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Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
-
Betelgeuse loses the love of his life to a hasty revenge plot and a haphazard green card marriage.
She’s fifteen at the time, so perhaps that’s all for the best.
He doesn’t know it right away, of course. The girl is all awkward angles and dark, innocent grins and Betelgeuse has been friendless so long that he falls half in love. He doesn’t want to proposition her. He doesn’t want to seal that snarky mouth closed with his own. No, Betelgeuse wants a hand to hold and a partner in crime.
When she betrays him, he can’t explain why his mind leaps to marriage. He doesn’t want to pull her under him, but he wants to pull her close; he likes the peripheral awareness of her tiny gothness next to his larger-than-life ghoulness. He doesn’t feel hot when he looks at her; instead, there’s a far more terrifying warmth that seeps through his cold, dead bones.
He wishes he could be the monster that wanted his young little bride in his bed. That would make sense, at least, align with the darkness with which he cloaks himself. Instead, he plays the role of the lonely little boy who would prefer a friend over all the power in the world. God, he disgusts himself.
She’ll call, he assures himself. She had fun. She likes him, likes to scare pizza delivery guys and photograph his ominous shadows and laugh until they both cry. So she’ll call.
He says his goodbyes and disappears with a smirk and a jaunty wave.
She doesn’t call.
-
Betelgeuse finds the love of his life for the second time in a Chinese prison.
Well, wait, he’s getting ahead of himself.
Time passes, distant and unreal in the Netherworld. He’s what he’s always been; a prankster, a conman, a cheat. He thinks about the girl who beat him, the ghost with the most, far more than he’d care to admit: her resolve and her darkness and her cleverness. He gets her off his mind with wanton destruction, but it only half works.
Betelgeuse would happily lie if he were asked, but really, he’s simply waiting for the day where he can finally check up on Lydia Deetz.
Finally, he hears his name, and god, it’s her. That soft, teasing, smoky voice. There’s an edge of panic, of fear - anyone else wouldn’t have noticed, but he thrives on fear almost as much as he thrives on thoughts of her. He’s gone before she finishes the last syllable, too eager to be patient. She scrambles to her feet as he fades into existence, shuddering involuntarily when his eyes land on her. His mind goes blank as he devours her with his gaze, speaking almost automatically:
“Heya, kid - whoa. Not a kid.”
And she’s not. Lydia Deetz is still tiny, still garbed entirely in black, but her cheeks are sharper and her shoulders straighter with that natural self-possession that accompanies a young woman in her twenties. For a long moment, all he can do is take her in as she does the same to him. For a long moment, she’s perfect. Then he notices her tangled hair, her dirty hands, and worst of all, a long, thin cut on her cheek that oozes blood.
“Betelgeuse,” she greets, cautious and outwardly calm despite whatever the hell her current circumstances are.
“Oh baby, say it one more time,” he growls slowly, achingly, to cover up the way he spins to take in their surroundings. The walls are packed dirt, a single door of bars in the corner, with no furniture or even a bucket in sight. This is a prison. Lydia Deetz is in prison.
Someone has locked his wife in a prison.
He fights to keep his hair green, but he can feel strands of crimson curl at the nape of his neck. She has obviously called him here to make a deal, to ask him for something. It wouldn’t do to show his hand too early; there’s no need to let her know that he’ll be getting her out of here regardless of what she’s willing to promise him. Still, he’s not so good that he’d offer his ace up before seeing the cards with which she’s willing to part.
“Not yet,” she says. She still sounds calm, but her eyes flicker towards the door more than once.
“Yet? Oh, sweetness, are you gonna let me out, then?” He hovers a bit closer, reluctantly impressed when she doesn’t even consider a step backwards. Still the same fearless girl from all those years ago.
“Listen, we don’t have that much time-”
His eyes narrow. “And look who’s stalling. C’mon, babes. Lay it on me.” He wiggles his eyebrows, hoping she recognizes the double entendre.
From the faint look of disgust and amusement that crosses her face, she does. She takes a cautious step forward. “I want to make a deal with you.” He nods; that’s what he assumed. He gestures for her to go on. “I’ll say your name three times, and you get me out of here.”
