. How quickly she was to forgive him for toying with her safety and emotions that recklessly.
"This time? This time I said no because I knew you would do this."
She tried to shake him off in a dramatic gesture, but his grip was too strong, making her snarl and huff before giving up and accepting that this was where he wanted her and she wasn't going anywhere.
"I love you." Clearly, he needed to hear it again. "I even love this… this evil part of you. Because it's you, and I don't think you know any better, honestly. But... you're not going to use it to bully me."
Again, stubborn to a fault‒ he was a bad influence on her‒ she dug her point in.
"I am not marrying you, Betelgeuse. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not three days from now."
He could try his luck again in a week after they had made up and her parents had given her even more reasons to want to move out‒ as if she needed any.
"Now take me home. I'm tired."
"The first time, I thought you were joking."
That made him stiffen. Then, he was just gone from her side. He didn't move far, maybe a few feet away, but he might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. He had gone still again. All the energy he cast out into the cathedral drew back to him. He was listening to her, truly listening but he hated everything she had to say. It all came back to how he wasn't enough. He hadn't been enough for the bitch before, he wasn't enough now. But if he just stayed here like this… it was quiet, it didn't hurt so much.
"I love you… I even love this… this evil part of you. Because it's you, and I don't think you know any better, honestly. But... you're not going to use it to bully me."
She said it again. He was right earlier, about the song choice. She did see him as some big evil. His eyes slid shut as he stood there and pulled all his energy back, every item he displaced snapping back into its original position in a moment. He felt like he was suffocating, even though he hadn't needed to breathe since this building was in its early centuries. Taking several shaky breaths he turned to look back in her direction. Earlier she'd said not now, not tonight. Again here in this echo chamber, she said it again. Time wasn't on his side but he needed her willing, and apparently, if he kept this up, that would be never.
"Now take me home. I'm tired."
"Fine."
The word was clipped and harsh but it was his voice. No extra growl or hiss. Just him. He strode over to her and grabbed her hand. Back to the fucking house on the fucking hill. As soon as her fingers touched his, they were gone, the cathedral left in the same shape as when they arrived.
In the blink of an eye, he was depositing her in the center of the living room. He made all of the lights flicker out more out of habit at this point rather than out of any kindness. In the gloom of the living room,, Lydia stood in all her shimmering glory, and he stood next to her, hands in pockets of his striped suit.
Then the screaming started.
Foolishly, Lydia had assumed he would bring her back to her bedroom discreetly so that he could help her out of her dress and finery and they could talk some more, squash this, maybe cuddle or fool around some more. Wasn't that a grand thought?
Instead, Lydia found she and her ghoul dropped smack dab in a populated area of the house. She didn't know where exactly, but voices started sounding as soon as her feet touched solid ground and before the lights flickered off. Shocked screams first, then two deafening BANGS, back to back‒ gunshots.
"Lydia! That's her, she's here! My baby!"
"WHAT IS THAT THING! KILL IT! KILL IT!"
Two more male voices were shouting over her parents. The police? She hadn't even been gone twenty-four hours! A healthy chunk of her thought they wouldn't even notice. She didn't know that this was how it happened, but the panicked gunshots of incompetent policemen missed her entirely, both shells phasing right through her ghoulish, irate lover. All Lydia knew was confusion and overwhelm.
It was too loud. She didn't know where she was‒ living room or dining room or the foyer, they could be anywhere on the first floor. Maybe even upstairs. She sought out his hand through the labyrinth of dark and cacophony of disorienting sound, squeezing hard for comfort and hoping that he wasn't too mad at her to reject the request.
Then again, it was he that brought them here this way. This was done on purpose. He wanted a show. Still, she squeezed, because she loved him and at that moment, he was all she had.
When he dropped them in the living room he hadn't anticipated being shot. Two rounds hit him in the chest just missing Lydia. The energy he bottled up at the cathedral boiled out of him. Her soft touch on his hand tempered his reaction. When she squeezed his hand, he pulled her in against his chest, shielding her from what he was about to do. His anger and pain from earlier feeding into this atmosphere.
He laughed. Not the soft chuckles his little lover was used to. It was loud and violent and promised bad things to come. The entire structure of the house was shaking. Hideous wallpaper peeled and the walls beneath bled. With the arm not anchored around the girl, his girl, he gestured and it threw the men who shot him across the room, the force of it knocking them unconscious. He turned his attention to her parents and with a nod of this head they were both strung up as if being hung. Toes were only just barely able to touch the floor so they didn't suffocate.
