This currently stands as a "one shot" but if people are interested or like the premise, I may continue/flesh it out to be a longer story. Let me know!

Epiphany

by Riley Bery

I walked into the front room with its black-and-white décor and see an unexpected figure sitting on the blocky, black couch.

"Hey, B. Who'd ya scare today?"

Betelgeuse looks up at me apprehensively and I tilt my head at him. That is an unusual expression on him. But a knock on the door wakes me from my reverie before it deepens.

"Come in!" I yell behind my shoulder without bothering to learn who it is. Betelgeuse is here, so I am in no danger, even if they have dangerous intent.

I look back to Betelgeuse. "What's wrong, B? Did you do something… out of bounds?" I tilt my head at him and feel my eyebrows crease. "You didn't do… nothing, did you? You're not getting… bored?" He isn't usually home this early. Or at all.

But I hear footsteps coming toward us and stop my inquiry to look over my shoulder and ascertain whomever I allowed entry into my house.

"Oh, hi, John," I greet with a smile. As usual, I put my hands on his shoulders and place a kiss in the air above his cheek. "Miss me already?" I wink at him in an exaggerated manner.

"Who is this?" he inquires over my shoulder.

I follow his gaze to see Betelgeuse—now in his human form—still sitting on my couch. That's odd; he usually does not make himself known.

"Oh, this is… B," I finish simply. Turning back to John, I attempt to change the subject and shoo John out of Betelgeuse's clutches as soon as possible. "What brings you here?"

"Well, I just wanted to… talk to you in a more private setting."

I raise my eyebrows at him. Not again. But I refrain from rolling my eyes skyward.

"Do you want anything to drink? I have water—"

"Juice," adds Betelgeuse and a give him a warning look.

"—root beer—"

But John interrupts me this time. "Water is fine."

I take a deep breath to refrain from sending a biting comment at either of the… men. I use that term loosely.

"This way," I gesture toward the kitchen and John obediently begins in the direction I indicate.

I take a step to follow him, but something grasps my wrist. I look down to see Betelgeuse's pallor-less arm retracting to its normal length. It is odd to see him use his ghostly tricks while appearing human.

"B," I say warningly, looking straight into the green eyes that are far more noticeable without the usual dark circles surrounding them.

"Don't encourage him if you have no intention of returning his… affections."

I tilt my head at him once again, shocked by his sincere tone of voice. With his dark hair and black t-shirt and ragged blue jeans it almost makes me forget that he is inhuman. I hate when he takes living form.

I cannot smile and make a careless remark in the face of that almost sad seriousness. Instead, I smile reassuringly. I guess I can't be mischievous this time.

"I won't."

In the kitchen, John accepts the glass of water but takes only a small sip before setting it down on the kitchen counter.

"So who is that guy?" I look at him, startled. He softens his tone from irritation to faux curiosity. "I mean, what's he doing here?"

"I live here," comes the nonchalant reply.

I turn to glare at Betelgeuse. "No one asked you. And I believe John asked for a private conversation."

"Okay, okay, Lyddie." He throws his hands up in surrender. "I was just putting away my dishes." He walks to the sink and deposits in it a plate and cup, which I am sure he was not earlier in possession of.

I stare at him in disbelief as he leaves the kitchen. He is most definitely acting odd. Well, odd for him. He has not called me 'Lyddie' since I was eighteen or nineteen.

"He lives here?"

John's incredulous inquiry brings me back to the present.

"Yes, he's my housemate," I reply offhandedly. "Now, what did you want to talk about?"

"Uh…"

John fidgets and I notice him glance more than once toward the archway through which Betelgeuse disappeared. Well, at least it will be easy enough to get rid of him.

"What is it John?" I ask, my patience wearing thin.

But John still fumbles his words. I sigh. Damn it. I didn't want to have to do this, but I am running out of patience. I never have had much of it. The curse of being blessed with near instant gratification by spoiling parents, doting and powerful godparents, and an even more powerful ghost as a best friend.

"You like me," I begin for him, bluntly, though he was probably going to use the word 'love.'

John stares at me and I look back at him with hooded eyes.

"No, Lydia, I—I love you."

Told you so.

I sigh and let a smile grace my face. "I am flattered, John, but I don't want to lead you on. You are handsome and successful, and I recognize that, but I'm just not… attracted to you in that way."

"I could change that."

I sigh. "You haven't," I point out.

"How about a date? Just to test it out?"

"I'll think about it, John." I stop once I enter the front room and gesture down the hall. "You know where the door is."

I make my way up the steps before I recall the obnoxious zipper on the dress I am wearing. I walk back downstairs and to Betelgeuse still reclined on the couch.

"Hey, B, can you help me with this ridiculous dress?"

I pull my hair over my shoulder and turn my back to Betelgeuse, who obligingly stands up and fumbles with the small zipper pull. I laugh lightly at his difficulties and reach back with the hand free of my hair to hold the top of my dress.

