Disclaimer: I own nothing. I am but a penniless amateur aiming to please the hungry masses, and hopefully feed my own demons.

A/N: It's been seven years since last I posted anything here. Betelgeuse has been haunting me as of late. Hopefully, this will keep the daydreams at bay.

WARNING: This story will contain drug and alcohol abuse, sexual content, mentions of rape, mentions of severe child abuse, depictions of torture, excessive use of expletives, racial slurs, homophobia, and disrespectful attitudes towards Christianity. I sincerely apologize for anyone who may be offended, but you have been warned.

Prologue

"Shall we?"

It was all happening so fast. Too fast. Lydia floated across the floor to join her ghostly fiancé. She would have found his tricks fascinating if she weren't petrified.

"Called the caterer, he's got a great band-Whoops! We're gonna need witnesses. Would ya?"

With an almost endearingly polite nod and a wink towards Charles and Delia, her stepmother's sculptures came to life. For a moment, the two stood dumbfounded by the request, unaware of the creeping monstrosities behind them. A cry of horror escaped Delia's throat as a particularly horrendous piece ensnared her. With yet another wink from Betelgeuse, their recently remodeled fireplace twisted and stretched into an archway. Green light and fog poured from the newly formed entry way, and after a moment a decrepit little man in a suit limped out.

As Lydia was dragged towards the altar, her eyes searched the dining room for the Maitlands. No one had ever been as kind and accepting to her as they had been. She found them sprawled across the table, pulling themselves together- so to speak. 'He kept his word.' The knot in her stomach unfurled a tiny bit.

"C'mon! Let's go, let's get on with the ceremony!" The poltergeist's words were hurried, his eyes wide with determination and his brows fiercely angled.

"Do you Betel-" the priest was cut short.

"Ah ah ah, nobody says the B word." Betelgeuse wagged a scolding finger at him. The priest was unfazed.

"Do you take this woman to be your wedded wife?"

Betelgeuse continued the performance for his captive audience. This particular scene included a feigned exaggeration of cold feet. Lydia looked towards her father, who seemed to be in a catatonic state; watching, seeing, listening, and yet not quite aware of what exactly was going on. Delia was sobbing quietly to herself, fists clenched in the material of her $175 Gucci top. Barbara and Adam were nearly done gathering themselves by the time Betelgeuse finished his most recent spectacle, returned to her side, and claimed her as his.

"And you? Do you Lydia take this man to be your wedded husband?"

"I..." Her voice caught in her throat. Aside from the Maitlands' shuffling in the dining room and Delia's muted sobs, you could hear a pin drop. Lydia's heart pumped her blood so furiously, she was sure the man next to her could hear it. "I..."

He had kept his word. The Maitlands would continue to un-live a somewhat fulfilling afterlife haunting her parent's home. It wasn't the afterlife they would have chosen, but it was better than exorcism. She cast her eyes towards said ghosts. They were almost like new again. Time seemed to slow to a halt as Lydia pondered her choices. She could fight this. She could scream his cursed name until her throat ached. She could encourage her father and Delia to act. She could stall, and wait for the Maitlands to come to her rescue.

'But then who would I be? What good am I if I'm not worth my word?'

That last thought sealed her fate.

"I do." Lydia's answer was little more than a whisper. While Betelgeuse's grin seemed to grow impossibly wider and toothier, the Maitlands came back to life behind them.

"Lydia! No! What are you doing?!" Poor Barbara Maitland's face was flushed in exasperation, a desperate pleading look in her large brown puppy dog eyes.

"Please," Lydia spoke to her fiance, imploringly, and nodded her head to where Barbara and Adam stood.

Betelgeuse grunted impatiently and gestured hastily towards the Maitlands. "Alright, alright hurry up." His hand tightened briefly on her arm and his eyes narrowed, "No funny business, babe." She nodded in agreement and he released her, albeit hesitantly.

"Barbara... Adam..." She regarded them both resolutely. The four of them made for quite a sight; wholesome, sweet, lovely Adam and Barbara in their traditional wedding clothes, and then Betelgeuse and Lydia. It was like looking into some sort of twisted, possessed fun house mirror. "You've been so very kind to me. And I can't thank you enough, but... this is my decision. It's already been made. I've agreed to this and I have no intention of backing out. I won't have anyone, alive or dead, calling me a deal breaker." Lydia paused, painfully. Tears Barbara didn't know she was still capable of producing fell from her eyes. Adam brought his hand to his wife's shoulder, holding her strong. "I'd jump off the Winter River bridge if it meant you would be okay." Words failed the Maitlands. "So... just let me do this, okay?" Barbara could do nothing but bury her face in her hands. Adam took a solemn moment and then nodded, not quite meeting Lydia's eyes.

