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take me where my soul can run

Summary:

He tries not to think about it.
He's a grown man now, someone who doesn't need to run from his feelings nor hide from the monsters under his bed.
He copes, he's coping now, even, and he's a born-dead, damnit, he's stronger than this.

Juno comes back, and it isn't pleasant for anyone involved. Lawrence needs to get away for awhile.

Notes:

local fan writes a beetlejuice fic because she's sick and tired of seeing certain tropes played for laughs when they're actually debilitating to the people who deal with them in real life.

title is from dead mom - beetlejuice.

enjoy!

Chapter 1: receptionists and running

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

He isn’t a stranger to pain. 

It was normal for those in his line of work to have some level of familiarity with pain, even after the whole deceased issue was put to the side, but there were reasons as to why Lawrence was one of the best in the business. 

There were theories, of course. Everything from armor in his suit to pills to numb it all had been thought of at one point or another, stories swapped between spirits who had nothing better to do than chat amongst themselves. One of the ideas that frequently popped up, whispered in Miss Argentina’s office whenever he passed by, was that born-deads couldn’t experience pain in the way that anyone else, dead or alive, could.

Lawrence knew that was a crock of shit. It was something less successful entities told themselves when they saw him come back from a job, bouncing on his toes after everything went right. They were jealous of him. 

And rightfully so , he thought. He prided himself on his work, elated with every success, at making his own name. Something that would always be associated with him, and never with anyone else. 

“Beetlejuice” in and of itself was imperfection written to a T, an intentional misspelling of a proper title, but it was his , and that was exactly the way he wanted to keep it. He wasn’t “Juno’s boy,” “the born dead,” or any other name. He was Beetlejuice, the bio-exorcist, the ghost with the most, the man -

who was currently trying, and failing, to breathe.

“Lawrence?” The green-skinned woman looked up at him from her seat behind the desk, fingers still on her keyboard. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Maria. I-,” his throat felt tight, why did it feel tight , why is this happening again, “What did you say?”

She frowned at him, seeing through his bullshit but not wanting to start the kind of conversation they’d have if she called him out on it. After his death, she’d spent weeks with him getting his paperwork in order, fixing the status of “recently deceased” back to “born-dead,” and ensuring the powers that came with it would return to him. She was the only reason he still had his abilities, the only reason he was still himself, and he could never thank her enough, even if she insisted upon the use of “proper names” when speaking to him.

During those weeks, she managed to pick up on cues he didn’t even realize he had, but she was nice to a fault about it. Maria viewed him as a friend, someone she saw on a semi-regular basis and talked to when he couldn’t make it to her; she didn’t want to point anything out that might make things uncomfortable when they’d only recently exchanged more than a few minutes in each other’s presence. 

As much as it was weird to admit, he enjoyed having her. She was a bit huffy at times, but Lawrence knows that he’s one to talk, and at this point, it was just nice to have a friend that hadn’t tried to wreck his life, or lack thereof. 

She looked him over as she said,“Miss Juno’s waiting for you. She came back into her office earlier today and asked me to contact you.” Her typing resumed as she continued, “lucky for me, you walked in on your own.”

“She’s in her office?”

“That’s what I said, yes.”

“Did she say why she wanted to see me?” He looked down at his hands. Grime was wedged in every nail bed, dusted onto his suit, and almost certainly in his hair. He ran his fingers through it, trying to get anything surface-level out, but he knew it wouldn’t do anything in the long run. There’d been too much of a mess for too long for any of it to be displaced, bar a shower and what would have to be the Netherworld’s most patient dry-cleaner.

“She said that you’d know why.”

Teeth tasted sour in the back of his mouth when he swallowed, bitter and gross. Pull it together, he thought, you’re not a kid anymore. You can talk to her like a man. “Alright,” he said. “It’s nice to see you, Maria.”

“Same to you, Lawrence.” As he turned to go down the hall to her office, Miss Argentina stood from her chair,  stopping him with one hand on his arm, other palm flat on her chest in faux offence. 

His footsteps faltered. “What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were getting your hair done?” she asked, pointing at him. “I would’ve come!”

“I-,” fuck, what color is it? He couldn’t pull his hair down to check, it hadn’t been long enough for that since the 60’s, but he chanced a glance upwards. “I didn’t go to anyone.”

“Oh,” her mouth quirked into a grin, “keeping secrets? Was it one of the breathers you mentioned a while back?” 

