She said yes but there was no joy in her tone, no light to her face. This was supposed to be a happy moment, wasn't it?

"I want ya happy, n' loved, n' separate from this…"

He motioned to the horrors that had been rained down inside the house. He had gotten his way but he didn't realize how much he wanted her to want it. She only said yes to save those worthless fucks he had no real intention of killing‒ not because she wanted to choose him.

He felt empty, gone to the quiet dead place deep inside, an animated corpse going through the motions. Without her asking, the house started to put itself back together. The blood stayed, he couldn't do shit about that, but the walls went back, some to how they looked before the remodel. He pressed a warm damp cloth into her hands. Somehow, he had managed to not smear her dress with anything in all the chaos. Her hair was back to its previous perfection. A long shimmery veil pinned in amongst the pearls and lilies.

The magic that had pinned her parents down dissipating, both figures scrambled away from him and the girl. They couldn't leave, however. He and his little bride-to-be needed witnesses.

He saw the extent of how bad his hands and jacket looked. Wiping his hands against the suit, getting the worst of it off, he changed suits with a blink. This one consisted of the same black and white stripes, but included a black vest. It appeared to have been a better cut since it didn't hang off his frame the way his normal suit tended to. His hands were still blood-stained, it was caught in all the fine lines and around his nails.

He held a hand out to her, quiet and calm. None of his usual vibrating energy danced across his skin.

"Well then, let's get on with it shall we?"

When he didn't pull any theatrics to change her dress, Lydia realized that he never intended to let her go to sleep tonight unwed. All through their beautiful evening, everything he had done for her and shown to her‒ this was always the game plan. When a clawed, mottled hand was thrust in her limited line of vision, she turned away in revulsion… but took it.

With a strong tug, he yanked her up from the ground and against him, Lydia falling in line with his manhandling like a ragdoll‒ but with none of the swoon she might have before. Her already terribly pale complexion was ashen and ghostly. She did not stand tall and proud like the glowing beacon from the opera, but slouched, a wilting lily in his hand plucked too soon.

The walls groaned as they reshaped, the fireplace expanding to make way for a tall, misshapen arch. The fire that had been there sizzled out, plumes of white fog spilling out from the vortex and over the floor. Everything was cast in electric green light, but as always, nothing too bright for Lydia to handle.

It wasn't fair how much she loved him. An impossibly tall shadow erupted from the mist at the head of the altar, rising up until he towered over them all. Her face remained stony, firmly locked on the shadow and refusing to acknowledge her groom while the age-old script was recited.

"Do you take this woman to be your wedded wife?"

"Yes, I do." It was hoarse and rough, like he had to force the words out. She had refused to see him, flinched from his hand when he helped her up.

None of this was supposed to happen this way. She looked corpse-like in the eerie green light cast from the open portal. Juno was right, he was going to doom her. He was so fucking close to his happy ending, to getting what he couldn't find in life. He could feel that vast emptiness inside churning with pent up energy and emotions.

He shut his eyes as the officiant continued.

"Do you take this man to be your husband?"

This was it then. Her wedding. He wasn't going to change his mind or back down or try to fix it. He was perfectly happy to let this be what their wedding was. A tiny part of her had been holding on hope that maybe… but no. How disappointing.

In lieu of the ordinary call for objections one would witness at a normal wedding ceremony, Lydia gave Betelgeuse ample time before giving her answer to speak up and put a stop to all this. Seconds ticked on. Before he could lash out and hurt someone else, she answered, eyes closing painfully.

"... okay."

No further time was wasted.

"I now pronounce you Man and Wife."

The line of her mouth squirmed. This all hurt so much. At some point, her father had come to consciousness behind them, but whatever he and Delia were whispering was beyond notice to the couple at the altar.

"You may kiss the bride."

