Chapter Text
Beetlejuice had to wait for Wolf to shove off again before he could do this. All bets were off, he had no idea how this would turn out.
While things had been ho hum at first, he had caught signs something was wrong. His employees. The shrunken heads weren’t answering the phone half as much. Even though they couldn’t speak, it was still their job to answer phones and listen.
Two of them were handing something around the office that he couldn’t see too. It left his mind for a little while, while he’d been on the phone. He’d been going through a personal rough patch, so he didn’t catch it right away. But.
Most people in the Neitherworld were selfish assholes. There was no ‘better for the community’ frame of mind. People were stuck in houses, they didn’t want to be nice. They got sent to do civil work, why would they want to be nice? They didn’t get paid for that work, it was pennance or a role they had no choice to play until they hit the soul train. Screw it up, bad consequences.
So, the fact these guys were suddenly not doing their jobs half as well, meant they had something else going on. When Astrid and Wolf were out of the room, he knew whatever was going on would move up faster. No law enforcement in the room meant more things could happen.
Which it did. He didn’t know whether to be proud or disgusted by them. They were handing him more contracts as they walked by, in stacks.
They thought he wasn’t there to protect Lydia and Astrid. They thought he was lying to them, so they could get the big chunks of pie. On the surface, it did look like that. He was even fishing around for extra contracts. Hell, any other day he would do that to anyone.
He had about 200 contracts on his desk now. He looked through them. The price differential was heavy, but it looked like the shrunkenheads had been choice picking some good ones. If I didn’t fucking care.
There was about a million dollars right there in his hands worth of contracts. He placed them to the side, and acted normal while also looking around. Only certain employees were doing that. Others were answering phones like normal. Acting like normal. While others, seemed to be running some other game. They were checking their watches, and some of them glanced at the door.
Fuck me. Three of his guys were acting normal. Three of the guys were looking toward the door. Six of the guys had dropped off contracts. Most of them expected him to kill them off, while three of them was clearly waiting for someone else to come to do it.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
There was no choice. He waited until Wolf said he was leaving.
If he did nothing, he’d just end up in the waiting room again. Get sent back to the Afterlife Call Center. But?
Lydia and Astrid would die. Neither of them wanted to die, plus his chance to get out would be forever gone. Astrid was pretty young to die too. Young and old died around him alive. He was numb to it after awhile, even robbed them when they were dead. Those two though. Maybe . . . Ooh! Oh yeah, he knew what to do. I love it when I do that!
He took the contracts and put them away. At least 200 were off the market now. He got up and headed to the shrunkenheads that were fine. Fifteen foot rule wouldn’t matter soon. “Hey Steve, you Mark and Gracie go ahead and head home. Early day off. Yeah, you go enjoy yourselves. Scootch. Fast.” Step one, get his employees that weren’t doing anything taken care of.
They each gathered their stuff pretty quickly and headed out. Lydia was just staring ahead, probably contemplating her life’s decisions or some shit like that while Astrid was playing a game.
How fun. They would both be playing a game. He went back toward them. “Okay, you two.” He smiled, trying to look as friendly as possible. He probably shouldn’t, a lot of people said it looked unfriendly but whatever. He was trying. “Close your eyes and count to twenty. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Neither of them did and just looked at him.
“Oh come on,” he urged them. “It’s not like I’m gonna kill ya here. Just close your eyes already.”
Astrid closed her eyes first. After a few seconds, Lydia closed her eyes.
“Good. Keep them closed. Count to 20.” When someone could only mumble their intentions, hands became so important. So, he’d make sure they pay for this.
Lydia instinctively grabbed Astrid once she heard the swishes of something sharp. Probably an axe. It was fast, and the sound of gushing was mixed with it. It sounded like someone cutting up tons of watermelons at once. She heard Beetlejuice’s voice, cackling wickedly. That same familiar sound she knew so well.
She knew Beetlejuice wasn’t going to tear them apart, but he was doing it to his employees.
“You forgot to count.”
Lydia opened her eyes first. On the ground, there were nothing but hands. No one else was in the room.
“Didn’t even make it to lunch staying legal,” Beetlejuice said. “We are leaving a different way, folks. Grab my hands.” He held out his hands.
Lydia looked at his hand, then Astrid. Astrid’s eyes were wide, seeing the devastation too. They had already seen a lot of disturbing things in the Neitherworld, but? Knowing a demon who just chopped off a bunch of hands to owners who disappeared, now wanted to hold their hand?
“Okay, look!” He yelled at them. “Two options. We stay, we get caught, you two die soon and make someone filthy rich. Or we get the hell out!”
Yeah, he was serious. Lydia grabbed his hand at the same time as Astrid.
“Good. Now say it, Lydia.”
Lydia said his name three times.
Las Vegas . . .
Oh? That isn’t what Lydia expected. They were all just sent around a craps table. Why were they here?
“I’ll be back, gotta have a talk with Astrid.”
“What?!” Lydia looked around. Gone. She called his name three times.
“Yeah, I knew you’d do that,” he complained when he returned with Astrid. “Luckily no one’s paying attention to each other.”
“We need to talk,” Astrid insisted. “Things are going wonky.”
“Then I should be part of the talk.” Why were they leaving her out of it?
“I’ll be back,” Astrid promised. “I have to. Things need answers.”
She watched them leave again as she stayed out on the casino floor.
Beetlejuice took them to another side of the casino.
“So? Not a week. Not a day. Didn’t even make lunch,” Beetlejuice said to her. “Gimmick’s done, Astrid. I can’t keep you there. Hell, I just knocked myself out of there with what I did.”
Yeah, she knew that. “What happened?”
“Oh, just, over half my staff thought we were supposed to kill you and get the contracts ourselves, while some were double crossing me and having someone else come,” he said.