“That’s it?”
She shakes her head. “Maybe we can talk about the rest later?” There are boots clunking down the hallway, and her eyes widen. “They want me dead,” she adds.
“No, I wanna hear the rest.” What other bargaining chip does she have besides his name? Several thoughts flit through his mind, each more delicious than the last.
“But-”
“Babes, no idiot breather is gonna lay their hands on you until we’re finished here.” Ever, he amends in his head, but she doesn’t need to know that. “Call it pre-negotiation goodwill, hm?” He snaps his fingers, and everything outside of the room dulls to a dead silence.
Lydia exhales. “Okay - okay. I, um, I have to explain something first.” He juices up two chairs for them, gesturing for her to sit. She does, and he juices a warm cup of tea into her hands with another crook of his finger.
Evidently, her explanation is more of a full account of everything she’s done since they separated. She talks about college, displaying her art in New York, and accidentally landing a photojournalism gig when her work caught the eye of an archaeologist. Now, she travels photographing cultural heritage sites and early hominin bones and everything in between.
But the people for whom she freelances are ambitious, and so is Lydia herself, so she goes into war zones, into areas scheduled for demolition, and most recently, into Hong Kong to preserve a site targeted by the Chinese government. Lydia had given herself up to protect the scientists working on the site, and locked away by a group that did not look the least bit willing to negotiate for her release.
“This work… I care about it. I love it - even more than scaring pizza delivery guys” - they both crack a smile at that - “and I don’t just want to get out of here. I want to keep doing it.” She sighs. “But I don’t want to die.”
“That’s unlike you,” he interjects, and she gives him a look.
“Not until I’ve done what I want to do,” she amends, her eyes landing on his neck before darting away. Then she straightens her shoulders. “So this is what I propose.”
He cackles. “Poor choice of words.”
“Stay with me for five years. You’ll see the world, experience things - you can scare to your heart’s content, as long as you don’t kill anybody. I just want your protection for myself and whoever I’m working with. After that time, I’ll marry you, you come alive, and you can retire to Hawaii or wherever the hell you want.”
His laughter fades as she speaks until he’s just staring at her, jaw dropped and eyes wide. “So, not a poor choice of words, then.”
Several thoughts flit through his mind in rapid succession. One: Lydia is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to him. He’s been floundering since he left her, and just being back in her presence is like a hit of a drug he’s been needing for years. Two: she needs him, wants him around, even if it’s just for protection.
Three: she’s unaware of the fact that they are very much still married.
Maybe she never opened the Handbook after what happened. If she had, she’d realize that death never did them part. He was dead when she married him, and they are emphatically not parted at the moment. The paperwork is filed between a living girl and a dead demon, and despite his brief moment of life, their marriage remains one between a living girl and a dead demon. This is her card - unplayable and unuseful to him. He can never marry to come alive again. There is nothing she truly has to bargain with.
But life isn’t necessarily what he’s after anymore. He’s after something far more precious.
“Okay, little fiance,” he agrees, careful to keep his thoughts hidden. He flicks a finger in her direction, and an emerald ring appears on her finger. “You’ve got yourself a deal and a personal demon bodyguard.” He grows serious as she examines her new piece of jewelry. “That doesn’t come off, you get me?”
“Why not?” She challenges.
He shrugs. “Homing beacon. You’re a slippery, danger prone babe, Lyds. I’m not letting my only hope for freedom run off where I can’t find her, hm?”
“So are we getting out of here, or not?”
He holds out a hand to her, wiggling his fingers. When she slips her hand into his, he tugs her against him, wrapping a firm hand around her waist. The top of her head just barely reaches his chin, and he resists the urge to tuck her completely against him so he can truly feel the heat of her. He likes how small she is compared to him. That smallness hides a galaxy of complexity, one that he wants to pull and unravel until she’s bare before him.
Bare in more than one way, if he’s honest with himself. God, the little goth girl really grew up on him, didn’t she?
“Don’t get any ideas,” she murmurs as her little hand comes up to grasp the lapel of his suit.
“Oh c’mon, honey, we just got engaged! And I’m not gonna lie, you’re hot.” She shudders against him, and he grins. “Now, say my name, babes.”
