The Big Fall
by
Owlcroft
Both Lydia's pregnancies were difficult at times and always tiring. So, five and a half months into her second, she and Beetlejuice decided to accede to her parents wishes and send Beatie to stay with them for a few days. Beatie was ecstatic. Grandpapa and Grandmama didn't exactly spoil her; they just came awfully close to it. The one thing Lydia insisted on was that Grandpapa would do the cooking, or they would eat out. Grandmama had become accustomed to this caveat and had realized it freed her from the kitchen and she could spend more time playing with her only grand-daughter, so everyone was excited and pleased.
Beetlejuice moped around for a few hours once Beatie had been delivered, but soon saw that his wife was resting comfortably, a necessity from her second trimester on, and already feeling refreshed and much better. He cheered up to the point of suggesting they have a pizza/movie night and go to bed early.
ooooo
Meanwhile, Mr. Big, newly released from prison, had been formulating his plans for revenge against the human who had foiled him by saving Beetlejuice from melting away forever. He'd been gathering materials, hiring the best warlocks and magicians in the Neitherworld; he'd collected dread talismans, fatal charms, curses, hexes, arch-mage spells of utter destruction. Then, when he was ready, he called up the former members of his gang, S.N.O.T.R.A.G.
The first he called was Jesse Germs, who was dismayed by his plan and flatly refused to participate. "That Miz Lydia was mighty nice to me a coupla years back and I won't have nothing to do against her or Beetlejuice," he said and hung up.
Scuzzo was next on Mr. Big's list and the clown thought it was a joke at first and laughed screechingly. When he'd been brought to believe it was a real plan, he screeched in an entirely different manner, yelled a few bizarre epithets and slammed the phone down.
After recovering his hearing, Mr. Big put in a call to Bartholomew Batt, who left him on hold for seventeen minutes before an assistant finally picked up to say that Mr. Batt never wanted to hear anything about anyone containing the name of a certain insect, he was busy opening his new theme park – Grislyworld, don't call us and we won't call you. The phone was put down with a great deal of authority.
It was common knowledge that Lipscum had vacationed in Tibag and somehow fallen foul of the Dolly Llama and been sentenced to life in a monastery with a vow of silence, so the small criminal's last resort was Little Miss Warden. Her response to his appeal was to call him an icky-wicky bad man and tell him he needed to learn the basics of cuteness before she too hung up.
The next day, Beetlejuice and Lydia were surprised to find three anonymous notes, each warning them of a plot by Mr. Big to destroy his arch-nemesis and the wife of said nemesis. One, with a great many misspellings and apologies, was shoved through the mail slot in the front door. Another, written in crayon, was pushed under the back door to the kitchen. The third was folded into a paper airplane and thrown through the upstairs window on the alley, which called for some considerable skill.
All of the notes said basically the same thing – Mr. Big was planning something to get rid of Beetlejuice and Lydia permanently in the extremely near future and they should be careful. Beetlejuice himself looked at his wife and grinned. "Want to bet we know who sent these?"
She nodded, lips pursed. "I don't like it, Beej. He's such a lunatic. There's something seriously wrong with him." She shuddered.
ooooo
To her moderate surprise, Mr. Big showed up at the kitchen door the next day, while Beetlejuice was out stocking up on chemicals for fabric dyes. He sneered, as always, and she could see something distending his coat pocket.
"Are you pretending your finger is a gun or are you just glad to see me?" she asked politely.
"Yah, you're gonna be feisty, are ya?" he said in his usual exaggerated manner. "Listen here, cupcake, I'm –"
"No," she said sternly, waving a finger of her own at him. "No one calls me cupcake." She leaned closer to her and grinned. "No one calls me cupcake and lives." And she chuckled menacingly.
Despite himself, Mr. Big flinched, then recovered. "Enough of that, ya hear? You come with me; you're gonna be my hostage to trap that husband of yours, Beetlejerk."
