Beetlejuice doesn't belong to me. If you want to split hairs, I don't know exactly who he belongs to… Tim Burton, The Geffen Film Company, whoever wrote the myriad of scripts… (Probably not that last.) It's all legal techno-babble to me, and I don't know much about that stuff. I do know enough not to claim he's mine, or try to make money off him, or I'm screwed. Which sucks. I mean, who wouldn't want to make a living doing what they love? But I guess I should just be grateful I can do it at all… Where would I be, if I couldn't? …Probably doing it anyway, but if anyone asks, I'll deny it. You'll vouch for me, right?

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I'm going to laugh absolutely maniacally now, for two reasons... One, I actually like what I wrote this time, even if I'm not sure it fits perfectly with the flow of the characters so far... And two... I honestly think I just went off the deep end from so much Beetlejuice!

Mwah-ha-ha-ha-hah!

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"Goddamnit Juno!" Beetlejuice snarled, fixing the caseworker with quite possibly the most feral expression she'd ever seen on the trouble-making poltergeist's face. "She's gonna be awake any fucking minute now, and I've gotta fucking be there!" A flick of his hand lifted the chair she'd offered him a moment before, and sent it flying through the frosted glass door, shards scattering everywhere loudly. "This is not a good time!"

To say that his somewhat mad behavior was unexpected, even from him, was an understatement, but Juno sat behind her desk with an utterly bland expression, as if she'd simply seen it all before… and in truth, there wasn't much she hadn't seen, in her centuries sitting behind said desk. "I wasn't aware that was part of the bargain you had with the Deetz girl," She replied in an unimpressed tone, "You really need to keep me up to date on these things."

A pause, as she lifted a folder, paying him no further mind, and began flipping through his latest series of paperwork, before finally, shooting another glance in the still pissed-off poltergeist's direction. "Will you sit down, Beetlejuice! You're not going anywhere until this paperwork is done, so you might as well get that through your thick skull now!"

Beetlejuice scowled, turning back to where the chair had been before he'd flung it, to find it already replaced. The glass on her door was even already repaired. It pissed him off, how completely ineffectual any of his powers were, here.

But with a grunt, and a dangerous scowl, he dropped his weight across the heavy chair, almost hard enough to break it, and indeed resigned himself to wading through yet another length of bullshit red tape, before he could get back to Lydia. "So what'd I do this time, you old bag?" He muttered, drawing a toothpick out of his shirt pocket, and tantrum failing, pretending to be indifferent instead. "I was out with a living girl, all night, playing a breather… How'd I manage to screw that up?"

"Putting aside for the moment that the living girl in question was Lydia Deetz," Juno muttered, as if such information really didn't matter to her either way, "It was actually a fairly minor infraction… If indeed it could only be called minor, because you were the ghost involved, and your previous actions have been known to be…" She flicked her hand at the wrist dismissively, as if she wasn't even going to attempt to describe these. "Simply put, you and the girl disappeared from full view, in front of an entire room full of breathers, most of whom either noticed your sudden exit, or were subsequently informed of it." A pause as she lifted her eyes to him, adding, "Not the smartest thing you've ever done, Beetle."

Beetlejuice's green eyes flickered dangerously. "That's it?" He growled, all pretenses of boredom gone. "I fucking disappeared in front of a few half-drunk breathers, and you drag me down here to do goddamn paperwork?" His voice rose a little, as he straightened in his chair, snarling, "Lyds was fucking sick!"

"And there was no reason she couldn't have been sick right there, Beetlejuice. There's no laws that supersede the ones of death, that say she had to be sick either alone or with dignity." Juno's expression still hadn't altered even a fraction, as Beetlejuice fumed over the woman's words, guts twisting in fury over the idea of just letting Lydia suffer that kind of indignity and humiliation, when it was his goddamn fault she'd been sick in the first place!

