Stage Pressure

Lydia, now nineteen, is back from college and entering a fashion contest to, in her own words, 'make a statement'. Only problem is, Clare Brewster has upped the ante of the competition and has made it into a talent show.
When singing is suggested as both a means for Lydia to gain confidence on stage and as a possible accompaniment to her segment of the fashion show, Beetlejuice decides she is the Neitherworld's next biggest star (and also his next biggest money-maker.)
Their relationship, however, - already becoming defined with a large 'question mark' -is put under pressure when Beetlejuice's plan actually turns out.

Now, in amongst all this new fame and fortune, will the two ever manage to face up to how their feelings towards each other have matured?
And will they be able to get Lydia out of the limelight before the stage pressure proves too much for her?

A/N

Setting: Cartoon-verse (may borrow from movie-verse)
Pairing: BeetlejuicexLydia

References to events and characters from the show are intensive.
If you're not a BeejxLyds shipper then I suggest you hit the back button. Expect fluff from the start!
I know that the 'verse is technically set around the turn of the decade in the 90s
but as this was never explicitly stated in the show I've taken some liberties.
I've tried my best to avoid this being labelled a song-fic. It's not.

In the case of any spelling inconsistencies I'd just like to point out that I am
British, so I use English: UK spellings. However, my Word is default set to
English: US, and no matter how many times I switched back to UK it would still
revert back to US, so there may be a mix of spellings. That should only be the case
for the first handful of chapters, as I think I've finally got it stuck to UK spelling.

Chapter One

If you had said to a thirteen-year-old Lydia Deetz that she was to perform on stage competitively before the whole of Peaceful Pines, she would have shaken with queasy nerves and declined the offer. A nineteen-year-old Lydia however – aspiring photographer, part-time fashion designer – was compelled.

She stood surveying the construction of the platform that was being erected outside of the town hall, builders juggling various boards and tools as they marched past her, some offering looks, some too engrossed in their work. Those that looked would eventually stare; Lydia had become a stunning young woman.
Letting out a breath that was almost a sigh, almost wistful, Lydia could practically picture the banner above the platform now – 'Peaceful Pines Summer Fashion Contest'. She could even picture her competition. Textiles and fashion students were required to enter – good or not – due to their course of choice. There was also a girl who lived at the bottom of the hill beneath the Deetz's household who was entering with 'sustainable' fashions made from recycled materials. And then… then there was Clare Brewster.
Lydia frowned. Her age-old rival, fresh from California to try and outdo her, as always; on a break from college and back to haunt her.

Lydia hefted her digital SLR (some shots weren't worth dark-room treatment) and snapped a picture of the stage's progress.
She had two weeks to prepare. Models weren't a problem – they had already volunteered and been selected by the judging committee, and each designer had to share them. The fashions weren't a problem either, Lydia had already completed each piece. No, she was anxious about being up there. All designers were required to introduce their range, explain their inspiration and thought processes, relay their audience and theme – all at the mercy of a thousand eyes and voices, if not more. Her stomach somersaulted at the thought.

Swallowing thickly, she turned and readjusted both her satchel and SLR case, the straps having bitten into her shoulder. Her chest-length, coal-black hair bobbed as she moved, catching and tousling in the afternoon breeze.
Lost in thought, she managed to walk a few paces before she slammed into someone's arm and started at the sound of a phone clattering to the floor. She'd mumbled an apology before she'd even realized who it was that she'd bumped into.

"Hey, watch it!" The voice was high, and bounced with an upper inflection that grated on Lydia's nerves and memory the instant she heard it.
A blonde bunny tossed her hair over her shoulder and narrowed blue eyes thick and heavy with both mascara and false lashes.
Oh, great… Lydia stepped back and maintained as polite a face as she could muster. "Oh. Sorry, Clare. I didn't see you," Her voice was monotone.

Clare Brewster was tanned-brown, with painted-on lips, thin-plucked brows and make-up so thick that it was a wonder she could lift her head. She was wearing a bubblegum-pink cami that read 'your boyfriend –heart– me' and denim hot pants that must have been a size too small.
Lydia barely concealed a disgusted frown.