Lydia was already wrapping up warmly in her favorite cardigan, but paused at that. "You can't call me cupcake and you can't call my husband that, either. Honestly, some people never learn. Now come on. Let's get this over with." She opened the kitchen door and turned to usher the small man through it to the outside.
He glowered and steamed, then took her forcefully by the arm and pulled her down the alley. "Maybe when Beetle – when your husband's gone, I can teach you some manners, lady."
She inspected him closely. "The man who tried to melt Beetlejuice into a puddle so he'd disappear forever? I doubt it," she replied in a cold voice and said not more one word until they entered an abandoned warehouse down by the docks.
At that point, the criminal sat her, not ungently, in a chair and paraded up and down in front of her, waving a carving knife and declaiming his grievances at length with various expletives. "You don't need me to tell ya what's going on. This has been coming for a long time now. Yah, it's all his fault! They sent me away, see? To the big house. I want my revenge and I'm gonna have it! On both of ya! You thought you could get away with it, huh? Well, ya won't – and first you're gonna watch that husband of yours fade away completely!"
A susurration of noise from outside distracted his attention, and he left Lydia briefly to peek out the door. A small crowd had begun to assemble around the warehouse and Mr. Big realized that, once again, Mr. Monitor had heard about the trap and decided it was all about television ratings. There were now several TV cameras outside and a host of carefully coiffed and groomed reporters. There were also some police in attendance, trying to exercise crowd control, not very effectively.
Ducking back inside, the small man with the large hat expounded again to his captive audience. "It don't matter who knows about it – it's too late to stop it now! I want him dissipated, evaporated, exterminated. Out of the Neitherworld for good! Nobody's gonna stop me again, see? And I've got the spells to do it this time." He laughed evilly.
"But why?" called a voice out of the darkness that sounded like Ginger.
Then Flubbo then spoke up as well. "What has Beetlejuice ever done to you? Except for all that trouble with your group a few years ago. Handkerchief, was it?
An astonished Mr. Big turned to the shadows. "You dirty rats! How did you get in here? And it was S.N.O.T.R.A.G. and don't you forget it!"
There were several indistinct murmurs and shufflings from the unseen attendees.
"Zen," said a high-pitched voice in an undeniably French accent, "you mean he made a fool of vous."
The Monster Across the Street's raspy voice was heard in response. "I thought that was somethin' somebody did to hisself." Various loud forms of laughter were heard in response.
Ginger piped up again. "What does S.N.O.T.R.A.G. stand for anyway?"
A clearly-disguised voice replied, "Some Nosey Old Tired Rotten Annoying Goofballs," and more giggles and snorts were heard.
(Beetlejuice had firmly instructed them to stay silent and still if they were allowed to attend. We see what happened to that stricture. "The slightest noise will wreck the whole thing, but we have to have witnesses," he'd told them. After Ginger's initial outburst, "Oh, well," he'd said. "Surprise is always a good thing," and proceeded to join in the various chortlings and remarks.)
Mr. Big appeared to swell and turned dark red. He was nearly out of patience and tired of keeping a knife aimed vaguely in his hostage's direction, so he told her, "That Ghost Who's Gonna be Toast better show up soon or you're gonna be sorry."
"I'm already sorry," she replied calmly. "I'm sitting here listening to you, aren't I?"
At that instant, Beetlejuice appeared in front of them. He glanced around, said to Lydia, "Nice place you've got here, but it needs work. Needs that inhuman touch."
Without giving him time to say or do any more, Mr. Big took something from his pocket and, screaming "Eternavaunt!", he threw a ball of glowing sparks at Beetlejuice, who froze and received it right in the middle of his chest.
There wasn't a sound to be heard as Beetlejuice looked down in shock at the area where his heart used to be. Now, there was simply a large opening through his entire body. He threw one agonized glance at his wife and collapsed.
Lydia screamed and, when Mr. Big released his hold on her arm, ran to cradle her husband's body in her arms, looking incredulous and shocked.