Lydia accepted their surrender and with dignified grace made her way back to her place at the poltergeist's side. She couldn't quite meet his eyes, either. It was too much. Her father's silence was deafening, but the raven haired girl was unsurprised. It wouldn't be the first time he'd kept his mouth shut when it really mattered.

"May we continue?" Inquired the decrepit priest.

"Yeah, let's get this show on the road." Betelgeuse's tone was significantly less hurried. He seemed completely at ease, in contrast to how he'd been only moments before. He was pleased with himself. Like the cat that got the cream.

"The ring, please?" The poltergeist cursed loudly and began searching his pockets, but came up empty. Lydia met his eyes now, brows furrowed. 'Are you serious? You can conjure a carnival in my living room and can't come up with a decent ring?' He ran his hands through his wild hair in exasperation before an idea struck him. He stared down at his hands for a moment and then pulled a ring off of his own finger. It had a thick silver band and a large black gem that reflected the green light pouring out from behind the altar gloriously. Betelgeuse took her left hand- gently, Lydia noted uncomfortably- and placed the too large ring on her tiny gloved ring finger. To Lydia's surprise, it tightened, painfully at first, and then adjusted to a comfortably snug fit. The silver band shrunk and slithered down to a thinner, more feminine style. The stone maintained it's original size despite the adjustments. She was ashamed of herself to think it beautiful.

"Now," continued the priest, satisfied with the production of a ring, "with the power invested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

'Oh.' Lydia thought numbly. She'd forgotten about that. Before she could react, Betelgeuse had his arms around her and dipped her low. His lips were on hers before she could catch a breath at the sudden movement. They were fierce and unforgiving. The sudden chill on her mouth caused her to gasp, granting his striped tongue access. To her surprise, he didn't taste foul. He tasted like the whiskey and cigars she snuck from her father's study on the occasion.

He pulled away, grinning madly. But something was wrong. There was blood on his face. As quickly as it was there, his grin was gone and he was holding onto her a little tighter.

"Why are you bleeding..? I thought that ghosts... Oh..."

And then her world went dark.

Everything was playing out beautifully. After this little soiree was over it'd be nothing but sandy beaches, strong drinks, and sweet gothic pussy for him. It only took about an hour of filling out paperwork before he'd decided that no, this death thing just wasn't going to work out. The food tasted like shit, the women were icy in every sense of the word, and the alcohol just didn't have the same bite to it that it used to. Nope, it just wouldn't do. That was a little over 600 years ago, and every escape plan he'd hatched since had gone awry. Until now. Until her.

He'd read something about marriages between the living and the dead a little over a century prior. At the time he'd immediately dismissed the idea, finding it repugnant. Just because Betelgeuse wanted to reap the benefits of life among the living didn't mean that he necessarily wanted to constantly be around them. Most of them were vapid, blissfully ignorant creatures that didn't deserve the air they breathed, as far as he was concerned. The religious zealots were the worst. Nothing pleased him more than scaring a good God fearing Christian out of house and home. That was always fun, even more so when they brought around some laughable priest to try and exorcise him.

So, in short, he had ruled out marriage as an option. And then, one day, a lonely little dark haired girl crawled into the attic he was haunting and stayed there. For three months, he'd watched her study that stupid handbook more than she did her homework- she even kept notes in a god damned little black binder, right next to her notes for math and science. Like it was for a grade. Betelgeuse was instantly charmed. He only had so much access to her home without being summoned. So he waited, he watched, and he learned.

Her name was Lydia, and she'd recently moved to Connecticut from New York at the behest of her parents. Her favorite food was Thai. She liked classical music and a little bit of everything else. She went to an all-girls Catholic school, though she didn't seem to practice any particular religion. She also didn't seem to have any friends. No guests, no phone calls, no letters. Lydia was a photographer. When she wasn't pouring over the handbook, she was snapping away, and always at the strangest things; shadows, furniture, cobwebs, etc. Sometimes, in the attic, she'd drop whatever she was doing and whip around to snap at something behind her, as though she were trying to catch her shadow moving without her. Sometimes he thought she could sense him.

Her parents were loaded. They were also negligent pieces of shit that routinely left her home alone with wads of cash for food while they went out with friends to "network." She'd order something for herself, pocket the remainder- in two weeks alone he'd estimated she'd saved up about $250- and eat all alone up in the attic while her big doe eyes hungrily scanned the handbook. Over and over again she read it, never satisfied.

Sometimes she'd have a glass of whiskey with her, or a cigar, which caught him by surprise- a rarity nowadays. Yeah, she was all dark and shit, but she seemed like a good girl at heart with her big eyes and soft demeanor. Maybe he wasn't as good of a judge of character as thought. One day he found himself watching her softly sing along to an unfamiliar song that he could vaguely hear through her headphones. It was dark out and she'd been left all alone again. She'd grown frustrated with the handbook. It was slammed shut and thrown it into her school bag. She then opened the window and lost herself to the chill of the night and the melody of the song. It was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. He'd decided then and there she was someone that he could spend an eternity bound to.

