29::AN:: Oh joy, more Betel-speak to fix. Party rockers in the house tonight.
WARNING: ALL-NEW MATERIAL AHEAD!
The old chapter five was deemed unsalvageable and was therefore subjected to a complete overhaul. Also note: all previous plot points (and then some) have been met.
Edited: 09/19/2011
Title: The Name Game
Chapter Five: Injunction
Lydia stared blankly at the cloud of smoke Juno had left in her wake. And then she promptly collapsed onto her side and curled up into a ball. What she really wanted at that moment, more than almost anything, was a hug. Of course, marginally outstripping this desire was her pride, because there was no way she was going to admit it to present company. Speaking of which, she was a bit curious to know how he was handling everything. She rolled over on to her left side and looked at him.
Betelgeuse, who was levitating a few feet off the ground, glowered down at her, a stern frown, which looked out of place on his maniac face, firmly etched on his lips.
It was rather startling. Lydia sat up, unfurling her legs, and leaned on her arm. "What?"
"You," he snapped. "You're acting like it's the end of the fucking world. Well, news flash girly! You're still alive, ain't you? Have a little damn perspective!"
"Yeah," she cried back, rising to her feet on the bed so she could stand a chance to look him in the eye. "And for how much longer, do you think? For all I know, I've got a merry troop of homicidal maniacs bounding up to my apartment as we speak!"
"If you're looking for sympathy from me," Betelgeuse sneered, "you're about six centuries too late!" He bounded a fist against his chest, "I'm already dead, in case it's escaped your notice, and I have a hard time feeling bad for someone who's probably got another sixty or seventy years to go!"
Lydia quieted some at that. "You... are you really so sure that we're going to get through this?"
Whatever righteous anger had been flowing through him before seemed to deflate. "I don't plan on being exorcised anytime soon, kid. That's all I've got to say."
Lydia plopped back down on the bed, this time sitting cross-legged. She sighed and peered up at Betelgeuse. "It's not so much... dying that I'm afraid of," she admitted. "It's knowing that he's going to-" she gulped. "He's a sadistic bastard, all right? He's the type who's going to make me beg to die before he'll let me."
"You don't have to tell me," Betel replied. "I was there the first time he showed up." He drifted down and took a seat next to Lydia.
"And I've dragged you into this. To think, if I'd have just let them go through with it-"
"Hey, now!" He cut her off. "That's no way to..." He paused, as if taken aback by his reaction. "...Look, if you'd have done that, the Netherworld would still have to deal with him."
"But you wouldn't."
"Who gives a flying fuck about me?" He exclaimed, grasping a handful of his shirt. "I've been around this joint for six centuries. Most losers barely stick around for half that." He sniffed and calmly smoothed out his shirt. "And besides, I'm still part of the Netherworld, and that guy's got it out for everybody. He'd be my problem no matter what."
Lydia refused to be comforted. She still felt wholly and undeniably responsible. She groaned into her hands. "Maybe I should just jump off the building or something. At least then I won't feel guilty anymore, and your exorcism won't be on my hands."
"You trying to make me angry?" Betelgeuse growled. "Because you're doing a bang-up job! What is it with you, always moaning about life? First time I even met you, you were obsessed with death! I'm surprised you've lasted this long if your life is so damn horrible!"
"I was sixteen!" Lydia sprang from the bed, away from the poltergeist. "Was I a little over dramatic? Sure! Am I glad that I didn't end up jumping off the Winter River bridge? Of course! I don't want to die, B, but the last thing I want is to be a thorn in everyone's side! I'm not worth all this trouble!"
"You, you, you!" He snapped. He rose from the bed and stalked towards her, backing her up against the wall. "You think that this is all about you, do you? Well, newsflash darling, it's not! It's so much bigger than that! It's bigger than you, and me, and the bumpkins in your attic, and your mommy and daddy issues combined! All you are is a chess piece! One more thing we can use to chip away at that bastard's defenses."
Lydia tried to pull away, but Betelgeuse grasped her wrist and held her firmly in place.
"And I'll be damned if I let him touch so much as a hair on your dark little head, got it?"
She sighed. "That's the problem. You will be."
He released her and stepped back. "There might be something we can do about it. We never did finish the terms of our deal."
"What?" She perked up. "But I thought that Juno said there was no way for you to get out of it!"
"There isn't," he shrugged. "No way out, per-se. But there is a way around it."
Lydia crossed her arms. "I'm listening."
He grinned. "Help me find my name, Babes."
Lydia cocked her head to the side, her face scrunched in confusion. "Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought we already covered this, B. A game of charades was involved, if memory serves."