"Dearest," Beetlejuice managed to whisper, eyes already closed. "Dear . . . dear . . ." And Lydia gasped and buried her face in his shirt, shaking.
Three seconds later, Beetlejuice sat up, holding his laughing wife, and asking, "How was that? Good, huh?"
"Wonderful! You can all come out now!" She kissed him as a group of their friends and former enemies appeared out of the shadows and applauded, and extended a hand so her husband could help her up. "But you need to fix that," she pointed a finger at his supposed wound.
Beetlejuice waved a hand casually down his shirt, repairing the damage without a trace, then turned to an astonished Mr. Big and asked, "You didn't seriously expect that to work, did you? Even without all the people 'ratting you out', Lydia's so protected that nothing can harm her. Or, quite possibly," he looked at his red fingernails casually, "me. I mean, I could have just juiced the knife into a noodle or replaced Lyds with a boa constrictor." He smiled thoughtfully. "That would've been fun." He then turned serious and proceeded to tell the criminal, in excruciating detail, exactly what would now happen to him at his – Beetlejuice's – hands, where it would take place, and how long it would last. This took three and a half minutes, during which everyone grew disturbed, especially Mr. Big, who assumed a look of total horror and desperation.
"No," croaked the cowering criminal mastermind. "You can't do that, see? It's . . . it's wrong. It's illegal!"
At that point, the small crowd laughed, relieved of some of the tension of Beetlejuice's descriptions. But no one laughed like Beetlejuice did.
Lydia stop chuckling and frowned suddenly, shaking her head at the scared man in front of her. "And I'll tell you another thing. That Edward G. Robinson imitation is the worst I've ever heard."
Beetlejuice turned to look at her. "Edward G. Robinson? I thought he was doing Cagney."
They both glanced at Mr. Big then back at each other and shrugged simultaneously.
Monster had been off opening the warehouse door and inviting the police inside to make an arrest. When they entered, Mr. Big yelled at them immediately. "You gotta take me outta here! I'm guilty, see? Yah, guilty – come and get me, coppers!"
"You see, it is Cagney!" Beetlejuice gave Lydia a smug glance and she shrugged again. Then he sent his amused gaze back to the small sweaty Cagney-imitator as he gestured for the 'witnesses' to pay attention. "You're guilty, huh?" he murmured. "Guilty of what, exactly?"
"Anything, everything!" Mr. Big was increasingly frantic. "Whatever they want – I did it! I'm guilty of all of it! Yah! Just put me in the slammer; I don't need no trial, don't need no lawyer, just take me away – now! Because I'm guilty, ya hear? Guilty of everything!"
ooooo
Once home again, Beetlejuice fussed around for a while, making tea for his wife, arranging a soft cushion behind her back in her favorite chair, positioning her footstool properly, starting the preparations for making dinner.
"It's just about time to pick up Beatie, you know." Lydia sighed in comfort. "It's only Sunday afternoon and they said they wanted her through the whole weekend, but . . . Beej, I'd kind of like to have her here. Not just because of what I'm afraid they'll feed her, either." She pulled him down to sit on the arm of her chair. "I guess I just miss her. Although it was a really good thing that she was away while all this happened."
"Better not happen again," he said soberly. "Don't think it will." He ran a finger over her cheek and leaned down to kiss her. "Sorry it happened this time."
"Oh, no, my darling! It was the most fun I've had in ages!" She grinned up at him. "Just like old times."
"Huh." He looked at her with a gleam in his eye. "You know, Beatie's fine with your folks. I think you should get some rest before we pick her up. Have a little lie-down, try to relax and unwind a bit. I could help you relax, take some of the stress away. In fact, I could relax, too," he said with a sly look.
"You could, hmm?" Lydia returned his sly smile with one of her own. "I wonder . . ." She tapped her lips thoughtfully. "I wonder if I could manage to melt you into a puddle."
His grin expanded as he picked her up out of her chair. "You know," he said invitingly, "I'll just bet you could."