Cinderjuice

A Beetlejuice fanfic by Lady Norbert

Author's Notes: Here's the first cameo from a side character in the animated series. I have a few planned. Judging by his second appearance in the show, Prince Vince got over his thing for Lydia after she told him she just wanted to be friends, and that's the approach I'm taking with him here.

Also, I don't hate lawyers. They just lend themselves really well to this.

Chapter Seven: Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Bamboozled

Lydia stood at her dressing table, combing her hair. Occasionally her gaze drifted to the corsage, hung up to dry out, and she chuckled. "I still can't believe BJ cleaned up so well - not to mention at all," she mused to herself. "He must have been so relieved to get back to normal, or what he considers normal anyway."

She might have continued ruminating in this vein, but instead she shrieked, jumping backwards in alarm as BJ pressed up against the inside of the mirror. "Lyds!"

"BJ!" She hurried back to the glass, bringing her hands to his without thinking about it. "You're - you're still BJ! What happened, why haven't you changed back?"

"The Fairy Godfather double-crossed me, Babes." His expression was desperate, the blue eyes full of fear. "I'm stuck like this! I can't get back into my old body, and worse -"

"No juice?!"

"No juice!"

"What do we do?"

"I don't know! I don't even know if the magic B word still has any magic in it!"

She stared at him. In all the years she'd known this pranking poltergeist, all the adventures they'd had and the dangers she'd experienced firsthand, Lydia could not remember ever feeling more terrified. "If it doesn't... what do we do if it doesn't?"

"I'm trying not to think about it. At least you're safe on your side of the mirror." He ran a hand distractedly through his hair. "From what he said, there's still some juice floating around somewhere."

"Then I'm coming through."

"Lyds, no - even if it works, I might never be able to send you home."

She hesitated, then shook her head. "I don't care. We're sticking together, and we'll figure a way out of this."

"Lydia -"

Lydia pulled away from the mirror, not wanting him to try to talk her out of it. She grabbed her camera and threw the strap around her neck; in the Neitherworld, one never knew when that was going to come in handy. She looked around the room, wondering if she'd ever see it again. Her final act was to open her jewelry box; her hand closed on the spider brooch, the one Beetlejuice had given her to mark the first anniversary of the day they'd met. In some ways, it was her most precious possession.

"Here goes," she said, pulling the drapes shut on her window. "Beetlejuice... Beetlejuice... Beetlejuice!"

"Whoa!" Lydia tumbled to the ground near the Roadhouse's mailbox. "Well... close enough," she mused, picking herself up and brushing at her clothes before running down the path. She ignored the clanking doorbell and just pulled open the door. "BJ? BJ, I'm here."

"You shouldn't have come," he muttered. He was slumped on the sofa, and she moved to sit beside him. He lolled his head to the side, looking at her with an expression of such complete despair and bewilderment, it almost hurt. "Now I'm gonna have to do something heroic to fix all this, because I can't have you stuck here too."

In spite of herself, she chuckled. "At least you've still got your sense of humor. Tell me what happened."

"It wasn't my fault, Babes, I swear."

"I've heard that before."

"It's true this time, though," he protested. "I got back in time, I went to switch the shoes... and these things just won't come off. I had Jacques try to pull them off, I had the Monster Across the Street try, I even let Poopsie chew on them. I was desperate. Nothing works."

"Well, did you talk to the Fairy Godfather?" she asked. "I mean, surely he can see reason."

"Oh, he saw reason, all right." BJ scowled. "He saw it as a reason to keep what's mine! Apparently the contract says that if I don't give him all my juice in exchange for the shoes, then I have to keep the shoes and this body. And I don't know why he thinks I didn't give him all of it, because I sure don't have any left!"

"Oh, no."

"Yeah! And then he had me tossed out of the castle, and I didn't know what to do and that's about when I started yelling for you.

"As you usually do when things go south." She sighed. "There must be something we can do. We - oh, wait, I know!" She seized his hand. "We can go talk to Prince Vince! He rules the Neitherworld, after all, he's got to have some kind of influence here. And he's our friend."

He brightened slightly. "I guess it's worth a shot."

The years since his short-lived romance with Lydia had changed Prince Vince only in small ways; he was still gaunt and pencil-thin, and his expression was still kind and he still loved his poetry. But his castle no longer suffered from continuous weather anomalies, and he had long since abandoned any delusions of rock stardom.