Pale blue eyes narrowed. He may not. She could feel herself being turned to face her Husband, and in a final act of defiance, turned her cheek at the proper moment when he came for his kiss, forcing him to miss. Part of her dreaded what he might do to the other mortals present to twist her arm further but she couldn't help it. Her heart ached, and he didn't deserve her kisses.

She only had so much dignity left, and he had already taken most of it.

"You may kiss the bride."

He let out a shuddering breath, opened his eyes and turned to her‒ his wife. Why did thinking about that word and his little lover at the same time make his insides writhe like a pit of snakes? She turned her face away when he leaned in, and he pressed a soft chaste kiss to her cheek rather than fight her for her lips. Something inside him started to crumble. He went to his knees in front of her, hands shaking as he reached up to cradle her face.

"Sweetheart, we need a real kiss ta' seal the spell…" his thumb was stroking her soft cheek. "If ya don't give it willingly… I'll take it."

His voice was low and not angry, but pained. He didn't want to force this, but they couldn't leave it open ended. He was soooo close, but Juno or the powers that be could still pull him away.

He couldn't catch her eyes. That was something he was used to with her, but he knew he was in close enough she could at least make him out, and she was avoiding him on purpose.

"Lydia…"

"If ya don't give it willingly, I'll take it."

A half-scoff, half-laugh huffed past her lips, bitter and disillusioned. He hadn't gotten her to walk down the aisle willingly, barely even tried. When he didn't get what he wanted, he caused pain and hurt and lashed out and acted like a baby until he had gotten his way. Lydia was disgusted.

"This is a problem for you now?"

He could play sweet and gentle with her now all he wanted, but it didn't mean jack shit to Lydia when she knew it was just a ruse meant to soften a threat. The worst part? She did want to kiss him, wanted to fall pliant in his arms and pretend none of the bad parts were real‒ but they were. So much blood had been spilt she could smell it as clearly as she had pollen in the garden.

"Do what you want. You're going to anyway."

Why did this hurt? Why did it bother him if she wanted to kiss him or not? He should have just forced the kiss and avoided this. Hearing her like this. It was tearing at his heart. He let out a shaking hissing breath.

"This isn't how I wanted fuckin' any o' this," there was rage and heat in his voice but no overflow of power. The house stayed quiet around them. He let out a low growl before spitting out, "but yer right, I will do what I want."

He forced her to kiss him. It wasn't the chaste one she would have gotten had she come to him willingly. This was an assault. It was all teeth and tongue and harsh pressure. He pulled away when he could feel she couldn't do without air any longer. He didn't want her to pass out on him. He had other plans involving her still to come.

When he imagined getting his powers back, he never would have expected the crippling pain that came with it. It was like getting struck by lightning‒ but he couldn't die, couldn't escape the pain or the energy. There was an overwhelming rush of power like when he was properly summoned with intent, but so so much worse. He was overstimulated; the sights, sounds, smells, he was under attack. The harpy and the old man were talking and it was clawing at the inside of his skull, but the smell of the terror in the room and of her‒ he was painfully hard in his slacks. Why wouldn't they all just shut the fuck… the master bedroom.

The thought wasn't even finished before he was on top of his little bride, pinned to the bed in the master suite.

All that bravado and gall fled in the face of the consequences.

Time was standing still while she waited for him to make his choice, the only one he had left either of them with his callous actions. He was in her face, growling his descent, and all she could see was the same gleaming evil gaze from the garden, thirsty for her pain. Her scream was devoured by fangs and a forked tongue.

It did hurt. He was careless with his newfound power, pricking her lips and tongue while feasting upon her mouth, piercing delicate tissue with lengthening claws. He stole the ground out from beneath her again the way she had grown to loathe, strange blankets she didn't recognize the feel of touching her skin. That smell… her father's cigars… Delia's perfume… Oh God…

"No!" She bit his tongue to free her mouth, earning a hard squeeze that made her shriek. "Betelgeuse, please!"

