More contract au musings
(Beetlejuice signed a contract binding him to do whatever the household orders him to do in exchange for him getting to stay)
I think the whole situation would be an absolute moral mess.
The Maitlands would probably have the best moral compass out of the entire household, even after the end of the musical. But they’d still run into issues, more on that later.
Charles would have plenty of reason to hate Beetlejuice, and has proven that he tends to lean towards avoidance and putting up a mask when it comes to things that upset him. He also doesn’t seem to be very sympathetic, seemingly failing to understand the depth of what Lydia was going through or being unwilling to think about it.
Yes, he and his daughter made up at the end, but people don’t change overnight and that’s his daughter. I doubt he’s going to give Beetlejuice anything close to the same grace.
I think being around Charles would be hazardous for Beetlejuice, because I don’t think Charles would be above using the contract at every opportunity to make Beetlejuice less of an annoyance.
I don’t know if Delia would be less of a threat, but I still think she would be one. She also has reason to change as a person after the end of the musical, but she’s still shown that she’s someone who tends to be bothered by things she sees as weird, and she tends towards toxic positivity. Again, I doubt these traits are going to change overnight.
Beetlejuice is far from a normal, peppy person. He’s going to rub Delia the wrong way. I don’t know if Delia would be as willing to abuse the contract as Charles might, but I don’t think it’s out of the question that she’d try to make Beetlejuice tone down his weirdness and upsetting emotional displays.
The Maitlands might be the safest people for Beetlejuice to be around— the issue is that they probably wouldn’t want to be around Beetlejuice much. The Maitlands are clearly anxiety-riddled and almost painfully polite. I think they’d manage to catch on to the fact that being able to force Beetlejuice to do things is actually super messed up, and would probably avoid doing so.
But would they tell the rest of the family not to? They’re a LOT more assertive by the end of the musical, but considering that they’d probably struggle to want to stand up for Beetlejuice, I can imagine that their anxious tendencies might prevent them from saying much until circumstances force them to.
I also don’t think they’d be entirely above giving Beetlejuice any orders, specifically when it comes to harassing them. Obviously they wouldn’t want Beetlejuice to continue his inappropriate behavior towards them, and ordering him to stop might literally be the only thing that could truly get him to do so. The threat of an order might stop him for a while, but I think he’d eventually cross the line. And then there’s the moral issue of well, it’s super messed up to exert power over what he can physically do to such an extent, but it’s also super messed up for him to keep groping them.
And then there’s Lydia. Part of me wants to believe that she’ll be super nice and protective of him, but realistically I doubt that would be the case. Lydia would be in a much better place mentally than she was during the musical, but this is still the girl that pushed Beetlejuice off a roof when she realized he wasn’t useful to her.
Honestly, I don’t think Beetlejuice was entirely wrong when he assumed she thought of him like a tool to discard. I don’t interpret the “what are you talking about?” line as favorably as the rest of the fandom does. I don’t think Lydia didn’t see Beetlejuice as a friend at all, but I think she also thought of him as a demon she summoned to do her bidding, and that’s what he was there for.
In this au, I think Lydia wants their relationship to move in a friendlier direction, but I think there might still be 5% of her that sees him as a tool rather than a person. She’s a teenager that we can see is very capable of cruelty and manipulation. My point being, I don’t think Beetlejuice is entirely safe around her either. I think she’ll mostly be in his corner, and stand up for him when she thinks he’s being treated unfairly, but if something he does upsets her I don’t think she’s going to be above leveraging her power over him.
Basically, the Maitlands are the safest people for Beetlejuice to be around, but even they’re not 100% safe. Being in the house, under this contract, places Beetlejuice perpetually in harm’s way (though the harm is mostly psychological). He can’t be around any member of the household without the risk of another order settling around him like a net.
But he’d rather be unsafe than be alone.