"Now shut your dirty mouth,
If I could burn this town,
I wouldn't hesitate,
To smile while you suffocate and die,
And that would be just fine,
And what a lovely time,
That it would surely be,
So bite your tongue,
And choke yourself to sleep."
—Choke
I Don't Know How But They Found Me

While Lydia was wrapped up in his arms, she felt safe. Always, even in dreams. In her unconscious fantasies, she dreamt about her new babies and all the adventures they were going to have.

They were out in the woods past the manor, the scene entirely constructed of Lydia's imagination as she'd never been this deep out in the thicket. She was carrying the puppy while Matilda trotted happily along at her side. The atmosphere was pleasant and easygoing. Where they were going was unclear, but Lydia hadn't any doubt they would have fun whatever they found.

Until a shot of unnaturally shaded lightning colored the sky electric green. Tilly startled at the thunder that followed and took off, abandoning both mistress and the baby. Shortly afterward, a storm burst forth from the sky the likes of which she'd never seen, torrents of crimson water painting her hands red.

It was so cold now, even though she was soldiering through the storm in a way that should have had her muscles hot and screaming, chasing down Tilly as though her life depended on it. Betelgeuse would never forgive her if she came back without the beloved hound. She tripped over an upturned root, curling in on herself to protect Bubby and take the brunt of the fall. However, as she rolled over the bloody leaves, she was horrified to find her hands bereft. He was gone now too, and it sent Lydia into a panic. Desperately, she clawed at the wet forest floor, only finding dirt, twigs, and dead leaves.

"Help!" She cried out into the forest, pulling at her hair in madness. "Someone help! I'm lost! My puppies! Please…"

No one answered the call. Destitute, she curled into herself, wild eyes flitting from corner to corner. The forest was whispering beneath the sounds of the storm. She wasn't alone here. A flash of pale skin and dark hair weaving through the trees drew her attention sharply.

"Hey…" She called brokenly, scrambling to her feet to chase after the apparition. "Hey!"

The figure quickened. Lydia only ever saw glimpses; an arm disappearing behind the trunk of a tree, a flash of hazel eyes sparing a backward glance before shadows swallowed her. No matter how fast she moved, the vision was two steps ahead.

They came to the edge of the woods, but there wasn't a manor waiting for her once she worked through the maze of twisting trees.

She knew this place.

This was New York. The Bronx. A neighborhood she used to explore unattended when she was too hungry or lonely to stay cooped up in the apartment. The woman was crossing the street careless of incoming traffic, her back stubbornly to Lydia.

"Wait!" The girl cried, chasing recklessly after her, narrowly avoiding cars on her way. "I just want to talk to you! You promised!"

Drenched in blood and chilled to the bone, she followed Mother through the broken down alley entrance and up countless flights of stairs, the route she used to take when she was much smaller. It seemed like so much when she was little. A head of raven hair disappeared behind a door; C26. The door slammed in her face just as she made it, and Lydia pounded her fists against the unyielding, thin piece of shit.

"Come back! You said you would come back!"

The temperature dropped again and the dear disappeared just as she went to slam her entire weight against it, sending her crashing to the floor. Roaches scattered at the disturbance. When she looked back, the door was gone, nothing left but cracked, peeling wallpaper and an ugly growth of black mold crawling down from the ceiling.

"Mom…?"

"Mommy's asleep, Lydie…"

She froze where she was crumpled on the ground, too afraid to turn her neck and face the source of the voice.

"It's just you and me…"

Matilda was happy to be curled around her baby. He was warm and soft and smelled idly of their mother. But also of Mistress, and that made Tilly happy. Mistress was kind and made her Master happy. Tilly liked anyone who made Master happy.

She was awoken by the Odd Puppy mewling and pacing above her on the bed. Mistress was tossing and turning, whimpering in her sleep as though someone was hurting her.

The Odd Puppy fixed her with his searing yellow eyes. Useless dog! Come and help. I have to get Master.

Tilly scrambled to her paws and lept onto the bed, giving Mistress gentle kisses on her face in an attempt to wake her. She won't wake up!

Percy hissed and darted off the bed to look for Betelgeuse. Of course not! She's having a nightmare.