But there wasn't a damn thing he could say about it, he'd committed the miserable little infraction, he'd do it again in a second, what was the worst she could do to him? Paperwork? "Give me the fucking papers." He growled, snatching the folder from her hand, and flipping through the sheaves of pale yellow himself. "Goddamnit Juno, there's no reason you can't do this yourself, this is what your fucking eternity is devoted to, why do you have to drag me into it?"

"I told you already Beetle, I'm not doing any more of your paperwork." Juno answered flatly, offering him a pen. "You screw up, you get to take care of it." This said however, she continued regarding the ghost, even after he'd ripped the pen from her fingers, and started scribbling away at the forms.

"Beetle," She prompted suddenly, not even making him glance up from his work, "You're growing very attached to that girl, aren't you?" Even at this, his only reply was a brief flick of his eyes up, and a grunt that could be taken either way. "You have to realize, the only reason your relationship with the Deetz girl has been permitted this long, is because of the geis that you yourself placed in her." Another grunt, this time not so much as a glance. "In fact, there are certain people in high authority, who would like to see that you never see the girl again."

This finally got Beetlejuice's attention, his gaze snapping up like his eyes had been on a set of puppet strings, narrowing in fierce challenge at her, as he turned this over in this mind. Who would care either way about him and Lyds-? Goddamnit! His lips peeled back in a truly terrible expression, every tooth bared in a way that was nothing like a smile, as the poltergeist hissed under his breath, "Prince Vince…"

Juno made a small sound of acknowledgement. "He was quite surprised, and displeased, to learn that your binding on her, superseded any sort of binding we might have on you." At this, Beetlejuice's expression grew closer to a smile, but somehow, this just made it all the more disturbing. "He has demanded, with every ounce of his authority, that a loophole be found in the contract you offered the girl… And was even more displeased to learn what that loophole was, when it was offered."

Beetlejuice turned this over in his mind, briefly, before barking with laughter. "She has to fucking hate me, if it's gonna be broken!" He pounded his fist against the armrest of the chair in triumph, offering a sneer to the ancient ghost woman, as he added, "Fat fucking chance of that! There's no way in hell I'm blowing this gig!"

The case worker, again, showed no real reaction… Not at first. Then slowly, her thin pale lips curled into an utterly unsettling smile, as she murmured confidentially, "There is always another loophole, Beetle. I expect you, of all people, to know that."

Beetlejuice's smile faded slowly. From the way she'd just offered that, with the sense of currently having one over on him, not only was it possible that such a loophole existed… But she already knew damn well what it was. His breath hissed out between his teeth slowly, as he struggled to control the surge of panic rising in his chest. Never see his Lyds again? His babes? If it could be done, the damn prince wouldn't hesitate for a second, no matter what Lydia herself wanted…

His gaze dark with the seriousness of the situation, he faced Juno now with an entirely new attitude. One that knew damn well she could hang his ghost ass out to dry, if he gave her reason. "What kind of loophole are we talking about here, Juno?" He rasped, the very fact that he'd called her Juno, and not 'you old bat,' attesting to the seriousness of the situation.

Juno just considered him evenly, that god-awful smile still in place, and leaned over her desk, clearly savoring what she was about to say. "If you're exorcised," She whispered, in a play of keeping the words just between the two of them, "You no longer have power over shit." A stab of alarm struck Beetlejuice, hard, somewhere around the middle of his spine, and left him speechless. She leaned back slowly, finally reaching for her first cigarette, as she added, by way of explanation, "All your energy dissipates," She snapped her fingers matter-of-factly, "Like that. Including what you put in the girl." The funny thing was though, that she no longer seemed to enjoy that fact as much as she had, just a moment before. Indeed, after this, the both of them fell into silence.

Beetlejuice's head was in a sickening, scared spiral… Though he couldn't say with any honesty which scared him worse. Being trapped in the goddamn lost soul's room… Or losing Lydia. And it was about the time he realized this fact, that he finally understood how much of a damn he gave about the living girl. That just not being part of her life anymore, could scare him as much as exorcism.

