29::AN:: Tra-la-la-la-la. (Edited 9/16/2011)
Title: The Name Game
Chapter Four: Informative
Lydia woke to the distinct and unpleasant scent of cigaret smoke and a pounding migraine. At best, it felt as though she spent the previous night on a drinking binge, during which she was run over by a tractor... at worst, like she'd been beaten and nearly raped and murdered in an alley (go figure). Plus, she was left with traces of odd and disturbing dreams, many involving Betelgeuse and his lap. And though Betelgeuse's lap was by no means the worst of her subconscious experiences, it was still easily the most embarrassing. She groggily rubbed her eyes, both in attempt to sooth her head and buff out certain images from her mind.
The acrid smoke certainly didn't help her throbbing temples, or her mood. She sat up and snapped her head towards its area of origin -pausing to cringe a moment, as the sharp movement zinged a shot of pain through her cranium. Betelgeuse was, of course, the culprit. He looked weary and bored, sitting at her desk, idly drumming his fingers and staring into space.
"You living people sure sleep a long time," he muttered around the stick in his mouth, once he noticed she was awake.
Lydia noted the dullness of his eyes and his slouch, more pronounced than usual. It looked as though he had a rough night too. Still, the smoking? So not going to fly. "Get rid of that thing!" she snapped. "Second hand smoke kills, you know! And for us 'living people' that still matters!"
"Eh?" Betelgeuse looked as though he was surprised to notice the unfiltered cigaret between his lips. "Oh. Right." And with a snap the cigaret, smoke, and smell all just seemed to vanish. It was a definite improvement, all except that Betelgeuse somehow looked more dejected than before.
His whole attitude bothered Lydia immensely. On the one hand, she felt concerned for him -which was not okay. Saving her from some thugs did NOT make up for the near forced-marriage or his near-fatal attack on her father. Watching him and seeing how serious he was also made her pretty sure something had happened while she'd been unconscious. It wasn't too surprising if she'd missed it, especially given the fact that she could sleep through a nuclear attack siren if she were tired enough. The worst of it was that it must have been something bad. Betelgeuse didn't strike her as the kind to mope and dwell on things. Of course, whom it was bad for was anyone's guess (maybe she would be in the clear?). Who knew what went on inside Betelgeuse's mind? Lydia certainly didn't claim to.
She also couldn't help but wonder if her fuzzy memories of his lap were the product of a dream or not. But she fought that down. On the off chance it was real, she really, really did not want to think about it. Denial was a much better option than admitting she had willingly wrapped herself around him -half asleep or not. She shook her head to dislodge the unpleasant thoughts. "How long was I out for?" Her voice croaked and she cringed at the sound.
Betelgeuse vaguely gestured to the window. "It's almost dark again. You missed the day."
"Hmm." Normally, Lydia avoided sleeping in too late. While she definitely appreciated the subtle qualities of the night, it always made her feel incredibly unproductive if she didn't have at least a few daylight hours. But there were worse things, she knew, than missing one day. Her eyes drifted tentatively to her front door. "Did I get any unwelcomed visitors last night?" Antsy at the very thought of such things, Lydia climbed out of bed. It required more concentration than usual because of her collection of injuries, but focusing on that task kept her from fidgeting as she waited for his reply.
"Well, yeah," he admitted after a long pause. "Not who you were expecting though." He sighed again and ran a hand down his face.
The morose behavior and cryptic answer started to get on Lydia's nerves. "So," she prompted with a roll of the hand. By this point she'd made the harrowing trip (the incredibly short, harrowing trip) to her kitchenette. She leaned on the breakfast bar to hold herself up; god her legs were stiff!
"So what?" Betelgeuse grumbled. He still looked quite thoroughly depressed, to the point of distraction.
Lydia felt like slapping him. What right did he have to be depressed, really? …Aside from maybe the 'being dead' thing, but she always supposed he enjoyed his afterlife. So really, he had no excuse. "Are you going to tell me what happened willingly, or will I have to beat it out of you?" She smacked her breakfast bar in frustration. Extracting information from him was on par with extracting protons from an atom, that is to say, nothing she had the patience for. She gave him a withering, impatient look.
Looking thoroughly disgruntled and worn out, he finally solved the mystery for her. "Juno."
That was unexpected. Though upon reconsideration, she supposed it shouldn't have been. With Betelgeuse out and about in the world, it was only a matter of time before the bureaucracy that was the Netherworld sought him out. "So Juno came here?"
He nodded reluctantly.
"And you're still here?"
Another nod on his part.
