#betelgeuse smut

Beetlejuice x Original Female Character  | [masterlist] 

֎

      There was no debate about it - the general consensus in the small, quaint town of Winter River, Connecticut was: the large white house that sat atop the hill was cursed.

      Not only did the big victorian-style house loom above the rest of the village in a highly unsettling fashion, its round windows almost like dark eyes watching over the little hamlet day in and day out, but everyone knew about the history of its former residents’  bloodcurdling deaths.

      It wasn’t just the house; the plot of land itself seemed to bring misfortune to whoever chose to step upon it, although, ever since the white house had been built, the unluckiness of its inhabitants appeared to have increased indefinitely.

      In recent years there had been a young couple, the Maitlands, who’d died in a car crash in town, then there had been a small family, the Deetz’s, that had moved in shortly after completely remodelling the house. They’d moved out a few years later, after three of their guests had been heavily injured in an unexplained accident on the property, and the house had stood empty for a couple of years - until the old lady had moved in.

      Agnes Fletcher, a successful businesswoman and a connoisseur of old, unique residences, had bought the house in ‘93, mostly returning it to its original, cosy ex- and interior in the following years. After travelling the world to take up other exciting projects and business opportunities for about another decade, she’d eventually returned to settle down in Winter River. Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten to live in the house for long after her return - just about half a year before she’d decided to use the unfamiliar concept of free time to visit family down south, dying in a fatal plane crash on the way.

      Her will stated her granddaughter Aubrey Fletcher as not only her primary beneficiary, but her only beneficiary, effectively making her the unexpectant passive owner of a highly successful real estate business and several houses all around the globe, including her grandmother’s favourite: the big white house in Winter River.

      Aubrey felt like she’d heard stories about the house for all of her life, but it could have been only truly after her and her mother had moved from London to Florida shortly after Agnes had bought the house that she truly had. Even after Aubrey’s father’s unexpected passing due to a sudden heart attack when she’d been only four, her mother had never quite warmed up to her mother-in-law Agnes. Granted, they had always been very different, almost opposites, really. Aubrey’s mother had been an average but hard-working single mother mainly focused on her own self and her immediate family; Agnes, however, had been a convention-breaking pioneer of her business and an avid philanthropist, caring not only about an extended circle of family and friends, but also working with many charities and doing her best to make the world a kinder and better place.

      From a very young age, Aubrey had been obsessed with Agnes. Growing up in a very protected environment, she had never been exposed to someone quite as different and unique as her, and, much to her mother’s dismay, being different from the rest had fascinated her so much she had taken her grandmother on as her highest-ranked role model for decades to come.

      Her mum’s old Saab shook violently as Aubrey sped across the uneven tar roads, forcing her to slow down, though she could feel the giddiness rushing all through her body.
      The house. She was finally going to see the house .
      She had waited for so long, she could wait a little longer now if it meant her car could survive the rough drive through rural Connecticut. Cities and Towns had gotten smaller and spaced farther apart the closer she got to her destination over the past few hours, the late autumn sun gradually dropping down further and further in the grey cloudless sky.

      Her grandmother’s death had come as a gruesome surprise to Aubrey. Of course, nobody usually thought about the inevitability of death more than they had to, but when it happened, it always felt way too soon, especially when it happened in such a horrendous way as Agnes’ death. The Fletcher family had always been what some might call unfortunate when it came to their causes of death, often dying at a fairly young age through generally cruel accidents, like Aubrey’s younger brother Nick had, or later in life from rare diseases or unusual afflictions. There had also been her aunt and uncle’s tragic deaths in a house fire, her father’s sudden heart attack, her mother’s short but horrible fight with cancer and, of course, her grandmother’s recent unlucky involvement in a plane crash.

      Aubrey herself had almost died as a 4-year-old after a particularly nasty allergic reaction to peanuts, which nobody had known she was allergic to. The single spoon of peanut butter hadn’t only landed her a trip to the emergency room with her throat completely swollen shut, but also a peanut detection dog named Wesley, a young but impeccably trained Australian Shepherd always up and ready to keep her safe from traces of peanuts, since, according to what the doctor had told them,  1/500th of peanut could most definitely kill her.
Wesley had stuck around for 14 years, a loyal and loving companion to her before he’d passed. They’d buried him in the yard, next to Nick’s pet rats that had died only a few months prior, and Aubrey had never owned a pet since.