He didn't feel like playing spook for these mortals. This wasn't how he hoped the evening was going to end at all. Especially not back at this fucking house. He looked down to pick at the bullet holes in his jacket.
"They shot me, Lydia, n' now they are gonna try an' take ya away." There wasn't much emotion in the words, just facts. A dark barking laugh left him. "They'll try… "
Lydia had her rebellious moments, like earlier that night when in a period of emotional duress she made the decision to run away for a romantic night with her lover, just the two of them. Delia probably knew this side of her better than anyone, herself most often the target of the girl's ire. Lydia never got nastier than a snide comment here or there, or a flash of an unflattering candid moment with her polaroid.
At her core, she wanted everyone to know love and happiness. Even Delia. Even her father. Especially Betelgeuse.
She never heard the end of the eavesdropped conversation that led to her running away. Her father might've changed Delia's mind. They had the police here and were worried about her, looking for her. That meant they cared, right? There was something good and redeemable and worth loving there.
"They shot me Lydia, and now they are gonna try an' take ya away."
"No," her head was shaking, trying to make sense of it all, even as her fingers traced the damning bullet holes. Panic climbed by the moment. She could hear them choking and feared for their lives.
"No, they didn't mean it, they're just scared. They won't!"
Who was she trying to convince really?
"Ly‒di‒a‒"
It was her father, gasping her name as if it was his last breath. Lydia lunged in the direction of his voice, desperate to help, but was stuck in place.
"No!"She fought back hard, hurting herself in the process as she couldn't possibly match up to his strength. "BETELGEUSE, BETELGEUSE, BETELGEUSE!"
She said his name, said it thrice‒ and nothing happened. No pain, no being pushed into the twilight between the land of the living and death. He let out another laugh, this one sounding pained. She was spun around, her back to his chest, his hand at her throat. Not squeezing, just holding, lips to her ear.
"Ya can't just put me away when yer tired o' me anymore, Love… " the last word came out as a snarl, "n' if ya get one of the other breathers to say it, yer comin' with."
He tapped the spot on his chest where she had pressed her bleeding hand. Slashing his hand in the direction of her parents, they collapsed to the ground gasping for air.
"They'll be fine," he spat and shoved her towards them, "I may be a monster, babes, but I know yer rules."
He shook himself like a dog and rolled his shoulders. Stretching his neck, he tugged his suit jacket straight, ridding it of bullet holes. A cigarette appeared in his mouth, the ember glowing dim, outshone by his eyes.
"The bastards that shot me? Ima make 'em bleed. Then, the real fun'll start."
His voice was all business. He wanted chaos and carnage, he would get it. She wanted two breathers spared, he could grant that. Moving toward the unconscious cops on the far side of the room, he gestured to have them hung upside down in front of him. Waiting for them to come around, he lazily blowed smoke into the room.
He shoved her and she fell. Taking no time at all to right herself or even react to the aggravation to her already skinned knee from such a hard fall, she crawled in all her glamor and jewels across the floor toward the sound of the gasping, whimpering Deetzes.
"Daddy," she cried, calling him something she hadn't since she was a little girl. "Daddy, are you okay? I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry…"
She found his hand, his head, patting him lightly to check for injuries while he coughed and hacked and tried to pull himself together. He was squeezing her hand back‒ maybe in reassurance, maybe out of reflex from the violent coughing fit. Delia, not having been a smoker for two decades like her husband, caught her breath first.
"Get away from him!"
Lydia was pushed back, her head hitting the hardwood with a painful thud. Her stepmother was in survival mode and had already categorized Lydia as a threat, the way her sleeping subconscious had a long time ago. The vicious redhead crouched over her territory, her husband, protectively. Charles was hers and she wouldn't be losing him to expensive escorts, dead wives, uppity teenage daughters, or malevolent spirits.
"I knew it was you," she hissed like an animal, blue eyes flickering between the girl she didn't recognize garbed in starlight and the hideous apparition she brought with her, the one responsible for all this destruction.
"That bitch mother of yours should have taken you with her!"
It wasn't fun to peel unconscious bodies. They didn't squirm, or cry, or beg. Still when the men hadn't woken as quickly as he liked he got impatient and started anyway. The pain should wake the men. His hands were slick with blood as he peeled a thick swath of skin from a torso when the fucking harpy started up. At first, he ignored her. Lydia could take whatever that glorified whore of a woman had to say.
"That bitch mother of yours should have taken you with her!"