"No, no, no! The B-word ain't my real name! How cruel do you think my parents were? They took it from me," he explained, "right after they sealed up that Drake guy. Thought if they didn't curb my powers with an injunction, that I'd be the next one to go ape-shit on the world. Gave me the B-name. 'Course, later they figured that wasn't enough, so they put even more restrictions on me - you know, how I can't say it, that stupid 'three times' rule, all that crap. But oh, if I had my real name again..."
"What then? You're like... Rumpelstiltskin?" she surmised, unable to hide her smirk.
"Right. Because that makes sense." Betelgeuse was unamused. "Trust me, Babes. I want nothing to do with your first born, morbid little fucker it'd be." He shuddered dramatically. "Names don't mean shit when you're alive, I know that -people seem to change them out weekly. But once your dead, a name's all you've got. When they take it from you, it's like... they take everything. But if I got it back, Lyds, oh if I could just get it back."
"So," she fidgeted, intimidated by the passion in Betelgeuse's voice, "what can I do, exactly?"
"Help me find it, Babes. Help me find it and the deal is done."
It was a fine idea, helping him find his name. Only Lydia wasn't sure that she wanted to be the one responsible for setting him loose... especially if he was fast on his way to becoming another Vladimir Drake (still, she couldn't help but give him the benefit of the doubt on that count- sure, Betelgeuse was a little manic maybe, and not exactly a nice guy, but he wasn't evil). That decision had been taken out of her hands the moment she'd summoned him though. There was no turning back now. ...And, hell, she didn't even have the first clue as to how to go about finding this name of his anyway. Chances were, they might never find it and there wouldn't be anything to worry about... Well, except for the all-powerful, homicidal spirit out for her blood.
But that moment, she had far more pressing matters to deal with.
"Oh my god, I'm starving!"
Having slept for nearly a day, and having been too nervous to eat much before her failure of a rendezvous with Van Durman, Lydia was absolutely famished. It hadn't really hit her until after things had calmed down somewhat and her frazzled nerves had subsided. In fact, the plan was to take another shower and change the dressings of her assorted injuries. But as soon as she'd gone into the bathroom, she stormed back out again and began to ransack the kitchen, in search of something edible. She came up with a box of stale clubhouse crackers and a carton of old Chinese food whose freshness was too questionable to tempt. She nearly cried in frustration, but tore into the crackers nonetheless.
Betelgeuse peeked into various compartments of her kitchen. One drawer was filled entirely with little condiment packets, most of them soy sauce. She had soy milk in the fridge, but it was a week past-due. And she had maybe three pots, none of which looked like they got much use due to the dust and spider webs. "You're a regular Betty Crocker, aren't you?"
"I'm busy," Lydia snapped, her mouth full of stale cracker. She chased it with a sip of tap water. "I don't have time to do much cooking around here."
"Tch, apparently." He grinned. "It's a good thing you know how to use the phone, otherwise I think you'd starve to death."
"I'm touched by how much you care," Lydia sneered. The effect, however, was inhibited somewhat by her chipmunk cheeks full, once again, of crackers. She swallowed the dry, tasteless mass thickly. "Gah," she whined. "I want real food!"
Betelgeuse cackled. "Well, here's your pan," he held up her phone in one hand, "and here are your ingredients," and he held up her phone book in the other.
Lydia rolled her eyes. "Thanks, B. But I can't exactly have a delivery boy coming around here. Don't you think that would be a dead give-away if anyone was watching the apartment?" She took the phone from him and paused. She held it up to her ear, then placed the phone back into receiver. "B..." she said, her voice deadly calm. "Is there a reason why my phone has no ringtone?"
"Oh, right," he said, scratching behind his ear. He was vaguely aware that he might have done something wrong. "It kept ringing while you were sleeping, and it got damn annoying... so I pulled the cord out of the wall." He held up the disconnected phone jack. "Hey, at least there was no chance of it waking you up!"
She growled and grabbed it out of his hand. "Did it ever occur to you that I might get an important call? Did it cross your mind -at all- that it would be a bad idea to just disconnect the line? Argh! I can't believe you!" With that, she plugged the cord back into the wall. The second she did so, the phone began to ring.
They both stared at it dumbly.
"You planning on answering that?" Betelgeuse asked after the third ring.
Lydia, whose eyes stayed trained on the phone, replied, "I'm going to let it go to the answering machine... just in case."
"And this coming from little miss 'my phone calls are important'," he grumbled.
"Hush," she snapped.
Finally, the answering machine beeped.
"Lydia," a girl's voice cried from the machine, "Oh god, Lydia! If you're there, please pick up! I've been trying to reach you all day!"
"All day?" Betelgeuse snarked. "Now there's a glutton for punishment."
