A/N: I decided to delete the escape clause the movie provided, which means the ghoul squad were there strictly to try and nab Delores, and Wolf Jackson stuck around to act as best man to Delia's matron of honor before escorting her back to the land of the dead. Unbeta'd and written in one sitting with only a dash of editing. And as the tag says, unapologetically romantacized, so if that's Not Your Thing, feel free to moonwalk out of the fic with no hard feelings!
Lydia Deetz closed her eyes, held her breath, and tried not to flinch as his slimy, disgusting lips met hers. He'd upheld his end of the bargain, and now she'd upheld hers. They were married, much to her horror and that of her loved ones. She was married to her arch nemesis, Beetlejuice the Trickster Demon, the ghost who'd tried to claim her when she wasn't much older than her daughter Astrid, the demon she'd knowingly and of her own free will once again loosed on an unprepared and unsuspecting world of the living.
He'd wreaked so much havoc even with his limited access before their midnight wedding, she thought with despair as he continued to kiss her; what would he do now that he was free to do whatever he wanted with no restraint?
It dawned on her after a long moment that, not only was he kissing her, but that the kiss was, much to her shock, not only soft and tender when she'd expected brutality and, quite frankly, an excessive amount of tongue, but that the musty, frusty scent of decay that usually wafted about his disgusting, moldy form - the scent she'd been able to smell even with her mouth and nose pinched tightly shut - was gone.
A gasp from behind her - Astrid? - and a loud, "Oh my GOD are you KIDDING me?" from her stepmother caused her eyes to snap open.
They widened even further as she stepped back from her bridegroom, who smiled warmly at her even as he allowed her to pull her hands free of his.
Hands, she noted dimly as she continued to stare, that had gone from cold and clammy to soft and warm at some point during that tender kiss. Hands that no longer resembled those of a weeks-old corpse - white with black splotches of decay, broken, crusty nails at the end of each finger and thumb - but were utterly, entirely human. Living hands, at the ends of arms attached to what appeared to be a living man who had magically replaced her demonic bridegroom.
"What the hell?" she managed to gasp out, wondering if this was some kind of dream or illusion or hallucination. Some kind of trick from her trickster groom, designed to raise her hopes only for him to dash them again at some point. She fully expected him to crow, "Gotcha!" and transform back into his ghoulish self, but all he did was continue to smile gently at her as she took him in from head to toe.
Gone was the garish green hair, the pallid, corpse-like flesh, the paunchy midsection, the filthy nails and rotting teeth. All had been replaced by a man who seemed slightly taller, significantly slimmer and more fit, with dark brown hair and a crooked smile that made her heart skip a beat every time she took it in.
"Oh, did I not mention I was under a curse?"
Only the voice was the same - well, sort of. Not quite as growly and guttural, slightly higher in pitch, but definitely the voice of her nemesis.
It took a moment for his words to make sense to her confused mind, but when it did, she found herself gaping at him. "A curse? Like from a wicked fairy, Disney villain kind of curse?"
"Mm, more like from a murderous, soul-sucking ex-wife kind of bi-er, witch," he acknowledged, tilting his head toward where said murderous soul-sucker - and her own despicable, lying, selfish, grasping, greedy bastard of an ex-fiance - had so recently been consumed by a titanic sand-worm.
"How?" Lydia managed to ask, still staring, still completely baffled by this apparent sudden reversal of her fortunes. Still suspicious that it was nothing but a trick, a cruel joke, still waiting for the other disgusting shoe to drop.
He shrugged, and she realized his clothing had changed along with his physical form. Instead of the cheesy maroon tux he was now wearing classic white tie and tails that fit him perfectly, as if tailored just for him. "Long story short: she seduced me, married me, poisoned me and tried to steal my soul. Since my soul was the only thing that ever really belonged to me, I grabbed an axe and, uh, sort of chopped her to pieces."
He ducked his head, scratching at the dark curls that now adorned his (really rather good-looking) head, looking abashed. Like he was confessing to passing notes in school to a cute girl he liked or something equally innocent. "With her dying breath, she cursed my afterlife to, well, being Beetlejuice. Only by marrying a living innocent could the curse be reversed." He shrugged again. "Enter you." He leered a bit, something of the Beetlejuice she knew and had hated showing as he leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "Which is what I have planned for later, babe, if you think you're up for it."
Lydia found herself so caught up in the moment that she almost retorted with something along the lines of "I'm not the one who's gonna need to be 'up' later" but thankfully common sense - and her continued suspicions of this sudden transformation, not to mention the presence of her wide-eyed teenaged daughter sitting not ten feet away - kept her mouth shut.
"It's a trick, it has to be a trick!" That was Delia, coming to her feet as the shock of the transformed bridegroom finally started to wear off. "He's lying!"