Until she said that. He turned to see the pain in Lydia's face and realized her stepmother had caused her both physical and emotional pain. He didn't move to the women huddled across the room but he did flick the worst of the blood from his fingers and snap them.
Delia was jerked around and magically pinned to the floor. Not unlike a virgin sacrifice from any old B list movie about Devil worship. Her voice was stolen as well. He wasn't even going to allow her to beg, or scream.
Slowly he moved to them, ignoring Charles for the most part with the knowledge that aside from a good scare that man was off limits to his rage. But this redheaded bitch, he could have some real fun with her. He squatted down over the woman, his arms bloody to the elbow resting on his knees, a long trail of ash barely clinging to the end of his cigarette.
"Ya know, Deeelia," he spoke around the butt in his teeth, "death ain't a great place for suicides, but ya know what they do to murderers?"
He leaned in very close, the ash from his cigarette falling onto her face and into her mouth. She struggled but it was no use. There was no escaping what was coming for her. Whether he did her in now or if she lived a long life. She and Charles both. Not that he would ever let Lydia know that these people had as good as killed her mother and that they were doomed to worse than Juno's office.
"Thing 'bout bein' a monster once yer dead, once ya been to Hell, Red," his blood slicked hand brushed her cheek, "is that yer very aware of how much of a monster you can be."
Delia had thrown her back hard enough to leave a nasty bump on her head that kept Lydia disoriented while Betelgeuse did the horrible things he was doing. She moaned low as she sat up, only to be cut off by the shocked, agonized shouting of one of the policemen who had finally come to only to realize the extent of he and his partner's gross mutilation.
"Daddy?"
Again, her father was her first priority but when she reached for where she knew he was, she didn't get any reaction. No movement, no sound. His pulse still ran in his wrist, and his chest still moved with breath. He was alive then, but who knew for how long? Her father had bad nerves and a weak stomach. Whatever he had seen was too much and made him blackout. For once, Lydia was thankful for her poor vision.
Delia and Betelgeuse were near, her stepmother sobbing horribly, begging in a broken string of barely legible words like please and help and don't kill me.
Cowardice was no longer a luxury Lydia could afford.
"Stop it, Betelgeuse!" She lunged in his general direction, landing on his back from the side, beating weak fists as hard as she could to fend him off and defend her parents. "STOP IT! Leave them alone! It's me you want! Just leave them alone and take me!"
He had just finished stubbing out his cigarette in Delia's cheek when Lydia's form collided with his. He stayed where he was unmoved and caught her fists.
"STOP IT! Leave them alone! It's me you want! Just leave them alone and take me!"
"That had been the plan, babe," he wrestled her around so he could pin her arms, flat on her back on the ground next to her bound stepmother, "but you said no. 'Sides, don't ya want 'em to pay for what they did ta yer Mama?"
He wouldn't tell her about all the conversations he overheard. He only played her the one he did because she needed to know what was coming. No, they hadn't had a direct physical hand in her mother's death, but murder was a broad stroke when it came to the after life. They drove the poor woman to it. Charles didn't hide what he was doing with Delia, and Delia hadn't tried to be discrete. But they both had a hundred and twenty-five years at least in store for them, reliving their worst moments. A long chain of unbroken memories that couldn't be changed, couldn't be affected.
With a wave of his hand, the police were gone. He didn't know where he sent them, and he honestly didn't care. They were inconsequential, he didn't need more lives in his ledger, more reasons for Juno to come dig him up.
"What will you do if I stop?" His lips were touching her ear, his warm slick hands clutching at her bare wrists.
Once his attention was fully on her and off the others, she stopped, greatly weakened by the struggle. The whole night had worn her down, from the conversation from the murderers that she wasn't supposed to be privy to all the way to here, to this second betrayal. Every emotion on her register had been exhausted, all except for this last one.
Disappointment.
They were close enough for their noses to touch. She didn't have it in her to fight him anymore.
"Don't ya want them to pay for what they did ta yer Mama?"
Here, they came to the core of their differences. Nothing but pity in her gaze, she answered. No matter how much vitriol he burned down at her, she refused to return it and feed into his greedy, destructive aura.
"No." They were too close for Lydia to see his full expression but she saw the light shift in his gaze. "I forgive them. I forgive you."
What a sad, pitiful creature he was, so convinced he was unloveable that he couldn't bend just a little to let her. Keeping the timbre of a tired mother returning home from a long workday and reluctantly agreeing to cook for the whole family, she finally gave the answer she knew he wanted.
"If this is the way you want things to be… then fine. You win. I'll marry you."