Hey, That Hurt

The following Beetlejuice contract au musings brought to you by @rocketonin because they made me realize that if I want it to at least be possible for this AU to turn into something big I should probably figure out what the plot’s trajectory is before I write myself into a corner

Anyway. What would happen long term? Though the circumstances are very messy I still want this to fundamentally be a redemption story.

To me, that means that things have to eventually end on an optimistic note for Beetlejuice. I don’t want him to give up and decide that he’d rather isolate himself than deal with the contract, but I also don’t want him to be worn down to a shell of his former self, to suppress his anger and blunt his teeth so the family will never have any reason to get rid of him.

I think I’d like him to fluctuate between these two points, resenting his situation so much that he’s tempted to leave and accepting it to the point he’s no longer the same person. Both ways to escape the pain of his situation.

Honestly, the smartest thing for Beetlejuice to do here would probably be to leave. He’s effectively trapped in an abusive dynamic where he’s almost entirely dependent on his abusers to realize how awful their behavior is and choose to change it. And that’s what I plan to happen, but he doesn’t know that.

But, as is often the case with abusive relationships, he doesn’t feel like he has anywhere else to go, and he thinks that the messed up love he’s currently getting is more than anyone else would give him.

He might be able to eventually make some friends in the netherworld, but currently the impression he’s getting is that pretty much everyone down there hates him. He could go back to wandering the surface, but then he’s back in the same hopeless, horribly lonely position he started in.

And based on Juno saying “you were so desperate for somebody to love you that you act like a damn fool”, we can guess that she’s said some pretty terrible things about his chances of ever being loved.

Basically his situation super super sucks, and leaving would be a good idea, but I’m gonna say that his relationship with everyone is very unfortunately still one of the most positive relationships he’s ever been in. Lydia actually enjoys his company and wants to spend time with him, the Maitlands are fairly nice to him, Delia is weird with him and not unkind, and Charles… well, Charles isn’t as bad as his mother was, so there’s that at least.

It’s the closest he’s ever felt to being loved and as long as that almost-love is there he’s not going to be able to tear himself away from it.

It’s the same reason he signed the contract in the first place. He knew it was a terrible idea, but the fact that they presented it to him at all meant that, in a way, they wanted him.

So that’s what stops him from leaving. But what’s stopping him from giving up the other way around?

I think it would take a long time for the circumstances to genuinely start to alter Beetlejuice’s personality, but there are still a lot of coping mechanisms he could develop. Coping mechanisms that he developed to cope with his abusive mother and severe isolation could also start to rear their head again.

The main way Beetlejuice seems to react to feeling hurt is anger and violence… except when his mom comes into the picture. With her… I wouldn’t say he’s obedient, but it’s like he turns into a whiny child in trouble with their parent. Interestingly, that’s the sort of behavior I would except from a kid that frustrated with their parent’s actions, but not a kid who was afraid— and Beetlejuice radiates fear when Juno shows up. When she starts insulting him, his face turns distraught, he frantically looks around like he’s searching for an escape route or someone to help. And then he pleads with her again. I wonder if the embarrassment was bravado, in a way. It’s a situation that would be horribly embarrassing, but I think he may be playing up that emotion in order to hide his terror.

In Say My Name, we see him rapidly switch from showboating to begging and back again. It seems like the less power he has in a situation, the more he resorts to pleading, bargaining.

I think that as his frustration with situation grows, the more he would start to jump between anger and pleading— and the anger would likely result in retaliation depending on who he takes it out on, so the pleading would start to win out. I think the pleading would vary in intensity too. With Lydia, yes, he begged, but it was different to how he was with Juno. With Lydia, he was pleading for help, but with Juno he pleaded for mercy.

I don’t think he’d start out afraid of anyone, except maybe Lydia a bit. As time goes on though, the urge to be clever, annoying, or otherwise rebellious might have to fight against the knowledge that any member of the household can force him to stop those behaviors. Pain would rarely be guaranteed, but I imagine that there would be something nauseating about having to suppress yourself to such a degree. He’d constantly have to choose between making himself behave acceptably or being forced to under threat of pain.

… oh god, it would be like wearing a bark collar. Even if he can eventually find people to retract unfair orders, for the duration that the order is active he’d still be effectively getting trained to behave in whatever manner the order demanded.

I decided not to have the contact enforced via mind control/compulsion, but I honestly wonder now if the long-term psychological damage of this method would be worse.

Losing control of yourself due to mind control would certainly be traumatic, but I feel like once the magic was gone so would any urges to behave as you had been ordered to.

But Beetlejuice… he has to learn to adjust his behavior himself. He has to learn to comply almost instinctually, because if he forgets and behaves as he always does it’s going to hurt.

And that means the behavior is going to linger.

… I think that early on, Beetlejuice would be angry a lot, but maybe he’d hold himself back. He chose to sign the contract, he knew what he was doing, and he wants to make a good impression so maybe they’ll actually want to keep him around. This might be when he would be willing to actively annoy Charles— apparently not letting him come back without a contract was his idea anyway. Thus, this would also probably be around the time that the closet incident would happen. He’d probably be pretty whiny during this period too, complaining about the rules being annoying and asking for them to be changed. He’d hang out with Lydia as much as possible, and they’d have a pretty good time.