The veil was ripped away and her dress in tatters, hanging by a few stubborn scraps of moonbeam. He was so hard, crushing her into the foul-smelling bed with their hips pressed together painfully in a way she was familiar with. The hurt in her chest was worse than the nips and tears here and there as he went at her.

He wasn't listening to her. He wanted to hurt her. Was anyone going to help her?

"Please no! Stop! Please!" She slapped and kicked, but it was to no avail. He was too strong. "Help! Please someone! Daddy!"

He could hear her‒ but the "her" he was hearing wasn't Lydia. He'd had to relive this moment more times than he could ever count; how he forced himself on the bitch from before, the one he almost married when he was alive. She lied to him about the baby, and then fucked another man in his bed. If she wanted to play whore, he would help her out. He made her hurt, then he'd taken her apart and watched her die in front of her lover.

Had Juno called him back and stuck him back here in his own private hell? Is that why he was back at this place? Reliving this specific moment? He felt like he was missing something very important.

"Help! Please someone! Daddy!"

No, that wasn't right. She never called for her father… her father had died… oh fuck… no. He couldn't be doing this again. Especially not to…

The fog of his mind started to clear and he pulled back from the skin he was ravishing. It wasn't her, it was Lydia. She looked like she had the night he ripped that pissant of a teacher apart; terrified and roughed up. Rather than egging him on, the smell made him want to gag. The sight of her tears and the way she was fighting against him, it made him hurt. More than being summoned, more than when she rejected him. The situation clicked into place in his mind and he tore himself away from her, away from the bed.

The room quaked. He had his face in his hands and was screaming. It was just like the early days of being stuck in his Hell, forced to watch, to relive raping and murdering the bitch. This time unlike all of those, he was able to stop. He was as far as he could get from the bed without leaving the room. He couldn't bring himself to look back at his wife for fear she would be the same bloody mess as all the times he lived this before.

When he hauled himself off of her, Lydia went very still, flinching only when he let out that heartstopping, inhuman screech. Danger was still present. He had gone mad. She didn't know what he might do. So, so slowly, she inched up and back until each vertebrae of her spine was pressed flush to the headboard, arms wrapped around her knees. All the while she listened for any indication that he was coming back for more.

All she heard were crickets. The house had been abandoned. Delia and her father had fled, and the policemen were either dead or unconscious… wait. There was another sound… sirens. One of those officers must have radioed in for backup among all the chaos, or they hadn't made a check-in and were being looked in on.

"No," she whimpered, imagining the impending carnage. What had she unleashed upon the world? Could she possibly bring him back before it was too late?

"B-Beej?" She wasn't sure he was even still there. "I'll do whatever you want, okay? Just please… please don't hurt them."

Betelgeuse had slid to the floor, his legs splayed out in front of him, his nails had dug furrows into the hardwood. He had his eyes shut, head leaned back against the wall to keep from accidentally seeing the bed and what might be laying on top of it. He was in that still dead place, but his skin still buzzed with energy. With the bindings gone he wasn't sure he'd be able to shed his humanity like before. He knew someone was still alive and in the room, but the thought of looking and being wrong… wasn't a chance he was about to take.

"Beej? I'll do whatever you want, okay? Just please… please don't hurt them."

He flinched at the sound of her voice. He knew if she was talking to him like that she… she wasn't a ghost was she? Juno was right, he had gotten her killed right-fucking-away. That's why she stuck him back in the loop.

… No. No he could hear breathing, smell her vanilla-lilac scent.

"Don't hurt who?" his voice was rough, and sounded drained. He wasn't ready to look yet but maybe if he could talk to her for a moment. He rolled his shoulders trying to loosen his perpetually stiff neck, and cleared his throat.

"Don't hurt who, Lydia?"

There was still a lingering threat in his voice amplified by how quiet and hoarse he was. Actions probably made more sense than words to him right now but Lydia wasn't stupid enough to try approaching nor did she have any desire to.