"So, what exactly did she say? Why'd she come if not to put you back?"
"You'll find out," he said ominously. "She's coming by again to talk to you." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I hate to break it to you, Babes, but things are about to get a little messy around here."
Lydia arched an eyebrow. "Things that involve you generally do, Betel-" A hand clamped over her mouth and Lydia's eyes widened. Her back was pulled flush against Betelgeuse's cold chest. He certainly could move fast when properly motivated.
"Careful Babes," he intoned darkly in her ear.
Lydia noted with some discomfort that even though she was very much silenced, he did not move his hand or let her go.
"You haven't said the B-word yet, but I'd just rather be safe than sorry."
His breath felt cool as it hit her neck. She shivered and wished that her pajamas weren't so threadbare and thin… and that she'd actually worn something underneath them.
"What have we here?"
A gravelly, yet feminine interrupted the moment. It belonged of course, to Juno, who now stood in the middle of the room and cast an accusing eye at the poltergeist.
Betelgeuse sprang away from Lydia and flashed a huge, innocent smile at caseworker. This smile looked somewhat disturbing on him, and more forced than Lydia thought it should have been. Not that she was an expert or anything, but Betelgeuse didn't seem to be the type to shy away from causing mayhem and discomfort. She also figured there could be little more discomforting to Juno than she and the poltergeist caught in a semblance of an embrace (on second thought, she rationalized that there were plenty more things she and Betelgeuse could do that would make her more uncomfortable… that would of course, never-ever in a million years ever happen, ever). Lydia glanced between the two, wondering what exactly had transpired while she was asleep to prompt all this.
"Perfect timing as usual, Juno," Betelgeuse remarked, his smile looking increasingly fake.
"I pride myself on it," she retorted dryly before turning to Lydia. "Please," she said, "Get yourself something to drink and find a comfortable place to sit. You and I are going to have a long chat."
Lydia nodded, realizing that Betelgeuse's antics had distracted her from the drum line banging around in her head. She got herself a glass of tap water and three aspirins, then sat down at the foot of her bed. She observed Betelgeuse from the corner of her eyes and pulled a throw blanket around her shoulders. She could still feel everywhere his hands and his breath and his chest had touched her. But Betelgeuse gave nothing away as to what she should expect from Juno. He stood quite unassumingly rubbing the back of his head and staring curiously at the ceiling. Lydia knew it was all an act though, she'd stared at that ceiling enough times to know how painfully dull it was.
Juno approached her, arms crossed across her chest and a stern expression on her face. "Ms. Deetz," she said, "you have placed yourself in quite the predicament. You were supposed to die last night."
Lydia audibly gulped.
Juno sighed and gave her a sympathetic look. "Anyway, my dear, it was a lucky break for you, depending upon how you look at it, that you called that bonehead to your aid." She jerked her head towards the comically nonchalant Betelgeuse. "But it only seems fair to warn you that you've got quite a powerful enemy on your hands. Mr. Van Durman is not your average corrupt politician, I'm afraid. In actuality, you are dealing with a very malevolent ghost…" From here, Juno re-launched into the same story that she'd imparted to Betelgeuse of the night before.
By it's end, Lydia was, very reasonably, distressed. "So, basically your saying that last night, it was either die or be hunted by an living evil spirit until one or both of us is killed? That doesn't sound very fair!"
Juno rolled her eyes. "You've grown up, Ms. Deetz. Surely you've realized by now that things are hardly ever fair. You've just got to look at the positive side of the matter, being of course that you are both still alive, and now have the opportunity to assist in the apprehension of a very terrible creature. Isn't this what you wanted from the start?"
"All I wanted to do was get a corrupt politician out of office by catching him at in the act breaking the law and then write a startlingly intelligent exposé that would launch my career!" Lydia cried, a little hysterical at this point. "What you are suggesting... that's not what I signed up for!"
"Ms. Deetz, let me reiterate: you are alive and that is the important thing. That is what you should be focusing on!" Juno snapped. "And you never know; when this whole thing blows over, you might still be able to pull off that article. At least you still have the chance! Anyway, Betelgeuse here is your sworn protector until the end of it and you can bet he's not going to back out of it, not when his own neck is on the line."
Lydia immediately turned to Betelgeuse, who seemed to be doing everything in his power to pretend like he hadn't a clue what was going on, let alone that they'd been talking about him. He studied the cracked plaster in the corner opposite Lydia with ferocious focus. His neck was on the line? What did that even mean in the context of a dead man? Lydia looked back to Juno incredulously. "What are you talking about?"
