Dead Shadow: Beetlejuice Fanfiction Story

Chapter 3: Hold It Together

Neitherworld

Lydia watched them, unphased. In the beginning, she felt a little confused, and maybe feverish. As the week progressed though, there was something besides being sick. They had one week together, and even though they were having fun, something had been tying everyone at the Roadhouse back. Everyone had acted so different. Even now.

It seemed normal. It seemed like something BJ would pull, but it was different.

"Whatcha think, Babe?" BJ asked her as he stepped in the shower. "Got optional settings. Mud water or swamp water." He showed off the mud bath letting it cover him. He shook it off some, but twisted the swamp water handle which took the majority of the mud off. "Babe? What's wrong?"

What was wrong? What was wrong?! Lydia went over to his new installed shower. "Mud. Swamp. What's that one?" There was a third handle she pulled. Cold water flooded over BJ.

"Yikes!" BJ tried to move out of the way. "That was close. I almost got clean." He looked toward the handle. "That's the default choice. Not too bad though, now you can bathe and smell bad or good."

No. "No more kidding around, Beetlejuice," Lydia warned him. She started tapping her feet. "I could buy that I was sick for a little while, but this just isn't right." She looked around his place. "You've been getting actual edible food in here. You have a bath with clean water. You made me pick most of your new remodeling furnishings. You've been caging off your bugs and rodents and putting food that isn't in your fridge, inside of plastic bags." None of it was him.

He never cared about any of that. Hygiene? Pleh, he hated the word. Lydia never minded before, so why was he getting that way? Was it really her health? If it was, then why the redecorating? And the biggest one of all. "Tell me what's going on, BJ."

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Why can't I go home?" She'd tried to more than once. Sure, he wanted her to stay but she still wanted to return too. To her bed. To her fridge. He didn't need to worry about stocking for her, why didn't he just return home? Her bedding and her sheets and her pillows. The mail, it would keep coming. And especially missing the chance to see her other friends. "Bertha and Prudence haven't seen me for four days, they must be worried."

"Uh."

"BJ," Lydia warned him. "I want to go home. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!" She said his name three times but nothing happened? What? "Home, home, home?" What was going on?

"Really trying to get to the end of the week before this, Lyds," BJ said. Yeah, he was outwardly admitting now that something was wrong. "A couple more days," he encouraged her, "and I'll tell you why you can't go home. Yet."

"Beetlejuice." Lydia was a calm person usually. You had to, in order to be a friend to Beetlejuice, but even she had her limits.

"Two days, Lyd," he insisted again. "Gotta wait two more. Just two."

"Beetle-"

"It's not a request!" He said firmly to her. "You have to wait two days."

Did he just yell at her? It's not a request? What in the world was he hiding?

"Okay, no way are we fightin', Lyds, not right now." He groaned. "Gonna have to do something." He snapped his fingers and disappeared for a minute. When he came back, he pointed toward the entrance to his place.

Lydia watched Ginger come by. "Hi." She waved two of her legs on the same side. "Lydia? Uh? You're kind of worried about something Beetlejuice might be hiding?"

Oooh. No. He asked for help? He'd never do that, BJ would never do that. What would cause him to do that?

"It's? You really need to wait for two days," Ginger insisted. "Please? Don't get mad at him, or us. This is really hard, no one's used to it."