A/N: This rated T ficlet started life on tumblr as a snippet of an otherwise unwritten fic, which I've expanded a bit. It still starts in the middle, as it were, but basically John and Mary Watson are ghosts unhappy that Sherlock Holmes has taken up residence in their house - keeping bees (which John is allergic to!) and stinking up the place with cigarette smoke (doesn't he know those things'll kill him?) and being an all around arse. Worst of all, he's recently allowed his fake fiancee (not that she knows he's only engaged to her for a case) to (shudder) redecorate in a tasteless avante-garde style. They're contacted by a ghost named Moriarty who claims to be an expert at getting rid of the living but quickly learn he's actually Sherlock's enemy seeking vengeance and send him packing...or do they?

Enjoy, and thank you as always for your marvelous, day-making reviews!

"You know," Mary said tentatively when John had fallen into a brooding silence, "he's not so bad." John cocked his head inquisitively. "Sherlock, I mean."

Her husband gave her a disbelieving look. "Are you mad? He's a complete tit!"

"Not when Molly's around," Mary reminded him.

"True." John's expression turned thoughtful. "The thing is, she's not the one who lives here, in our house. He is." He shook his head regretfully. "If it wasn't for the fact that he's a vengeful psycho, I'd have let that bastard Moriarty-"

Mary instantly clapped her hand over her husband's mouth. "Don't say his name," she hissed, eyes darting around the attic room suspiciously. "Seriously. Don't. Ever." She shuddered. "Not even Sherlock's dickishness is worse than having that little toe-rag in our house. And if he was here when Molly was around-!"

John blanched, then nodded. "Yeah, you're right." He spun the model of the London Eye with one desultory finger. "Still, if I have to hear one more lecture about how we're nothing but figments of his overactive imagination due to lack of proper stimulus, I swear I'll…"

Mary didn't let him finish that sentence, having heard it all before. "Well, Molly believes we're real." She put out her hand to rest on his, only to watch in shock as her fingers passed through his spiritual 'flesh'. "John?" she tried to say, only to hear...nothing.

Her husband's eyes widened in alarm and he reached out for her as she began to fade into nothingness before his very eyes. "Mary!"

Before he could do more than take a single step forward, he, too began to dissolve into the aether, with absolutely no idea what might happen next.

oOo

Molly watched in shock as John and Mary Watson flickered into existence, filling out the wedding clothes Sherlock's fake fiancee Janine had so gleefully produced from the unused guest room where Sherlock had stored them upon purchasing the house. She was the only one besides Molly who'd believed that John and Mary were actual ghosts and not hallucinations, cunning special effects or drug-induced visions.

Yup, judging by Sherlock's expression of open-mouthed shock and Mycroft's bulging eyes, neither of them had expected anything to come of this little seance Janine had put together after stealing the Handbook for the Recently Deceased from John and Mary. Nor should Mycroft have allowed himself to be cajoled into reciting the incantation for summoning ghosts that had been included in its pages.

So much for 'no such things as ghosts', she thought sourly as the Watsons materialized inside their wedding clothes, which had been laid out on Sherlock's acid-scarred dining table-the one piece of furniture he hadn't allowed Janine to modernize.

As Molly watched, she realized with horror that materializing wasn't all that was happening to John and Mary. "Stop it!" she cried out, taking a step forward as she saw the two ghosts start to visibly age before her eyes. "You're killing them!" She turned to Mycroft. "Fix this!" she demanded.

For once the imperturbable iceman was flustered. "I don't know how," he spluttered as he flipped frantically through the book.

Molly's eyes filled with tears as she John and Mary took on the look of a pair of recently exhumed mummies, their shoes slipping off their feet and clothes falling loose about them as they literally shriveled up and started to decompose - to die? - right in front of them all.

Janine, the ninny, was screaming; Sherlock appeared frozen with disbelief, and Mycroft was still frantically paging through the book. She nodded. Right; up to her, then. Turning on her heels, she sprinted into the dining room where the miniature London had been set up, calling out "Moriarty!"

He looked up at her from where he sat atop the London Eye model John had just completed,, elaborately peeling a teensy apple and looking completely bored. "Sorry, sweetheart, nothing I can do to help your friends."

"Liar," Molly said, pointing a shaking finger at him. "You know you can help them."