"Quite simple really," the caseworker shrugged. "BJ has over stepped his boundaries a few times too many. That's why he has all that hoopla about his name, you know." She clicked her tongue at the thought of it and shook her head in exasperation. "Anyway," she continued, "the Bosses have decided that since he's so interested in making bargains all the time, that they should up the anti. Thus, a new parameter was placed on his laundry list of restrictions. If he fails to uphold his end of a bargain, he gets exorcised." She paused to let that sink in. "See? Simple; like I said."
"But…" Lydia stammered frantically. "But that's not fair! He was just supposed to take me home! T-that's nothing to get exorcized over! I-I'm fine! In fact, why don't we just-"
"Ah-ah-ah!" Juno halted her rant and held up a hand. "Did you forget that he promised to protect you from those goons, from the man who attempted your murder? As long as they pose a threat to you, Ms. Deetz, he's bound by contract and fear of utter annihilation to ensure that not a hair on your head is harmed. If you die by any direct cause from Vladimir's, he dies too -in a manner of speaking. Of course, that said, one loophole is death by another cause, either your own hand, failing health or accident. But before you consider these other options, do be advised that I will personally see to it that your afterlife is a veritable hell should you force your own hand in things."
The blood drained from Lydia's already rather pale face. She glanced back to her poltergeist protector and managed to catch him off guard for a second as he was looking at her too. But within the same second, he was back to staring at the crack in the wall.
"Luckily," Lydia replied thickly around the lump in her throat, dragging her gaze back to Juno, "I don't have any plans at the moment to take my own life. But... but is this all really necessary? I mean, there's got to be another loophole, right? I… I don't even know what my end of our bargain is yet! Wouldn't that mean that it's incomplete? Null and void? Maybe he isn't really bound to anything yet!"
"This matter is completely out of my hands. It doesn't matter that the terms weren't well defined on your end," she explained. "As long as BJ has his part, and as long as there was a consensual agreement, his fate is sealed. You both are in this together until we arrive at a solution, or... less favorably, until Vladimir Drake fulfills his intentions."
Lydia groaned. Suddenly Betelgeuse's depression didn't seem so aggravating. She turned to him yet again, but this time he gave her a rueful smirk. Somehow the attitude behind it made her feel a little better; he was still the 'ghost with the most'. If he could put a stop to his dismal behavior, then so could she. "So," she said. "Looks like we're stuck together then."
"Looks like," he replied with a shrug.
"If you don't mind me suggesting," Juno said forcibly drawing attention back to herself. "It would be in both of your best interest to go into hiding. Preferably somewhere he wouldn't think to look for you."
Lydia snorted. "Well that's easy, back home with my father and Delia."
Juno gave her a long look. "Do you really want to involve your father and step mother in on all this? Even the Maitlands might be in danger from this creature."
She crossed her arms and Lydia suddenly noticed a soldering cigarette in her right hand that hadn't been there before. Juno immediately took a long drag, as though everything was wearing her patience to its limit.
"Oh," she replied bashfully. "In that case, never mind."
"Well J-Bird, where do you think we should go, eh?" Betelgeuse arched a blond eyebrow at her and mimicked her crossed arms and accusatory posture. "You're the one with all the answers, after all."
"Excellent question, oh idiotic one," she quipped, and with a flourish of her hand she began, "The countryside's not be a bad idea, although obviously somewhere far from the Deetzes. And I would also recommend, Miss Deetz, that you have no contact with your family, or the Maitlands from this moment forth, understood?"
Lydia nodded somberly. "No problem on my end."
"Good, excellent," the old dead woman crooned impatiently. "And while I'm sensing a simply heart wrenching back-story to that snippy reply, I think it would be best if I left now to do a bit of research. I'll be on the lookout for a safe house for you, and I'll contact you immediately should something turn up. For time being, Betel, keep Lydia safe at all costs… though I'm sure I didn't need to remind you of that." She chuckled sardonically and muttered, "You two better be worth all this extra paperwork."
Juno took a deep drag from her cigaret, and then seemed to dissolve away in the exhaled smoke. The murky cloud lingered long after she left.
::AN:: As is the going trend, my edits = much better fic. We're pushing a roughly 400+ word increase here. Not monumental, but this is another info-dump chapter and I deleted a LOT of the original dribble. I am looking forward to tackling the next chapter though - if I recall correctly, the "info-dump" segment is replaced with a buttload of tension, of the sexual persuasion. (This is, again, related to the 9/16/2011 edit.)
More love, further affections,
-ER-