"You could always cancel the geis yourself." Juno prompted suddenly, as if only now coming to this conclusion, neither features nor tone indicating any longer that she cared either way. "Then the prince's will would be carried out, you'd no longer be a threat… Extensive measures would no longer have to be taken." She met his eyes with her cold blue ones, folding her hands on her desk. "If I were you Beetle, I'd seriously think about it."

All Beetlejuice could manage in reply was a short shake of his head, and a baring of teeth. It was a purely animalistic reaction… Take away what was his? What meant more to him than his own stinking afterlife? Fuck no. He just couldn't form the words to say as much, suddenly realizing that before the end of the day, the mighty ghost with the most, might just be another torn fabric of energy, behind a locked door. And Lydia… Oh shit, what would happen to her if-?

"My official stance on the case," Juno interrupted this line of thought suddenly, and with a tone of voice he'd never heard from the old woman before, "Is that I'm still searching for a way, on my end, to void the contract. Officially." Beetlejuice lifted bleary eyes to her, at first not understanding what she was saying. "The girl is good for you, Beetle." Juno went on, softly. "And in a way I don't understand it, you're good for her. The prince may not see it, but that doesn't mean I don't."

"Besides," And here she leaned forward over her desk again, lips twisted in a self depreciating smile. "I like the girl. She reminds me of someone who made my afterlife interesting once. An assistant I used to have." She gave an absent wave of her hand, noting nonchalantly, "You probably wouldn't know him."

Beetlejuice stared in absolute bafflement at the woman, a source of mercy he'd never expected, even as she finally took her first, long drag on her cigarette. He was still staring in fact, when she noticed this a moment later, and gave him an impatient scowl, snapping her fingers at him to hurry. "Well what are you waiting for? Finish that paperwork! The Deetz girl isn't going to wait forever, and neither am I!"

And with this, she turned back to her own work, leaving Beetlejuice with a feeling he hadn't known in a long time, if ever… And was sure he didn't like. Humility…

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It was a shitty way to wake up… Her first, overwhelming impression, being that Beetlejuice was just no longer there. Which made sense, when she thought about it… No telling how long she'd been asleep after all, why would he just wait around for her to wake up? Like watching her sleep was the most interesting thing that guy could think of… But it bothered her. In a little, tight place in her chest, close to where that cold was that he'd given her, years before. It bothered her there, and she needed nothing so much as time to think on why…

"I see you're finally awake." Barbara murmured, making Lydia open her eyes. How she'd known before this was anyone's guess, but Lydia considered the woman with nothing so much as a frustrated, 'I-don't-have-time-for-this-right-now,' look, before she forced a small smile. "So, do I even want to ask?" Her godmother added, looking slightly pained.

This one took a moment longer to figure out… Until Lydia, on reflex, went to move Beetlejuice's hat out of her eyes a little more, and realized suddenly that she was still wearing her outfit from the night before. And yes, his hat as well. Her mind effectively spun in circles as she tried to find anything approaching a reasonable explanation, and for the first time in her Beetlejuice enriched life, came up without a decent lie. "Um…" She replied intelligently, drawing the hat the rest of the way off her head. "Can you let me sleep a couple more hours, and ask that again?"

Barbara made a little, tolerant face, accompanied by a sigh that said she knew the girl was doing her best to bullshit her. And failing. "It's past noon, Lydia." A pause, and then, with more than a passing interest in her tone, "What time did you get back home last night, exactly?"

Well hell, when all else fails, try honesty, and see if I can bullshit my way out of this with that. "After dawn, I think. Or just before. I'm not sure." She sat up a little, dropping her hand with relief to her stomach, which was god-thank-you, no longer hurting. "Not long enough ago." She added, stifling a yawn.

Again, the look of pressed patience, and a tight little smile. "Should I bother explaining the meaning of a curfew, when I don't think we ever actually gave you one?" Barbara pulled Beetlejuice's hat from the girl's grasp, making Lydia's heart lurch briefly, and her smile twitch a little. "More importantly, should I explain that you have four parents who worry about you when you don't check in, to let us know you're still alive?"