      The dense wall of trees around the winding road slowly cleared, and then, all of a sudden, she could see it in the distance: the small village of Winter River. There, behind the thin wall of fog was the church she’d heard so much about, the houses which, from this vantage point, looked almost as small as on the pictures of the model-village up in the house’s attic that her grandma had often shown her.
      Aubrey almost slammed on the brakes as the remaining trees cleared, and she had her first-ever unobstructed view of it - the white house.

֎

      He was angry.

      Not only had he been horribly humiliated and brutally backstabbed by a 14-year-old snooty goth girl that he hadn’t even liked more than as a means to an end - the end being him finally getting his powers back.
      Not only had died yet again and had been forced to wait for what had felt like millennia in a dirty, crammed waiting room, but when it had finally been his turn, they hadn’t even done what he’d expected. Why had he expected to be understood, maybe even treated with kindness? He didn’t know, though he should have. The Netherworld was hopeless, had always been, but he’d been around humans for too long and it had made him soft.

      They hadn’t helped him restore his powers or even his corporal form, nor had they granted him free roam in the Netherworld like they’d used to.
      No, they’d banned him to spend eternity in the same plot of land he’d died on twice now, unable to talk, to leave, to touch, to do anything unless he was summoned. Not that there would have been anybody to talk to - or touch , he thought with a sad grin as he let his legs dangle down from the dusty bed.

      When he’d come back from the land-of-the-dead, much more time had passed than he had thought. The Deetz’s had left, as had the Maitlands - he’d neither known nor cared why, when or how. The house had been deserted, the ugly sculptures finally gone and replaced by a mixture of somewhat boring, old-fashioned and more unique, eccentric designs all over the house.
      Still, he wouldn’t have been intrigued at all if it hadn’t been for the old lady.

      He’d tried to scare her at first, possessing random objects around her to make her flinch, picking up his speed as she hadn’t reacted, until one night, when it had all changed.

      He remembered as if it had been yesterday.

֎

      The old woman stood in the kitchen cooking up dinner, while he was lingering close-by, as usual, when the thought occurred to him:
      Maybe if he killed her and got her to say his name almost immediately while she’s on the brink of death and sensitive to the supernatural - would she still count as alive? Was that a viable strategy, a loophole to get him out of this misery of eternal invisibility?
      With that haphazard thought, he eyed her biggest kitchen knife, letting it float towards him in slow and calculated motions, his mind buzzing in anticipation.
      Yes, this was gonna be so much fun, He was gonna take his sweet ass time and enjoy this, and then he’d savour the look on her face when she - then she suddenly turned around to him, looked him dead in the eye and said:
      “If you’re gonna kill me, just do it. Your little games are seriously starting to bore me.”

      Needless to say, he was floored.
      “Lady, hey, ho, hey, I didn’t notice you, ehh, could see me, totally didn’t mean to kill ya.” The knife slipped out of his invisible grip but evaporated into nothingness before it could clatter to the ground, while he immediately took a quick step towards her, his movements now almost erratic. As if this was the most casual conversation ever, she’d already turned back towards her cutting board, busying herself with chopping up some carrots.

      “Listen, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve talked to anybody, if you could help a guy out, you know, just say my name a couple times would really just about make my life not a living hell anymore.”
      Her eyes found him again, and her voice was calm and soft, but with a certain edge to it that he couldn’t help but notice.
      “Listen, bud, I know who you are. I’ll tolerate you around this house as long as you behave, but if you won’t, I’ll have my ways to get rid of you.” The glint in her eyes assured him she wasn’t lying, and he suddenly found himself at a loss for words. Yes, Agnes Fletcher had officially managed to make Betelgeuse himself speechless.