“Don’t call me babes.”
“Baby,” he growls, and she shudders again. This one seems different, though, and he smirks.
“Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!”
And they’re gone.
-
They quickly fall into that same easy relationship they had back in those glorious three days sans parents and restrictions.
Betelgeuse hangs out in her tent, at her sites, invisible to everyone but her as he chats ad nauseum about whatever comes to mind. He likes talking to her, and she honestly doesn’t seem to mind, even responding out of the corner of her mouth sometimes when no one is looking.
One day he claims to be bored out of his mind, and she leaves early and leads him into town, down back allies and over fences until they come across a group of teenagers drinking around a fire. With a nod and a gleam in her eye, he turns visible and the screams start. Lydia, far from a bystander, takes whatever he conjures for her and throws it in the kids’ faces, tosses quips back and forth with him until they have seven runners and two passed out in the dirt.
He’s careful not to harm any of them, even dragging one out of the way of the fire under his wife’s approving eye. No need to have her shorten the generous leash she’s given him.
They rinse and repeat this ritual, even turning a little dark when they occasionally find the abnormal brand of breather - the one torturing a defenseless kitten, the one stalking a young woman in the early hours of the morning. Lydia doesn’t mind if he gets a little rough with those, and the dark, heady curl of her lip when he ends the evening by her side makes his blood boil and his fingers twitch. It takes everything in him to suppress that urge to devour her, to find a way to keep her in his coils forever, to wait until they’re back to wherever they’re staying so he can sneak off for some relief.
To Lydia, he is at worst a pet; at best, a friend. His advances are dismissed with an eye roll, his eyebrow wiggles with a snort, and it’s okay, really. He gets the message. Green card marriage. It’s not like he deserves better.
He continues to flirt outrageously, of course. It’s in his DNA: the lewd jokes, feeling her up innocently whenever he transports them somewhere. It helps that Lydia doesn’t have time to see other men; she’s too wrapped up in work for a one night stand, which is excellent because Betelgeuse has some control but not enough to let the woman with his ring on her finger fuck someone else. Not for his five years, at least. If this is the time he gets with her, he’ll be greedy enough to snatch up every spare moment.
They go on like this for a year and a half: light teasing, running from authorities, scaring anyone in their path. Lydia is the perfect companion - dark and macabre and witty. There is never a break in her attitude… until there is.
He finds her crying in the hotel room when he gets back from a few scares. Stopping in the doorway at the strange and unexpected sight. For a brief moment, he considers leaving her alone, but the thought fades instantly when she is wracked with another sob.
Before he can stop himself, he is at her side. “Whoa, babes, what is it?” He asks, kneeling beside the bed to gaze up into her face. It’s blocked by her hands, but he can tell she’s been this way for a while.
She stiffens at his intrusion. “Nothing,” she tries, and his long dead heart aches at the crack in her usually smooth voice.
“That’s a load of shit, doll,” he accuses. “C’mon, tell the ghost with the most what’s bothering you.” His eyes narrow in suspicion. “Or who .” Who knows, he thinks. There could be a fun murder to attend to tonight; if someone has truly hurt Lydia, not even she will be able to hold him back.
Lydia sniffs, scooting away from him on the bed. “You don’t have to care about me. It’s not in the contract.”
His heart drops. “I thought we were pals,” he says faintly. Oh god, it’s that fateful moment all over again. He sinks lower, back on his heels, knowing he’s moments away from turning all shades of purple.
But this time, she looks up, eyes rimmed in red. “Yeah?”
He swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, Lyds.” She has to know by now that he’s at least her friend, doesn’t she?
She sighs, moving so that her back is against the headboard, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Okay. Come sit?” He does, crawling off of the floor and scooting carefully back against the headboard so that their arms are pressed against each other. He can’t help but sigh at the contact, and he hopes she doesn’t notice.
“You ever wonder why I don’t go home?” She asks out of the blue.
He raises an eyebrow in her direction, though she doesn’t look up at him, instead staring at her knees. “Nah. Why would you go home when there’s so much to see?”
She nudges him. “C’mon, Beej. I’m sure you want a home too, sometimes.”