No reference was made to the fact that they hadn't seen each other for the best (definitely 'best') part of a year. The temperature seemed to drop a good five to ten degrees.
"Like, no kidding, Deetz. What are you doing here?" The bimbo scowled and picked up her phone – pink with cheap diamantes stuck on the back. Lydia had no doubt that Clare, or rather 'Daddykins' Brewster could afford to buy her real diamonds, but the cheap, tacky bling had its own appeal to girls like her.
"I was about to ask you the same thing," Lydia fought the urge to fold her arms.

"Duh. I'm in the con-test," Clare's nose wrinkled as she straightened, regarding the dark-haired girl before her like she was a bug that needed to be squashed.
"So I heard. But why are you here? At the site?" Lydia motioned behind her at the construction work.
You don't prepare, she thought assuredly. She didn't need to say it out loud; her dark eyes glittered in a disbelief that Clare took for mockery.
Clare's eyes narrowed and she pouted her vivid-pink lips. She raised her manicured hands, palms up to the sky. "Give me a break, Deetz. I'm seeing, like, my stage. What I have to work with and– y'know. I have this totally awesome idea, which is gonna blow whatever you're planning, like, out of the wa-ter, Ly-di-a."

Hold your cool, hold your cool, Lydia's conscience kept repeating in a mantra. She shook her head slowly, legs itching to walk away, to end the conversation before Clare could, to have the last word. She could see it in her mind's eye now, imagined tossing her long hair nonchalantly and smiling coolly. 'Good for you; catch you later.'
She couldn't. Her feet were rooted to the spot. "Clare, it's a fashion show. You're talking as though it's a talent show,"

Clare scoffed, examining her nails. "Isn't it? Like, Deetz, don't be so square. Why else would they want the de-sign-ers up on the stage?"
Lydia's blood ran cold. The colour drained from her face at the very thought.
I will not let myself think that she might be right. She told herself firmly. Clare just wants the spotlight on her, she just wants to up the game, I will not give her the satisfaction, I won't! But... curiosity killed the cat. She raised an eyebrow. "What are you planning?"

Clare grinned deliciously. "As if I'm going to give you any i-deas! You'll just have to wait and see, Ly-di-a. Toodles," She waggled her fingers. The living and breathing Barbie doll cackled as though she thought herself hilarious and turned to walk away in heels that were much too high. Lydia felt a sweet stab of triumph when she saw a few yards up ahead that Clare tripped over her own feet and almost face-planted the ground.

As Lydia, too, retreated, dark vengeful thoughts filled her head. If Beetlejuice were here right now… if he could just 'juice up a patch of ice beneath those ridiculous heels of hers… if she could just slip and chip one of those perfect pearly-whites of hers then that would make. my. day… Ah, dreaming up ways of getting back at Clare Brewster, her guilty pleasure. A past time she was reluctant to admit to, fantasies she never took seriously.

Lydia shook her head and rounded the corner from the construction site, following the pavement out onto the main road that wound through the Winter River suburb and climbed, eventually, uphill.
Her legs were like lead. She felt all the more nervous about the competition now after her run in with her rival. Fashion wasn't Clare's ambition – looking 'good', yes, but that wasn't quite the same thing. Clare was usually the one wearing the clothes, not designing them. She had no creative or intellectual flair, she was too self-centred for that. But there was no denying she was stubborn and ambitious, and that was competition enough. Clare would use the contest as a means of advertising herself, would turn it into a parade.

It wasn't long before Lydia reached the barbershop and the Maitland Hardware store, where she'd chained her bike. Removing the chain, she mounted it whilst turning over the ill feeling in her gut. If Clare was going to up the ante of the competition, then she was doomed. Even if Clare herself had no 'flair', she could certainly pay somebody to think some up for her.

Lydia sighed.
It wasn't that she needed to win, but she wanted to make a statement. She wanted to challenge what the media considered beautiful, she wanted a spotlight shed on the dark, on the Gothic, on the macabre, for once. Beating Miss Brewster was one of the most enjoyable ways in which to do so. 'Artistic' revenge. Never personal.
She'd brainstorm ways in which to improve her 'performance', but, in the mean time, home beckoned, and Lydia pedalled for all she was worth to get there.