"That better, B? You think after all this time, you'd remember how to—"

I stop talking and jerk my head up. A sound from the kitchen. John isn't gone yet, I realize, relieved that it wasn't something worse—though I'm not sure what I was expecting.

When Betelgeuse has unzipped my dress, I thank him and run upstairs, not wanting to see John again as he makes his way to the front door, especially with my dress falling off one shoulder. With the suffocating material stripped from my body, I search for more comfortable clothing amidst the pile of clean laundry I have yet to put away. With a grin I pull out a pair of blood red sweat pants. They are a size too small, and thus rather snug in the hips, and I cut them off just below the knees so they would not be high-waters, but I love them nonetheless. Scrawling black embroidery runs down one leg, declaring me "vampire princess," makes me laugh every time I see it. A silly cartoon figure of what I assume was supposed to be a vampire princess was once present below that, but I cut that off when I adjusted the length of the legs. I didn't like that part anyway. I cannot find a suitable shirt; all of them are too clingy and that is not something I am in the mood for right now.

I quietly venture into Betelgeuse's "bed"room and open his closet—much smaller and much more sparsely populated than my own, for obvious reasons. I cannot resist buying some things, though, so there are many printed t-shirts and a few pairs of sweatpants with odd sayings and more than a few pairs of pants of outrageous colors or patterns. I grab a black t-shirt and pull it on. It is too large for me, but my chest takes up extra room and the sleeves are short, so it isn't going to be in my way. It'll cover some of the tightness of my pants across my hips and buttox.

I glance in the hall mirror—B doesn't have one in his room for, again, obvious reasons—and note the white print of "come to the dark side, we have cookies" across my chest with satisfaction. Running my fingers through my now unpinned hair, I place a hair tie on my wrist and jog down the stairs. With a sudden idea, I jump the last few stairs and skip across the front room where Betelgeuse is once again sitting on the couch.

"Babes, could you," I throw myself onto the couch—into his lap, "please, please, please, please," I place my arms around his neck and give him my best puppy dog eyes and pout, "please get me some shampoo. I'm afraid I'm almost out. But I've already changed and you can't expect me to go out like—"

I become aware of an unusual look of Betelgeuse's face. He looks quite… pleased. I follow the flicker of his gaze, turning my head to look over my shoulder.

"John?"

I slip off of Betelgeuse's lap, but remain beside him with my legs still over his, just to pretend that I was not bothered by it.

"What are you still doing here? I thought you left."

I look between the two of them.

"Oh, gawd, you weren't having a man talk were you?" I wrinkle my nose. "Or," I turn to Betelgeuse accusingly, "talking about me?"

Betelgeuse again throws his hands up in surrender. "We were just talking, Lyddie," there is that old nickname again, "until you so rudely interrupted us." I can tell it takes a lot of effort for him not to waggle his eyebrows at me.

I stand up and wiggle my finger at him. "Now, no funny business mister. And what's up with the old nickname? You haven't called me that since I was teenager."

I do not wait for his answer before heading into the kitchen.

But it is John's voice and not Betelgeuse's that calls to me next. "You've known him since you were a teenager?"

"Hm?" I look over my shoulder to see John standing in the doorway before returning to staring at the open refrigerator. "Ya. We met when I was fifteen," I mumble as I find a container of day-old pasta.

"Fifteen!? But that guy—how old is he? He looks to be in his thirties, Lydia, his thirties. And not the lower end, either."

I roll my eyes. Betelgeuse is much older than mid- to late-thirties.

"That means he was a full-fledge adult when you were still a girl—when you met him. So you've know each other for what, ten years?"

"Almost," I reply, putting a slab of butter into the open container of pasta. "More than nine," I clarify and put the container into the microwave.

"And you're living together? Come on, Lydia! You can't expect me to believe there's nothing between you. Ten years, and you two are obviously comfortable with each other, and that little display on the couch…" he trails off but I do not turn around. He doesn't need to see my smirk. "You're more like family than flatmates."

Shocked by his words, I turn around and stare at him. I was a very astute observation, but I do not tell him so. I had never thought about it like that. Family? I suppose that isn't inaccurate. I always thought of him as my best friend, but isn't that just a family member you choose?

But the look in John's eyes is accusatory. He thinks there is something between us—Betelgeuse and I. It was amusing at first, but it is annoying now. Even if his suspicions were correct, there is no reason for him to react this way. I huff.

"He's my best friend, John, what do you expect?"

He stares at me, with an expression both surprised and incredulous. Then he sighs, as if letting go of something.

"Of course."

John quietly slips out of the kitchen and a moment later I hear the front door open and close.

Ignoring the beeping of the microwave, I walk slowly out of the kitchen and peer in the direction of John's departure. I turn to Betelgeuse—now returned to his favorite appearance—and we stare at each other in silence for a moment.

