Chapter 21: Aftershock

Beetlejuice sat at his kitchen table, nervously sipping on a giant mug of coffee and trying to hold his newspaper steady enough to properly read the obituaries. He hadn't slept all night, his eyes were even darker than they normally were (and he was dead, for crying out loud), and he was pretty sure he'd developed about fifty nervous twitches in the span of about twelve hours. Needless to say, Lydia Deets was having a bit of an effect on him lately.

He heard the his bedroom door creak from the far end of the house, causing him to nearly scald his junk with a big splash of piping hot premium roast. With each soft footstep, he could feel his insides wind up tighter. What was he gonna do if she remembered? Would she be disgusted that she'd had a severe case of beer goggle vision and he was the unfortunate result?

Truthfully, that was the lesser of two possible evils - the other being that she did mean it. Then he'd have no choice but to either force himself to carry out his normally heinous plan or stay with her.

Either way he was sick, sleep deprived, completely not himself, and pretty sure he was in love with the girl, which was like a cruel, divine punishment from the powers of the Neitherworld. He was pretty sure the next step after that would be a one way elevator ride to hell.

"Hey BJ..." Lydia stepped into the kitchen, shielding her eyes from the light. "Uh...You wouldn't mind if I had a cup of that, would you? My head is killing me."

"Uh..." he lowered his newspaper, now staring at her like she had three eyes. Somehow, the way she was all squinty and irritated became way more majestic than usual. It was literally like she could do no wrong, like she was a powerful siren, or a goddess...

"BJ? You okay?" Lydia interrupted his really creepy, admiring thoughts.

"Oh, yeah, sure. Me too." Beetle spat, half brain-dead at that point.

"What?" Lydia furrowed her brow.

"Oh, yeah, coffee." he smacked his forehead, trying to shake off the new, highly potent drug known as Lydia Deetz. A large mug of coffee appeared in front of her, while he made some lame excuse for his acute weirdness. "I'm hungover, too." he spoke in the least believable voice in the existence of anything.

"Oh. Yeah, sorry about last night. I guess I was pretty wasted. The last thing I remember was being at that bar. Then you showed up. Thanks for taking me home." she smiled warmly, and his insides turned to gross, mushy love goo.

"No problem. Anytime. Anytime at all, any problem ya got, you just call on the B-man, you know?" he rambled, realizing he sounded like some psychotic help hotline. Then he proceeded to firmly shut his yap.

"You sure you're okay, BJ?" Lydia's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Oh, she was too smart for any of his dumb shit. "You're not acting right. What exactly happened last night?"

Just when Beetlejuice thought that he'd been cornered, little Miss Deetz allowed him a bit of wiggle room with her own inquiries.

"All that weird helpfulness...Oh, god. Did I get all depressed and sappy about Eugene at the bar?" Lydia asked, externally cringing.

That was his moment. Deetz didn't remember a thing. He could lay all of the blame on her, then he could safely stuff down that disgusting "love" feeling. Repression was the gold standard of denial, but hey, he'd settle for good old supression any day of the week.

"I'm afraid so, Deetz. You were all crying and blubberin' and shit. I had to drag you home cause you wanted to go find Eugene and make up with him. I made you stay though. Knew you'd come to yer senses and shit. Good friend, huh?" Beetle grinned slyly, feeling the old, malicious tickle of pre-love Beetle float back in.

"God, how embarrassing...Ugh. Remind me not to get trashed again." Lydia stood, before promptly walking over and giving Beetlejuice a big ole' hug around the neck. It was all platonic, on her side at least. For him, it was freaking torture.

"Hehe...Yeah. I'll do that." he replied, trying not to be all weird again.

"It's insane what a person will do when under the influence. If anything, I'd like to give him a piece of my mind. Asshole." Lydia muttered, sitting back down to finish her coffee.

Immediately, Beetle sensed a wonderful opportunity to wreak a little havoc on the prick that both broke Lydia's heart and ran her over. He totally needed to raise some hell at that point - to be his old self. That was the perfect excuse. Who cared about that nagging feeling of jealousy and vengeance brought about by his angsty, trashy romance novel love?

"I can arrange that, ya know." Beetle grinned deviously, his brows raised in hope.

"It's...certainly tempting..." Lydia muttered, clearly intrigued by the idea. "I just wouldn't want him physically harmed or anything. Maybe a good scare. You know, make him feel really bad for turning me into roadkill." she grinned slyly.

For now, he would ignore the fact that her mean streak was sexy as hell and focus on the task at hand. "So, do we have a date?" he grinned broadly, sneaking a sly hint in for fun - and maybe some weird, delirious hope that he definitely did not experience. Nope.

"Haha...Yeah, it's a date." she smiled, and Beetlejuice was quite sure he didn't feel that nasty butterfly feeling in his stomach one bit.