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imagination-phantom · 9 hours

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melancholia

These past two weeks have been difficult. Beetlejuice is . . . well, Beetlejuice, but he can comfort.

SWF

There was a knock at your door.

You ignored it.

Whoever was out there ignored your ignoring, and in the next moment you felt Beetlejuice’s presence at the side of your bed. You didn’t turn over to face him.

“Babes, you’ve been in here for like, nine days.”

You knew that. You didn’t have the energy to respond.

You couldn’t hear him move anywhere in the room. Of course, you didn’t hear the door open or close either; one thing that you had to get used to was the fact he wasn’t bound by conventional things like walls or doors or personal space. He was at your back, and then suddenly, he was in front of you.

He crouched down and looked you in the face. You half met his gaze, and half let your eyes grow vacant. You saw him frown.

“Babes, I’ve missed you.”

You wanted to miss him too, but the weight holding you down crushed most emotion out too. You felt flattened and dull.

Beetlejuice’s hand brushed against your forehead and into your hair. He didn’t push too hard, fortunately; you knew he felt the solid mass of uncombed, unwashed hair under his fingers. You hated it, but you couldn’t even fathom doing anything like simply combing it. It was beyond you.

His hand pulled away. You thought he’d leave you now. It was what you expected. It was what you deserved.

But he only examined you again. Through your half-lidded eyes you saw that there was an odd mixture of colors deep in his hair: purples and blues, with a rare streak of red. The overall color of it was dark. It was a combination you’d never seen before. You wished you’d cataloged what each color meant, like you’d planned to do previously. It was too late for that now, and you thought it would be rude to ask him.

“You haven’t been up for a while, have you baby?” Beetlejuice asked very quietly.

You managed to shake your head. Your neck was sore, and you hated that just responding with an answer he obviously already knew made tears well up in your eyes.

You watched him worry his lower lip with sharp teeth. He paused like he was going to say something else, but didn’t.

In the next second, with no warning, he was gone.

If asked, you would have said you didn’t want company. You hadn’t changed your clothes in days. Your joints ached. You were passed being hungry. You knew you were poor company. But now that he was gone, it felt even worse to be alone. The tears that flooded your eyes fell, and you wept silently into your pillow.

You don’t know how long you cried. Time stretched like taffy. You lay with your eyes open, staring at nothing, with your cheek on a damp spot on your pillow.

You didn’t flinch when a hand took your shoulder.

Gently, you were pulled to your back.

“Come on, baby,” Beetlejuice said.

You wanted to ask what he meant. You were in no shape to go anywhere. But instead of waiting for an answer, he simply slipped an arm under your shoulders and the other under your knees, and picked you up.

You hadn’t really moved much lately, and it hurt. You’d have fought against him, but you were too drained.

It was easy to forget that Beetlejuice was stronger than he looked. He carried you easily out of the bedroom, bridal style, and even made sure not to hit your head on the doorframe. That had happened previously, in sillier times, when you and he were fooling around. It almost made you smile to remember times like that.

He didn’t care that your clothes were filthy and you were just overall grungy. You’d never cared that he was more on the grimy side than not; in fact, at least now the two of you kind of matched.

So you never expected him to take you directly to the bathroom.

Inside the small tiled room, the shower was already running. There was steam on the mirror, which made you glad because then you couldn’t see yourself. Carefully, Beetlejuice set you down. Your knees gave out, however, and he held on to you to keep you upright.

“Let’s take a shower, baby.”

In the state you were in, you didn’t know you were capable of surprise. Beetlejuice had never, ever suggested bathing. You’d sort of wondered if he had a phobia of water, or if he melted like the Wicked Witch of the West, or if being dirty was some kind of demon status symbol, or something.

“What?” you managed to croak.

He gestured towards the shower.

“You. Me. Shower.”

You had to be hallucinating. But during your lack of response, Beetlejuice dropped his jacket and loosened his tie. He shrugged out of his suspenders, letting them hang down from his waist, and went to work on the chipped buttons of his shirt. Your fingers ached, so there was no way you could even begin to undress, even though you were a bit intrigued.

When Beetlejuice realized you were still just standing, he stopped.

“Well this is stupid,” he announced.

You couldn’t agree more. Now you could get back into bed.

With barely a nod, both you and he were nude in a blink. That did finally make you flinch a little, and Beetlejuice gathered you against him. Then, before you could move or say anything or think, you were both under the showerhead.