After dinner, and after hours of scripting her speech for the competition, Lydia made her way to her room and over to her bureau, deep in thought. Without having a thought as to why she was doing so, she opened up one of its drawers and fumbled beneath a sketchbook and an A4 portfolio before her fingers struck cool glass. She slipped the concealed photo frame out carefully, and stared at the photograph. A fourteen-year-old Lydia stared back, smiling contentedly, red-tipped fingers resting on her shoulder as she leaned into a pale, slightly blue-tinged figure wearing black and white stripes, the owner of the hand. He too was smiling, revealing teeth that should have been unsightly but that Lydia now found endearing, his head slightly tipped in her direction.

Suddenly, inexplicably, a memory hit her.
"What would I ever do without you, Beetlejuice?"
"You'll never know, babes. You'll never know."
But now she did know, even if the experience had only been a temporary one.

Life had had little colour without him these past few weeks. Though Lydia blended in at college in amongst the cocktail of lifestyles and cultures that attended, she'd found that that wasn't as much of a relief as she'd have thought it would be. She wasn't unique anymore, and she'd grown fond of her own uniqueness, of her own 'freakishness'. Beetlejuice had given her the confidence to be herself. At college no one paid attention to her the same way that he did, no one saw her as special as he did her.

She ran her fingers across the glass that separated her from his image, as it often did when they were either side of the mirror.

'Age' didn't count for much in the Neitherworld. 'Change', though it happened, was accepted but generally ignored.
Lydia had come to learn that this, in part, was because most new ghouls were Reset upon arriving in the Neitherworld, to acclimatize to their afterlife. Reborn as a baby ghoul, they aged until their age of death, after which they stopped growing for good, as Beetlejuice had. So, though a ghost could look in their early-twenties, they could really be the spirit of an old crone, in-progress.

Lydia had begun to assume that that was why no one in the Neitherworld had bat an eyelid at a thirty-something poltergeist palling around with a child-cum-teenager that, in theory, was old (or rather, young) enough to be his daughter. The deceased stopped asking questions; everyone was considered safe because they were already dead. In the Neitherworld, their friendship had never seemed odd at all. In the Real World however…
"Like, how many times do you hang out with that, like, Handy Man, anyway, Lydia Deetz? It's sooo tot-all-y gross. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was something going on."
The memory of Clare's frequent belittling was still raw and fresh in Lydia's mind, especially after running into her today. She gripped the frame tighter.

She and "Mr. Beetleman" had rarely been seen out in public together in Peaceful Pines, but you could always count on Clare Brewster and her posse to catch wind of it if they did. It seemed that once the girls of Miss Shannon's school had graduated, Clare's following had multiplied to an obscene amount. She effectively began to have eyes and ears everywhere. This, in turn, had lead to Lydia travelling and staying in the Neitherworld whenever she had a spare moment. If it hadn't been for the fact that she was now a young woman, and Delia thought it worrying that she spent so much time being closed-off 'in her own room' rather than out socializing 'normally', she would have continued to do so.

One day, almost two years ago now, Delia had taken her stepdaughter to one side. "Lydia, I worry about you,"
"There's no need to worry about me, Mom,"
"But at every chance you get, you're sat alone in your room. I mean, how are other people expected to stop labelling you as a- a-" Her hands had grabbed at the air for the right word.
"-freak?" Lydia had interjected.
Delia had carried on without hesitation, continuing where Lydia had left. "-without you doing normal things. Why can't you go out like other girls your age? You'll never get a boyfriend if you keep yourself shut away,"

Much as Lydia hated to face the facts, Delia had been – well – right. She wasn't leading her life, preparing herself for her future; she was isolating herself.
And so gradually, Lydia had started calling Beetlejuice less and less. Then, what with her getting a place at college, it became impossible for her to find time for them on-campus. She didn't trust his behaviour enough to try and call him to her college, and, what with her having a roommate, she was under scrutiny twenty-four hours a day.
She hadn't seen Beetlejuice for weeks and now that she'd returned from a seemingly endless term at college to the small middle-of-nowhere Connecticut village she called home, she was desperate to see him again.

