NOTICE OF FURTHER EDITING: You are hereby notified that this chapter has been further edited for grammar, consistency, and also just because.
A/N: This chapter took a long time and it was really hard to write. Walking the line between Beej being a big jerk and Beej being a big unforgivable jerk is understandably difficult. Plus I'm afraid it's another cliff-hanger type ending, but instead of waiting until it's twice as long (which might take nearly another year! the first half of this has been sitting in my computer for ages) I thought y'all might like to take a look at it. Kind readers, please do not be too angry with me. Your reviews were not written in vain! If nobody had liked the last chapter this one would not have been written at all, I've gotta be honest with you.
EDIT/TRIGGER WARNING (some noncon):
I want to assure you that while this chapter pretty much skirts the edge of Noncon, I do not think that his behavior is acceptable and I always try to make sure that he gets his comeuppance in the end. He has some character development to go through before there can be any happy ending to this fic. If you personally feel uncomfortable with that kind of plot development I think you could probably skip this chapter and here's a summary for you: Beetlejuice acts pretty much like a psychopathic poltergeist and makes everyone, including himself, feel bad.
PREVIOUSLY:
Laden down with their homework they waded to the door through shin-deep playing cards. As soon as the door shut behind them Lydia heard the slippery sound of hundreds of glossy pages being hurled to the floor, shortly followed by the sight of Beetlejuice knocking her own vision-obstructing stack out of her hands. Once more they were in the beige confines of her dorm room – although Beetlejuice looked an awful lot like he wanted to paint the walls red.
AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!
Chapter Ten: A Temper Is a Terrible Thing to Waste
"D'ya know what happens to liars, Lydia?" he asked conversationally as the scattered magazines and pamphlets burst into green flames.
The sheer heat sent Lydia scrambling backwards while scrabbling at her long train. She didn't dare look down to see if her dress was on fire. She had the unsettling feeling he would see that as a sign of weakness and – do what exactly? Pounce on her? The flickering light threw one half of his face then another into sharp relief, bringing out the harsh lines of his skull under the shallow pretense of his ghostly skin. He stalked forward.
"We can talk about this calmly and rationally and – and without setting anything else on fire," she managed to say firmly. Her back hit the wall.
"There's just a few, teeny weeny, itsy bitsy PROBLEMS with that." He held up his pinched together thumb and forefinger. Lydia nearly jumped out of her skin as his voice spoke directly in her ear, with his lips twisted in a smirk a few feet away, "You're not calm." He took that last step forward and clamped his hands on her waist, dropping his forehead down to rest on hers. His dark eye sockets bore down until all she saw was the acid glow of his green irises, swirling gently around black hole pupils. "And I'm not rational!" He picked her up and lazily tossed her across the room.
Shrieking, Lydia bounced off the bare mattress on top of the loft bed. She nearly went over the side before something grabbed her wrist and anchored it to the wooden rail. A slither of leather and the glint of a buckle was the only warning before her other arm was snapped up and belted to the rail. Desperately, Lydia pulled herself up to get the buckles in range of her teeth – if she could only undo them before – but the cool slide of shaped metal snaked under her tangled skirt and around her ankles, yanking her back down.
Beetlejuice slowly rose over the side of the bed wearing puke green surgical scrubs liberally spattered with viscous black fluid. He situated the cap more firmly on his wild hair, making more of it stick out the sides. He snapped on dirty, tattered gloves and raised a twisted eyebrow at her. "Let's play doctor!" he said.
"Let's not, and say we did," Lydia quipped faintly, trying to tug furtively on her bonds.
"Now, now, I'm an expert on mortal wounds. And this one you got here looks very serious indeed." He bent in close and went 'hmmmm.'
"Why are you doing this?" She tugged harder.
He straightened and shook his head. "I'm afraid, Miss Deetz, you have an acute case of prosthesis. There's only one cure. Amputation!" Green flames tinged with orange surged up behind him as he cackled.
Furtive went out the window and she struggled with all her skinny Goth might. There was obviously no use reasoning with him. She had no idea how to use any necromantic powers against him or even what most of them might be. However, she only had to say his name, and he would be put Back. It was risky, but it was a chance. The ceiling was already hazy with smoke and it was becoming difficult to breathe.
"Nurse!" he roared, "My scalpel!" He held out his hand imperiously.
Lydia automatically looked to the left and there Beetlejuice was, in a striped nurse costume and pigtails. He handed over a wickedly gleaming scalpel with a teehee.
Lydia's eyes darted to the right and there he was in the scrubs. He took one look at the scalpel and tossed it over his shoulder, where it stuck quivering in the opposite wall. "Machete!"
