Guide to the Afterlife

Summary: After the events of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Jeremy escapes the firepit Beetlejuice sent him into, only to find himself face to face with Astrid's very angry father
Warning(s): Spanking; major spoilers for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice; minor spoilers for the first Beetlejuice movie; references to violence and canon character death; hints of abuse (not between the two main characters)
Author's Note: Credit for this idea goes to fellow writer Solarryfic, who originally mentioned that Jeremy really deserves a spanking...and I couldn't help but agree.
It's not really explained why Jeremy killed his parents in the movie, so I'm taking a bit of artistic licence here with his mindset and motivations for what he did.
This fic fills the Spanktember square for day 15, Missing Scene.
Enjoy!

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Getting out of the firepit had taken a lot longer than Jeremy would have expected it to. By the time he was back where he'd started, all of the excitement was over. Astrid and her mother had returned to the world of the living...and Jeremy was right back in the same position he'd been before all this mess started.

Except he was still in the afterlife, and couldn't figure out how to leave it again.

Jeremy looked around the ticket office, making sure no one was paying any attention to him, and began to make his way back to the waiting area. It was where he and Astrid had arrived when first moving into the afterlife, so he probably needed to go through it to get back to the world of the living. He began to head in that direction, figuring that returning to the world of the living was his best shot at getting a second chance, even if his attempt to use Astrid had failed.

His movement was stopped short when a man stepped in front of him, blocking his progress.

Jeremy paused, looking at the man. Unlike himself, this man was obviously dead. His skin was blue, like he'd been underwater for a long time. And there were fish still attached to his face and body. "Do you know me?" he asked, trying not to show too much impatience. The book hadn't been clear on how much time he had to return to life, but he was going to have to find someone else who could not only see him, but someone he could trick into trading their life for his.

"Astrid is my daughter," the man said.

Jeremy's eyes widened a fraction before he quickly put on a false mask of bravado. "What did she tell you? I just wanted her to help me...."

"You just wanted her to take your place here."

Jeremy's mask slipped, a little, and he took a slight step back, looking for an escape route. He was dead and couldn't be hurt anymore, at least to the best of his knowledge...but he didn't want to be delayed getting back to the world of the living anymore than he already had been. "I don't know what she told you, but I just wanted her help to get a second chance. My life was stolen from me and I wanted it back. That's not a crime."

"Maybe it's not a crime." He began to advance on Jeremy, cutting off his attempt at escaping. "But you hurt my daughter. You were going to trade her life for yours. And I suspect you're planning to go back to the world of the living to try and manipulate and control someone else into trading their life for yours."

Jeremy thought about trying to lie again, but really, as long as it wasn't Astrid he was using, why would the man care? "It's not going to be anyone you know," he said out loud. "I'm not going to target Astrid again. So you don't need to worry." He shrugged and began to push past the older ghost.

The man reached out and grasped Jeremy's wrist, stopping his movement. "I'm not going to let you go back and trick someone else into dying for your sake."

Jeremy paused, glancing down at the hand on his wrist, then up at the man. "You can't stop me."

A tiny smile touched at the man's lips, but it was grim and lacked any kind of humour. "There aren't any rules here. At least not the kind of rules that you might expect. So yes. I absolutely can and will stop you."

"How?" Jeremy gave an experimental tug of his wrist, but the man's grip was far too tight for him to break free of.

"I'm going to show you." The man didn't pause, instead all but dragging Jeremy behind him, like he was an errant child.

Jeremy tried to ignore the way his stomach was flipping and roiling. Astrid's father wasn't like his father...and more to the point, he didn't have the same kind of power that Jeremy's father had had over him. And even if the man did plan to do something similar to Jeremy's father, how much damage could he really do to him now that he was dead?

Still, there were enough other ghosts passing them that Jeremy couldn't just follow along like a meek little puppy without at least making some attempt to break free, which he did by continually tugging at his trapped wrist. The man's hold was too strong, though, and Jeremy finally found himself following the older ghost into a small room...almost like a hovel. Certainly much smaller than his own home, when he'd been alive.