Lydia stood the photo frame up on her bureau and sat down on the edge of her four-poster bed, letting her mind empty. She exhaled deeply through her nose, fell back and led sprawled on top of her comforter, glancing heavenwards up at her high ceiling, mulling over her options.
She wanted to call him now, wanted to tell him everything that had happened since she'd seen him last. Hell, she just wanted to be with him. All these years, she'd always wanted to hang out with him, to have a distraction from mundane reality, to have an adventure, to have fun, but now… now there was no other objective behind wanting to see him other than the fact that she'd see him. This was a feeling she couldn't quite explain and didn't yet have the capacity to understand, but it was accompanied daily by such thoughts as 'I wonder what Beetlejuice is doing right now?'.

She turned her head slightly to gaze at the large mirror perched above her dresser. Longing coiled inside of her, but reason won out. I won't call him yet. He might be busy.
It was late now, anyway. Glancing at her alarm clock – 11.48pm – she felt her eyes grow heavy. Lydia was, by all accounts, a night owl, but she was exhausted. She'd spent the best part of the day finalizing the outfits for the show, scoping out the site (and bumping into Clare), scripting her speech before and after family dinner and winding down for bed. She'd been home for a week, but it had passed in a whirlwind of activity, and she'd had no time to herself, let alone time to call Beej.

Sitting up, she unbuttoned and unzipped her black jeans before peeling them from her legs (she reminded herself again why she oftentimes disliked skinny-fit) and pulled her plum-coloured vest top up and over her head.
Padding over to her door in just her undies, she opened it a crack and called down the stairs. "Dad! Mom! I'm heading to bed,"
"Oh, n— night, pumpkin!" Charles Deetz called back up to her.

Lydia clicked the door to and flicked the light switch, before turning back to her bed. The luxury of having a room all to herself again made her lazy, and instead of slipping into some pyjamas she unlatched her bra and tossed it casually to the floor, followed quickly by her shed panties. Unabashedly bare, she clambered into bed eagerly.

In the morning, she thought, tucking herself in. When I have a minute alone, I'll call him.

Beetlejuice, too, was turning down for bed. Having just stepped into his room and changed into his magenta, bug-patterned pyjamas, he pulled the trousers up over his beer belly (or perhaps 'beetle' belly was more appropriate) and crawled into his coffin-shaped bed, settling down morosely.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken to Lydia. These periods of silence always made him wonder if this time would be the 'end', if she had finally forgotten him. He'd always hoped that that day would never come; now he almost felt it was inevitable. Real life was sweeping her off her feet, carrying her away from him. It wouldn't be long before she got a stable group of friends, maybe even a boyfriend (huh, inexplicable queasy feeling at that thought) and a career.

He rolled onto his side, and shut his eyes. It was then that a mumbling sound drew his attention to the mirror in the corner of his room.
Blinking, he sat up before venturing over to it.
He peered in, his usual entrance to the world of the living currently a window more so than a door, but it was something, at least. The light was out in Lydia's room, as it had been for countless evenings past, but the mound under her bedding made his stomach flip. She was home.

He marvelled at this silently for a moment; when was the last time he'd looked? For all he knew, she could have been home for weeks. Even so, he wasn't one to snoop on her when she hadn't called, especially now that she was older. The fact that she was 'older' was graspable, but the fact that she'd 'grown up' was something that hadn't quite hit home yet. He'd gotten the 'older' message when he'd appeared in her mirror a year or so ago and she'd been midway through changing. (Not that he'd seen anything.) She'd snapped at him, told him to be more considerate with how and when he checked in on her, and now he followed the rule: unless she called, she wasn't ready for him.
He was breaking his own rule now.

"Lyds?" He whispered, pressing his red fingertips to the glass.
He could see her roll over to face the mirror, but her face was passive and serene with sleep. Her dark lashes fluttered and her lips moved unintelligibly. She was dreaming.
He remembered the innocence her face had shown when she slept as a child, and was startled to see there wasn't that childlike innocence there anymore, only a bewitching vulnerability.
Beetlejuice had only begun to wonder what it was that she could be dreaming about that could made her look so peaceful, when something totally unexpected happened.

"Beetlejuice…" Lydia breathed in her sleep, eyebrows arching as she pressed her face into her pillow.