      “Got it?” She turned away again, as if suddenly disinterested, and he propped himself up on the kitchen counter as he struggled to stammer his reply.
      “Got it, I mean, G-Gotcha, lady, but - “ As if she just remembered something, she dropped her knife back on the counter spilling little bits of carrots all over the kitchen floor and within the blink of an eye, she was standing right in front of him.
      “Shh. You listen to me. Can you focus for a moment?” Who was this lady, his fucking mother?
      “How dare you speak to me like that, I’m a fucking - ow!” Just as he was starting his angry tirade, her hand grabbed him by the ear, pulling him down from the counter.
      How could she touch him, he wasn’t even in his corporal form? How was she not afraid of him? How could she even SEE him? What THE FUCK was happening?

      Her other hand grabbed his scruffy face, turning it towards her in one swift motion, effectively focusing his attention back on her.
      “Listen. To. Me.” Her short, well-manicured fingernails scraped along his ear uncomfortably, and, although he felt her warm body temperature quickly heating up his cold, long-dead skin and was almost tempted to lean into her touch, he kept his focus on her. “I’ll die in a few weeks, and I could use your help.”

      As if a weight had been lifted off of him, Betelgeuse immediately relaxed.
      He’d won the upper hand again, as usual. This breather needed his help, as most others did, so she wasn’t so very special after all.
      “Ahhh, now I’m gettin’ ya. What do you want me to do: prevent your death, kill someone for ya, nuke the town, nuke the whole planet? I’ll do anything if you get me out of here in return.” The old lady hadn’t moved an inch away from him, but now she slowly folded her hands on top of her stomach as she took a deep breath.
      “I know you would, but I don’t mean that kind of help. My death is predestined, and I’m in no way looking for a way to avert it.”
      What?
      “Wha - then what do you want?”
      “I need another kind of service from you.”
      Instantly, he felt his face curve into a sly smile as his confidence came surging back. Within moments, he closed the small distance between them and let his hand slink around her waist suavely.
      “Oh, wouldn’ta taken you for the type with a ghost fetish, lady, haven’t done it in a couple centuries so I might be a little rusty, but I’ll be sure to give ya a good time, ya look like ya need it - ” When leaning down to bury his face in her neck, she suddenly pushed him away hard so that his back crashed into the edge of the counter so painfully that it had knocked the breath out of him - figuratively speaking.

      “Not that kinda service you pig.” Her expression was distinctly disgusted while she quickly dusted herself off with her hands.
      “Could you just listen? My granddaughter is gonna move in here after I pass, I don’t know exactly when, but I need you to be decent - nice, even, if you know what that means.”
      The southern drawl rolled from her lips so smoothly that he found himself listening intently, despite softly rubbing his still throbbing spine.
      “I can play nice, lady, especially when a pretty girl’s involved.”
      “You keep your filthy hands off of her!” As if whispering to herself, she quietly added: “’Cept she doesn’t want you to, but let’s hope for the best.”

      His interest was piqued, and he found himself once more wondering what the fuck was going on.
      “What do you mean, why do you know all this stuff, lady? You a medium?” She smiled, the kind of smile you give a child when it asks questions they wouldn’t yet understand the answers to and shook her head softly.
      “Close enough. Listen, she’ll need peace and quiet, she’s been through a lot, and I can’t have you annoyin’ her for the rest of time. But if you play nice, I can promise you something good.”
      “That I’ll get laid? Won’t have ta be all nice for that, you know.” Her smile turned into an expression of offended disgust within moments and he noticed that she’d seemingly subconsciously taken another step away from him.
      “Jesus, can you just not think about sex for a minute?”
      “That’s a hard thing to do for a dead guy like me. Ya wanna know what else is hard, thinkin’ about your pretty little girl?” He moved his hands in a vague gesture towards his crotch and she quickly averted her eyes and clenched her fists.
      “Okay, no, no, no.” There was a distinct change within her as she muttered those words. Her posture suddenly changed for the better, her eyes were now positively glowing as she surged back towards him, swiftly raising her hand upwards towards his face. Just when he was certain she was going to slap him full-force, her hand stopped right before his mouth, and with a quick flick of her wrist, she manifested a zipper around his lips and, with one sudden movement, fastened his lips together, completely silencing him.

      What. The. Fuck. What the FUCK was happening, she wasn’t dead, was she? She couldn’t be - what - how could she control reality this way, how could she - what?!