"Well of course I'm alive," Lydia muttered, staring at the bit of shaped red cloth in the ghost woman's hands, a little impatiently, "If I wasn't, I'd just end up back here with you anyway, right?" A long, weighted pause followed her words, making her eventually glance up, and notice Barbara's distraught expression. Oh, goddamn it… "I suppose that didn't come out as reassuringly as I meant it to." She muttered, only slightly apologetic. "What I mean is…"

"What you mean," Barbara interrupted softly, "Is that you give no regard for people who care about you, who know that there's a lot that can happen between life and death, and who don't want anything bad to happen to you." A small pause before, more insistently, "What you mean, is that you were selfish enough not to care what was going through our minds, as long as you didn't have to answer for your actions."

Damn. The woman had a way of making her feel lower than a dead man's shoe. "Yeah." She acknowledged softly, finally choosing now to reclaim the bit of red, adding, "If you include in there that I was really just hoping not to get caught."

Barbara considered her a moment longer, her soft brown eyes the worst weight Lydia had ever had to bear, before she settled herself back, sighing again. "Lydia Deetz… Are we going to go through this whole sneaking out at night thing again? Because I really hoped to god that you were finally over that…"

The fact of the matter of course, being that Lydia had never gotten over that particular phase, so much as simply learned to be better at concealing it. But the fact that Barbara believed so earnestly that she had, rather than reassuring her that she'd gotten away with it, just made that buried heel dig a little deeper. Her next words of course, tasted a lot like her sickness the night before, surging up to her tongue again. "It's not like I do it all the time…" She lied quietly, unable to pull off such simple bald-faced fabrications as well as she'd once been. "I just wanted to spend a night out."

"Which would have been why Adam and I would have argued in your favor, to do just this!" The ghost woman pressed, finally looking angry. "Because we know that you're a responsible young woman, and not just a little girl anymore! Not until dawn of course…" She stopped here, and shook her head, looking nothing so much as disappointed. "I really expected better from you, Lydia."

Okay, the big question here… Apologize profusely, and promise never to do it again, furthering her lie, or try to squeeze out of it? Again? "Urg…" She fell back on her bed, heavily, and chose a third option, pretending she was simply no longer there. Pulling the hat back down over her eyes helped. "Okay, I'm an ass, I get it. What do I have to clean this time?"

Silence answered her question, and then, rather than the punishment she was asking for, so unapologetically, came the question she should have been expecting, but wasn't. "So who were you with?" Barbara asked quietly, her features currently unreadable, as Lydia was eclipsed in darkness.

Of course, that meant that Barbara couldn't read her features either… "No one you know." Lydia answered softly, pretty sure that there was no way in hell she could get away with that answer. "Dinner, a lot of dancing…"

"And the fact that we don't know him, somehow left you with the impression that it was okay to be out with this boy all night?" Barbara's voice was rising now, finally in anger, but the sort of controlled anger that only she had, the kind that got under Lydia's skin with its tingling sparks of ghost energy, and left her with the bizarre need to scratch. "Just like you thought it was okay not to tell us you'd be gone all night in the first place?"

Lydia tried, god help her, to think of a proper answer to this. Finally, all she could offer, again, was, "I really hoped you just wouldn't notice I was gone."

It was of course, exactly the wrong thing to say. As proven by Barbara's response of, "So you mean to tell me you've done this before?" Lydia closed her eyes, wondering briefly what the consequences of getting up, running to the mirror, and leaping into the neitherworld to hide for a while, in front of her godmother, might be. "Lydia Deetz…"

"I haven't." It didn't sound like a lie. It didn't sound like anything, so much as the idea that she simply didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Are you saying that just so you won't get in more trouble?" Barbara pressed, surprisingly perceptive creature that she was proving to be today. "I mean, is there anything I can believe now, if you tell me? Or do you regularly make a habit of lying to my face?"

God. All she wanted to do, was figure out what the hell had happened last night, between her starting out being determined to prove to Beetlejuice that she didn't think of him 'that way,' and the end of the night, when she'd wanted nothing so much as for him to hold her until she fell asleep! That was all she wanted. Was it so much to ask? Was anyone going to let her fucking think?