Percy took off, yowling down the hall toward Master's study. He'd know what to do. Betel frowned when he heard the cat, opening the door and staring down at the creature in confusion. "Percy? What is it?" The cat rubbed against his shins and took off back toward the bedroom. Come, Master. She's dreaming again!

He followed the cat, his glasses still perched on his nose. "Seriously, Percy what the fuck is wrong with-" He froze when he saw his wife writhing and crying out in her sleep. This wasn't good. Tilly whined as he climbed onto the bed, running his hand over her head. "Lydia? Baby? Wake up… you're okay. Just wake up…"

Tilly whined and moved out of the way, curling up on the other end of the bed. Silly dog. Mistress will be okay with Master here. Percy rubbed himself under her chin, curling into her white fluff to try and wait out the nightmare.

Horrifically slowly, dreams bled into reality. The ugly, dripping ceiling turned a deep shade of crimson, the same as the canopy in their bed. The foul whispering voice in her ear took on a grittier timbre, one that didn't make her want to crawl out of her skin with disgust. Quite the contrary.

Wake up.

She came to thrashing in Betelgeuse's arms, her wrists caught in his grasp from where she tried to strike out at him in her hysteria and he managed to catch her. There was moisture on her cheeks courtesy of her leaking eyes, and her chest heaved with the strain of her panicked breaths.

"B-Beej?"

Confused and shaken, it didn't take her very long at all to gather what had happened. Nightmares like this were a common occurrence when he was gone and had plagued her most of her life. Percy nursed her through many as best he could. To have an actual person bear witness, never mind who, was equal parts horrifying and embarrassing.

"I'm okay," she stammered unconvincingly, still weeping against her will, crumbling under his gentle touch. "I'm fine, it's just… just…"

He wasn't buying it. She fell apart, muffling a fresh onslaught of sobs into his shoulder, ashamed by her weakness, by the memories, by how easy it was for them to creep back in and ruin their good day.

"I'm sorry…"

It took far too long for her to wake, lashing out and sobbing in his hold. When she finally opened her eyes they were wide and terrified, darting over his face as though he were someone else.

He pulled her into his arms gladly when she crumbled against him, her tears soaking into his shoulder in an uncomfortably warm, wet display. What could have possibly made her so upset?

He ran his hands down her back, pressing gentle kisses to her head and cheeks. Anywhere he could reach with her so tucked up against him. "Baby…."

His voice was thick with emotion. "You don't gotta be sorry, babes. Just. Talk to me… what happened? You were sleeping so soundly when I went to work on that paperwork. I shouldn'ta left. I'm sorry."

It took a long while for Lydia to even begin the process of calming. Every time she tried to speak, all that came out was another apology or a shuddered-out incomprehensible garble of gibberish.

"It's nothing," was the first audible combination of words she could string together once her fit dissolved. "Really, it looks worse than it is. Just… just another bad dream… Didn't want you to see that…"

He stayed quiet, making small hushing sounds somehow without implying she should be silent. It wasn't real. But it was. But it wasn't.

"I was in the woods outside the house with the babies. We were going somewhere, but then I got lost… and it was raining. They were gone and I couldn't find them… but I saw…"

She fell off to a pause. Mentioning Mother wasn't important. Tilly was plastered up against her side, as if she understood and was trying to reassure Mistress that she wasn't lost, she was right there.

"Saw a way out… but it didn't bring me home. I was in New York, in the neighborhood I grew up in. I went back to my old apartment to see if I could find… but she wasn't there… He was… And the door disappeared. And I couldn't get away. Or talk, or scream— and— and—"

He listened carefully, tucked into her side and stroking her hair. With him on one side and Tilly on the other, she had little room to move. As she started to calm, his rage started to build.

Natalya. Of course. The thought of her was still fresh. It was only natural that Lydia would be thinking of her mother now. But him. Gregory Green. That asshole had to be taken care of. And soon.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, tangling his hand in her hair. "Hey. Ya ain't back there anymore. You're here. With me, and the babies, and our big beautiful house. Ya got nothin' to be afraid of now… I'm gonna keep ya safe."

He held her close, trying to will her back to sleep. When she fell asleep he as business to attend to. An asshole to pick up, and a room in the house to get first use out of.