The water was the perfect temperature, not too hot and not too cold. Somehow Beetlejuice made it just right, despite his self-admitted lack of human body temperature. He sputtered a bit under the spray, gasping for air as if he hadn’t realized he could breathe while getting splashed in the face. He looked more surprised than you felt, even though it had been his idea.

He didn’t fuss much more than that, however. Instead, he focused on you.

He made sure you were appropriately wet. He found shampoo and put too much of it in your hair, then massaged it and your scalp with his slightly ragged fingernails. They pulled a bit, but felt okay in a good way. He repeated the process until the water ran clear. Then he applied conditioner to your hair, and let it sit while he lathered up a washcloth.

Beetlejuice paid the same attention to the rest of you as he did your dirty hair. He washed every inch of your skin from head to feet, lifting your arms to get underneath them and helping steady you when he bumped your knee so you’d stand on one foot to get between your toes.

He never made it uncomfortable or suggested anything saucy; he just cleaned you.

By the time he was done, the conditioner was gone from your hair, leaving it feeling slick and soft.

The amount of soap he used cleaned his hands and forearms, by default. When you pointed it out to him, he seemed surprised again, then gave you a crooked grin and asked if he should continue, or if you wanted to help?

So you took the washcloth, wrung out a majority of the remaining suds, and copied what he’d done to you. By the time you were done, his pale skin was almost luminescent. Some spots where you had to scrub a little harder to get some particularly deep crud off of him were reddish. His cheeks were red too, but that was more a blush than anything else.

You washed his hair too. Instead of being a solid color as most hair was when wet, it still retained locks of color. The blues were gone; in there place were streaks of various pinks and the undertone of green that was close to normal. Under your fingers you still found the occasional red. You would have to ask him about that later.

Once all the suds on both of you were washed away, Beetlejuice pressed his forehead to yours. He reached around you to turn the water off, and the bathroom suddenly sounded very quiet without the shower running.

With his hair plastered flat on his head, Beetlejuice looked a little deflated, a little like the stereotypical drowned rat. You giggled but checked yourself before announcing that out loud; he would take it literally and you had no desire to actually receive a waterlogged rodent as a well-meaning but kind of gross gift.

He beamed at your little laugh. Just as you’d been spirited into the shower, you were spirited out of it too, and found yourself swaddled in a thick towel and robe. They didn’t look familiar. You didn’t care. Quickly but gently your hair was combed. The conditioner helped loosen the knots, and Beetlejuice was overly careful about not pulling it.

Out of nowhere you found a toothbrush with a dab of paste on it in your hand. Automatically you went through the motions of brushing your teeth.

While you brushed your teeth, Beetlejuice shook himself like a dog, re-spraying you with droplets of water and making you laugh in protest before drying himself off too. His hair stuck out a little more wildly than normal, drooping at the ends from the water still in it. Quickly he wiped himself dry, wrapped another towel around his waist, and lead you back to your bedroom.

It’d been straightened. Not perfectly; mostly things on the floor had been pushed closer to the walls so there was space to walk. Enough tidiness to be noticeable. The soiled sheets on your bed had been removed and replaced with fresher ones. The bed wasn’t made, though, all the new sheets and blankets were still in a messy pile at the foot of the bed.

“Clones. They do their best, but without direct supervision …” Beetlejuice explained a little sheepishly, his voice trailing off before completing the sentence.

You managed a smile.

You were still tired. The warm water had eased some of the aches in your body, but they weren’t gone completely. As he gently disrobed you and helped you back into the bed, drawing the top sheet and blanket to cover you up, Beetlejuice said,

“Get some real rest, baby. When you wake up we’ll get some food in you, okay?”

For a second you had a flash of panic.

“Don’t leave me!” you begged.

Immediately, towel still around him and dripping hair and all, Beetlejuice clambered onto the mattress and under the blankets beside you. He pulled you against him, nothing inappropriate, nothing sexual, just his damp chest against your skin, holding you tightly. He didn’t whisper nonsense words to you. He didn’t say anything. His actions this entire time spoke volumes, however.

You were able to follow his instructions, though, and the last thing you saw before you fell into a real sleep was his hair was once again a soft green. He was content, and you settled closer to him with a little more peace of mind as well.

fin

#beetlejuice #self love #tears #beetlejuice x reader #beetlejucie #Beej will always be a giant comfort for me #thank you #being this low sucks #beetlejuice broadway

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