Okay. Okay, she was going to deal with this one step at a time. Removing the hat from her eyes, she sat up, and regarded Barbara with the most honest expression she had, which only worked because what she intended to say just then, happened to be the truth. "He's a guy I've known for a long time," She said softly, meeting the ghost woman's eyes now, "But never as anything more than a friend. Now that I've broken up with Vincent, I find out he might have a thing for me. I don't know. He asked me to give him one night, to prove there might be something there. One night. And I gave it to him. He's pretty much been my best friend for years. At least since Bertha and Pru moved on with their lives."

A small pause, as she let this sink in. "I haven't told anyone about him, because it's part of my life, that I want to keep my life. Not something we talk about over the breakfast table. He's been my little secret. Just as a friend, nothing more. That's always been underlined in red ink. Only now I don't know what the fuck to think… And to be perfectly honest, the four of you were the last things I was thinking about last night. All right?" There. The truth. More or less.

For a long, long moment, Barbara just looked at her, warring emotions in her gaze, as she clearly reflected on days when she'd been Lydia's age, something she'd always been able to do much easier than her mother. At last she just dropped her eyes, put her fingers over her mouth, and took a long, slow, unnecessary breath. Weighing what she'd just been told. Weighing Lydia's attempt at honesty, against what she obviously wasn't saying. "And what did you decide?" She asked at last, a question she'd be a great deal more urgent over, if she knew that Beetlejuice was the 'guy' in question.

Lydia felt like a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders… Or more accurately, been violently knocked off them by a wrecking ball. She hung her head, gazing with a small pursing of her lips at the red and white stripes that encircled her body. Stripes that, god help her, could only make her think of him. And of course, Barbara was asking the very thing she herself had been hoping to sort out when she woke up this morning… "I don't know." She said softly.

They sat like that for an extended moment, several moments in fact, before Barbara stood, and made a show of brushing off a dress that was already perfectly clean. "I'm going to go heat you up some breakfast." She announced quietly, as if something had somehow been resolved between them, even though to Lydia's knowledge, nothing had. "There's still pancakes left. We even have some strawberry syrup this time."

Then, with a glance in the girl's direction, and just a trace of her usual, gentle smile, she added, "Where did you get that dress anyway? It's beautiful on you."

Lydia laughed under her breath, meeting Barbara's gaze with a trace of a challenge. "Internet." She lied smoothly, in what she was pretty sure both of them knew was anything but true. Considering that her family didn't own a computer, never having seen a need for it that couldn't be accomplished at work or school, there wasn't much it could be, but a lie. But she'd laid her story now… This was an off-limit subject, and for now, Barb seemed content to accept that.

At least this was what she gathered from the ghost woman's soft, "Imagine that," right before she left her alone again.

Only once she was gone, did Lydia release the breath that, she swore, she'd been holding since the conversation began. Disaster averted then. Sort of. Even if it only brought her one step closer to the day when she'd have to tell her parents everything… Which she was suddenly certain in her heart, would one day come. No matter how much she didn't want it to.

She stood slowly, a bit ungracefully, hat held loosely between thumb and forefinger, and cast another long glance around the room. No, he still wasn't there. No telling where he'd gone. Or when he'd be back. She felt a brief, unhappy twist in her middle, and fixed a rueful grin on her lips, to cover it. Okay, so she cared where he was. That he wasn't there when she'd woken up. Was she just shitting herself, that she only thought of him as a friend?

Laying the loose bit of clothing on her dresser, she paused in surprise as, for the first time, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. At first glance, she didn't even know it was her… Starting a little, as if she might have accidentally looked out the window instead, and some beautiful woman she'd never seen was staring back in at her. On the second floor.