Something in the center of his chest turned cold, and frankly, he didn’t want to think about why. “No, Miss Argentina.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Back to titles, are we?” At his silence, she sighed. “You know, Mr . Beetlejuice ,” she said, stressing the honorific, “you’ve got to learn that if something’s bothering you, you’ve got to let me know.”

Un-fuckin’-likely , he thought. She doesn’t need to get wrapped up in this.

When he walked down the hall, he heard her sit back behind her desk, muttering something under her breath before she turned back to work, leaving him alone with the frosted-glass monstrosity in front of him, proudly proclaiming “Juno’s Office” in half-peeled off letters. He raised a hand to knock before the door swung open from the inside.

White hair crowned the head of a small, frail woman. She wore a neat suit, with pearls strung ‘round her neck and an entirely unimpressed look on her face. “You came.”

“I didn’t know you were here,” he said, voice quiet. She went back to her desk, and motioned for him to sit in the seat opposite hers. 

There were few things he hated more than this office. Robots. High-pitched noises. The number forty-three. All of those paled in comparison to her office with the ornate liquor cabinet and too-small chairs that he knew she used on purpose.

“Would you have came if you knew?” 

In his chair, he pulled at the cuff of his jacket.

She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head, letting out a huff. 

“What?” He dropped the cuff from his hand. “What is it?”

“You really can’t change, can you?” She paused, hand reaching to the glass on a black coaster. “You know, I really thought you’d came into your own when you brought out the sandworm. Never thought you’d actually have the balls to do something like that, but you did, and,” she waved her hand, “here we are.”

Eyebrows furrowed, he said, “I’m confused.”

“Of course you are.” 

His jaw clenched. “Why am I here?” 

“I don’t know who I thought would be in front of me right now, but it wasn’t you, Lawrence.” She swirled the glass in her hand. “I guess I thought you’d finally moved on from your bio-exorcisms and moved onto a real career. That you’d treat something serious for once in your life.”

He took a breath. Something like this, the jabs at his choice of work, he could deal with. “Bio-exorcism is an important part of the balance between the living and those who choose to reside with them in their world.” He’d had this conversation hundreds of times before.

“Lawrence.”

He looked at her. “Yeah?”

“I don’t care.”

He couldn’t help himself. A laugh came out, abrupt and jagged at its edges. “You never did.”

Her fingers, brittle and bony, gripped the edge of the desk as Juno held herself back. “I’ll have you know,” she said, bristling, “that I did the best I could for you.”

“The fuck?” He stood up, wincing when he heard the chair’s screech! against the floorboards. “You’re kidding, right?”

She looked up at him. “I did everything right when it came to you. I was a good mom. It isn’t my fault that you never realized it.”

“Oh, and what is ‘everything right?’” 

“Feeding you,” she said, voice sharp. “Clothing you. Raising you.”

His footsteps thudded against the years-old shag rug, quieted by the fabric as he strode over to a table, distancing himself from his mother. “What about-, ” he rounded on her, picking up the baby blue ashtray nearby, “what about everything else?”

“What else is there?”

The tray cracked beneath his grip. “Maybe some support every now and then?” He couldn’t look at her; he faced away, back to her as he stared at his feet. 

“Give me a damn break. You didn’t need any of that.” A sneer gathered her face together with eyes that mocked the man before her. “What would you even have me say?” She pitched her voice up in a crude impression of the moms that would occasionally pass by, holding onto a child after a party or trip gone wrong. “ Oh, Lawrence, I’m so proud of you! You’ll be such a good man one day, I love you so much !” A laugh croaked out of her as she dropped her act. “Is that what you wanted to hear so badly?”

The answer tore from his throat before he could stop it. “Yes.”

“Christ,” she said, “grow up. You don’t need your mommy holding your hand every day.”

Something snapped inside of him, and he turned to face her. “You never did to begin with! You-,” his voice cracked, he was frustrated and knew he was going to get shit for it later, but he kept going. “You never checked up on me, never wanted to see me, never-, God, you never even told me who Dad was or where I could find him. Did you ever even think that I might want to meet him?”

“He was smart.” Juno leaned back, voice steady. “He left while he could, and I wasn’t going to allow you to blunder into his life and wreck it.”

“What about me? What about how I wanted to meet my dad?”

“Not everything revolves around you.”

“I know! I just-,” he stammers, chest tight. “I just wanted a family.” His voice grew quiet by the end, words coming out at barely a whisper.