Betelgeuse always made everything better— when he wasn't fucking it all up like a bull in a china shop. She had no choice but to accept what he said as truth, and in this case, there was no denying he did speak the truth. She was home, in their big, beautiful house with him and their babies, and there was nothing to be afraid of because he would always keep her safe.

"Can Tilly and Bubby stay on the bed tonight?"

She sniffled her request, shuffling between her two cuddlers until she was spooning the giant mass of soft, warm fur. The puppy was beginning to stir and whine on the floor, missing the presence of his sister.

"Just tonight… I'm sorry I'm so crazy…"

She knew he didn't like it when she apologized like this, but she still felt so low, so mad at herself for ruining their perfect day with her insane bullshit. An admission of guilt was necessary before she could fully claim the peace he was trying so hard to give her.

"Of course, baby. The dogs can snuggle up with ya… I mean us… just for tonight." He pressed kisses over her cheeks and down her neck, keeping her pressed against him. Tilly went to fetch Bubby.

With a kiss to her forehead, Betel put his wife back under a sleeping spell. The dreamless sleep would leave her safely in place and unknowing that he was gone.

He patted Tilly and then Bubby, then Percy for good measure. "Take good care of her, beasts. I'll be back as soon as I can be." Tilly whined, tucking her chin over Lydia's waist to keep her pressed to the bed.

He bristled, his striped suit returning with a flourish. "Showtime. You got no idea what's comin' for ya, Greg."

The years had not been kind to Gregory, not that he was in any way deserving of kindness. He stayed in and out of prison on petty drug charges, consistently flying under the radar on his more heinous crimes. Only one had ever been brave enough to spill the beans on their secret playtimes; his special little Lydie. Luckily, that was back in his heyday, when he was the Kingpin of the Bronx; a dumb, strung-out bitch on every corner pushing his product and trusting him with their babies.

Life was good back then, good enough to afford him a slick lawyer that buttered the judge up good and warm to him. He always did look good in a suit.

Or, he used to. That was a different life. He was feeble now, impoverished, years of drinking, smoking, and trashing his body finally catching up to him. He never got too hooked on the goods to keep from losing his mind, unlike many in his harem of pushers. It was better to use women to move product. Even the most well-used of whores was more approachable than a loopy prick in a trench coat.

He was small-time now; his days spent in a nursing home cleaning the elderly's diapers and stealing their meds as a tip. If a picture of a grandkid or two went missing, well… the old bats were too senile to notice. Whatever wasn't sold to his circle of rats was chased down with a King Cobra before he went to bed every night on a stained mattress in a reeking, overpriced hovel of an apartment. It was a miracle he hadn't accidentally offed himself by now.

Tonight was one of those nights. The ceiling fan was spinning above his frame lacking bed in a way that was inexplicably amusing, drawing high nasal giggles up his throat. The television was flickering in the background on some public access educational show for kids. As if he would ever waste good money on something as stupid as cable…

Betelgeuse had never liked New York. For a creature of chaos, there was too much competition. Too many opposing forces struggling to coexist for a monster like him to get a word in. Monsters like Gregory Green, it seemed ran rampant.

He had carefully constructed himself a disguise. A middle-aged blonde man, pale, but still pink enough to pass for living. His stripes stayed in place as he walked into the small bar on the corner that Charles had pointed him toward. He'd made it through three lackeys before coming to a simpler realization.

Now, he was walking up a back street alone. The streetlights here cast the whole world in a sickly, jaundiced yellow, making it appear as though it could have easily existed in his world as well. Under every few lights, there were eerily thin women smoking or talking to themselves. They looked not unlike Natalya with how their bodies had suffered from the drug lining their pockets.

As he passed, one of them reached out. A redhead. Might have been cute once. "Hey mistah! Ya lookin' for a good time?"

He smirked. "You know it, sweet cheeks. Say. You wouldn't happen to work for a guy named Green, would ya?"

Impossibly, she went even paler. "Don't know 'im"

Betelgeuse gave her a stern look, slowly lighting a cigarette from his pocket and humming low in his throat. "Shame. I'm tryin' to kill him."

This seemed to pique her interest and she pointed to a moderately rundown apartment building up the street. "He's in there… 24B. But he ain't gonna be easy to take down."

He chuckled. "We'll see." He disappeared, leaving the junkie losing her mind about wizards down on the street. He licked his lips. This was gonna be good. He cleared his throat, assuming Lydia's voice and knocking at the door. "Hello? Greg? Are you in there?"