The ghost's dead heart skipped a beat.
Oh, but she'd said his name in her sleep before but those times were nothing compared to this. Her voice had been soft, whimpering, and as he took in the sight of her bed-tousled hair and flushed cheeks, his imagination ran away with him.
Before he could stop himself, he pictured lecherous hands plunging into her dark hair, then pinning her to the bed, her dark eyes submissive as they gazed up at her midnight visitor. With a jolt, he realized the hands he was imagining had red-tipped fingers.

His exclusively male appendage tensed.

"Eeeee!" Immediately, he felt as though he'd done something horribly wrong by spying on her. Perverse. He didn't stumble back so much as jump back, and didn't stop retreating until the edge of his bed met the back of his legs and he toppled on top of it.
Woah. Waitaminute. Woah.

He suddenly felt dirty, and in a different way to the norm. He tried very hard to un-see what it was he had just pictured, and in a fit of panic he dashed back over to the mirror and turned it to face the wall, panting.
"Have to save me from myself…" He muttered aloud, but what that meant he couldn't be sure.

He tried not to question why his imagination had run in that direction, aside from the obvious – that he was a dirty-minded lech and a suggestive whimper was enough to prompt it. After all, he'd never thought of Lydia like… that. And even though for a millisecond there he may have, he couldn't… couldn't bring himself to.
She was his best friend. A kid. Yes, she was getting older but- He tried to count on his fingers how old she was. Instead of counting multiple times per hand, new fingers sprouted out of his appendage for each extra year. It became a blur at fourteen; how old was she again?

He tried counting the anniversary presents he'd gotten her. First there was the spider brooch, then the watch, then the updated photo frame with their picture… those would make her, what? Fourteen? But… wait, there were other presents. He tried adding them up against the years now, and he got so frustrated working it out that his head began to literally spin.

Had it not been for the fact that she wore or used these gifts an awful lot, a scatter-brained slob like him would probably have forgotten them all by now.
No, there was the SYellArrrr camera that put monsters and frights in every photo taken. Fifteen.
Oh, but what about the Everglow candle- the candle that's flame never burns and never burns out? Sixteen.
The coffin-shaped earrings. Seventeen.
The Teddy-Scare. He remembered that one because she'd looked at him hurtfully – how old do you think I am? – when she'd gotten it. Ah, but that was until she'd learned it had a life of its own. Actually, that was before they'd both realized how much trouble it would get them in. Eighteen, then.

But then that meant he was missing their last anniversary, and he remembered that one the best of all because it was so recent. The pendant. He'd gotten her a Victorian pendant with a black and white striped cameo set in black filigree.
He recalled Jacques declaring, "Sacre bleu! You match," when she'd arrived at the Roadhouse wearing it. He'd been right. That day Beetlejuice had substituted his magenta shirt for an (albeit dirty) white one. And, as Lydia had gotten older (huh, there it was again), she'd grown out of her red cape and had altered it into a dress. This having been a special occasion however, she'd turned up wearing a black dress – in hindsight it was one of those so called 'little black numbers', which should have been much too extravagant for celebrating a friend-a-versary, and should have been 'too old for her', yet somehow it had worked at the time. It had had horizontal off-the-shoulder straps, and a built-in white underskirt. It being the Neitherworld, Lydia had worn black, sensible flats instead of heels. And that pendant.

They'd gone out to a Wide-Scream movie together, and ignored Jacques' and Ginger's puzzled looks.

Suddenly, realization dawned on Beetlejuice and flattened him like a steamroller. Their anniversary had positively reeked of—of a date. Not only had he gotten her a gift that was so obviously in reference to himself, but she'd worn it happily, had coordinated with him (not that he'd noticed until Jacques had pointed it out) and they'd left arm in arm, climbed into Doomie – Doomie, their car – gone to a secluded (but public) spot, a date spot, and sat in the dark, together, leaning close…
Nineteen. Lydia was nineteen.

His mind replayed her dreamy whimper. 'Beetlejuice…'
"AAAAH!" The ghost's head span off of his shoulders for the second time that evening. He dove into his bed and shoved his head beneath his pillow, jamming it down around his ears as though he hoped that doing so would stop the mental playback.