"Don't you hear them...? They're coming up the hill now. Police… Men with guns. Just take me away from here and I'll‒ I'll be your wife."

As if she had a choice, but the message was clear. She would try. She would forgive him, but on this condition only. The sirens were getting closer and closer, and she thought her heart might explode the longer they stayed there in that horrible awful bright smelly room.

"I can't let anyone else get hurt because of me. I can't take it, please, Beej, please, I can't…"

He sighed and stood up human slow, every movement very careful. He faced the bed and opened his eyes looking down, expecting a horrifying mess. What he saw was a messy bed and his little wife huddled against the headboard. The pain in his chest was crushing. Her sad little form in the ruined dress, her hair a tangled mess. This night has started out so beautifully and now, much like her dress, it was in ruins.

He moved along the edge of the bed stopping a few feet short of her. He could hear and understand what the sirens were now, could smell her anxiety in the stale air of the room.

"I can't let anyone else get hurt because of me. I can't take it, please Beej…"

He shut his eyes again as a new wave of guilt and pain washed over him. With a gesture toward her, the remains of the dress were stripped from her and replaced with a modest soft nightgown in black, with long warm sleeves. Her hair fell around her in freshly cleaned and brushed waves. Now that she didn't look like he raped her, even though at this point he might as well have, he was able to offer her his hand.

"I have somewhere we can go."

He didn't try to touch her. He was so sick with what had happened he didn't know if he deserved to touch her ever again. He felt like he was suffocating on the scent of her sadness and fear, what had been a turn on, now making his skin crawl.

"Somewhere safe and far away from here. I can keep em outta the house, if ya want time to get anything from yer room."

Soft fabric furled out like a thin, soft blanket all around her‒ another nightgown, more modest than anything he had ever dressed her in before. She cuddled herself closer for the simple comfort, taking anything she could. With his new softness and the concession to leave, a heavy weight of anxiety lifted but not all.

She was in shock, she knew logically. Adrenalin was coursing through her and nothing felt real. "Safe" was a far away unattainable concept.

"I want the picture of my Mama in the bottom-left drawer of my vanity. I don't care about the rest."

Her face untucked from her knees. His open palm was just barely within the edge of her sight, harder to spot without his normal stripes. Biting her lip, she spared one last moment's hesitation before taking the plunge. There was nowhere left to go but with him. Their hands joined, warm and cold, and Lydia trembling allowed him to pull her closer for the jump to wherever this alleged sanctuary was.

However, before they left, she needed to know.

"Are you you again?"

The person who wanted to hurt her was not the man she loved. He was sick. There was something extremely wrong with her Husband… but he was hers all the same.

The moment she mentioned the photograph, it appeared in the breast pocket of his jacket as if summoned by her voice. He watched as she slowly uncurled herself, didn't miss the tiny flinch before she took his hand. He pulled her in to cradle her against his chest, pressed his nose against her hair, and took a deep pull of her scent.

"Are you you again?"

"Think I'm more me than I've been in a long time," his lips were brushing her hair. His hands stayed on her where she would stay the most secure.

It wasn't like before when he took her places. He hardly had to think at all about this transfer. It was easier than taking her from the attic to her bedroom had been. It was like he stepped from her parent's bedroom and into the living room of his house in the Neitherworld.

He hadn't been here in a long while but on a quick glance around and letting his senses run through the house nothing seemed amiss. Apparently being him still had advantages in the right circles. He took a step towards the moth eaten couch, glass crunching under his boots from broken beer bottles. With an irritated grunt, he twitched his head and a majority of the mess in the house was swept away.

Quickly he settled her onto the couch and draped a heavy fur lined blanket around her shoulders. Once he had her momentarily settled he clapped his hands causing the fireplaces in the different rooms to blaze to life, pushing back the chill.

"Hold tight there, I'm gonna go get the bedroom ready for ya." He started down the hall and then froze on the threshold of the room, "Feel free to explore," he said awkwardly before he moved further into the old house.