He jumped to his feet and squinted up at her, ignoring the slight rocking of the model as he did so. "And you know what you have to do to get me out of this stupid miniature hell. Say my name, say my name," he warbled, horribly off-key. "And then marry me so I can stay in the mortal world permanently."

"What? No!" Molly cried out, taking an inadvertent step backward.

He shrugged, tucked his hands into his front pockets and looked nonchalantly at the tips of his well-polished shoes. "Then I guess John and Mary die...that's what people do, after all. Die. The thing is, some deaths you can't come back from."

He grinned unpleasantly up at her, and with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Molly knew what she had to do. "All right," she replied, squaring her shoulders and looking directly down at him. "You have a deal."

He pulled his hands out and clapped gleefully. "Go on, baby, do what you gotta do!"

"Moriarty." Molly squeezed her eyes shut as she said his name. "Moriarty." She opened them and looked back at him. "Moriarty."

Suddenly the dead man was standing directly in front of her, larger than life and twice as maniacal as she'd seen him before. Rubbing his hands together gleefully he said, "Showtime!" and dragged her by the hand into the front parlor.

oOo

John and Mary stared in horror as Moriarty appeared, a frightened-looking but very determined Molly Hooper by his side. "Oh Molly," John tried to say, only to have his lower jaw fall off. He caught it in one hand and fixed it back into place as best he could. "We're not worth this!"

"Ooh, you've looked better, Johnny boy," Moriarty said, oozing false sympathy. "Time for this little party to end, don't you think?" With that he pulled a revolver out of his suit pocket, pointed it directly at John and Mary, and, without so much as putting his finger on the trigger, shouted "BANG!"

They vanished, the wedding clothes dropping onto the table while everyone gaped and stared, Mycroft clutching the book to his chest, Janine, clutching onto Sherlock's arm (and Sherlock shaking himself free with a look of absolute disdain before returning his attention to the tableau before them).

Sherlock straightened his cuffs, deliberately stepping forward and staring at the madman with the gun. "So. The notorious James Moriarty, reduced to playing parlor tricks at house parties," he sneered. "Fantastic job. How did you fake your death, by the way?"

Moriarty swaggered up to him, still holding tightly to Molly's arm. "Didn't," he replied succinctly, turning so that Sherlock could see the horrible mess that was the back of his head, brains and blood oozing out theatrically. "I died, you didn't, and now it's time to even the scales once again." His eyes glittered dangerously. "And our little Mollywobble's gonna help keep me in the land of the living so I can let you find out what it's like on the other side - if you think being alive is boring, wait until you're the ghost!"

Molly could see that Moriarty's head wound had unsettled Sherlock even more than the sight of the Watsons' materializing and decomposing had. "I'm sorry Sherlock," she said. "But I had to save John and Mary."

"Hmm, not sure you've managed that since they appear to have been banished again," Sherlock shot back, but at least he was acknowledging that they'd actually been there. That they were - or had been - real.

"They're fine, buttercup," Moriarty said before she could ask him where they'd gone. "Safe and sound as any pair of ghosts could be." He turned his attention back to Sherlock, still smiling that mad, mad smile. "And soon enough, we'll be married and I'll be able to go another round or seven with Sherly here."

"Absolutely not, you wanker!" Molly turned in surprise, as did Moriarty, at the sound of John's voice from behind them. "Moriarty!" he called out in a firm voice.

Snarling with anger, the ghost threw one arm out in a violent gesture; out of nowhere, a metal plate slammed into John's mouth, bolting his lips shut before he could say the name a second time.

Molly, Sherlock and the others stood frozen at the spectacle before them.

"Moriarty!" Mary called out, quick to take up her husband's attempts at banishment. "Moriarty!" she cried again. "Mor–"

Before she could speak the fateful third repetition of his name, he snapped his fingers…

….and the ghost of Mary Watson vanished.

"Now," Moriarty said, gleefully rubbing his hands together, "where were we? Oh yes, a wedding!"

With another snap of his fingers Molly suddenly skidded at inhuman speed across the room, arms flailing, terrified cries escaping her lips until she found herself at Moriarty's side. No longer wearing her sensible khakis, colorful blouse or cherry-bedecked cardigan, she was now dressed in a tight black dress with a plunging neckline and restrictingly tight, ankle-length skirt.