"… the fuck?"

Greg sneered, puke-green eyes glaring blearily at the sweet voice behind the door. That didn't sound like any of his usual rats; too young, too smooth. Groggy and stumbling, he eventually was able to crawl up to his feet from the yellowing, groaning mattress. A blinking analog clock on the stove told him it was three o' clock in the morning, and he about smashed the rest of his forty against the wall in sudden fury, but stopped himself. There was still a good chug or two left at the bottom, only a little flat.

"I swear t'fuckin' God…" He slurred on his way through the small, cramped hole that was his nest, naming a deity he would have been wise to stray far away from. "… if this bitch doesn't have some somethin' good…"

He yanked the door open roughly until the handle wedged in a hole in the dry drywall that came from a previous fit similar to this one. Gregory had a reputation for having a nasty temper.

"What?"

He snarled, only for his ferocious expression to falter at the stranger who greeted him on the other side of the doorway. He was taller and bigger, but Greg had a scrappy kind of strength and wiry muscles that usually gave him the upper hand. Then again, his physical entanglements were often restricted to women and children. This far into the night, he was fucked up enough to try something stupid.

"Where…?" Sticking a head of greasy, stringy salt and pepper hair past the frame, he looked right then left down the hall, searching for the source of the sweet voice. Nothing but cockroaches. Still mourning the loss— what if it was one of his little girls seeking his company for once?— he fell back somewhat, not actually wishing to wrestle with the grungy, chubby male. It looked like he might have been packing some muscle under that tacky suit.

"Look, motherfucker," he pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes clenched, clearly nursing some kind of headache, "if you're wantin' a fix, go talk to any of the hoes on the corner. I don't take clients this late."

With that, thinking their business done, he made to shut and lock the door without waiting for the stranger's explanation.

A foot in the door halted his efforts to close it on Betelgeuse, and a dark smirk came over the poltergeist's assumed face.

"Hey there, Greg! I got a message for ya. It's from a little girl ya used to know." With a blink, he was thrown backward into the opposite wall, allowing Betel to step inside and close the door behind him.

He took a second to look around the room. Disgusting. There were beer bottles littering the floor, and the carpet beneath them was stained with questionable liquids. The whole place stank of sweat and liquor.

He grimaced and looked over at the pathetic excuse for a man lying across from him. He was barely containing his rage, and the energy of it crackled through the air around him. This thing had taken important firsts away from his wife. And furthermore, from him.

He sneered, hands still in his pockets as he stared at him. "Ya remember Lydia Deetz?"

Greg was still groaning and writhing on the floor in pain, the forceful toss across the room leaving him bruised in places. His head had hit the wall, then floor pretty hard, and his vision was spotting.

A little girl ya used to know.

Fuck. His time had come. He was always so careful, only targeting the loneliest and most vulnerable of princesses in their crumbling, neglected towers, girls without any fathers or big brothers to come a-huntin'. Hazy from head trauma and intoxication, the supernatural manner by which he was thrown across the room went under his notice.

Lydia Deetz.

That was a name he dwelled on often, sans the updated surname. He liked her mother's better. It was exotic, along with that cute little accent. The pictures he took of little Lydie were treasured, in much better shape than many of the others in his collection.

Still clinging to a will to live, Greg defaulted to pleading. Things were looking quite precarious indeed.

"I never… never touched that girl," he moaned lowly, arching to stretch out his aching spine. "I dunno who you are or what you heard… but it's bullshit, man… complete n' utter bullshit… just competition spreadin' lies, I swear… didn' do nothin' but love Lydie… treated her slut mom like a fuckin' queen too, only got the best cuts of product…"

The lies spilled out so easily and convincingly, Greg almost had himself fooled. Maybe he would get out of this yet.

His eyes darkened at the blatant lie. Wasn't it enough to insult a woman who's life he'd ruined? Why add to his laundry list of misgivings?

A switchblade was produced from the inner pocket of his jacket and flipped open idly. "Oh no… no no. You did a lot more'n touch that perfect little princess. Didn't ya, Greg? Try again. An' I suggest Tellin' me the truth this time."