Once she realized that it was her, she could only stare, dumbfounded that her plain, scrawny, unimpressive self, could really look that good. It was all the dress, of course… To say that it flattered her was a vast understatement. It gave her curves that she wasn't even sure herself she had, elongated her limbs so that she didn't look so goddamn short, swept around her waist like a gentle pair of pressing hands, like she had some kind of fucking hourglass figure…

She touched the mirror, lightly, with her fingertips, as if checking to make certain it wasn't really some neitherworld beauty looking back at her, rather than her own features. But those dark eyes, whose color she'd earned from her mother, and intensity she'd earned from her father… Those were hers, and nobody else's.

For a moment she couldn't speak. Wasn't even really certain she was breathing. Her hair was falling from its neatly tucked position now, after a morning of heavy rest, but the polished, shining strands, shone like black ink, and she could tell even now that the night before, it must have been gorgeous, when every hair was in place. She must have been, beautiful.

It just, didn't make sense, that this could be her. She was leaning close enough now for her breath to fog the glass, and she swore, her eyes were stinging, like she was about to cry. It had to be Beetlejuice's magic. It couldn't be her. But Beetlejuice, wasn't there, was he? "Is this me?" She whispered, finally drawing back, and putting her gloved hand to her own cheek, only to see the girl… No, the woman in the mirror, do the same. A mad little laugh fell from her lips, as despite her best intentions, at least one tear escaped her dark, bewildered eyes.

And it was about this time that Beetlejuice appeared before her, not giving her time to rescue his hat, before it was crushed under his weight. Beetlejuice though, didn't even notice… His eyes were all for her, and at the sight of her crying, again, it looked like something had broken inside him.

But he folded his hands, smiled like nothing was bothering him, and before she could explain why she looked the way she did, he noted matter-of-factly, "Guess I screwed up pretty good, huh babes?"

Lydia blinked, looking at him in puzzlement, and belatedly, wiped the errant tear from her cheek. "I don't know what you're talking about-" She began, only to have him lift his hand, with a pained, tight-lipped expression, and shake his head in disgust.

"Don't deny it, Lyds. I asked for one shot to give you a good time, and it ends up with you hanging over a toilet halfway across the country. I screwed up." He fixed her with a slightly mad look, more from a sense of frustrated desperation, for once, than any trace of anger or humor. "Just go ahead," He flicked his fingers towards his chest, "Tell me off… Tell me you gave me my chance, and now you never want to hear another fucking word about it again. Get it over with, so I can go beat my head against a few brick walls for a while."

She honestly didn't know what to say, her mind couldn't go so quickly from feeling one thing so intensely, to trying to understand the admittedly crazy poltergeist's line of thought. What finally became apparent, after a length of trying to figure out his reasoning, was that he was letting her off the hook. He wouldn't pursue her anymore, they'd go back to being friends… It surprised her a little, the way her heart seized, almost with anger, at the thought that he'd just give up so easily.

But he was also, she realized slowly, through her own stubbornness, really, genuinely upset at what he saw as his lost chance. She took a deep breath, trying to think of what to say, and for once, despite her clingy, form-fitting dress, his eyes didn't once flick to her chest. Rather he just stared at her, like a… A wounded puppy. Dead, yes, insane, sure, dangerous, most likely… But it didn't change the fact that it was the most genuine expression she'd ever seen on the poltergeist's face.

So when she smiled, it was genuine, and a little rueful. "Hell, Beej… I had fun. You do know how to show a girl a good time. I mean, it got a little messier than I would have liked…"

"Don't bullshit me, babes." He denied flatly, his features suddenly deadpan, if the corners of his lips did droop a little. "A night that ends with having to hold your date over the toilet, isn't one that gonna impress any broad. You included."

Actually, it was how gentle he'd been with her then, how he'd just given up on getting his way, to tend to her needs, that had impressed her… But she wasn't ready to admit that. Not yet. She was beginning to suspect, as he had, that there was more than friendship between them. Even that he wasn't pulling one over on her, the way he did most girls. But she still needed to think it through… She just wasn't ready to say it.