For once, Juno doesn’t have a reply at the ready. The silence stretches for a moment, her staring at him, him standing in front of her, before -

Fuck. Not this, anything but this; Christ, she’ll never let it go if I-  

“Are you crying?”

“No, I’m-, I-,” he scrubbed at his face with a striped sleeve, breath coming in short, painful jabs. “I’m fine, I-,”

“Look at that.” She raised a hand directed at his hair. “Purple hair. Not this again, Lawrence.” Her head tilted, a movement reading out nothing but disapproval through lowered eyebrows and rolling irises. “I told you to learn how to quit doing that.”

“I can’t-, I can’t exactly stop it!” He’d tried. He’d watched shitty rom-coms and listened to sad stories, waiting for his hair to turn so he knew when to hold back, so he’d learn the signs of when it got to that point, but he never could; when he realized he couldn’t, it would just get worse. Shaving it hadn’t even worked, for reasons he couldn’t comprehend. It didn’t matter now, though, not when she saw him upset like a goddamn child with a plume of violet atop his head.

She sighed, propping her chin upon her hand. “Why don’t you come back when you can handle yourself?”

“I can handle myself, I’ve handled myself perfectly well for years but you can never seem to notice until something bad happens!”

“You tried to kill me with a sandworm and now you’re crying in my office like a newly-dead. Color me surprised if I don’t think you can handle your emotions.”

A frustrated groan ripped from his throat. “You don’t understand it at all.” He breathed hard and fast but it wasn’t staying in, his head felt light and if he wasn’t already a mess he knew his vision would be swimming, but she just kept looking at him, not saying a damn thing. “How can you just stand there?” He coughed, the sides of his throat were stuck together and his voice was cracked to hell. “How can you-, how can you act like nothing is happening? I’m your son !”

The break at the end of his phrase electrified the woman. In a swift move, she stood up from her chair and strode over to him to grip his bicep in her hand, pulling him down to look at her. 

She huffed when he flinched. “Listen to me now, and listen clearly. People talk. My boss sees one of my workers pulling shit in the living world and comes down on me to see why. He doesn’t care about who you are or why you’re doing what you do, all he cares about is that you stop it. I wouldn’t have to treat you like this if you didn’t pull stunts like you did with the breather and the spirits in her house.”

“They cared about me,” he whispered. He couldn’t look at her when he said it. “They-, they treated me well.”

“They played with your emotions and killed you, Lawrence. They wouldn’t’ve done that if they cared about you. You could help them, so they used you, and got rid of you after your use ran out.” She looked at him, and, in a cruel twist of action, laid the hand not on his arm onto his jaw, a tender action that forced him to look at her. “If they cared, why didn’t they ask you to stay?”

“I told them I was leaving, I-,”

“No, Lawrence,” she shook her head, “if they wanted you to stay, they would’ve said so.” Her eyebrows raised as she dragged her hand back. “But, even after that, no matter how much you ruin what you do, you know you’ll have me.”

He felt like he was going to be sick.

“Now,” she said, moving back to her desk, “how about you calm down, and we can talk?” Her fingernails caught on a set of papers that she shuffled in her hands.

Knees weak, he took a step back. 

“Lawrence?” Her eyes flicked up, and she smiled. “Well, that’s certainly new. Maybe we can work with that.”

He looked at the door. 

It wasn’t far away.

She turned back to her papers. “Come sit down. I think I know of a house I could send you to, they’re supposed to pass over within the month. They’ll need a guide, and even if you didn’t use the best methods last time, someone still needs to be there for them.”

He reached a hand back, feeling for the doorknob. When he grabbed it, it was unlocked. The door opened.

The shuffling of papers stopped, and Juno looked up. “Lawrence?” Her gaze narrowed when she saw the open door. “Close that before I have to hear that awful receptionist’s chattering.”

“I-,” he stammered, “I’m sorry.” 

“About what?”

He almost threw himself through the doorway with how fast he tried to leave. It shut behind him, and he knew he only had a minute, max, if he wanted to get away. The hallway had never seemed as long as it did in that moment.

He broke out at the end of it, startling Maria, who dropped her pen when she saw him. “Lawrence,” she said, cautious, “what happened in there?”

“I need to leave,” he said, out of breath. He could hear her moving about, she was coming and he had to leave .

“Alright, alright,” Maria took her pen in hand, and wrote out an address. “I know you know it, but my address is on this in case you need it. There’s a spare key under the aloe plant. Text me if anything happens, but let yourself in and I’ll get there as soon as possible after my shift ends.”