He picked at his teeth with the end of the knife, his eyes the only part of him that might belay what lay beneath his disguise. The pupils narrowed to sinister slits as he took in his prey from across the room.

"Ya know. Better yet… I could just carve the truth out. Knife ain't that sharp, though. Talk fast."

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Cold terror finally hit him as the glow of the television caught the knife's edge. This guy meant business. He wasn't interested in just beating the shit out of him. A beating, he could take. No, the stranger wanted more than Gregory would be able to pay. Willingly.

Scrambling to his feet, he took stock of the distance between him and the window that led to the fire escape.

"Okay, okay, okay," he hissed, glassy eyes wide and sharper than the poltergeist had seen them all night as they stayed glued to the blade. "T-take it easy there, big guy," he was inching toward the only viable escape in a way that he hoped was inconspicuous. "Yeah, I—"

Admitting the truth of his monstrosities was not something he had ever done or been forced to do before. It was not an easy task, he found.

"We… we fooled around some…"

He confessed as though he was relaying a regrettable one night stand and not the violent sexual abuse of an innocent child spanning the length of several years.

"B-but… that was years ago, man. I was high— and Lydie was… she was…"

Special. She'd always been one of his favorites.

"Prolly don't even remember me."

The anger coiled tighter in his stomach. With a wave of the knife, the metal edge of the window started to fuse into itself, sealing off the perceived escape route.

"Wrong! Guess again. And from here on in yer gonna call her Lydia. That's her name. Not Lydie." The nickname left a foul taste on his tongue. He was the only one who got to call his girl sweet things. Definitely not this bastard.

"Get up, Greg. We got places to be. Body parts to cut off." He smirked, finally making his way toward the pathetic beast and grabbing him by the hair, wrenching his head back to make him look at him.

"I need you to understand that I don't like bein' lied to, little man." Something caught his eye, then. A box sticking out of one end of the bed on the far wall.

Greg was drug along with him to investigate. What he found turned his stomach. Well-worn photos of little girls in compromising positions. At the bottom was a set that had been lovingly maintained, stacked and paper-clipped together. The little girl from his photo with Natalya stared back at him blankly from the photographs. He growled, low in his throat.

"Never touched her. Right?"

In a blink they were somewhere else altogether. Looking in, one might think that they were in a medieval dungeon, and not a converted root cellar around the side of the house he shared with the woman in question.

"By the way. She's Mrs. Lydia Deetz-Geuse now. Beautiful, smart, n' more fucking kind than anyone I know. Despite how hard you tried to fuck her up."

Stone walls reflected the little light there was in the room, a torch on the far way having blazed to life as they entered. Greg was thrown into the wall where iron shackles snapped shut around his wrists and ankles.

His disguise melted away, leaving the grinning, serpentine corpse in its place, grinning darkly. "She's also my wife."

Gregory Green was in deeper trouble than he could have ever possibly imagined. Adrenaline kept him sobered up beyond the pull of the drugs, yanking fruitlessly at the chains that kept him bound.

His captor wasn't even human. The sight of his true form alone, never mind the way he was pulled through a void of time and space to this chamber of misery, was enough to sprout a few new white hairs on his greasy scalp.

Like they always did, he scrapped and screeched, yowling for "help" as if anyone might hear him. Through thick layers of brick and wood, rooms and rooms away, one of the beasts' ears might have twitched in acknowledgment, but then they just snorted dismissively and cuddled their peacefully sleeping mistress closer.

The monster in the striped suit stayed leaning leisurely against the opposite wall, watching the insect beg and plead, squandering energy he really should have been saving on a useless struggle. Once Greg exhausted it all and was left a slumped, sweating, heaving bag of bones wrapped in emaciated flesh, his wide, bloodshot eyes landed unblinking on the jailer; smoking a cigarette, expression unreadable, just watching.

"What... are you…?"

Watching the pathetic creature squirm nearly turned his stomach. There was no denying now. No trying to talk him out of it. The old man was going to go hoarse from screaming. Oh well.

When the junkie's eyes finally met his he smirked, just slightly.

What are you?

"Told ya. I'm Lydia's husband. I'm also known as the Ghost with the Most. A Poltergeist. In some circles folks won't even say my name for fear I might show up." He rapped a bit of ash off the end of his cigarette before taking another slow drag. "You can call me your worst nightmare."