But she'd had fun with him. Honest to god fun. If she was perfectly honest, as hell of a lot more fun than she'd ever had on a date with Prince Vince, who in the end, was too worried about making some minor misstep, to actually risk having a good time together. And if she was honest further, she'd know that she'd always had fun with Beetlejuice… She'd thought that was just because they were good friends. But that didn't explain the way her heart was thudding away so anxiously in her chest now…

And yet some last stubborn trace of suspicion, just wouldn't let her accept that she was somehow different than the other girls he'd left her side to chase, so many times over the years. She did not want to be an 'also-ran.' Not with him.

So when she smiled this time, it was with more than a trace of venom, even as she was eating herself alive over why she was doing this to him. Even as she hated herself for the words she knew weren't true. "I didn't know impressing your date meant so much to you." She noted, with a trace of humor that she damn well knew was out of place. "I always figured it was just whether or not you got lucky in the end."

Beetlejuice's eyes, which had been dark with self-pity, hardened just a fraction as they flicked back up to meet hers. "What, you think you're anything like those other broads I've chased, Lyds?" He asked softly, with just a trace of anger. "You think I'm gonna treat you anything like I treat them?"

And here they were, the words that, god help her, she knew she had no right to say… But it was too late. The words were already out of her own hateful mouth, and nothing she could do would take them back. "What's the difference?" She asked quietly, evenly, revealing none of how her own insides were tearing her to pieces as she asked this, or as she waited for an answer. "Why am I some special case?"

Anger rose up in the poltergeist, visibly, until she swore the air hummed with it, swore that she could see every hair on his body stand up just a little straighter, with the unleashed power currently coursing through him. "Because I give a damn about you!" He roared, in a voice that should have carried through the house in an instant, alerting every one of her parents to the fact that the ghost with the most was back. "You think I ever gave a damn either way about those other broads? They were just fucking entertainment! You-!"

And here Beetlejuice seemed to run out of words, just glaring at her for what felt like a heart-stopping eternity, before slowly, forcing his hackles to lower, and finally just looking at her like this time, she'd really scored deep. Like she just couldn't possibly understand. "You're Lyds." He finished at last, very softly. "You're my babes."

A tight, mad little laugh fell from her lips, she couldn't help it… She really didn't mean for it to sound the way it must have. But from Beetlejuice's expression, she couldn't have done anything worse to drive the knife just a little bit deeper. She actually felt a little mad herself, hysterical maybe, grabbing for her desk chair in order to have something to sit down on, quickly. "Beej, you're the best…" She whispered, shaking her head, and making an absolutely dumbfounded expression creep across the poltergeist's face.

"Say again, babes?" He murmured, eyeing her like she might be the crazy one there. Which she supposed, at the moment, might be entirely possible. "I'm the best what?"

Lydia finally managed to stave off her attack of the giggles, long enough to lift her head, eyes gleaming with pleasure, and offer, in as nonchalant a voice as possible. "You're right Beej. You totally screwed up. Now we're going to have to do it all over again… You know, see how it turns out when we do it right…"

It was possible that Beetlejuice's jaw dropped, just a little, but then his eyes lit up like wildfire, and he was swinging down from his desk, reclaiming the crushed hat from under his ass, and swinging it back in place on his head, regardless of how ridiculous it looked. A low cackle escaped his lips, as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation… "Babes, you're not gonna regret it, I'm gonna show you the time of your fucking life… Venice, Italy, what do you think? No, no Paris… Goddamn it, that's where the blond bitch is… Now, what's better than Paris…?"

He fell into short, fanatical pacing at this point, drumming his fingers against his chin, his eyes racing with thought. Rather than coming up with an answer as to their next destination though, he paused suddenly, in mid-step, and his eyes grew wide. "Goddamnit!" He demanded, suddenly looking desperate again. "Did I miss it again? Fuck, Lyds, tell me I didn't miss your birthday this time…!"

Lydia, in the midst of pulling the myriad of pins from her hair, as she watched his little display with fascination, was briefly caught off guard. "Um, no." She answered slowly, wondering where he was going with this. "It's next week, why?"