"Machete!" he answered, slapping the handle in his open palm.
Inspecting the edge on his thumb, he grunted and tossed that over his shoulder too, knocking the scalpel out of the wall. "Chainsaw!" he shouted while pulling on complicated brass goggles.
"Chainsaw!" he chirped to himself and pulled out a rusty three foot long monster with the 'Acme' logo just barely visible under suspicious stains.
He was fiddling with the ignition, cursing to himself and trying to get it started. She wasn't going to get a better chance. "Beetlejui-!" A belt cinched itself over her mouth.
He tsked and shook a finger at her. "Don't you WANT to get better, Miss Deetz?"
"Mmph!" She tried pleading with her eyes.
He finally got the chainsaw going.
She tried sticking her chest out and wiggled one leg out of the rip in her skirt. He wouldn't really cut her in half, right?
He revved the chainsaw, the unholy ruckus deafening over the crackling of the flames below.
It would be stupid of him to kill her, right? Marrying a corpse wouldn't net him his green card. He wouldn't. Although he had been going to marry her when he thought she was already a ghost and maybe he thought they'd just get back together or something and oh god -
The whirring blade lifted to the ceiling.
He would.
She flinched as he brought the chainsaw crashing down in a blur of frenzied motion, again and again. Lydia blinked as the machine died with a growl. She didn't feel any pain – there was, however, a draft.
Pulling down the surgical mask he blew the last scrap of her clothes off her chest, then leaned the chainsaw on one shoulder and pushed up his goggles to admire the view. "Yep, it just had to come off."
For a breathless moment Lydia lay naked and stunned under his perusal, her eyes stinging with acrid smoke and her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
Then the sprinkler system went off.
The wail of the fire alarm and the rush of people panicking drowned out her startled shriek, muffled as it was by the belt between her teeth. The spray of icy water, however, had predictable results on certain portions of her anatomy that Beetlejuice found very interesting and, at this particular moment in time, she found completely humiliating.
At first he only noticed the way her sobbing shook her chest, however as he leaned in and blocked the sprinkler, the tears trickling down her cheeks were no longer hidden by the spray. His eyes widened as he reared back, throwing down the chainsaw and ripping the goggles off. For a moment he struggled with himself, his face twitching with the force of his inner debate.
He shouldn't care if she was crying. He totally didn't care! The little bitch had been manipulating him from the start, and this was the least of what he could do to her…what he wanted to do. The more he hesitated, the angrier he got. His thoughts twisted down dark paths, involving tangled limbs and incoherent begging.
He had a bad habit of maiming people, when they actually managed to hurt whatever vestige of humanity still cowered meekly in his psyche. He had also done worse things, but that at least made sense. His reluctance now to lash out and utterly crush the cause of his own pain as painfully as possible was confusing. And it wasn't because the cause in this case was a hot chick, because that had never mattered before when the cut ran this deep (as one particularly memorable ex-lover had found out, much to her very momentary surprise).
It was because Lydia was…Lydia. Shit, what had she done to him? Sure, she'd lied. Who didn't lie to him? And she'd tried to make him sign a stupid contract. And she'd argued with him and called him names. Nothing new there. And she was a baby necromancer who'd been feeding off his energy through an accidental bond. He'd already proven she couldn't control him – hell, her Grams couldn't bind him for more than five minutes using his true name! And she didn't actually want to marry him – well, add her to the list of every single fucking person he had ever met that didn't want anything to do with him! It was a damned long list. He couldn't even pinpoint the exact thing he was so furious about.
The fire alarm was starting to get seriously annoying. So he rearranged reality. Now, the alarm and the sprinklers had never gone off, and the fire was reduced to so much smoldering ash on the carpet. He left the water which had fallen on Lydia, though. Because he could.
With the next blink of his eye where the bunk bed had been there was now an old-fashioned therapist's couch where a shivering and tearful Lydia was strapped into a straight jacket with sleeves that merged into the plush red upholstery. She also had on a fifties circle skirt rucked up over sheer petticoats, garters, and stockings. Black patent Mary Janes were very securely fastened to her feet. Because this was his show, dammit, and he could do what he liked, not because any of it might make her feel better.
Beetlejuice settled back into a cushy armchair and ran a hand over his grease-tamed hair. Peering at her through a monocle he said, "Now, Miz Lydia, it iz quite natural to weep, ve haf had an enormoz breakthrough today. But for me to help you, you must anzer my questions vith nozing but the truth!"