They both heard the door open at the end of the hall. “Thank you, Maria,” he said, voice hushed.

“You can thank me tonight.” She gave a pointed glare at the door of the building, and gave him a slight push towards it. “Leave. I’ll hold her off.”

“I don’t know how to repay you.”

“Christ, Lawrence, just leave!”

“Okay,” he said. The door gave way under his hand, and he stepped into the outside Netherworld. Everything seemed to roar around him, cars rushing by and women talking as they passed him on the sidewalk, stepping around him as he stood. A taxi nearby caught his eye, and he rushed to it, waving a hand to stop it.

When it stopped, he got in, all but collapsing onto the leather seats. 

“Where am I taking you?” The driver was a young man that he hadn’t seen before with a hole in his right shoulder. If he noticed the state his customer was in, he didn’t say anything.

“Andean Heights.” After a second, he added, “I’ll pay you extra if you can get me there in under twenty minutes.”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

The cab sped off, and he finally felt as though he could breathe. The city rushed by him, a blur of lights and bricks as the sun set behind it all. In an odd way, it could be seen as beautiful, even to people who weren’t forced to live there. The sight of it all calmed him.

As they turned a corner, he felt a pull in his chest. He stiffened; he knew what that meant and he didn’t want anyone to see him like this. His face was dry, thank God, but he knew he still looked like a wreck with red-rimmed eyes and shaking hands.

It pulled again. He tried to smooth down his suit, straightening the cuffs from their crumpled state. He didn’t know who was calling him, but he wanted to look as professional as he could. They could be a client, after all, and he doesn’t need people to think that he’s lost his charm.

A final pull grabbed him, and he disappeared.

Notes:

have I seen the musical? nope!
have I seen the movie? nope!
have I seen the cartoon? nope!
am I still writing a fic about it all? you betcha!
tvtropes is the only reason I realized juno was an implied alcoholic. if tvtropes lied to me, I apologize. also, used movie!juno for this.

I've researched my fair bit about ACoA [adult children of alcoholics/abuse] over the years, but I went back into it all for this fic and Christ, the ghost with the most fits all of the traits to a goddamn T. "Impulsive," "constantly seeking approval/affirmation," and "terrified of abandonment" are the major ones, obv, but even minor traits like "doing anything to keep a relationship" ring true. kinda makes me wonder if the writers intended to write him with those traits or if it just happened.

just taking a brief aside to mention how much I absolutely detest the whole trope of male character + shit mom = comedy. a shining example of that is the show "archer" which, despite the humor, plays the mom of the main character as some snarky but lovable character even though it literally shows her being incredibly abusive to her son from birth to adulthood. like,,, that isn't funny? she isn't ~misunderstood~, she's a woman who should've never had a fucking kid and deserves punishment for the way she treated an innocent child. but noooooo, it's funny because he's a man and it plays into the whole "lolz my mom is such a bitch!" joke.

anywho

if BJ seems ooc, that's because he is. this sort of stuff really whacks you out when it happens; the angriest person can become meek and terrified while the nicest people can scream and curse. been there, done that, got the complimentary t-shirt. well, and he can't exactly sex-joke his way out of talking with his mom.

tried to expand on the netherworld in general. I love the idea of it being like a city, which I think is like,,, the opposite of how its portrayed? not sure. the spirits have to live somewhere, and there's gotta be a traffic system going on. I think it would probably look like DC or NYC; lots of spirits, lack of space. with that, not everyone kills themself or causes their own death, hence why there are taxi drivers and random spirits roaming about.

random mention - I would've adored seeing a version of "dead mom" for BJ, mainly because of the implications and how it takes the same idea of a mom who isn't there but turns it around. juno is there, but it would be better if she wasn't. she's a "dead mom" in the way that she's close to deadbeat when it comes to actually being a loving parent.

in all seriousness, though, I'm tempted to write a bit more for this idea. don't know if it's just me but the idea of lydia + the gang slowly realizing why, exactly, BJ acts the way he does is fascinating. that, and I want to write about him getting a family that actually cares for him, y'know?

next up - let's find out what lydia's been up to!

like something? hate something? want to see something happen in a future fic? want to see me eaten by a sandworm? let me know! comments are a lifeblood that keeps me going in the face of schoolwork and life in general.

my tumblrs are @strawberryicebreakers for main and @bisexualbeetlejuice for anything BJ-specific. hit me up!