The older ghost pulled the door closed behind them and then turned to face Jeremy, a grim look coming over his face. "I might not be able to keep you locked up here, but I'm going to give you some incentive so that you don't repeat what you tried to do to Astrid."

"What kind of 'incentive'?" Jeremy asked warily.

Instead of answering with words, the older ghost used his grip on Jeremy's wrist to lead him over to the table. Pulling out one of the chairs, he sat down and draped Jeremy across his lap in one swift movement.

It took only a second or two for Jeremy to realise the position he'd been put into, but maybe half a second to immediately begin struggling, trying to lever himself up off the older ghost's lap. "Let me up!" he ordered, trying not to show how panicked he was. He wasn't scared, even though his stomach dropped and he couldn't help but remember before...even though he hadn't been in this position, exactly. What his father had done wasn't this, but it was close enough to push him towards the edge.

The older ghost didn't say anything. He didn't let Jeremy up. He didn't loosen his hold. Instead, he lifted his hand and brought it down in a firm, hard smack on the seat of Jeremy's pants.

His breath hissed out...which was odd, because he didn't have breath; not anymore, at least. But the form he wore now still reacted. He couldn't help beginning to squirm and shift over the older ghost's lap as more swats began to land all over his backside, covering every inch from the crest down to mid-thigh.

Whining softly, Jeremy threw his hand back in an attempt to try and stop the stinging, painful smacks. But it didn't matter where he put his hand. If he covered his bottom, the older ghost swatted his thighs. If he tried to protect his thighs, his bottom was swatted instead.

Jeremy didn't think the spanking hurt that much. It certainly wasn't the worst pain he'd experienced. There was no leather belt biting into his bare skin...and no voice shouting and swearing at him. It wasn't anything like as bad as when he'd been alive...so why were there tears filling his eyes and threatening to slide down his cheeks? Why was a sob catching in his throat? It wasn't anything like what he'd experienced in life, so why was death affecting him so much?

The older ghost paused, hand resting on Jeremy's back, and spoke in a low, stern voice. "I don't know the exact circumstances of your death, but most everyone here feels like they've been robbed of their lives in one way or another. That's no excuse to steal someone else's life."

"It wasn't fair!" Jeremy burst out, angry tears now sliding down his cheeks. "I shouldn't have died! Not then!"

"You're angry. It's not unusual, but it's not helpful. Anger isn't going to help you." The older ghost resumed spanking, now going harder and faster...focusing more smacks to Jeremy's sit spots and the tops of his thighs.

"What, I'm just supposed to accept this?!" Jeremy began to squirm with more abandon, to the point that he would have fallen...if the older ghost hadn't wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him tight and snug against his stomach. "I didn't deserve it!"

"Like I said." The older ghost delivered a series of harder smacks to the undercurves of Jeremy's bottom, then began smacking again from the top. "I don't know your history. I don't know what happened to you. But I know what you've done now. And your behaviour now has been unacceptable." He began to swat a fraction harder and faster as he continued, "You used and manipulated someone with the sole intention of her taking your place here in the afterlife. Whatever happened to you in your life, that is not okay." With those last four words, he delivered a series of much harder swats, all aimed at the tops of Jeremy's thighs.

His bottom was stinging horribly now and Jeremy squirmed a bit more, a bit more frantically, before he finally slumped over the man's lap. The tears were falling harder and faster now and he was choking on his sobs...which shouldn't have been possible, because he couldn't even breathe.

The man delivered a full series of smacks, all at the harder force, and then stopped the spanking. He gripped Jeremy's shoulder and pulled him to his feet, then stood up as well, and walked him over to one corner of the room, turning him to face it. "Stand here till I tell you to come out," he ordered, before stepping away.

Jeremy whimpered softly. He couldn't help it. His bottom was stinging and throbbing horribly, and being stood in the corner made him feel so much younger than he actually was. He let his head fall gently against the wall and tried to stop crying. He also tried to stop feeling sorry for himself, which was a lot harder.

In the past, he hadn't cried more than tears of anger. They'd been a release of negative emotions, in a way, when his father had been pushed to breaking point. Most of the time, that hadn't been because he'd done anything wrong. Backtalk, or breaking rules that had suddenly been introduced. Or times when he'd 'embarrassed' his parents when they'd been out in public.