Okay, he could admit, he was perverse but he wasn't a pervert. Lydia was his best friend, always had been. She'd always been safe with him, and always would be.
He wasn't thinking straight. He was tired, he was confused because he hadn't seen her in such a long time, and, hell, who was he kidding? He hadn't gotten any for centuries.
Lydia was the only humanoid female he had an active social life with, and maybe… maybe in that moment of her sleepy vulnerability part of his subconscious suddenly considered using her as fuel for the ol' fire when he'd be stoking it alone. But…
Beetlejuice's face crumpled. He couldn't do that over his friend.

So the dirty half of his brain was betraying him, it wasn't the first time a body-part of his had gone on strike. And anyway, he was reading way too much into it.
He lessened the pressure on the pillow and moaned into his mattress. "I gotta get some sleeeeeep."
It took him a while, but eventually, he managed it.

It was just as well that the dresser-mirror's elevation had hidden Lydia's discarded underwear from view. It was also just as well that Lydia liked to curl up tight in her bedding, so that her having slept in the nude had gone completely unnoticed.
When morning came, she stirred and yawned groggily.

After dressing and making her way downstairs, only to discover a note left from her parents – Out on an errand. Be about an hour. x – she went on to make herself breakfast before returning to her room.

She'd thrown on a grey nightshirt, so-called 'boyfriend-fit', that hung to the middle of her thighs. Now, gazing at her reflection in the mirror, she popped her collar and pouted, before laughing at her own childishness.
Lydia went on to rim her eyes with a thick, black kohl pencil, ruffled her hair to increase its volume and then—and then she hesitated. What am I doing?

Getting dressed, she answered herself. She blended the eyeliner out, making her eyes smoky.
A snarky inner voice mocked: Half-dressed. You have no intention of putting on any more clothes, but you're making yourself look sultry. For who, exactly? Yourself? … Beetlejuice?

A hand came up to her head. She inhaled deeply, and then let it out. "It's perfectly normal to want to look your best around company." She reasoned aloud.
So that's why you wore that black dress for your 'anniversary'.

She was at war with herself. Burying her face in her palms, she began to knead her temples irritably. "I don't feel that way about B.J.," she tried to tell herself, none-too-convincingly. She sounded tired, even to her own ears.
'That way'? What way was that? Whatever reason (and, therefore, feeling) other than vanity that explained why she was dolling herself up this early in the morning.

She struggled with herself internally for a moment more before she stood back from the mirror and called, with little dramatics: "Beetlejuice…"
Her breath hitched. She shut her eyes. "Beetlejuice…"
Subconsciously, she tugged down her shirttail, suddenly feeling quite bare. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and with it, his name, completing the magic trio. "Beetlejuice."

Lydia cracked an eye open, and waited. … Nothing happened. Nothing except the appearance of the Portal door.
She numbly walked towards it, took hold of the handle, then remembered her state of undress and stopped.
Back turned, she jumped at the sound of a small, contained clap of thunder behind her. She wheeled around to see Beetlejuice hovering in the air at the foot of her bed.
"Babes!" He cried, arms flung out either side of him as though he were about to swoop down and embrace her.
"Beej," She grinned back up at him in blatant relief.

He seemed to only then register the sight of her, eyes focusing.
Suddenly, in the morning light that streamed through her bedroom window, she looked a lot different to what he remembered. Those dark, smoky eyes seemed to see right through him, dazzling, and her dishevelled hair – had she styled it like that? –only brought up the memory of his imaginations from the night before.

When they'd been apart these past few weeks, he'd been reminded of her by the picture he had over his bed; he hadn't yet gotten around to updating it, so the photo was still of her as a child. Now, when he tried to compare in his mind's eye the photo and this beautiful young woman before him, it was hard to believe they were one and the same.
That was the trouble with separation: when you were with someone every day and watched them grow before your eyes, you never saw it, never realized it. But, as soon as you were apart, it began to hit you.

Beetlejuice glanced quickly at her, taking in her sole garment of clothing, and noted she had nothing covering her legs, as far as the eye could see. A lump formed in his throat. He tried to alleviate the pressure of his collar from around his neck. Hot in here…
Lydia stepped forward. As soon as she did so, Beetlejuice's gaze seemed to skittishly dance away, and for a moment Lydia felt sure she saw his cheeks redden.