She shouted something which was rendered incoherent by the belt in her mouth and strained against the fabric that held her captive. She aimed a kick in his direction but it fell sadly short. He enjoyed the view while it lasted, though. She couldn't decide if it would have been better or worse if he hadn't shredded her granny panties and he was leering at her in hideous support underwear, rather than this getup which had surely belonged to a very different sort of grandma back in the day. The kind that didn't wear underwear.
"Temper, temper!" He wagged a finger and pulled a notebook out of the vest of his three piece tweed suit. His sharp teeth glittered and he said, "Ve mustn't let our inner demons control us." He flipped the notebook open to a page filled with scribbles and little stick figures making faces. "Anzer yes or no! I vill know if you lie, and you vill be punished." An elaborate wooden cabinet appeared covered with switches and clockwork and gold lettering that spelled out Truth-o-meter. There was a large gauge with a needle balanced between 'falsity' and 'veracity' with two electrodes on top on either side, red and green. "Have you ever had a man, shall ve say, intimately?"
Lydia's eyes widened and her brow furrowed. This particular question was hardly what she'd expected and it made her angry enough to want to say, 'Yes, like a hundred, it's my body and I can do what I want with it.' However, she could only nod contemptuously.
Beetlejuice himself was a little surprised at what had come out of his mouth, not having really intended on questioning her virginity, but he found that he was intently interested in her answer. When she nodded glaring daggers at him, he wanted to break somebody's face and then the Truth-o-meter buzzed harshly and the red light flashed. A laugh burst out of him. "My naughty little spooky muffin! Do ya want to be bent over my knee?" An unhappy thought intruded. "Or was it just a boy that laid his mitts on you?"
Frowning thunderously Lydia nodded again, and again the Truth-o-meter ratted her out.
"That's twice, babycakes. You a masochist or somethin'?" With a thought he was sitting on the end of the couch. The original plan to punish her had been a lot more complicated, and involved a water wheel, some goat cheese, a hundred scorpions, and a clerical collar, but then she tried to kick him again. An impulse seized him as he caught her by the ankles. It was time to find out what she was really made of.
One leg was tucked under his arm and he brought the other to his lips, then proceeded to lick up her shoe to her ankle, which he bit hard. Not enough to break the skin, but definitely enough to make an impression. "One down, one to go," he said, teeth scraping over the buckle of the ankle strap. He would vehemently deny going easy on her if anyone ever asked.
Then his striped tongue slobbered over her leg all the way up to her knee, while she writhed in a desperate attempt to dislodge him, or at least wipe that stupid smirk off his face with the bony side of her shin. Latching on to the tender curve at the back of her knee, he made a truly impressive hickey. He let go with an obscene smacking noise and the snap of the stocking, and just barely avoided a knee cap to the nose.
"Ya wanna go ahead and lie to me again? 'Cause I gotta tell you I consider 'legs' to include what's between 'em and I'm looking forward to punishing you some more."
It hadn't seemed possible that Lydia could look more outraged, but somehow she managed. The barely restrained violence in how she breathed, taxing the ability of the straightjacket, the crackle of dark energy in her brown eyes, her absolute helplessness to actually do anything to him in retaliation – it all made him want to rile her up some more.
"It's hardly my fault what you make me lick, babes." He waggled his eyebrows at her.
She was really regretting having relented on the 'Nothing Below the Waist' rule.
"You wanna know what it feels like, don't ya?"
Lydia froze. The worst part was, she did. She was too honest with herself to deny that she was curious about it. He just had to ask like that, when she could only nod yes or no, and couldn't tack on, 'but not with you, not like this' or 'I'm a teenager, what do you expect.' She couldn't help but feel that no matter what happened, she was going to be screwed in the very near future. Damned if she tried to deny her blasted virginal curiosity and damned if she admitted it. He would probably take a 'yes' like a formal invitation to her lady bits, complete with gilt edges and an R.S.V.P.
She squeezed her eyes shut, her mind racing away at a million miles a minute.
His hands, splayed over her thighs, inched up millimeter by millimeter as one second ticked by and then another. The calloused tips of his fingers found the garter straps and slipped under them.
Desperately wishing that she could interrogate him, and casting about for any solution, she came across a familiar presence inside her head. It felt like static and dust and she remembered it from her grandmother's office as it invaded her entire body. So she grabbed onto Beetlejuice's power with all her might. And, like a playful but obedient dog, it did what she asked.
And that is how she found herself wearing the tweed suit, holding on to Beetlejuice's stocking-clad legs, and gritting her teeth against his efforts to wrest back his mojo. It liked her better. She could tell by the way it wagged its mental impression of a tail at her.