"Next week!" He looked vaguely like she'd hit him, then started pacing in circles, cursing up a storm, the various swears interspaced with, "-can't wait a fucking week to give her the goddamn-!" And several arguments with himself about why exactly a week was such a big deal, when he'd been around for centuries…

And then abruptly he turned on her, so close that they were almost nose to nose, and Lydia gave a little jump of surprise. Beetlejuice though, seemed not to notice their nearness, and gave her a face-splitting grin, grabbing her by the hand, and dragging her to her feet. "Shit-hell-anyway… Birthdays are more for breathers to celebrate, this'll be a little thing just between us… Now-hold-on-just-a-minute-I-got-it-here-somewhere…"

Lydia was baffled by her best friend's sudden lapse into absolute senselessness, as he turned in circles while digging through his pockets, half of it for show she was sure, still cussing up a blue streak, now about why he'd never bothered to organize the stuff in them.

"Ah!" His eyebrows flew up as his fingers apparently closed on whatever he was looking for, and he drew forth a small blue paper box, much the worse for wear, that had probably been floating amongst his various possessions for decades. "Birthday present." He grinned at her proudly, as he held out the mangled little thing. "Go on, you don't gotta wait for your birthday… You know I won't tell…"

Accepting the box gingerly, not sure what the hell was about to jump out at her, she braced herself, for his sake, and cracked the lid open…

And froze in utter astonishment, at the sight of the small white metal pendant inside, in the unmistakable shape of a beetle. It was in fact, something she'd seen once before, when she was much younger… When Beetlejuice had told her the story of how he ended up on his own in the world. It was all he had left of the family that had given up on him…

"Beetlejuice…" She whispered, lifting the cold otherworldly metal to cup lightly in the palm of her hand. It glinted in the low light… Like there might be more than just the pretty silver metal to it. Her eyes rose to his, confused. "How can I accept this…? It's the most valuable thing you own!"

"Not anymore, babes." He denied, matter-of-factly, and with more than a trace of a smug grin. "That'd be you, now."

Heat swept her body in an instant, and for one bizarre moment, she thought they were floating in that odd non-place again, because she swore she couldn't feel her body, and there was no way in hell that her feet were touching the floor… And through it all, a part of her she wasn't entirely certain was actually part of her, just smiled sweetly, and murmured, "You do not own me, Beetlejuice."

But the poltergeist just winked at her, rocking on his heels a little, looking goddamn full of himself. "Not yet, you mean." He corrected her, in as asinine a fashion as even he could summon… Which of course made her burst out laughing.

Beetlejuice? Beetlejuice. Dirty, troublemaking, lecherous, not-a-dignified-bone-in-his-body Beetlejuice… Playing by no one's rules but his own, constantly getting her into situations they barely got out of, caring for no one but him… Except that last wasn't true anymore, was it? And god help her, Beetlejuice, making her stomach flutter, and her heart sing, as she watched him grinning his ass off, as she wondered why the hell she'd never figured it out before…

"You like?" He asked smoothly, suddenly snaking an arm around her waist, and pulling her very close… Licking his lips, his eyes boring into hers…

"Lydia! Breakfast!" Every muscle in the poltergeist's body tensed, almost violently, and then he threw his head towards the door with a decidedly demented expression, with a glare that could peel paint.

She watched in fascination as his lips parted, and from that oddly sensual mouth of his… Her own voice emerged. "Coming, Barbara!" He sing-songed, in a way that almost made her pass out from silent laughter, as he turned back to her with a grimace. "Goddamn Babs, always interrupting when things get good… Well!" He took a step back, lifting his hands in surrender. "I can wait. No one will say to me, that I am no gentleman."

This last was said in such a ludicrously serious fashion, that Lydia actually choked on her own laughter… But then before she could say a word, before she could proclaim all her unsaid feeling, before she could admit that yes, she felt something for him too…

Beetlejuice winked at her, made a pistol shape with his hand, and noted with forced nonchalance, "Catch you later, babes."

And he was gone.

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