All the time, he doesn’t say. You’re my home, he doesn’t say.
“Okay, babes, I guess I see where you’re coming from.” He pauses. “Okay, so you miss Chuck, Babs, Four-Eyes, and… Darla?”
“Delia.”
“We didn’t hang out much,” he offers, and he’s rewarded with a watery smile. “So? Go back and see ‘em! Unless… it’s about me? I can get lost for a few days, you know that.”
Her smile fades. “They don’t want to see me,” she murmurs.
Betelgeuse just gapes at her. “I was wrong. That’s the load of shit. Your dad literally jumped after you into hell. The Maitlands - fuck ‘em, by the way - forgave you for nearly exorcising them. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do for ya, kid.” An insecure Lydia? More than unusual, this is downright rare. He’s not sure he’s seen her this way since he tricked her into exorcising Barbara.
She sniffles. “Not a kid.”
“Oh, my bad, baby,” he retorts, grinning at her little show of rebellion.
“Don’t say it like that,” she volleys back.
He throws a loose arm over her shoulders, tugging her into him. This is an opportunity he can’t resist. “Why, does it get you all hot and bothered, baby?”
She turns away from him, but he can see the faint pink of her cheeks. If he had a heart, it would be thumping hard in his chest. “Lyds-” he starts, gravelly and low.
“They didn’t want me doing this!” She blurts out, cutting him and all potential inquires that blush might have brought off. “I never told you - I didn’t want you to - I mean, I don’t know what I was thinking - but there was a close call.”
“Closer than the Chinese prison?” He asks dubiously.
She nods. “Yeah. I don’t want to go into detail, but my dad… he paid a ransom to get me released. They caught the guys, got back the money, but when I wanted to get back out there… well, no one was too happy.”
Betelgeuse knows the feeling, because he is very much suddenly not too happy.
“Why the hell didn’t you call me?” He says roughly, tightening the arm around her shoulders and turning her back to him. “You know I would’ve come. What the fuck were you thinking - was it your pride? Too embarrassed to call on the ghost you stabbed in the back?” He’s snarling now, furious with her for taking her precious life so lightly.
Lydia looks at him, eyes wide. “I wanted to!”
“Then why didn’t you?” He roars.
“I was gagged the whole time, Betelgeuse!” His name on her lips causes a jolt through his system. “They watched me when I was drinking… eating. I wasn’t allowed to say a word. When I tried…” She trails off, obviously hesitant to say more, but he wants to know the whole story. Wants to know every injustice, minor or major, that has been laid upon his wife.
“When you tried…?” He prompts through gritted teeth.
She swallows. Pulls away from his hands and lifts the back of her shirt. There are faint lashes there, criss-crossed and old against her mid-back. Betelgeuse has been alive for a long time. He knows what those are.
His hair turns bright red, eyes dark with fury. He lurches forward before she can drop her shirt, icy palms spread across the old scars. His hands are trembling as they trace the slightly raised lines on her skin, and he has to fight to urge to pull her into him and never let her go ever again. If this is what the world does to Lydia Deetz, it doesn’t deserve her. “Names, babes. Now.”
“No,” she says, dropping her shirt and turning to face him again.
“No?” he asks warningly. He knows he must look terrifying, but she doesn’t even try to make more space between them. It’s like he knows that he’s hanging by a thread with how far away she is from him already.
“You’ll kill them.”
He chuckles, deep and low and dark. “Yeah, Lydia. I will.” He’s picturing it now, snapping the neck of the individual who dared to mar Lydia’s perfect, porcelain skin. It’s easy to cast himself in darkness. He’d come to her covered in the blood of her enemies, kneel at her feet to beg for scraps of her attention the way he always does. And in her darkness, maybe she’d even forgive him for all of the justified death he wants to cause.
She looks away, down at the comforter they’re both sitting on as she picks at a loose thread. The tension in the air changes as she refuses to meet his eye. “Then you’ll pity me,” she whispers, almost too quiet for him to hear.
Now that’s unexpected. His head tilts, eyes narrowing. The names can wait. “Now, what makes you say that, babes?”