      With her pointer finger loosely pressed against the center of his lips in a parody of a shushing motion, he found himself meeting her dominant gaze once more.
      “If you play nice, and I mean nice , she’ll free you. Not immediately, you have to be patient, but she’ll free ya and you’ll be able to…  do whatever you want.”
      He broke out of his frozen state with little struggle and quickly wiped the weird zipper away to voice his surprise.
      “You mean she’ll marry me… willingly?”
      The lady squinted her eyes as if trying to see something far away without her glasses, though she was clearly wearing hers, and slowly nodded her head.
      “I can’t quite see it, but I know you’ll be free, no restrictions, no boundaries, if you do it right. If you fuck up, she’ll leave and you’ll likely be stuck here forever.”
      “Good prospects, lady.”
      “Indeed.”

      A girl would marry him - him! - willingly? And all he’d have to do was behave like a somewhat decent guy? The old lady seemed to read him like an open book, and he felt deeply unsettled. This had never ever happened before. Not giving him time to think, Agnes kept going.
      “You’re a fuck-up, boy. You’ve made terrible mistakes, and now you’re lonely, you’re desperate, you’re - “
      “Horny, geez, don’t have to tell me, I already know.”
      Now, there was a long pause in which he let his mind roam free, his unanswered questions filling his brain with confusion as his first feeling of hope in centuries began warmly pooling around his solar plexus; the girl was gonna marry him…
      “So you’ll do it?”
      “To be free?” He paused for just a moment, his eyes now intently focused on her. “I’d do anything.”

֎

      The cold wind hit her like a slap in the face as she exited the small house of the realtor. The blonde middle-aged woman who’d disturbingly worn nothing but a rather eccentric shade of pink, including a polkadot bow on top of her tightly permed hair had assured her to go ahead and drive up the pathway to the house, she would meet her there in about 10 minutes.

       As she walked down the shallow steps back towards her car, Aubrey took a moment to focus on her breathing as she took in her surroundings. The layer of frost on the surrounding grass had started to dissipate, slowly melting in the warm light of the setting sun, the tall, old church was now throwing a deep, long shadow upon the few remaining flowers wilting beside the pavement and two young kids that were playing in the yard, but now somewhat hesitantly started running up to her.
      As they came closer, she identified them as an older raven-haired boy of maybe eleven and a younger girl, possibly his sister, of maybe about five years of age whose dark, curly bangs were thrust back into her eyes at every minor gust of wind. Their hands were linked in a comforting grasp, and the smaller girl seemed to be trying to hold the boy back from approaching Aubrey. Still, with age came strength, and he pulled her after him as if she wasn’t even there.

      “Are you moving into the house on the hill?” He asked with a high, inquisitive tone, his eyebrows raised in question. Aubrey nodded softly and smiled at the two kids.
      “Yes, I am. I’m Aubrey.” Much to the apparent dismay of his sister, the boy took another few steps towards her to shake her hand, until he stood so close to her she could hear his half-whispered question:
      “I’m Michael. Are… Are you a witch, too?” Aubrey couldn’t suppress a little smile, but she noted the fear taking over the girls facial expression. Was she… scared of her?
      “Mike, come on, can we just go back inside?”
      “No, come on, Lisa, just wait a minute. Are you?”
      “I’m not, no.” The little girl whose name was apparently Lisa avoided eye-contact entirely now, but Aubrey could clearly see her eyes slowly welling up with tears as her brother continued.
      “It’s haunted, you know? We see it all the time, the lights come on at night and then there’s shadows dancing around, even though no one’s there! The only one who could deal with it was the nice old lady who used to live there years ago. She was a witch, you know? When she was there, there were no shadows and no weird thunderstorms.” The nice old lady. Good to know Agnes had managed to make herself a name here.
      “Well, it’s nice of you to warn me but I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of that. You know, sometimes teens like to break into empty places to have fun or wreak havoc, that could very well be what you saw.” A good explanation. Right?
      As much as she wanted to believe herself, the little seedling of doubt that had been planted in her mind long ago started to sprout, slowly but surely. What if there was someone - something - up there?