"No, for once in his miserable afterlife, he's telling the truth."
That was a new voice, one only Beetlejuice seemed to recognize. It was his turn to stare, gaping at the stranger who strode up to join them at the altar. A perfectly normal, perfectly human looking stranger, except for the fact that he was wearing Beetlejuice's signature black-and-white striped suit for some reason. "Bob?" her bridegroom said in a strangled voice. "How-what-why-"
"Seems that when a soul-sucker gets supped on by a sandworm, all the souls she sucked start streaming for the stratosphere, safe to start sentience from scratch," he replied matter of factly - and with way, WAY more alliteration than Lydia thought necessary.
Apparently Beetlejuice agreed, because he rolled his eyes and said "Not gonna lie, Bob, I think I liked you better as a shrunken head who couldn't talk." Then he grinned and pulled the taller man in for a hearty bear-hug. "Ahh, it's good to see you again, Bob! Welcome back to the land of the living. I'm thinking of starting a new business, and I could use an experienced right-hand man. Whaddaya say, you in?"
"Uh, not to interrupt the love fest," Astrid cut in dryly, "but do we really wanna take the word of his buddy here that he was actually cursed? Isn't there someone less, ah, biased, we could ask?"
Beetlejuice snapped his fingers. "Of course! You!" He spun around and pointed at the ghost cop who'd been instrumental in keeping Delores away from him long enough for the quick-witted Astrid to draw the door and summon the sandworm that had devoured the two unwanted exes. "You may just be a hack actor but you read the ex-Mrs. B's files! Tell them I'm not lying!"
Although he bristled at the 'hack actor' comment, Wolf Jackson, Man of Action, truly believed in living his motto of "keeping it real". And to him, that meant telling the truth when asked a direct question. So, reluctantly, he nodded. "Yeah, he's on the level, Mrs. Juice. The ex cursed him with her dying breath, it's all in here." He held up his hand, which suddenly held an extremely battered manilla folder, thick with yellowed and edge-curled papers. He thrust it at Lydia, who took it automatically, nose wrinkling at the musty smell it emitted.
"I guess that's a wrap," Wolf said grandly. He held out his hand, and suddenly a gorgeous blond with what appeared to be a bullet hole in the chest of her smartly tailored suit jacket was at his side, handing him a paper coffee cup. He took a dramatic sip, tossed it to the church floor, and crooked his elbows. The blonde took one, and Delia reluctantly made her goodbyes to her living family members and took the other. The (fake?) cop swaggered off with the women, vanishing into the night as Lydia, Astrid, Beetlejuice, Bob, and the still-flabbergasted Father Damien watched.
"So," Lydia said, clearing her throat uncomfortably. "A curse. Right. So, erm, what's this new business you're thinking of starting? More ways to chase the living away from ghost haunted houses? A zombie apocalypse? A used car dealership?"
"I told you, babe, I was cursed before, and now I'm not. It's not just a surface make-over, I'm back to being the real me," her husband (still kind of a terrifying concept, make-over or no, cured curse or no ) insisted. "No more terrifying the living, no more trickster demon, just plain and simple Beau Gest - no 'e' at the end," he added as Lydia opened her mouth to protest. "Not like the movie. Plus, being as I had the name centuries before he did, I'm the one who should be complaining about the similarities!"
His smirk was almost his Beetlejuice smirk. Almost, but not quite. Softer, with something of a self-deprecating edge to it. "I was thinking more along the lines of alternating as host of your show with you so you can spend more time with the kiddo, here. And Bob," he slapped the formerly soul-sucked minion on the back, "will take over Rory-the-unmourned's job."
Bob just grinned, a tight-lipped grin at first, then suddenly opened his mouth in a huge, delighted smile, his fingers going to his lips as if he still couldn't believe he was able to move his mouth freely again
"O-okay," Lydia said, after a moment of mulling her husband's proposition over. "I think that might actually work - after some time off," she added firmly, "to do some traveling, maybe see the world's creepiest sites." She turned to her daughter with a small smile. "What do you think, Astrid? Think we can live with this new and improved Beetlejuice in our lives?"
Astrid looked up, first at her mom, then at her new - stepdad? She repressed a shudder; considering how she'd gotten them all into this mess, she could hardly object if her mom had found it easier to live with the consequences than she'd ever dreamed possible. And besides that, she'd take a reformed trickster demon over a smarmy, lying opportunistic loser any day of the week.
Whether she was thinking of Rory or of her own experiences with Jeremy, it didn't make any difference as she grinned and hugged her mother. "As long as he's for real, I'm willing to put up with him." Her grin turned cold as she looked over at 'Beau Gest'. "And if he's not, well, I can always call up another sandworm."
His delighted laughter joined in with that of her mother, and, after a second, her own.