She smiles, but it’s not happy or dark or teasing. No, it’s just sad. “They did. My dad - the Maitlands. Some weak girl that needed protection, nevermind that I’ve literally been to hell and back.”
He only hesitates for a moment before reaching to cover her hand with his, waiting for her to look back up at him. When she does, he gives her his most solemn expression. “Just because I wanna protect you doesn’t mean you still aren’t the most badass chick I’ve ever seen. You kept yourself alive, Lyds. I’ll deny ever saying this, but… you’re brave.”
Lydia exhales… then moves forward, tucking herself into his arms. His hands come around her, reverent and awed, daring to put one of them on her thigh and tug her half on top of him. She doesn’t complain, and he can feel the red bleed out of his hair. He’s not sure he wants to know what color he is now. Probably something gross, like the bright, soft pink that’s been popping up more and more recently.
“I got you,” he soothes. “I got you, baby.”
“I like it when you say it like that,” she murmurs against his chest. He doesn’t know what that means, but he makes a mental note and tightens his arms around her.
“I’m sorry I killed you,” she whispers, unexpected and perfect, like the rest of her.
He brushes it off. That was a long time ago, and he knows he shouldn’t have brought it up. “Pretty sure it was self-defense, babe. I was three steps away from murdering your stepmom.”
“I’m still sorry, though, Beej. But you’ll be alive at the end of this, and everything will be just the way you want it.”
He waits until she is asleep. Curling his body around hers, he shifts his fingers through her dark hair achingly slowly. He knows what he wants. He knows it’s not what she thinks.
“Well that depends on you, doesn’t it, Lydia?” He whispers softly, the rasp in his voice fading slightly. He hates sounding human, but he feels human around her. He craves that warmth; he’s addicted to it, to her. And though he has tricked her into these five years, he knows deep down she holds all the cards. He’ll be protecting this girl for the rest of her natural life, and beyond.
That’s what he needs, though. What he wants… to stay by her side always, to be inside her soul the way she’s inside his… that’s impossible. Anyone else, and he would simply take what he wants. But with Lydia, he only wants it if she gives it freely.
And she won’t.
His ring finger catches on a tangle in her hair, and the slight tug causes her head to arch toward him, exposing her creamy, white neck to his gaze. His mouth waters, and he allows himself to run the tip of his nose along the curve she’s so graciously laid out for him. He wants his tongue to follow the same course, but he forces himself to flop back with a sigh. God, he’s fucked, isn’t he?
But still he can’t stamp out that thin, wispy hope that, somehow, she’ll return his feelings. And then he’ll never have to be alone again.
-
It all comes to a head one night in the forests of Peru on the hunt for an old burial site. He’s returned from haunting a nearby village to find her gone from their encampment. It’s not completely unusual, so he reaches for the thread of juice that acts like a string, tying him to the ring he gifted her back when they made their deal.
Only to follow that thread to the jewelry box in her backpack. Sure enough, the ring he told her never to remove is lying innocently in the velvet lining. He picks it up between his thumb and forefinger, which are both shaking. Rage and fear fight for dominance in his mind, his hair flicking from deep red to pitch black and back.
Time passes; he’s not sure if it’s minutes or hours as he calls desperately for her around the forest and nearby town, unwilling to leave the encampment for too long. He’s checking back when movement catches his eye. He sees Lydia re-enter the encampment, camera in hand and checking shadowy corners like she’s trying to avoid him on purpose.
Rage wins.
He doesn’t waste any time, flickering into being right in front of her. She nearly drops her camera, taking a step back. “Hey Beej,” she says, reading his mood in an instant. “I just… needed a walk.”
He pulls the camera from her grip, disappearing it from his hands to her tent, ignoring her cry of indignance. He reaches for her left hand, tugging it up and thrusting it in her face. “Where’s your ring?” He bites out, the red bleeding from his hair to his undershirt and nails, eyes turning dark as he waits impatiently for her list of feeble excuses.
She shrugs, trying to pull her hand out of his grasp. “I don’t know, in my bag? I didn’t really think about it.” Her voice is too high, too casual. She is lying.
