Chapter 19: Drunken Tales
"Look...I didn't mean to just run out like that..." Lydia slurred, trying her best to act like she still remembered what actual syllables sounded like. That would be the part where Beetle would normally point and laugh, but for Lydia, he witheld the urge.
In all honesty, he felt nothing but those icky feelings of sympathy for the young woman. It wasn't everday that someone was done in by their very own significant other. Well, unless he counted himself, who could have, quite frankly, spent all eternity as Sandworm shit. Oh well, water over the road or whatever that old saying was.
"Eh, you had yer reasons..." he answered, glaring daggers at the old hag who was handing him his drink.
"Thanks..." Lydia politely thanked the waitress for her drink. The old woman glared at Beetlejuice accusingly, before turning back to Lydia and smiling.
"You're welcome, dear. Just let me know if you need anything. Anything. Even someone to walk you home if you need it." she urged, her usual snake-hiss turning to a sweet, grandmotherly chirp.
"Oh...uh, thanks..." Lydia replied, seeming puzzled by her offer, which greatly overjoyed Beetlejuice. At least Lydia didn't think he was a pure letch, and since he somehow cared about what she thought, that was awesome.
Lydia turned up her bottle, guzzling for dear life, while Beetle furrowed his brow in not concern. "Uh...think you should be drinkin' that much, Babe? Booze and intense bouts of loathing don't exactly mix well. Get mah drift?"
Lydia scowled briefly, "How would you know? You're always blissfully...uh..."
"What? Handsome? Charismatic?...Sexy?" he grinned letcherously, though it was honestly just an act to cheer her up.
"Content." Lydia finally spit out a very diplomatic version of what she more than likely wanted to rephrase as : Beetlejuice, you thoroughly enjoy being wasted and horny. Oh, and you're stupid.
Honestly, he really wasn't content at all. "Yeah, well...If it makes ya feel any better, I ain't that happy." he blurted out before he'd realized it. Quickly realizing his mistake, he quickly began joking to make up for it. "Hey, you know what they say? Misery loves company, am I right?!" he nervously chuckled, before grabbing his drink and furiously guzzling it down along with those pesky feelings of angst and self-torment.
"REALLY?!" Lydia gasped in her alcohol fueled moment of morbid fascination, with Beetle feeling the prying eyes of those around him.
"Uh...How bout I walk ya home, Deetz?" he asked, nervously loosening his mossy collar.
"Well..." she pondered, while Beetle decided that meant "yes", and grabbed her hand.
"If you say so!" he barked loudly, dragging the staggering young woman behind.
"Where ya goin, Mr. B?" Pole-head snickered, as Lydia turned around, much to Beetle's dismay.
"I'm takin' her home. What's it to ya?" Beetle hissed, immediately giving that flamethrower idea a second thought.
Old one-arm walked over to Lydia, looking her up and down. "Hey, she's reeeal pretty, Mr. B! What's she doin' with a dirtbag like you?"
Lydia frowned slightly. "Dirtbag? Oh...He's...not REALLY that much of a dirtbag...I mean...well, maybe a LITTLE..." she slurred, using her thumb and forefinger to show just how "little" of a dirtbag he was. It was kinda sweet, actually.
While Beetle would normally tell those bitches to go fuck themselves, he decided he'd delay that inevitable departure for the sheer fact that Lydia was trying to defend him. He just had to see that.
"Oh, really?" Pole-head smirked, smacking her gum. "So you're tellin' me this prick can be nice?"
"Well...yeah..." Lydia replied, a baffled look falling over her features. Beetlejuice couldn't believe what he was hearing. Lydia Deetz was admitting she thought he was nice-ish?
One-arm stepped in closer. "I just HAVE to hear this. Whaddya mean by nice? Now don't tell me it's gotta do with sex, cause he sure ain't no good in the sack!" she chortled, causing Beetle to growl. Liars.
"Oh...Well, no it's not sex..." Lydia replied, apparently caught off-guard by her remark.
"So it sucked for you, too?" Pole-head continued the less-than-pleasant interrogation.
"No, you don't...understand...We're just friends...I havent...Uh, WE haven't..." Lydia began to stumble over her words. Still friends, Beetle mentally muttered to himself. Better than nothin'. Not that it mattered anyway. Of course, he was still deeply curious to what Lydia's drunken, uninhibited self would possibly admit to, if anything.
"Oh, so Mr. B here got stuck in the friendzone! Ha! That explains everything!" Pole-head chuckled.
"Yeah, lettin' a pretty girl drag him around, bein' all nice. Lemme tell ya, sweetie, all that ends when he gets in ya pants. Then he'll only come around when he's horny. That's how it works with the unpaid help, anyway. With us, he just begs like a dog with a bone everytime he sees us." One-arm grinned maliciously at Beetle.
"You know you liked it..." he glared, grinning back in an attempt to taunt them.
"Well, she won't when she catches the clap!" Pole-head spat, now belly laughing. If only she'd laugh hard enough to suck that gum down her windpipe.
"Hey! I'm at least fifty percent sure I got that cleared up! So fuck off!" Beetle interjected, indignantly.
"It's not like that..." Lydia repeated, clearly not happy with their teasing. "I actually screwed him over...uh...not like that, either..."
Now she clearly had both women's attention. Considering the dumb bitches had an accumulative attention span of a lump of moss, that was nothing short of a miracle.
"Now I gotta hear this..." One-arm grinned, with the predatory glare of a hyena drooling over a freshly butchered zebra leg.
"Okay..." Lydia slurred, putting equal effort into both remembering and not falling face first into the concrete. "See, he tried to marry me..."
"Marry you?!" One-arm gasped.
"Well...like, a long time ago...when I was alive..."
"ALIVE?!" Pole-head choked. "Get outta here..."
"It's true!" Lydia insisted, eyes wide as saucers and nodding so furiously she'd seem right at home on the dashboard of an El Camino. "But see...Me and my friends...They're ghosts, too...My friend Barbara...She made a Sandworm eat him whole...Cause I didn't really wanna marry him...Cause he only wanted to marry me to get out of the Neitherworld...And cause he was all scary and mean...and gross..."
"Err...Maybe you should let me tell the rest, Babe. They already know about all that boring jailtime I had." Beetle interjected, hoping to cut the story really short and leave before Lydia spilled the revealing, private, potentially illegal beans. Luckily, Lydia smiled and nodded, much to his relief. Man, she was trashed.
"Well?" One-arm waited expectantly for the rest of the juicy details.
"So, she broke a deal, I had her do some work for me to pay me back. That's it." he spat, before taking Lydia by the arm and attempting to lead her away. Of course, one of the hookers grabbed her other arm before he could make his escape.
"That true? He ain't, like, holdin' ya hostage or anything?" Pole-head raised a suspicious brow.
"Oh...no...not anymore..." Lydia smiled sweetly, as Beetle cringed the deepest cringe known to all existence. Shit.
"Mmm-Hmm..." the hookers glared at Beetle, then whispered something to Lydia, who simply shook her head no.
"Unbelievable..." they tsked.
"Look, it was only until she paid me off! I ain't THAT bad! She's free now. She can do whatever the fuck she wants, WHOEVER the fuck she wants, I don't give a shit!" Beetle yelled, irately yanking Lydia from their grip. "So what if I'm fuckin' tolerable! Deal with it!" he spat, before poofing Lydia and himself away in a cloud of green smoke.