So here they were. And she was such a good girl, doing everything he wanted and making the Maitlands behave. It was so easy. Too easy. He was hardly surprised when her parents couldn't be bothered to attempt to save her. He was surprised, however, when he pulled back from the most fan-fucking-tastic makeout session he'd been party to since he'd copped a feel on Cleopatra, and found his new bride bleeding profusely from her nose.

"Why are you bleeding..? I thought that ghosts... Oh..." She spoke softly before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she started seizing violently in his undead arms.

"FUCK! Fuckfuckfuck no, c'mon Lyds..." He sank down to his knees on the altar and held her up, making sure to support her head. He was somewhat aware of the living and undead adults behind him becoming hysterical.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?! LET GO!" Adam was pulling Lydia out of Betelgeuse's arms and into his own. Betelgeuse couldn't bring himself to put up a fight. He was dumbfounded. This was definitely not a part of his plan. His enchantments fell away in his stupor. He hadn't expected this. He'd expected a tearful goodbye to her family before he whisked her off to somewhere nice and warm, like Hawaii.

Barbara Maitland had him by his collar and was lifting him off the ground with surprisingly little effort. "WHAT DID YOU DO? FIX HER! FIX HER NOW, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" His eyes were looking straight past her to Lydia, who Adam had laid gently on the couch. Blood still ran down the side of her face. Her seizing was less violent, but her skin was way too pale. Adam and Delia fussed over her, tears streaming helplessly down their faces.

"I-I don't know... I'm sorry..."

At the sound of Betelgeuse's response to Barbara's harassment, Charles Deetz came to his senses. He stood from where the tail of Delia's sculpture had gone slack around his ankles. Charles looked at his daughter. He took a good, long, hard look at her. He saw red wrapped around her small, convulsing body. He saw red running down her face. Then, all of the sudden, red was all he was seeing. He grabbed Betelgeuse away from Barbara with one fist and started wailing on him with the other. It didn't hurt, and Betelgeuse could have stopped Chuck with his little finger. But he didn't. He couldn't. How could he? He'd killed this man's daughter. He deserved whatever hell Juno rained down on him and more. Air was something he hadn't needed for a long time. Still, the guilt suffocated him.

"Everybody CALM DOWN." The scene paused for a moment as everyone turned towards the sound of the raspy female voice. It was Juno, standing in the center of the Deetz's living room. The irate woman took a moment to investigate the scene; the little living girl in an unorthodox wedding dress, the girl's father- sweating with bloodied knuckles from beating on her least favorite ghost, who was also dressed for a wedding, and the panicking forms of Adam and Barbara Maitland, two more people wearing gown and tux. Everything came together for her in an instant. She closed her eyes, exasperated, sucked on her cigarette hungrily and released an acrid cloud of smoke. She took another deep breath and then pointed at the poltergeist. Her tone was harsh and scolding, like a mother who'd caught her child doing something naughty. "YOU! You and I have a lot to talk about. You can sit in the waiting room until I'm ready to see you."

With a wave of her hand, Betelgeuse found himself sitting in the waiting room. Slowly, without emotion, he stood from the couch, grabbed a number, and sat back down. Head buried in his hands, the sight of a bleeding, seizing dark haired living girl collapsed in his arms was burned into his memory.

Juno placed an icy, wrinkled palm on Lydia's forehead. She was burning up, and still twitching erratically. "She's going to be okay, she's not dying. She's just changing. It's a rough process."

"Changing? What did that bastard do to her?" Barbara was hysterical, not quite prepared to believe that Lydia was going to be all better. It was a hard thing to believe. Lydia, with her bloody face, clammy white skin, swathed all in bright red lace made for quite a macabre picture. If she weren't still seizing here and there, she'd have resembled a fresh corpse.

Delia and Charles watched from the other side of the room. Delia nursed Charles's bleeding knuckles half-heartedly. Her husband took no notice.

"She'll be immortal now... Kind of. This isn't the first time I've seen this. She'll stop aging once she reaches whatever the age of adulthood is up here now. In my day it was thirteen. She will never contract a terminal illness. However, she'll still be within death's reach. She can still fall down the stairs and break her neck. Now she just has... an advantage, so to speak."

The Maitlands were at a loss for words, yet again. Charles stepped forward. "I don't know who you are, but you know what that sick piece of garbage was and what he did to my daughter." Charles dropped to his knees before her, pleading, a man broken. "Tell me why? Please." Juno flicked away her cigarette, watched it fade into nothing, and lit a new one. It was going to be a long night.