“Bullshit,” he growls. “You never take that ring off without a reason, babes.” His hand slides from her hand to her wrist, pulling her forward until he can get in her face. “Tell me the truth - I’m not fucking around here. I thought you were-” He cuts himself off, swallowing hard. Her eyes stare up at him, annoyed and confused and just the slightest bit apologetic, and he has to look away.
“I went to the site,” she says, tugging on his grip once more. He doesn’t let her go, but he lets her put some space between them. “It’s not dangerous. And you were gone.”
“You should’ve waited for me,” he retorts.
“I didn’t know when you were going to be back!”
“None of this explains the ring,” he hisses. He twists their hands together, nodding at her hand until she looks down. The object in question is back in its place on her finger, glinting in the torchlight between their entwined fingers.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she replies, trying now to brush past him. The coldness in her tone, the avoidance, everything just sends him over the edge.
“Yeah, honey, you do. When I put a ring on my wife’s finger,” he says, quiet and contained and furious, sending a bit of juice to tighten the ring meaningfully on her finger, “I expect it to stay there.”
Lydia shivers; she might be strange and unusual, but every human has a natural aversion towards the terrifyingly quiet rage of a demon. He smirks; even though he’s furious, her rare show of fear heats his blood, and he briefly imagines pinning her down in the dirt and taking out his rage on her that way. He has to dismiss the thought before it’s too tempting. “Wanna change your tune, doll?” He offers, taunting and heated, edging them closer and closer to the point of no return. Finding her gone… he never wants her to be gone from his side again. It clouds the rational side of his brain, the one that says to push her is to lose her.
“I’m not your wife,” she spits out.
If her coldness sent him over the edge, her dismissal of this fact, of the truth to which he clings to keep himself sane, lashes him against the sharp rocks below.
Luckily, he’s already dead.
“Oh yes you are,” he snarls without thinking.
Lydia makes a small, involuntary sound of shock, and he freezes. Everything, rage and fear and lust, grinds to a halt. Instead, he’s overwhelmed with agony at the idea of her not knowing the claim, however small, he has on her. He releases her from his grip, and a remorseful kind of resolve fills him. She should know the truth, even if it destroys him.
She stumbles back a step, before regaining her composure and eyeing him with curiosity. God, she’s still not afraid of him after all of that? What a woman. “What do you mean?” She asks, tilting her head in a habit she most likely picked up from him.
He looks at her, solemn for once; he knows this feeling, this empty kind of longing. The red has long since faded from his hair, and he tries not to think about the purple-blue to which it most certainly has turned. Lydia knows that color. He can tell from the way she looks struck, eyes wide at how quickly he’s gone from furious to sad, that she’s close to catching onto him. “Lydia,” he sighs, fighting to keep his gaze on hers. If she makes him leave, he wants to imprint the image of her looking at him on his brain forever. He can look back on this moment and pretend she’s struck dumb by love instead of shock. He’ll have to pretend if he ever wants to feel some semblance of happiness again.“You’re my wife,” he admits finally. “You’ve been my wife since we said ‘I do.’”
She visibly shivers, taking a step closer. He’s sure she has questions, but his Lydia is clever. Instead, she cuts straight to the point. “Then… why?” He can tell from her eyes that she already knows, and he doesn’t know if she’s cruel or just thorough to ask for clarification. No matter. He’ll give her whatever she asks for. He’ll give her anything before she inevitably banishes him again.
He smiles then, tremulous and uncomfortable, dashed to pieces for her to see. There’s no point in hiding anymore. “Isn’t it obvious?” She says nothing, eyes moving rapidly over his form. He wonders what she’s thinking. Is she reevaluating all of their interactions over the past year? Wondering what she missed? Is she intrigued? Disgusted? Ambivalent? He doesn’t know which of the latter two is worse. “I won’t hold you to our little deal. You can’t fulfill your end anyway, wife.” He hates himself a little for using the word, for the way it feels like a dagger through his heart. Still, he can’t resist one last opportunity to call her what she is: his entire world.
He begins to float away. He’ll stay invisible until she gets back to the city, he decides, maybe even longer. She deserves his protection.
“Wait,” she calls, and he does, though he can’t look at her. She pauses, breathing hard, resolved instead of thoughtful. “Call me baby,” she challenges, just when he’s decided he can’t take the tension any longer.