Before long though, Beetlejuice wouldn’t be able to keep a lid on his temper anymore. Towards the end of this period is probably about where his fallout with the Maitlands would happen. I think he’d also have at least one fight with Lydia, maybe multiple, and she’d order him around more in retaliation. He’d start pushing the limits of his rules as much as he could, trying to upset people, see if he can destroy anything in ways that the contract doesn’t count as destructive, maybe even taking advantage of people being nice and revoking rules, which would cause conflict between other household members. This would result in him being given a lot of very restrictive orders. He’d probably consider leaving at this point, but would ultimately decide he can’t bring himself to.

The aftermath of his angry period would be where his actions would start to reflect fear. Maybe at some point someone actually taught him some grounding exercises for his anger, and he starts to use them to calm himself down so he doesn’t try to break any rules and get hurt in the midst of an outburst. He starts pleading again, but it’s more like how he was with Juno. He starts hiding, reducing the amount of time he spends in places where people can easily see and interact with him (and thus order him around). Orders he’s had for a long time that he used to have to concentrate on obeying become natural to him. He still hangs out with Lydia, plays the part of her friend. Does his job. Makes sure he’ll still be wanted. Lydia notices the downturn in his mood and starts trying to be nicer to him.

The Maitlands, seeing what’s happening, finally decide they need to put a stop to this. Tense discussions are had. I don’t think they’d remove the contract fully, but they’d dismiss pretty much every rule.

Things start to improve. People stop intentionally giving Beetlejuice orders, and accidental orders are quickly revoked. Relationships are improving, and anyone who didn’t fully think of Beetlejuice as a person is starting to now. However, the psychological effects the ordeal has had on Beetlejuice are apparent.

I’m not entirely sure how Beetlejuice would react at this turning point. I think that at some point there would be anger, but it would take a while because of how good at suppressing it he’d be at this point. By this point his mindset of ‘they want me here to be useful, not because they care, but that’s good enough’ would be super internalized. Having the rules be taken away might even be anxiety-inducing, because what if he messes up and they don’t want him anymore and he went through all of this for nothing? He’d keep obeying a lot of rules by himself, which Charles and Delia might see as good while the Maitlands and Lydia might be concerned.

Eventually, there would start to be some mutual trust. Beetlejuce would stop expecting to be ordered around every time he does something that bothers someone. Some behaviors from the orders would remain, but he’d gradually learn where the lines were and his reason for keeping those behaviors would gradually transition from fear and habit to genuinely not wanting to upset people. And one day, the contract would be dismissed, or maybe altered such that Beetlejuice wouldn’t have to live in fear of being forced to leave.

Another contract au thing

At first when Beetlejuice is allowed back into the house, the Maitlands avoid Beetlejuice. Charles backs them up and orders Beetlejuice to stay out of the attic. Eventually they start willingly spending time around him, communicating that they won’t order him around, but they expect him to respect their boundaries. After a bit they even revoke Charles’ order and let him come into the attic, though they expect him to ask permission.

The Maitlands are the safest people in the house for Beetlejuice to be around. They don’t give him orders, and will revoke orders upon request if they don’t think they’re going to step on anyone’s toes by doing so.

Beetlejuice does his best to comply for a while, but eventually the stress of his whole situation starts to wear on him and he starts to feel irritated about the Maitlands, too.

The Maitlands, he thinks, want to avoid the guilt of ordering him around directly while still reaping the benefits. What’s the difference between their requests and everyone else’s orders if he has to obey them all the same?

Angry about their hypocrisy (and maybe they really are being hypocritical, I’m not really sure yet. At the very least they’re complicit), he reverts to his behavior from the musical and then some. He goes out of his way to harass them and make them uncomfortable, giving them as little peace as he possibly can. When they ask him to stop, he tells them to make him.

Eventually Barbara has had enough and does, finally, order him to stop harassing them, and tells him to stay out of the attic for a while so they can have some space.

Finally, Beetlejuice is satisfied. Once again, he got the perfect Maitlands to snap.

He goes to the roof and feels sick, gnashes his teeth and curls into a ball and wants to claw at his skin, but he doesn’t cry. He hasn’t felt capable of crying for a long, long time.

Lydia thoughts for the Contract AU

I want to preface by saying I don’t think Lydia is a bad person. She is, however, what, fifteen? She’s definitely been asking some big questions about death, but pondering the morality of restricting the free will of another person might not have crossed her mind much. She’d certainly have learned about slavery in school, but probably a rather narrow, historical perspective on it. She’s also still young enough that a lot of what she is allowed to to is limited by her guardians.

The idea that Beetlejuice should need to follow rules to stick around makes sense. She has to follow rules she’s not happy about too. She can’t go places by herself because she can’t drive, she doesn’t prepare her own meals, without a job any money she spends must be asked for, and the rules at school would likely be much more strict. To be a child is to need permission to do every. Damn. Thing. It sucks, but that’s life. And yeah, maybe the way his rules are enforced is a lot more strict, but he probably wouldn’t listen to anything else.

