"Beetlejuice, we need to talk." Lydia called out into the inky darkness of her bedroom, hoping the specter would return her desperate request.
As she kicked off her heels and took a seat on her missive gothic-style bed, she awkwardly felt around for the cord that turned on her bat-shaped lamp that sat on a nearby nightstand. Once she finally got her fingers around it, without even pulling it in the slightest, all of the lights in the room turned on, revealing Beetlejuice, casually sitting at the edge of the bed caddy-cornered to where Lydia was currently, turning around causally to lock eyes with her.
Lydia let out a small scream: "BEETLEJUICE! You scared the ever-living daylights out of me!"
"I did not," The ghost mocked, "If I scared the 'ever-living daylights' out of you, you'd look a little like this:" he then proceeded to use his magic to turn Lydia into a human night scene, placing himself as a wolf inside of it, howling at the full moon that sat upon her left cheek before turning her back to normal.
Lydia stifled a laugh, "BJ, could you be serious for even just a single minute, please. I'm not in the mood to be laughing right now, no matter how much I love your jokes."
Just like that, Beetlejuice's mood immediately turned sour. By Lydia asking him of all people to be serious, he knew something was up, if the phrase "Beetlejuice, we need to talk" didn't give it away already.
"Sure…. S-sorry…" he replied in a sobering tone, very much unlike himself.
"Thank you." She paused before taking a breath and giving it to him straight: "I'm not particularly happy with you right now."
The ghost somehow managed to get paler than he already was and, very much like himself, became defensive: "Whaaaat?! What did I do this time?!"
"As if you don't know! My date!" she snarled
"Date? I knew nothing of the sort…" he grumbled, looked away sheepishly and blushed.
She took another gulp of fresh (well, as fresh as it could be sitting awkwardly close to a putrid poltergeist that smelled of rotting flesh and weeks-old garbage) air and calmed herself. "Beej, I don't want to fight with you. All I'm saying is that I personally find it odd that this is the third consecutive first-and-last date I've had over the past eight months that's been interrupted by snakes, spiders, scorpions, ants, worms, rats, cockroaches, or any other kind of creature that falls under the 'creepy crawly' category."
Beetlejuice's pupils dilated and he began to break out into a nervous sweat, accentuating his distinct odor even more.
"AAAAND, I'm not blaming you for each of these occurrences, but I'm just saying that due to the sheer nature of each of these instances, especially since they only seem to happen without my prior knowledge when I'm out with guys, that I'm beginning to maybe suspect that even if you aren't the person causing these rather disgusting distractions, you might be connected to them in some way or another."
At this point in time, Beetlejuice's head had practically made a complete one-eighty as the back of his shoulder-length, greenish-blonde rat's nest was facing her, his eyes staring at his backside, face so flushed you would have assumed he hadn't been embalmed properly, and trying not to explode.
"B-BJ?" Lydia asked calmly, lovingly- the kind of voice that made his long-dysfunctional heart to start beating again for a few seconds.
"Uh… Hey Babes…" he replied, his voice trembling with anxiety, "This is a completely unrelated question but uh… by any chance, do you happen to remember the, oh, I don't know agreement we made some four or five years ago?"
"Which one? The one where you promised to stop terrorizing my roommate? The one where you promised to stop terrorizing my parents? The one where you promised to stop terrorizing your neighbors? The one where you promised to stop terrorizing my cat? The one where- "
"No no no no no! The other agreement. The one that didn't involve me making phony promises to stop terrorizing people."
"What other agreement was there then?"
"Y-y'know… The-the one where… a-and this is hilarious…"
"Even more hilarious then you promising not to terrorize my cat?"
"Shut up… Anyway… uh… the one agreement we made where if neither of us were married by when we were thirty, we agreed to, I don't know, go on a couple dates, get married, and live sappily ever after in the Roadhouse together till we're old and grey even though you very well know that I've been thirty for the past six hundred-thirty seven years and physically, at least for me, that's not possible, but regardless, I said it anyway because-"
"Oh. That agreement…" Lydia interrupted, in a slightly underwhelmed tone.
Beetlejuice gulped. Oh boy, what did I just do? He thought, that was no better than straight-up confessing your undying love for her getting down on one knee and proposing on the spot… Oh CRUD she's gonna hate me now…
Anxiously, Beetlejuice spun his head around slowly at first, but as his anxiety got the best of him, it began to pick up speed, leaving the poor poltergeist both worried and dizzy after returning his head to its rightful direction, "Woah… I know this isn't a time to make jokes but that… that scared the ever-living snot out of me. On the bright side, it probably cured my permanent head cold, but there's probably a boulder-sized ball of mucus stuck to your wall somewhe- "
He interrupted himself and took a better look at Lydia, who was smiling, blushing, and giggling like a schoolgirl before waddling over to him across the bed on her knees, giving him a quick peck on the cheek.
"Beetlejuice, I was hoping that would be the one agreement between the both of us that you remembered. You know, if you wanted to go out with me, all you had to do was ask. And don't you say that you'd be worried if I said no; I'd never say no to you about something like that."
Holding his cheek in his claw-tipped hands, the ghost felt a goofy, giddy smile form across his lips, "I'm never washing this cheek again…" was all he could say amid a love-fueled daydream.
Lydia chuckled, "Beetlejuice, you don't wash your face as is. Or your body. Or your hands. Or your feet. Or your hair. Or your clothes. Or-"
"Wow, way to kill the mood, Babes…"
Lydia laughed, "Sorry BJ. I may tease you for it, and I may find it to be disgusting, but it's all a part of your charm. Besides, without that odor of yours, I'd probably be surrounded by a gaggle of guys all wanting to court me."
He frowned and silently mocked her.
"BUT, at the same token, guys who can't handle a little garden snake or house spider certainly aren't my type anyway." She winked.
The ghost blushed again, the original overwhelmingly dreamy mood surrounding him again, it was nice to know that despite the way he smelled, he was still ultimately her dream man.