"So… how's it goin'?" He asked as nonchalantly as he could, lying on a bed of air horizontally, with his elbow propped up, head resting in his hand.
"Get down here. I missed you," Lydia said with a laugh, sounding more confident than she felt.
The ghost swallowed the lump in his throat, and obeyed, descending until his feet were planted firmly on the ground. "Jeesh, Lyds. I missed ya too,"

They simultaneously interlocked in a firm hug, but both seemed to untangle quickly from each other as though trying to avoid an uneasy, lengthy embrace.
In the aftermath, Beetlejuice uncomfortably smoothed back his dry, blond hair just as Lydia shifted where she stood. Was the last time they'd seen each other been this… uncertain?

"So, what have I missed?" Lydia asked, and Beetlejuice was immediately grateful for the topic. He made a 'pfft' sound and floated back to the armchair in the corner of her room, which he settled into with contented ease. "Only some of the greatest pranks yet. I'm tellin' ya, Lyds, you had to have been there,"
"Unlucky for me,"

"How's college?"
The fact that he cared enough to ask (almost uncharacteristically, too) made her flash him a dazzling smile, which in turn made Beetlejuice's heart twitch painfully. "All work and no play. You'd hate it,"
"Yeee-uckk."

"I've been home for about a week now. I'm sorry I didn't call you before, but I've just been waiting for things to settle down. I barely had a moment to myself, what with preparing for this contes–" She regretted it the instant it had left her mouth.
Beetlejuice's face lit up. "Contest?" He leaned forward in the armchair, starry-eyed. Lydia didn't need to be a mind reader to know he was picturing cold, hard cash. Wads of it.
"There's no money in it for you, B. J.," She couldn't help but laugh at his predictability. "It's a local fashion contest. I'm submitting my designs,"

"And the prize...?" He prompted, moving his hand in a circular 'do continue' motion.
"An article in Lily Mode fashion magazine. And your range sold in the local Top Gossip store for an exclusive period."
Beetlejuice's eyes literally glowed green from all the cash he was visualizing. "You get royalties?" His voice raised in pitch with excitement.
Lydia shrugged her shoulders slightly. She hadn't thought about it. "I, uh, guess so,"
The poltergeist leapt to his feet. "Babes! You have to win that contest!"

Lydia narrowed her eyes. She smirked. "Ha. Wait till you hear the ultimate prize: beating Clare Brewster,"
"Aah. A reward in itself, my dear," Beetlejuice drawled in a snooty upper-class accent that forced a giggle from Lydia that escaped like a burp. Then, at the thought of Clare, and the uncertainty as to what she was planning, her mood crashed.
Lydia trod over to her bed and sat down, resting her head in her palms. She smiled wretchedly. As she sat, her nightshirt rode up to expose more of her thighs. Beetlejuice averted his eyes, his mouth dry.
"That is, if I can even stand out amongst the competition. Clare mentioned something about turning it into a performance."

His gaze swung back to her against his better judgment. He watched as she crossed her legs at the knee. When was the last time he'd paid attention to her body like this? Certainly not before it had developed like this. Something about those toned, shapely thighs and long legs was getting to him.
"A… performance?" He repeated distractedly. Just because he heard her didn't mean he was listening. Again, his mind teased: Nineteen. She's nineteen.
Shaddup! He told himself, and struggled not to rattle his head in frustration.

"I don't know what she's planning. What if she concocts some music video starring her clothes? Or gets someone to draft a sketch for her where the characters are modelling her fashions? I'd have to ask the models to get any sort of clue, but…"
He snapped himself out of it. Lydia needed him. The least he could do was pay attention. "Sounds like y'need some help, babes," He rolled up his sleeves. "If they want a show, they can have a show,"
"B.J…." Lydia said in the tone of voice that reined him in.
"Whaaat?"
"I want to do this on my own,"

He stood up. "Aw, come on, Lyds. I get that. But y'can practice and I can give you tips. We still just need to boost your confidence, 's'all,"
"No Neitherworld hijinks?"
"Cross my heart," Beetlejuice signed a cross over his heart with one hand, and crossed his fingers of the other hand behind his back.