      The little boy shook his head with conviction, his eyes suddenly big and scared.
     “The thingthat lives up there, it’s not human. I’m not sure it ever was. Bobby from school says it’s a demon, and it’ll kill all of us in our sleep if we look at the house for too long.”

      Fuck. Bobby from school. What was she thinking, letting doubt settle in her mind at the naïve words of a little kid? They were just having fun, telling horror stories around the campfire, as kids did. With a little shudder, she let go of her doubts once more. She was sane, and there was no such thing as ghosts. There couldn’t be.
      “Don’t listen to Bobby from school, alright? I’m sure there’s nothing weird living up there, and if there is, I’ll make sure it never comes down here to hurt any of you, okay?”
      He gave her a small smile, obviously still unsure.
      “I best get going. Don’t you worry about the house anymore, okay? If you see any shadows moving around late at night, rest assured it’s just me. I’m a writer, and I often work at night, so it’ll just be me, okay?”
      His eyebrows still furrowed, he forced another smile and strengthened his hold on Lisa’s hand.
      “Okay. Try to be safe?”
      “I will, don’t you worry, Michael. Lisa.” On a whim, she extended her hand to fluff through his hair playfully, at which he giggled before his sister finally managed to get his attention again. Aubrey, however, had already re-entered her Saab and quickly sped away towards the house, unaware of the two siblings standing at the end of their driveway, staring after her with worried expressions.

      Back in the car, Aubrey smiled absently as her mind drifted back to more pleasant thoughts of her grandmother.
      Agnes had always had a reason to talk, tell stories and make everyone around her laugh, but her favourite topic had always been the house.

      She had always been a little… off. Not just in her way of dressing or speaking, but in her way of perceiving the world around her.
      As a child, Aubrey had soaked up every conversation she’d had with her like a sponge, noting every topic, idiom and even her accent which she, as an impressionable, thoroughly British girl, had very embarrassingly and unsuccessfully tried to copy for a little while.
      And yet, it hadn’t just been all of those things - Grandma Agnes had often talked about the spiritual, the veil, and the world beyond. She’d talked about ghosts as if they were the most natural occurrence, had told Aubrey about the ghosts in her own house, the ones in new houses she’d visited or even bought, and then, many years later, about the ghosts in the white house in Winter River.

      The red Saab cut through the peaceful snow-dusted streets like a clear intruder, slowly making its way through the oh-so-unfamiliar streets of the small village, carefully approaching the dirt road that led up the hill. Come back again soon! was written on a small white sign, and Aubrey shuddered at the sight of the small red-covered bridge.

      Adam and Barbara Maitland were the ghosts whose story she could recall most clearly, the young couple who’d died in a car accident many years ago on the very bridge she was gingerly making her way across now. Her grandmother had talked about them a whole lot, so much and in such personal ways that Aubrey’s mother had started suggesting that Aubrey distance herself from Agnes, because she suspected her grandmother was ‘losing it’.

      Agnes had assured Aubrey that there was no reason to be afraid of ghosts, especially when it came to the peaceful calibre of Adam and Barbara Maitland, who, even in their afterlife, seemed to have been the loveliest couple known to mankind. She also seemed to remember her grandmother telling her about helping them move on after a while, though it had been very hard - “Bureaucracy…”, Agnes had haphazardly explained - to help them out of their predicament.

      However, according to Agnes, not everything was as harmless and peachy in the world of ghosts as the Maitlands. Aubrey seemed to be able to recall mentionings of demons, evil spirits, incubi and a certain poltergeist-like character who had actively bothered them for a while, but it had only been in accidental digressions Agnes had liked to take occasionally; whenever Aubrey asked, the topic was always dismissed immediately.

      “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” had always been Agnes’ response when Aubrey enquired about ghosts or what her grandma had always referred to as the Netherworld, but even as she grew to be an older kid, a teenager and then an adult, her grandmother’s stance never shifted. “I’ll tell you someday, Aubs. Not now, ‘kay?”