He looks up at her at that. “What? Lydia-” He begins, tilting his head as he tries to make sense of her words.
She’s standing more confidently now, legs planted and chin high. “Betelgeuse, call me baby,” she repeats, dark eyes trained on his form. She’s glowing in the torchlight, and his mouth goes dry.
“Baby?” He says, hesitant and uncertain, inching forward.
She shakes her head, voice going low and throaty. “Like you mean it,” she says, breathily, like that first time she said his name. But this isn’t Lydia teasing, no… this is something entirely new.
Something shifts into place and oh. Oh. A wild grin spreads across his face. “C’mere, baby,” he growls, jerking his head in a come hither motion. His heart is pounding with some kind of terrible, wonderful mixture of apprehension, fear, and lust, but the former two fade into obscurity when she, for once in her life, obeys his command without question.
As soon as she is within touching distance, he stops her with his hands circling her wrists. She looks up at him, adorably confused and clearly aroused, and it shoots a bolt of want up his spine. “I love ya, Lydia,” he bites out, embarrassed but determined. “Always have. I’ve been yours longer than I want to admit.” He pauses, drinking in the joy that has spread across her expression. How could he have missed this? Has she felt this way long? Just now? He has to remind himself that it doesn’t matter. “But you take a single step closer, and you’re mine. And it ain’t always gonna be pretty, being mine, baby.”
Lydia smirks, stepping so close that she has to crane her neck up to meet his eyes. “What?” She asks, mock innocent. “You mean you’re… angry, possessive, scary, and bad?” He hums in agreement, a truly terrifying grin stretching across his face. “Oh Betelgeuse, don’t you know? That's what I like.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he growls, hands sliding down to cup her ass and pull her up into his arms. “You’ve done it now.”
With a flash of power they’re far from the campsite, instead in the bed of the most luxurious hotel room that Betelgeuse could find. He presses his little wife into the mattress, and the world melts away into a haze of pleasure and exquisite agony, and the only thing that matters is how many times he can make his Lydia scream his name.
-
The next morning, Betelgeuse watches as his wife comes to life in his arms, stretching along his body, walking her small fingers up his protruding stomach and skating around one of his nipples.
“Careful, Lyds,” he warns, rumbling and low. “Remember I've had years of blue balls. Don’t tease unless you wanna face some consequences.” He tightens the arm around her waist as a reminder, ducking his head to peer down at her with a raised eyebrow.
She smirks up at him, dirty and mischievous, in a way that makes him want to lock out the world and stay with her in this room forever. “Consequences?” She asks, affecting wide, innocent eyes. “Sounds fun.”
Just as he is arching down to kiss her, she giggles and attempts to squirm out of his hold. He holds her captive for a long moment just to prove that he can, before releasing her when she eyes the bathroom.
She comes back after a few minutes, face washed and teeth brushed, wiggling back into his embrace. “Last night,” she begins, a small blush reddening her cheeks, “you said something…”
He wiggles his eyebrows. “You’re gonna have to be more specific, baby,” he enunciates, enjoying the way she reddens further because he now knows why. It makes her hot; it’s always made her hot. Just that knowledge causes him to preen.
“I can tell you’re never going to let that go,” she murmurs, rolling her eyes even as her voice goes breathier. God, if he had known it’s this easy to get her off, he would’ve talked dirty to her a long time ago. “You said you’ve… felt like this… longer than you wanted to admit.”
Shit. He groans. “I had to go and fall for an annoyingly hot, perceptive goth, huh?” She just waits, and he swallows. “Look, babes. I liked ya from the roof, okay? I wasn’t gonna try anything, promise, but” - here he sighs, looking off into the middle distance - “you made me feel good. And I liked making you feel good. I’ve never done shit like that for anyone else. If you tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it, but… it wasn’t about sex.”
She gives him a dubious look.
“There was potential,” he amends. “But I was happy to get my rocks off scaring the shit out of breathers with ya until, y’know, you looked like this,” he says, yanking her up against his body. “Alright then,” he murmurs, “quid pro quo, baby.”