Sherlock was able to take but a single step forward before he found himself trapped by one of Janine's hideous attempts at sculpture. Of the sculptress herself, there was no sign; she'd run screaming out into the night at some point, which was probably for the best. "Molly!" he cried out, struggling futilely within his bronze bonds. If looks could kill - and if Moriarty weren't already dead - his glare would have melted the ghost into a puddle.

Mycroft had turned and began tiptoeing toward the door, mobile in hand as he attempted to call for help, only to find himself suddenly immobilized in the middle of a spotlight. As he gazed into the crazed ghost's eyes, he felt his expensive three-piece suit ripped from his body, leaving him not clothed in only his underthings as expected - but instead wearing instead a garish clown costume, including bulbous red nose and oversized shoes. He screamed and dropped the mobile as his most unsettling nightmare seemed to be coming true, bolting in a blind panic out of the house and into the night.

Meanwhile Moriarty had snapped his fingers again, and the living room was transformed into an even more horrifying monstrosity than Janine's attempts at avante-garde cutting edge decor: the fireplace became a gateway to hell and Culverton Smith appeared in a puff of smoke, holding an enormous tome in his gnarled, claw-like hands. "Do you, James Moriarty, take this mortal woman, Molly Hooper, to be your wife?"

He tilted his head to one side as if considering the question, then grinned maniacally and said, "I do!"

When Molly, still reeling from the evening's frantic and horrifying events, struggled to pull away and shook her head, Moriarty slapped a hand over her mouth; she felt a heavy weight settle on each ankle and looked down to see manacles now bolted her to the floor.. "She does," he said tersely. "Right, pumpkin?" He placed his head next to hers, "I sure do, sweetcakes," he said, speaking in Molly's voice. "Gosh I love that man of mine!"

Smith giggled and flipped a page in his book. "You may place the ring on her finger."

Moriarty patted his suit pockets and muttered to himself. "The ring, the ring, where did I put that…oh yes!" He pulled a withered, mummified finger from his breast pocket; Molly blanched and pulled away. "She didn't mean anything to me, I swear," Moriarty said as he tugged the gold ring free of the hideous appendage. He grabbed Molly's hand and made to shove the ring onto her finger after dropping the gruesome body part onto the floor.

Just as he began to slip it onto her finger, Sherlock began laughing. With a scowl, Moriarty turned to face his former - and still mortal - enemy. "What?" he demanded. "What's so funny now?"

Still chortling, Sherlock said, "You made a mistake, Moriarty. And it will cost you everything."

"And what mistake might that be?"

"You sent the wrong Watson to the Other Side," Sherlock replied, nodding at something just over Moriarty's shoulder.

The ghost turned just in time for John Watson to land a truly spectacular blow to his chin. It sent him spinning away from Molly…

…and right into the jaws of the Sandworm the newly-manifested Mary Watson was riding.

His screams rang through the house long after he and the Sandworm had both vanished from view.

Within seconds, Molly's bonds had been destroyed, John's metal muzzle had vanished, Culverton Smith had returned to wherever he'd been summoned from, and the statues imprisoning Sherlock had loosened its inanimate grip. He rushed to Molly's side, grasping her arms and staring into her eyes. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "I, I think so," she said. She blinked a few times, looking dazed but no longer terrified. "Is he gone for good?"

"Yes," Mary reassured her. Then she smirked at her husband, who was still gaping at her in a combination of awe and consternation. "Terrifying skill set, remember?" she said, giving him a nudge with her white lace clad elbow.'

"Remind me never to get on your bad side again," he finally said before pulling her into his arms and snogging her senseless.

"That," Sherlock said as he nodded at the oblivious undead couple, "seems like a very good idea, wouldn't you say, Molly?"

"But what about your fake fiancee?" Molly asked sweetly. "Won't Janine be upset to find you kissing another woman?"

"Since she's the one who got us all into this mess in the first place by stealing that book," Sherlock grumbled, "she can bloody well live with the consequences." He gazed deeply into Molly's eyes. "I am sorry, Molly Hooper. Please forgive me - and before you ask me to say it first, I love you."

"I love you too," she whispered, finally melting into his arms as they shared the most passionate kiss either had ever experienced.

End note: The title is from the wikipedia article on Beetlejuice and was just too darn good NOT to use: Warner Bros. disliked the title Beetlejuice and wanted to call the film House Ghosts. As a joke, Burton suggested the name Scared Sheetless and was horrified when the studio actually considered using it.