Chapter 20: Who Needs Sanity?

Once the sickly green haze had faded, the two were standing on Lydia's previous bridge of choice. Beetle smirked, pulling out a smoke while watching Lydia get her bearings and latch tightly onto the rail.

"Ugh...Why are we here, BJ?" Lydia groaned, rubbing what seemed to be a developing ache in her skull.

"Eh...Didn't know if you wanted to be stuck in that house again." Beetle shrugged, taking a drag off his smoke, all while feeling just a teensy bit guilty for trapping her there in the first place.

Lydia held on tightly to the rails, lowering herself until she was sitting, with her feet dangling over the strange, radiant water. Shrugging, Beetle did the same.

"I'm fine...either way...The night air is nice, though..." she sighed, staring into the rippling, probably toxic, stream.

She wasn't happy. It was obvious, and who could blame her. Her prick fiance cheated on her and then proceeded to run over her ass. Anyone would be a little peeved after that. Damn, that guy was a dumb bastard. Why anyone would let her go was a mystery to him.

Suddenly, another thought crept into his mind. "Heya...What did those broads whisper to you back there?"

"Huh? Oh..." Lydia snapped back to the present, seeming previously far away, lost in thought. And booze. "They asked me if I was lying about being free now. I said no."

"Oh. Hm." Beetle paused, another question forming in his brain. "So...You gonna be okay?"

Lydia smiled sadly, the night twinkling in her big, pretty eyes. "Yeah. It sucks, but deep down...I knew he'd been cheating all along. I guess I just didn't wanna see it until I had to. That felt worse than being hit by the car. At least that was an accident...Huh...I guess I just hoped I was good enough for somebody for once..."

"Why the hell would ya say a thing like that? Fuck, you could get any guy you want. Ole' Romeo was a cockbite, plain and simple." Beetle remarked, blowing a ring of smoke in the air.

Lydia chuckled a little, surprising Beetle and causing him to raise an eyebrow as he glanced at her. "See? I told them you could be nice..."

"Hehe...Not to them, I ain't..." Beetle laughed darkly.

"Well, you are to me." Lydia spoke softly, her smile contagious in the strange glow of night.

"Yeah, well...I guess ex-fiance's get extra privileges." he smirked, now prodding her a little to see if she'd spit anything out. The crazy thing was that he didn't know just why he was doing this. He was leaving soon, anyway. Hell, maybe it was just to entertain the thought of it all.

Lydia laughed a little, before growing still, causing Beetlejuice to get a little antsy. "Hey, BJ?"

"Yeah?"

"Just how many fiances have you had over the years?" she asked, seeming genuinely interested.

"Ya really wanna know?" he asked, hoping she'd think it was too many to count. This was about prodding her for information, anyway, and not the other way around.

"Sure...why not?" she giggled, apparently too drunk and easily amused to be intimidated. Not that she'd be intimidated in the first place. It wasn't like she wanted his skanky ass to begin with.

"Well...er..." Beetle mumbled, scratching the back of his neck. "Just...uh...one."

He watched, feeling strangely tense when waiting for her reaction. Lydia paused a moment, before smiling. Well, that was different.

"Wow. I figured you to have like...well over a hundred ex-fiance's by now. I guess I hoped I wouldn't be alone...I am pretty dumb, huh?" she shook her head, laughing good naturedly at herself.

That still didn't sit well with Beetlejuice, who knew her well enough to know that she partly meant it. "Nah, not dumb. I'm just the bastard who took advantage of a desperate chick in a bad situation. Not exactly mah finest hour."

"Yeah, well...I still made a deal. And you got eaten by a Sandworm...I should've kept my end of the bargain. I should've just called on you before I went stalking after Eugene. At least I could've been useful to somebody." she sighed.

Damn, he felt like shit right about now. Her last dying wish would be to carry out a bargain to him?! Him, the nasty asshat that got her powers taken away in the first place? The dickmunch that kept her away from her family and really lame ghost friends? Who trapped her with him? All while she'd spent the afterlife repeatedly blaming herself? He was a monster.

That was it. If everybody had a breaking point, this was apparently his. Beetle sighed, "Look...It's for the best, Lydia. You didn't deserve it. None of it. I used to think so, but I was an idiot. That's why I'm alone and no one gives a shit about me. I'm glad we didn't get hitched, Babe. And it sure as hell ain't cause of you. You're fuckin' perfect. Hell, I'd marry ya today if I could..." he suddenly trailed off, the horror of what he'd just admitted coursing through his undead veins at break-neck speeds. What kind of holy terror did he just unleash? This was supposed to be HER admittance, HER feelings, HIS satisfaction. Fuck.

There he was, frozen like a squirrel fried to a power line. Fortunately, however, he'd forgotten to account for the holy grail of all things in his favor: vast, flooding, copious amounts of booze flowing through Lydia Deetz' veins. Booze had never failed him in the past, and hopefully, it wouldn't fail him now.

Beetlejuice moved his eyes, noting that her own were now lazy and half-lidded, as she herself looked ready for the inevitable defeat of intoxication. Of course, bound and determined to make him suffer with her sweet, sticky, niceness, she smiled warmly at him.

"That's sweet...of you...B...J..." she held on, with him secretly hoping she'd either pass out or he'd drop dead. Again.

With what seemed like a glimmer of hope, he watched her lean forward as he deviously grinned. He reached out, waiting for her to pass out, where he could ship her ass home and wait for her to wake up and not remember all this emotional garbage he'd spewed like a pubescent teenaged girl. Unfortunately, Lydia was a sneaky one, and she held the most powerful, drunken move to permanently fuck his world up. Forever.

She kissed him. On the mouth - like tongue and everything. Eyes wide, he was completely mortified. It wasn't like it was bad. No, quite the opposite. It was good. Like really, unbelievably good. It was the best thing in all the realms of existence. But she was super drunk. She was Lydia, for crying out loud, and he was leaving to the other side, and she probably had no idea what she was doing. She didn't mean it anyway, right?

So he did the unthinkable. He pulled away. Him. Beetlejuice: the ghost with the most, self-proclaimed canoodler of hookers and slapper of asses - actually pulled away from the physical affection of the hottest chick he'd ever seen. Then she proceeded to finish passing out into his arms, where he poofed them both back to the Roadhouse.

It was at that point he realized that testicles were not the only thing he'd lost. He was pretty sure his mind was fucked, too.