It was chilly and musty wherever he had brought her. Upon settling her on the couch, a cloud of dust released into the air, triggering a string of sneezes that left her head feeling even fuzzier. The coziest, warmest blanket Lydia had ever felt in her life was draped over her shoulders without him touching her again. She was thankful for that. She wasn't ready for any kind of close contact with him so soon. Their transportation here was incidental.

"Feel free to explore."

That sounded like a great idea. Her adrenalin was slowing but she wasn't content to sit on the couch. She waited until she heard the click of whatever door he went through shutting. Then, she was up and off, stealing an oil lantern from a nearby table to bring with her and help investigate.

Lydia had never been in a house so blissfully dark. Each and every curtain was drawn, room to room‒ even the library. This was where Betelgeuse eventually found her, with her face smushed near flat against the shelves in her curiosity to read his volumes. This was easy. This was familiar and comforting‒ but also new and amazing and endearing. Almost enough to make her forget…

A sound from the entryway startled her into dropping the dark tome she was having an excruciating time trying to read. It detailed nasty rituals that promised immortality and great power, if she ever got around to that section. To be fair, she was extra jumpy. She assumed it was Betelgeuse, and that this was his house. How a ghost owned a house was beyond her, but here they were.

"I'm fine sleeping in here." There was a chaise lounge a dozen or so steps back that was soft and cushy to the touch. "I'm not tired, anyway."

He found her in the library trying to read one of his nastier spell books. If she could decipher the inscription and his hand written notes in the margins she was welcome to read it. He might have to make that one braille just to watch her try. Leaning against the door jam, he watched her for a few moments. It was strange having her‒ anyone‒ in his house. It was even stranger to him that he'd given her free range of the whole space without a second thought.

Their house. It was her home now too. He would get her one topside when she asked but for now, this house would do.

He knocked on the door jam, three times sharp. He had ditched his jacket, leaving him in his shirtsleeves, open waistcoat, and striped slacks.

"Bedtime reading?"

"I'm fine sleeping in here."

"Ya ain't sleeping in the library," exasperated, he scrubbed his face with his hands."I got the bed all ready for ya when ya are tired. N' if ya sleep in my library, what am I s'pposed ta do 'til ya wake up?"

He moved past her into the room and sunk down into the chair behind the big desk and kicked his feet up on the desktop.

"Did ya get much explorin' done? Or did the books distract ya?"

He was heavy and his steps were too. Lydia appreciated that about him. After he settled where she knew there was a desk, she knelt down to pick up the tome she dropped when he came in, carefully putting it back into place on the shelf with the respect books deserved.

"I found a bathroom, a room with sheets over all the furniture, and then this room."

In other words, yes, the books had distracted her. Despite what she said, the weight of the evening was indeed weighing heavily on her. Wordlessly, she soldiered on until finding a book worth falling asleep in the pages of. She settled on a cryptid encyclopaedia that took both of her skinny arms to carry. It was toted to the aforementioned chaise lounge with the kind of slow floating steps she took when she was getting to know a place and almost had it down.

Once there and comfortable, she left the book unopened in her lap. She sat facing her husband, expression not quite expectant, but the distance between them was clear. They both understood who had driven the wedge and who was responsible for repairing it‒ if such a thing could even be done. She couldn't see him, but she knew her not-quite-a-full-glare was landing.

A long, tense moment dragged on without either saying a word. The glare formed completely. Her left eyebrow twitched, as well as her index finger. Nothing? He didn't have a word to say for himself? Her lips pursed, and she dared for a low blow because the longer the silence wore on, the more it sunk in what had just happened to her and where she was, and the more it pissed her off that he still wasn't talking.

He thought a library and a fur blanket would win her? Cute.

"My father isn't perfect but he taught me one thing at least, and that's that only weak men hurt women."

There. And she hoped it stung, too.