      She’d never told her - of course, she hadn’t. Maybe her mother had been right, and all of this stuff had only been Agnes’ imagination, or maybe she’d made it up just to be able to tell her stories as a child. But a small part of Aubrey knew that her grandmother hadn’t intentionally invented all of these stories. They came from a place of truth, though the question still remained whether that truth was grounded in actual reality, or a place in Agnes’ mind.
      Aubrey’s mind, on the other hand, started to overflow with thoughts and questions. What if Agnes had truly been sane, and there had been ghosts in the house? What if they were still there, as the kids had suggested? What if Agnes herself had come back as one? What if demons resided there, waiting to kill her?

      Her thoughts died away as she crossed the threshold of the ridge, reached the top of the hill and finally saw the house up close. The grass around the path she’d taken up here was frozen, everything covered in a thin, white layer of frost, and it made the peaceful white house blend right into its surroundings.
      It seemed like an amalgamation of several different houses, the main house obviously a refurbished victorian building while the small porch with the red door almost reminded Aubrey of an old western saloon, but the tower on the left side caught her full attention and, almost immediately, let goosebumps rise on her skin.

      This was so unique, so special, so wonderful, just like she’d imagined - this was perfect.

֎

      The old lady had been right. He’d been desperate and lonely (horny, too), so he’d clung to her for weeks after their first talk, not only to monitor her well-being to know when her time would come but also, as he’d quickly started to notice, for general human contact. Having been stuck in a grave for hundreds of years before being let out, only to be killed again and damned to wander the halls of a singular unoccupied building for the rest of eternity hadn’t done a lot for his social life, nor had his obviously obtrusive personality helped him form any social contacts in the past 600 years, so yes - he still was all of those things. Very. Much. So.

      Agnes Fletcher had also been right about one other thing: She’d died. Not a particularly horrible death, comparatively - she’d been unconscious before the small plane had even come close to hitting the ground - but still a death he could have certainly averted if she’d asked him to. She was somewhat of a mystery to him, her way of knowing what would transpire in the future, her powers of altering reality in silencing him with just the most casual flick of her wrist, him, a demon that would make the devil himself shit his pants in the ecstasy of fright - at least that’s what he liked to think.

      The house had been quiet for a while again. Shortly after Beetlejuice had felt her death, maybe a few weeks after, a neighbour had come over to empty out the fridge and trash cans, turning up his nose at the rotting vegetables and dusty furniture, but he’d left before the self-proclaimed bio-exorcist had been able to make him run for his life.

      Was he gonna do what she’d told him? The outlook of the lifting of his curse was a good one for sure, but being nice? He tightened his hand around his jaw, his messy stubble scratching the inside of his palm as he stared through the dusty air into nothingness.
      If the girl was gonna be like that other brat he’d tried to marry all those years ago, he was not - absolutely, definitely not - going to be able to be nice. He’d tried, and he was painfully aware of where it had landed him.

      The pictures of that godforsaken waiting room made him shudder, and he jumped up, now pacing up and down the small bedroom.
      Why should he do what a random old lady told him to? He was his own person, goddammit, and he’d never listened to what others had told him - a fact that Juno especially could attest to - he was going to fucking do what he felt was the right way of going about this, not what shehad thought.
      Who even assured him that the girl was coming? Or that there even was a girl at all? If she was, was she even gonna be able to see him? And how would Agnes have known that she was eventually gonna marry him? Absolute fucking bullshit .
      He couldn’t believe he’d fallen for the words of a crazy woman. What had happened to him? Soft and gullible. His face morphed into a disgusted expression before he sat back down on the dirty, wrinkled bed.

      If the girl would actually show up, he was going to do this his way. He’d scare her into submission, and he’d make her say his name, whatever it took, and he would make it so she’d have no choice but to marry him. If she was particularly annoying, he would, of course, kill her as well. Maybe even if she wasn’t - he really had no reason not to.
      After that, he could leave, go and do whatever he wanted wherever he wanted, and live out his second chance at life as he’d longed to for forever.

   He wasn’t keeping track of time anymore; the concept itself became somewhat insignificant after so many years in this house, not to mention afterlife itself, but he assumed it must have been around a year or two before he was awoken from his constant doze: by the noise of a key in the front door’s lock.

      This was gonna be fun.