He fiddled with his knife a moment before stepping away from the wall and advancing on the cockroach that had found its way into his den. The knife was placed at his jugular, not hard enough to cut, just threaten.

In a blink, all of the bastards ratty clothes were gone and the knife was aimed at his grotesque, saggy balls. "Wanna try again now? Tell me what ya did to my Lydia. From the top."

Weeping and terrified, the strung-up man proceeded to confess yet again, in more exact and honest terms this time. Anything else seemed… unwise.

"Everything," he whimpered, ashamed, filtering through memories that at any other time with any other context would have given him a sick thrill. Now, they only made him sick.

"Got her mom on H…" That was always the first step. An addicted mother was a negligent mother. It wasn't as though Natalya didn't take the opportunity to hit the needle hard once he opened the door for her. "Got her thinking she was my girlfriend… so I c-could be alone w-with Lydie… uh."

Almost too late, he recalled that he wasn't allowed to use the moniker he'd grown accustomed to in his head. The knife dug in threateningly and a pitiful noise that didn't inspire any pity curdled in his throat, sweat dripping down his harshly furrowed brow. The striped monster was impatient with this beating around the bush type of storytelling. He wouldn't be satisfied without the grizzly details.

"T-touched her p-pussy… licked it… she s-sucked m-me… g-got too excited one n-night… fucked her…"

He cringed terribly, all of his teeth showing, remembering the blood, the way she cried and he had to cover her little mouth.

"Sh-shouldn't have done that. T-too small. Wr-wrong." His head shook, as if this was the thing that was deplorable. As if everything else was just a misstep. An oopsie.

"… but… it was too good."

No more lying. No more hiding. The piper wanted his due.

"Didn't stop. Not… not until I had to…"

The knife edged further and further into his sensitive parts as he started to detail the horrendous things that had been done to his wife. He could feel himself losing control.

"She was a little girl. Ya like little girls, Greg?" The knife twisted, puncturing the skin of his scrotum with the blunt tip. "Ya sick fuck."

He sneered. "Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna work through your list. For everythin' you did to my precious girl… imma cut off a body part. That seems fair, don't it?"

He hummed as though thinking it through. "Ah. Here." He bent down to grab hold of the monster's foot, taking the knife to his smallest toe. In less than a minute he was waving the appendage in the man's face. "That's a good start. And that's just for forgetting my rule. Her name is Lydia Deetz. Say it."

"LYDIA DEETZ!" He screamed over and over again as if in the midst of a religious fit as the rest of his toes were sawed off.

Inhuman screeches bounced off the brick while the torturer went to work, ever so slowly removing toes one by one. Betelgeuse savored his work, taking the time to grit through the bone instead of aiming for weaker, easy to slice joints and ligaments. Greg's face eventually whited out, far too much blood seeping from the wounds and pooling on the concrete beneath the poltergeist's boots.

Lydia's name quieted to a whisper, allowing the quickly fading man to listen as the filthy ghoul crouched at his mutilated feet murmured slow and gritty;

"This lil piggy went t'market,
This lil piggy stayed home,
This lil piggy had roast beef,
Aaaand this lil piggy had none…"

As each toe came off he tossed them over his shoulder as though he were digging weeds out of a garden. When the man started to pass out he summoned a filthy IV stand, easily jabbing the needle into his vein. "You know how this is, don't ya? Ha. Drugs."

He hung a bag of unmarked liquid onto it and set it to drip steadily into his veins. "There. That should keep ya awake until I get back. Oh. And this." He jabbed the toe of his boot into the stubs where his toes had been, grinning as the man screamed. "Now. I'll be back. I'd like you to think about what you did while you're in this time out, Greg." He bent down to rub handfuls of salt into his open wounds, shoving a handful into his torn scrotum for good measure.

He ruffled his hair playfully on his way out and disappeared.

Back in his bedroom, Tilly lifted her head as her master appeared. He stripped out of the bloodied clothes, vanishing them and tossing a toe to Tilly, who ate it happily as though it were any other dog treat. "Good girl. I'll have ya clean up for me soon."

Naked, and not a little aroused from his bought of torture, he slid into bed where he had been when Lydia fell asleep, pressing his lips to her head to lift the artificial sleep off of her. He flopped onto the pillows, feigning sleep.