She puts her chin on his chest, letting him pull her on top of him as she thinks. “It wasn’t the roof,” she says.
He snorts. “Yeah, babe, I got that from the stabbing that happened three days later.”
She blushes, and he refocuses. “Wait, what are ya hiding?” He asks, suspicious. She murmurs something indistinct into his chest, and he laughs, tucking a hand under her chin until her gaze meets his. “C’mon,” he cajoles, “you know I’m not gonna judge you.”
“The exorcism,” she murmurs, clearly embarrassed.
Oh, this is good. He expected her to say sometime in the last year, but to know she liked him back then? It’s pure gold, and he’s about to take maximum advantage. “Tell me more,” he demands.
She shrugs. “It was only for a second,” she says, acting casual. “Then I went back to disgust.”
“When?”
She closes her eyes, and he lets her. If that’s what it takes to get answers, he’ll let her hide from him a little. “Before you proposed,” she says, nuzzling into his hand as it keeps her from moving away. He wants to see every bit of the blush she’s giving him; it’s unlike Lydia to be embarrassed, and he loves it. “when you were droning on and on about holding all the aces…”
He grins. “You liked me being in control, huh? Was it how I played you like a fiddle? Oh babes, that was hot, wasn’t it? Bet your teenage hormones were going through the roof.” He inhales, tugging her up so her lips are hovering over his. “I think we can recreate that little scene, don’t you?”
Lydia is bright red now, and he’s preparing to go in for the kill when she speaks again. “But that’s not when I fell in love with you.”
All lustful intentions fade into the aether when she says this, and he holds his breath, a long forgotten instinct from his human years. “Love?” He asks, voice cracking a little.
She smiles genuinely here, and it lights up the whole room. “Yeah,” she looks down. “When you held me a few months ago, you called me brave… and I knew.” She shrugs. “Maybe I’ve felt it longer than that, but that’s when I knew.”
“Ya sure?” She loves him? Sure, he’s now certain that she wants him, but love? He didn’t ever think it would be possible for her to feel that way. He scrutinizes her expression, but there is no indication of a lie. And why would she even lie about this? Surely she knows that he would be happy with the barest inkling of desire and affection.
But her eyes are bright and kind and there’s something else, something new and precious, hidden in her smile, and god, he believes her.
“Yes, Betelgeuse,” she says, affirming and honest, before the sweetness grows too much for them both, and her smile becomes mischievous. “Before that, it was bloated zebra territory.”
He laughs, full belly. “Now you think bloated zebras are sexy, doncha, Lyds?”
She sniffs, mock-haughty. “Just the one.”
He presses short, small kisses to her full lips, talking between each one. “Just the one, she says. Bloated zebra, she says. Well, babes, those old dead guys in the rainforest are gonna have to wait,” he says, drawing her lower lip into his mouth and biting gently, relishing in her soft whimper. “Your husband’s gonna get some breakfast in ya, and then he’s gonna put something else in ya too.”
She affects a disgusted expression, but he can tell she wants to laugh at him. “Gross, Beej. But I am hungry.”
He wiggles his eyebrows. “Me too.”
She sighs in exasperation. “Is it always gonna be like this?”
He grins. “You betcha, baby. We only got the rest of eternity to go, y’know.”
She doesn’t protest the sentiment, just leaning up to kiss him on the nose before scrambling for the room service menu. Moments later, she is picking up the phone, twirling the cord around her finger as she orders, obviously deep in thought about vegan french toast after weeks of protein bars and meals on the go.
He’s whipped, and he knows it. He could watch her for hours; he doesn’t much care what she’s doing, as long as she’s with him. Of course, he’s known this for years. It’s nothing new.
The miracle: that she glances back at him with the same expression, fondness and awe and desire all wrapping themselves into the bigger concept that he’s still working on grasping. Soon, she’ll be back in bed with him. Soon, they’ll be back at the excavation, in the next, strange country, at the in-laws’ house when Lydia gets up the courage to go back. He can see it all, along with the inevitable mistakes and fights and tricks.
For now, however, he can put that out of his mind. For now, he’ll watch his living wife order breakfast, content in the knowledge that at least the next few hours are hours of guaranteed happiness.