BEETLEJUICE DIES IN THE END
The dead don't come back to life.
Except when they do.
"You better buckle up, babe, looks like we're in for a bumpy ride."
-Betelgeuse, Paris, France, 1943.
Day 0.
The first thing he does is breathe.
A desperate, cold, life-giving lungful of air. It swoops down his dry throat, into lungs he's long forgotten about, expanding his aching diaphragm. It's like that desperate gasp of breath you take when emerging from underwater and damn does it feel amazing. He breaths in until he can't breathe anymore. Then he lets it out in one big woosh.
In again. Out again. Then in.
And he opens his eyes. They're wide, almost manic, and his pupils narrow in reaction to the light.
It's as if someone's fiddled with the settings on the television, and the colors and contrasts are too damn bright, the lines sharp but fuzzy. His squeezes his eyes shut, sucks in air through his long-ago broken nose, and then he rolls from his back onto all fours, coughing and hacking.
His body – for so long a sometimes-solid, sometimes-not, projection of himself – is now very much…
He coughs.
Everything's a jumble.
Memories spin around like a wheel-of-misfortune. There's flashing lights, clapping hands, and somewhere in the distance, a car alarm.
The wheel lands on Souisie Soux's younger sister.
The crowd goes huh.
How long ago was that? Time is static and gets a bit blurry when you experienced as much of it as he does, but he's sure she has to be an adult now. Definitely 'older' than him, given he was, what, late 30s? when he died. No one counted properly back then. If you made it past childhood, then you were solid, and that's all that mattered.
Then the pestilence came along like that unwelcome guest you avoid eye contact with and ruined the party.
But…why is he breathing? Yeah, the dead did sometimes breathe, especially when they were newly-corpsed and all, habits and such took time to, well, die, but he…shouldn't…be breathing.
He keeps coughing. His throat is scratchy, full of sand, and it's like he's trying to expel centuries-old dust and dirt and disease, and when he opens his eyes again, he takes in the color of his hands.
They're filthy, with thick black stuff lodged under his overgrown nails, his knuckles and the webs between his fingers green with dried moss, but his skin is…less pale. And with each breath, they brighten from cadaver pale-yellow to mottled, fleshy pink.
He hacks back in his throat, snorts to clear his nose, then spits a wad of phlegm.
And sits up.
His head falls back onto hard brick, the wall supporting his back, and he stares at his booted feet.
He can feel.
Well, he always could feel, sure, but it was muted, dulled, often propped up by what he remembered things feeling like.
But now he can feel the wind on his skin, the cold winter air in his old (but new?) lungs, the damp seeping in through his suit pants.
Betelgeuse snorts.
It's throaty, nasally, like gravel clearing itself from his vocal chords, and he coughs again.
He brings his hands to his face and feels the dirt caking his temples, the stubble across his jaw and chin, and he puts a finger to his chapped bottom lip. Something drips from his nose, and when he runs his hand over it and checks it over, the gloopy liquid is dark red and chunky. He tastes it. Copper and iron. He wipes it away as his tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth, and he runs it across his upper molars. His mouth is dry, always with that rot smell, but there's a minute amount of saliva there, and when he sucks his cheeks, he gathers it on his tongue and swallows.
He's thirsty.
He's tired.
Andhe needs a cigarette.
Betelgeuse snaps his fingers and brings them to his mouth on autopilot, but there's nothing there. He snaps again. And again. He manifests hard.
Nothin' happens.
It's at this point he stands up, groaning. His knees click and his back hurts, so he stretches, feeling a reliving pop in his shoulders, and then he takes in his surroundings, furiously blinking. It's dark, and light spills over from the street ahead.
He's in some sort of alleyway. Next to an overflowing trash unit. He brushes himself off and does a 360 turn. He scratches at his hair, fingers tangling in knots, and he yanks them free. His legs are jelly, and he's weak. Like he's just come out of long stint from his coffin, all cramped and stiff-as-a-corpse. An unfamiliar sickness churns in his gut.
Betelgeuse takes a few unsteady steps forward, then puts one hand out onto the wall to keep himself upright. He's dizzy, head spinning now, and so he lets his head flop forwards. Seconds later, he gives it another go.
He stops once more – seriously, how damn long is this alleyway? – before he can hear the street. Vibrations of sound cut into him and swirl around inside his head. The world is loud. He pushes a finger into his ear, scratching at an internal itch, teeth grit together, and then takes that final step.
Hang on a minute – what country is he in?
The whole, you know, centuries-old ghost thing means he seen a fair few countries come and go, empires rise and fall, so sometimes he gets confused and forgets that his birthplace of the Florentine Republic merged with the Papal States and Sicily and all that, and that the Ottoman Empire is no longer a thing, the world ain't flat the way they all thought it was, then the influence of Roma and the Papacy lost its' strength, and fuck, what a mess the 20th century was (right?) but, well…hang on, um, what was he thinking?
It's like his brain is full of bees, and somethin'.
He sniffs, and it's that copper stench again.
Betelgeuse opens his mouth and a chesty urghhhh comes out, just as some chap in a suit crashes into him, and they both tumble hard to the floor. A few folk stop and stare, and one elderly lady not far off the grave herself offers a concerned ah, alles okay? Hallo?
He swears loudly. Mr Office apologies, and his voice is just as weedy and forgettable as he is. The language doesn't register.
Because.
That shouldn't have been possible.
Wet-n-Weedy should've walked straight through him.
He shouldn't be solid.
He also shouldn't be breathing.
Or bleeding.
Or producing saliva.
He jumps up then, adrenaline igniting, and pushes his fingers into his wrist, feeling the frantic thump-thump-thump. With a surprised shout, ignoring the Looky-Lous around him, he slams both hands to his dirty neck, and it's the same.
There's a heartbeat.
Against all odds and truths and strange instances of paranormal post-mortem-fuckery, Betelgeuse is…well…alive.
Notes.
This fanfiction disregards the sequel. I am also running with the original death theory that Betelgeuse hung himself – this was included in an early version of the '88 script, I think? Lydia and the Deetz's WILL make an appearance.
There will be sensitive scenes, bad language, and hurt.
This is not a romance.