He smiled gently as they entered the hall. "Welcome, my friends. I know you're having difficulties, so please - come and sit down." He studied them closely. "So this is Beetlejuice in human form. Extraordinary."

"You know about that?" Lydia asked, surprised. "How?"

"Oh, I have a Tumblr account," he explained. He gestured to a corner of the hall, where a desktop computer was artfully decorated in spiderwebs.

"Web browsing. You know I love it," BJ remarked.

"Tumblr really gives me a sense of community. And they seem to like my poetry a great deal," the prince noted fondly. "I've been following your story since it was first posted."

"Well, that saves us a lot of exposition," Lydia mused. "Can you help?"

The smile on Prince Vince's face faded. "Unfortunately... not as much as you were hoping," he said regretfully. "Seeing Beetlejuice with my own eyes confirms it. He truly has regained humanity, and clearly, the Fairy Godfather's power is far greater than I had realized - greater than my own."

"But you rule the Neitherworld!" she protested. "Don't you have, I don't know, authority over him?"

The prince shook his head. "It's not that simple, I'm afraid. From everything I've been given to understand, the law is on his side."

"You can't be serious."

Prince Vince rose from his throne and paced a little as he spoke. "The truth is that the Fairy Godfather may not be the most pleasant or likable of characters, but he is... I think the term in common parlance is Lawful Neutral. He operates on the very edge of the law; everything he does, he does within carefully scripted contracts."

"Like the loophole that got Beetlejuice?"

"Exactly. He has only the best and most sesquipedalian Neitherworld lawyers at his beck and call, and they draft his contracts with so many layers of legalese that no one can possibly understand what they're really signing, even if they read every word." He sighed, shaking his head. "Lawyers can steal more with a briefcase than a thousand men with masks."

"I can't believe Jacques sent me to a guy like that!" BJ raged.

"I very much doubt our skeleton friend knew what he was suggesting," Prince Vince assured him. "His contracts aren't generally crafted with an intention to swindle; at least, not from what I'm given to understand. Our friend Beetlejuice basically finds himself skewered by an oddly specific technicality. The only way to get out of the contract is to fulfill your end of it... to attempt to do otherwise is playing a dangerous game."

"Well, I'm not scared! I'm going after this guy and I'm gonna get my juice back!" BJ pushed his sleeves up to his elbows. "Let him do his worst!"

"That's unwise at best, my friend. There are three possibilities here," the prince mused, sitting down again. "You can find your lost juice and deliver it, thereby concluding the contract. If you prefer to remain as you are, I may be able to find a means by which to send you both back to the Outerworld. It will take me some time, however. The third option, the one you describe, is the one that will lead to a bad end; the Fairy Godfather never acts without cause, but if he thinks you're a threat, he will do his best to neutralize you. His retribution will be swift and terrible."

"Then I'm just gonna have to turn the Neitherworld upside down until he crawls out from under a rock like the cockroach he is! And I hate sayin' that because I normally like cockroaches!"

Lydia eyed him a bit warily before turning back to their host. "Is there anything you can do to help us, Your Highness?"

"Well... if you're determined to seek him out, I'll do what I can to assist." Prince Vince looked troubled. "You'll need some provisions for the journey, certainly, and I'll give you what information I have about the Fairy Godfather's operations." He forced a smile. "Lydia, why don't you go with my retainer here? You have a better idea than any of us what two humans would require for such an outing - whatever I can provide is yours."

BJ watched her leave, then turned back to the prince. "You sent her out for a reason. I'm not always all here, but I can tell that much."

"I don't want to frighten her any more than I must," Prince Vince replied, "but make no mistake, my friend - you should be worried. You're mortal now; you can't protect yourself as you once did. You can't protect Lydia as you once did."

"I know. But that's part of why I have to do this - if I don't get my juice back, I'm stuck like this and she's stuck here."

"I understand. But you need to know one thing more about the Fairy Godfather, Beetlejuice." The prince hadn't looked so grave in years. "If I was able to find out what happened to you before you came here, then he can certainly pick up on what you're planning to do. And he will do whatever he can to stop you, my friend, because he has what is yours and he knows what you are normally capable of doing."

"He's gonna throw everything he's got at me, huh?" BJ shrugged. "Yeah, well, I dunno what he can do that's worse than leaving me stuck like this."

"Beetlejuice... I think you do." Prince Vince gave him a very serious look. "Every minion at his disposal could very well be targeting you as we speak. I have heard about what happens when he sends them; it's rare, but it has happened, and it has never ended well. They will not stop. And when they come... they come at what you love."