"What was that about?"

"I don't know," I admit. "He was being very argumentative, and then he just… conceded and left."

"What did you say?"

"Not much. He did most of the talking, actually. I just let him babble. At first, I just confirmed how long we had known each other, how young I was when I met you. And then let him ramble. The only other thing I said was—was seemed to set him on the path of leaving was… Well, I called you my best friend."

Betelgeuse looks at me with hooded eyes. They are words that have never been spoken before, though they have been obvious to me since shortly after we came to our currently held deal. We retracted our earlier agreement—that I would marry him—and replaced it with my promise to call him into the world of the living and not send him back, unless he went out of bounds that I set to protect people from darker mischief.

I was just the sort of girl to have a stronger friendship with a ghost than someone living. My relationship with my ghost godparents, so to speak, was proof enough of that. And so it became true that, though I developed relationships with my schoolmates, and then my cohorts in university, and several of my coworkers, my greatest friend is a mischievous and immeasurably powerful poltergeist, who is also rather intolerably perverted.

But I am as accustomed to him as I am to Delia's verge of insanity and Dad's money love and the expression on Adam's face as he carefully carves a new building each time one is erected in Winter River, Connecticut and Barbara's motherly expression. That is why I was caught off guard when John called him family. I consider Adam and Barbara family, though they are not literally, and I have a far stronger friendship with Betelgeuse. So if they are family, he is.

But it was not John's suggestion that we are family-like that sent him out the door; it was my admission that he is my best friend.

"Is there some connotation of best friend that I do not know?"

My question brings Betelgeuse from his thoughts and he looks at me in confusion that I innately understand is an act. "I don't know."

I narrow my eyes at him. "I think you do."

He shrugs his shoulders. "Aren't girls' best friends usually other girls?"

I roll my eyes and let out an exasperated sigh at his attempt to deflect my question. I ignore my initial desire to berate him and go back to the kitchen instead. It is not until I am stirring my reheated spaghetti that I stumble across the possibility that rather than deflecting my question, Betelgeuse may have given me a clue to its answer.

With the spaghetti in hand I walk back out to the front room and plop down on the couch next to Betelgeuse.

"So, girls usually have girls for best friends?"

"So I hear."

"Hm. But I never really had a girl best friend. I had girl friends, but there was always one boy among my friends, and he was my best friend. In preschool it was Leo, and we were best friends until Dad moved us to New York when I was going into middle school. And then it was Tony until I moved to Connecticut."

"Two?"

I turn to him. "I never had reason to let go of them until distance was forced on us by my parents. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. Except perhaps short absences," I mused. I shook my head of the digression. "I am lucky, I guess, to have moved those few times and thus garnered more than one best friend in my life. Though it seems I'm stuck with you now." I hope my amusement shows in my eyes.

Whether or not it does, I cannot tell, because Betelgeuse has that unusually serious look in his eyes again.

"B? What's wrong?" I sidle closer to him and peer at his face with creased eyebrows. "You have been acting odd lately. Not just today. But especially today. Is something the matter? Did Juno or someone find out and try to make you go back?" I don't think they particularly care for the thought of the paperwork involved with trying to restrain Betelgeuse. As long as he doesn't cause too much trouble here they'll leave him alone. "You aren't… bored are you?" This time, my fears are betrayed in my tone.

But I am surprised to find that what was once fear of being forced to marry him has at some point become fear of his leaving me. He is your best friend, I try to explain.

The corner of his lips twitch. "No, not bored. Never. Never bored with you, Lydia."

I stare at him wide-eyed. Even without the childhood nickname Lyddie, he found plenty of other (commonly suggestive) nicknames for me. It is so rare to hear my name on his lips. And somehow it does more to mess with the butterflies in my stomach than any of those stupid endearments.

Wait. Butterflies? Since when have I had butterflies in my stomach?

Betelgeuse looks at me a little surprised. Did I say that last part out loud? He raises his eyebrows at me but I see a glint of hope betrayed by his eyes.

And the world comes crashing down on me.

After all, why would the Ghost with the Most stick around someone like me, unbound as he is to our petty verbal agreement? Why would he tolerate my odd shopping tirades and pathetic pranks and boring acquaintances? Why would he wait for me to come home after every date, and let me cry on his shoulder when it did not go well? Why would he bother magicking my dishes clean and my laundry dry and my clothes on when I was running late? Why would he act odd around me and have that sad—no, longing look in his eyes when looking at me?

But is that even possible?

Well, there are plenty of ways to find out, but I am usually one to take the direct approach.

I slowly lean toward Betelgeuse, watching his expression carefully the entire time. His eyes widen as I slip a leg over him to straddle his lap. And then they involuntarily close as I inch my face closer to his. I smile in satisfaction as I place my lips on his.

Most definitely possible.

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