Damn. No more luggage.
“I need a quick marriage, now. We don’t have much time, the law will find me.”
“Quick marriages are against the law,” she pointed out. “You’ll still be in trouble.”
“Nuh uh uh,” he told her in a sing songy way. “It’s against the rules to have a quick marriage. It’s not against the rules to have been in a quick marriage.”
Oh, another loophole. “The marriage is a retainer.”
“Yeah, I knew you were gonna say that, so I already got the solution.” He put his hands out, like the idea was brilliant. “I’ll marry Lydia and stay married until it’s over. Then if she can keep paying the bill, I walk away. Just like before.”
No way. “You end the marriage first, and then walk away,” Astrid demanded. If I can’t save mom from the marriage, I can at least save her from him. “You also don’t get any relationship with the marriage. That’s after. Permissions are still in effect.”
Beetlejuice groaned. “I get a wife. But I can’t-”
“No. No touching without permission,” Astrid said firmly. “Even with her being your wife. Marriage is still just the retainer.”
“Eternity marriage is the payment then, if she can’t pay,” he said fiercely. “That means she stays married to me, no matter what. Nothing changes. She dies, she’s still married.”
“Fine.” No choice.
“Oh really? It also means, she is going to board the same train as me,” he added.
What?
“Yeah. When we eventually shove off, we shove off together too,” he said. “Only I can stop it. If I want to.”
Astrid rubbed her chin vigorously. “You could be sent somewhere bad, and mom would go with you?”
“Could? Heh. Sure, could.”
Then no. “You would send mom to hell.”
“Probably not,” he answered. “See? When it’s an eternity marriage, you know, a real marriage made in death and not some short-term life marriage?” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Both parties actions will be accounted for. No matter how awful I am, Lydia’s practically an angel. We’d go anywhere but hell now!”
Ooh. He was so giddy. Too giddy! “Is that why you tried to marry her in the first place?” He better be careful how he answered that.
“Hey, I didn’t plan on that.” He spread his hands out, trying to act innocent. “I just saw the goodies right this minute.”
“You just spotted my mom as a good way out from paying for your crimes.” Ugh. “How did a botched marriage make me your daughter?”
“Oh. Yeah, that,” he said. “Marriage in life verses death is different, you know? It’s all words. Words have power. That’s why the handbook isn’t supposed to be read by living people, they can end a spirit for good with just words.”
Oh the marriage ceremony words were all it took.
“Yeah, we were just missing wife,” he admitted. “One word. Wife.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she clarified. “How did you know we were tied?”
“I just see you in your lowest lows and highest highs in the Neitherworld. You’ve been haunting me since you were born,” he insisted. “That’s why I know you so well. It’s more than just on a profile. I am your dad.”
“Bull.” No way. “Prove it.”
He held his fingers up in an okay. “Your third grade recital where you were the star and your mom didn’t come? Yeah, took her a good extra 30 minutes to get there even after the play?” He beat his chest once with his hand. “I’ve been there with her before. Twice.”
That? “A lot of kids have recitals in the third grade.”
“You were dressed like the sun,” he said. “The top thing in the solar system. Halloween wasn’t anywhere near there.”
Whoah. “What else do you know?”
“You did something wrong and didn’t get caught before you were in kidnergarten,” he answered. “No idea what it had been, but you walked on legos in your room for no reason and cried. Yeah, I knew at that point I had to interfere and start corrupting you so you didn’t grow up to be a nun or something. Had to start small, so I told you to get rid of whatever was driving the guilt.”
Astrid barely remembered that, but she did remember the scattered legos. She had stolen a sticker from somewhere. No one had found out and it ate her up inside. Eventually, she just decided to drop it over around where it had been before. “You told me?”
“Well, we can’t hear or see each other between the worlds, but we can feel each other,” he answered. “Sometimes, we can pick up what the other is wanting.”
“She was supposed to be at the recital. She promised,” Astrid said. “The whole play I wanted to feel miserable, but I could feel that my dad was there somehow. He never said he would even show up.” That was him.
That was this crusty dead guy that just got giddy that marrying her mom for an eternity would get him out of hell. The guy charging them exorbitant amounts of money to keep them safe. “You stayed for the whole performance.”
“Well? You made a cute sun,” he admitted, “and I’d been on the receiving end of people promising things and not paying up. So.”
Wait. “My friends thirteenth birthday party?”
“Total bitch. Loved the way you dumped her perfume and replaced it with water.” He grinned, a little bit of a beetle sticking out of his teeth.
Oh! Where else did her dad show up, but didn’t show up? “At the theatre that one time.”
“I would have done more than a slap.”
All of those times. “I always swore that dad showed up. I’d always ask him afterward and he’d say that he was busy for those times. I thought he was hiding his visits for some reason. Especially when I was . . . not being good. I never got it.” Until now.
“Yep, and as touching as this all is, we’ve gotta decide on this.” Beetlejuice pointed to an array of watches on his arm. “No matter where it is in the world, we are running out of time. So. I marry your mom. Everything stays the same in the contract. If she can afford the bill, I let her go at the end, with no eternity marriage. If she can’t, she stays married, and when she dies, she’s mine. Forever.” He extended his hand. “Deal?”
Astrid touched the side of her neck. They needed to move. The law enforcement didn’t take long to find him last time. Staying still too long spelled disaster. She shook his hand.
“One kiss,” he said. “We are getting married, we need to seal the deal.”
“On the cheek.”
“But marriage, come on! I’ll drop the 22,500 you just got from the shrunkenheads,” he pointed out.
22,000 wasn’t as much, but every penny could count soon. Plus? It was . . . unsanitary. “Brush your teeth until you can’t see anything in them, with mouth wash, then give mom this deal, not me.”
“Geez, you cut a hard bargain.”
They shook on it.