"Shut. Up." Lydia ordered. She eyed him warily and pulled the phone out of the cradle, not breaking eye contact with the rogue ghost. "Beth?"
"Oh thank god!" Beth replied. "I thought you were dead! Do you know who sold you out?"
"He mentioned..." She cast her eyes to the ground. "He mentioned Andre."
"That- that royal asshole! And here he's been pretending to be so concerned, he's all, 'poor Lydia' this, and 'poor Lydia' that! Do you know how long he's been in Van Durman's pocket?"
"I don't have a clue and for all I know, he might have been lying," she said hopelessly. "But Beth, get out of there! I don't think any of you are safe. You need to get out of there, now." She took a deep steadying breath. "He's messed up, Beth. He was going to have me killed."
"Holy shit! How did you get away?"
She glanced over at Betelgeuse, and her eyes softened. "I got lucky. Someone out there must be watching over me."
Betelgeuse looked away sharply, and Lydia was almost positive that if he had working arteries, he would have been blushing.
"What, you telling me you've got a guardian angel?"
Lydia snorted, then smiled wryly at ghost in question. "Something like that."
"If this angel is an eligible male, you'd tell me, right?"
Lydia blanched (Betelgeuse chuckled). "Are you serious right now? I almost died and you're trying to set me up with a mythical creature?"
"Well, now that you and Andre are on the outs, you might as well keep your options open... You'd also let me know if he had an equally eligible brother, right?"
"Beth, I love you, really I do, but I've got to go. Just promise me you'll get out of there?"
"Gone, babe." Beth paused. "Just keep safe, alright? I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to talk to you again for a long time."
"I'll try my best," she said earnestly. "Hopefully my 'angel' isn't a one-trick pony."
Lydia, her hunger as sated as could be with nothing but stale crackers, made a successful second attempt at a shower. Meanwhile, Betelgeuse tried not to be offended (though god only knows why he bothered) about the 'one-trick pony' comment. She, he supposed, didn't have a good track record with his reliability (of course, he'd always tried to up-hold his end of that deal, but some people were just so touchy when it came to the bodily harm of loved ones). It was only natural she had some reservations; she'd be an idiot otherwise (and while idiots were usually his favorite customers, he couldn't exactly warm to the idea of her being one). But still. He'd thought they'd had an understanding. Both of their... existences as they knew them were on the line; their fates were hopelessly entangled. Anything happens to her, and he's toast. And vice-versa, really, because she'd lose her one and only shred of protection.
Sure, if he found his name, he'd be able to juice all his problems away (hers too, not that it was a priority).
But finding a name only sounds easy.
...The process could take years.
And while, on the one hand, that meant he was free to be out for the duration, that also meant there was more time in which the All Powerful Bastard (Drake) would be more all powerful than him. And that didn't sit too well.
He looked at the bathroom door. He'd heard her push in the lock in the handle before the shower turned on. She had to realize there was no stopping him, if he really wanted to go in. Under normal circumstances, he would have probably spent his little pensive session sitting on the bathroom counter, rather than idly floating in the air above her bed. Betelgeuse didn't like the connotations of his own behavior. Why should she get special treatment? Why should he be so compelled to stay where he was and let her shower in peace, alone?
Obviously, the problem was that living people (like Lydia) took too much time out of their day sleeping and bathing, thus leaving the poltergeist too much time to mull over his increasingly disconcerting thoughts. It was definitely all her fault.
After what seemed like ten eternities passed in the waiting room at Juno's office, Lydia finally emerged from the bathroom. She had her damp hair up in another banana clip, and wore black skinny jeans, and a thick, dark gray sweater. Then she had the audacity to smile at Betelgeuse before she went to her dresser and pulled on a pair of thick, dark gray socks.
Betelgeuse took in her wardrobe choice. "You planning on going somewhere, Babes?"
She rolled her eyes, "Not at the moment. There's no chance of me falling asleep now, so why dress for it?" She tugged at her sweater, then, almost as an afterthought she added, "Thanks for respecting my privacy in there, B." And Lydia had not a care in the world as to how cutting that flippant remark was.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he grumbled. "Don't get used to it."
And then Lydia laughed, actually laughed -like he wasn't being serious or something.
There was a pounding on the door. Betelgeuse and Lydia's eyes met, the latter's looked wide and frightened, like a doe frozen in oncoming headlights.
"Come on out, Deetz!" An angry muffled voice demanded. "We know you're in there, and there's nowhere for you to run."
::AN:: This chapter was a beast. Mother of god, I wanted to rip out this thing's jugular. With my teeth.
Oh, and look. I ended it on a cliff-hanger. For four years. Oops, my bad.
E'rry day I'm sh-shufflin'.
-ER-