Of course, the consequences Beetlejuice will face if he breaks or tries to break a rule (typically feeling like forces are holding him back from doing whatever thing, escalating to debilitating pain if he actually manages to break the rule, varying in intensity according to the importance of the rule and how much he broke it), are very different from the sort of consequences Lydia will face. They do share the fact that both likely deal with a mixture of reasonable and unreasonable rules. Lydia can’t destroy school property, Beetlejuice can’t break things around the house. Lydia has to ask permission to use the bathroom during class and Beetlejuice constantly has to find people to lift lingering orders that should have been temporary.

Basically, there are a lot of reasons why Lydia might be able to see that what the contract does to Beetlejuice is bad, but she might not necessarily understand how bad.

Beetlejuice, similarly, would be very unhappy with the circumstances, but he might not fully comprehend that effectively allowing himself to be enslaved in exchange for companionship is a horrific deal.

Beetlejuice would understand that his situation is annoying and painful and degrading and all-around upsetting, but I don’t know that he’d be able to properly articulate that the word for the situation they have him in is fucking slavery. He also might not even want to think about the situation that way. He wasn’t tricked into the contract, and leaving was sort of on the table (I don’t want leaving to be something he could do easily, but I want it to be possible in some way). It might be less embarrassing for him to think of his situation as something he’s choosing.

So when Lydia also occasionally orders him around a bit, he’s not going to have the right words to make her fully understand how messed up that is. He’ll get mad, sure, but Lydia has already learned that Beetlejuice’s anger can be irrational and disproportionate.

I think it’s also fair to say that Lydia doesn’t see Beetlejuice as a person. As soon as she learns he’s a demon she seems to realize that she can get away with doing things to him that she wouldn’t be able to do to anyone else. She doesn’t hesitate to push him off of a roof, knowing he’ll survive the fall because he’s dead, and at the end of the play she stabs him in the back right after he comes to life. My point being, I doubt she would have done those things so easily if she fully considered him to be a human.

In this story, I think Lydia would see Beetlejuice as a friend first, but in the back of her mind he’s still a demon. An inhuman creature, volatile. Something cool and fun, but something that needs to be kept in check. Like keeping a venomous snake as a pet.

She usually wouldn’t order him around, but her reason not to is because it would upset him, not because she sees doing so as inherently wrong. Thus, in moments where she doesn’t care about his feelings as much, she’d be perfectly willing to tell him what to do, knowing he has no choice but to comply.

I think the key to Beetlejuice’s situation in this story would be the Maitlands, not Lydia. I think his relationship with them would get worse before it gets better, as I mentioned in an earlier post, but eventually it would get better, and that would motivate their morals to override their anxieties and finally properly speak out about the immorality of the situation. I think that once Lydia has the depth of what she’s been doing explained to her, she’d change up her act very quickly.

more beetlejuice contract au thoughts

I wonder how long he could be stuck in the closet? A while, potentially. I can’t remember if I established otherwise but I feel like Beetlejuice would be allowed to void the contract and leave— this would just cause him to be unsummoned, and Charles made it clear that he planned to ward the house if he couldn’t be sure BJ was there on his terms.

If Beetlejuice seemingly disappeared, Lydia might not buy that he would do so of his own volition— especially without saying goodbye— but everyone else might.

It might actually be the salt that saves Beetlejuice in the end. Maybe Lydia manages to convince her dad not to put up a salt barrier around the house for a week or so, but eventually enough is enough, he isn’t planning to wait around for Beetlejuice to find someone else to summon him and then come back for revenge. So he goes down to the closet to retrieve the salt… and there’s Beetlejuice.

Maybe Beetlejuice, hearing someone entering the basement, accepts some pain and intentionally makes some noise in some way, maybe knocking something over. Or maybe he plans on doing so, but upon hearing Charles’s voice he’s reluctant to reveal his precarious situation to the person who is the reason he couldn’t call for help.

Regardless, Charles finds him. Charles, having a very negative opinion of Beetlejuice that isn’t going to be fixed by finding him in a pitiable situation, would probably blame Beetlejuice for making a mess and rooting around in other people’s things, and ultimately getting himself caught in the situation. I doubt Charles would immediately catch on to why BJ was being silent, either, but eventually Beetlejuice’s pleading and hand-talking and pointing at his throat would get the point across and Charles would grant him permission to speak again.

The first words out of Beetlejuice’s mouth would probably be expletives, but when Charles doesn’t hesitate to threaten to order him to be quiet again he forces himself to calm down a bit and ask that the salt— which he is offended that they still had— be brushed aside.

With the salt removed he can finally exit the closet, and he gets away from Charles as soon as he can.

Everyone is actually rather relieved that he didn’t leave after all, particularly Lydia. When they learn that he spent a week shut inside a cluttered, dark closet, there’s definitely some concern, particularly from the maitlands, but he assures them that he’s totally fine and unbothered and definitely not at least a little claustrophobic now and what’s a week of complete and total isolation compared to hundreds of years anyway.

After the incident, he avoids being in dark rooms by himself, and catches himself a few times forcing himself to stay quiet.