This was the first time he could remember being physically punished for something he actually had done.

It seemed to take an age, with Jeremy's tears finally slowing to quiet sniffles before they finally stopped, before he felt the older ghost's hand come to rest on his shoulder. It was gripped firmly as he was then pulled out of the corner and turned to face the man, who eyed him sternly as he said, "Stealing someone else's life just so you can live again isn't going to make you happy. And even if you succeed in coming back to life, you won't get what you lost back."

Jeremy looked away, unable to hold eye contact as he muttered, "I'm not trying to get back what I lost. I want to have a better life." He couldn't help the sad, lost little boy note that crept into his voice and he raised his hands to rub angrily at his eyes, before shrugging the older ghost's hand off his shoulder. "I don't need your help," he muttered.

"You probably think you don't, but being on your own probably takes a toll," he said gently.

"I wasn't...." Jeremy's voice faltered as he remembered being trapped in the house and its backyard, where he'd died. His parents had been there too, but they hadn't been them. They'd pretty much been his puppets, which he'd enjoyed until realising he was trapped and couldn't leave the house.

"I don't think you did anything with malicious intent," the older ghost said quietly.

"You don't know anything about me." His voice turned sullen. If he gave enough attitude, maybe the other ghost would give up and leave him alone. Let him go back to the world of the living and find his own way back to life...to a second chance...maybe to a family who would actually care about him.

"You're the same age as my daughter. Or you were when you died," the other ghost said kindly. "And if she was in your position, I would like to believe someone would be there for her if I couldn't be."

Jeremy wrapped his own arms around himself, choosing not to lean into the touch, even though a part of him wanted and maybe even needed the physical touch. "You hit me," he accused.

"I didn't hit you," the older ghost said. "I spanked you. It was about punishment. About teaching you to be better. Not hurting you for the sake of it."

Jeremy wanted to argue. He wanted to protest. But despite his accusation, he did know the difference between what Astrid's father had just done and what his own father had done while he was growing up. Despite knowing the difference, though, he still looked away and muttered with attitude, "I don't know why you care about me being better. It's not like you're even letting me go back and get a second chance at living again."

"The afterlife isn't as bad as you probably think it is." The man gently squeezed Jeremy's shoulder as he said, "If you give me the chance to, I can show you. Teach you. Or you can get a ticket to the Great Beyond and whatever comes next."

"I won't go to the Great Beyond." Jeremy wiped angrily at his eyes, which were leaking again, much to his irritation. "I'm not a good person. I belong in Hell." Really, he belonged in the fiery pit he'd managed to claw his way out of.

"Then you can stay here. With me."

Taken by surprise at the offer, Jeremy darted a glance at his face. "Here?" He looked around the small room. It did look like an apartment, now that he thought about it. A tiny, cramped apartment...but an apartment nevertheless.

"I know it's not much to look at," Astrid's father said. "But then again, being dead, I don't need much space. Sleeping is unnecessary. I can't really taste food, even if I can give the appearance of eating. You can stay here, or you can stay in another apartment and figure out what you want to do there."

Jeremy bit his lip. The sting in his backside had all but faded now, but he still remembered how it had felt to be in that position. He thought he should probably be pissed off...maybe even punch the other ghost, since it appeared they could still feel pain (or some semblance of it) here in the afterlife.

But even though he thought he should be...he wasn't pissed. He wasn't even really that upset now. And the offer made him feel good inside.

Looking down, Jeremy thought about what he wanted. It only took him a few moments to decide. He didn't know enough about the afterlife to be able to navigate it on his own...and despite the fact that the older ghost had just spanked him, he actually felt safe with Astrid's father. "Okay," he whispered finally, raising his eyes to the man's face. "I would...I would like to stay," he whispered, hoping he wasn't now making the wrong choice.

"I'm glad to hear it." Astrid's father held a hand out to him with a warm smile. "My name's Richard, by the way."

Slowly, Jeremy put his hand out and shook Richard's. "Jeremy," he said, a little shyly.

"Come on, Jeremy. I'll show you around." Richard wrapped his arm around Jeremy's shoulders and led him further into the tiny apartment.

The End