A/N: Setting is strictly cartoon!verse. Love movie!Beej, but I can't see him doing fluff. Strange how two mediums could take the same characters and come up with two completely different, equally wonderful interpretations.

Lydia Deetz wasn't much of one for nightmares. The subjects of many children's bad dreams - monsters, spiders, the dark - simply hadn't frightened her for as long as she could remember. Most of her worst dreams consisted of her mother getting hold of a can of pink paint and yards of tulle. Hardly what one could call a "nightmare".

So when she woke one night with her heart hammering and a cold spot on her pillow from the tears still leaking from her eyes, she wasn't quite sure how to handle it. Well, almost not quite sure.

"Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice," she whispered quickly, frantically, nearly silently.

o-o-o

The pull Out woke him up. He didn't mind. He didn't really need the sleep; it was more force of habit than anything else by now.

"Lyds! How's it hangin'?" He came sailing in at his usual volume, but by the last syllable, he'd dropped down to a confused hush. It was dark in the room and Lydia wasn't there immediately to greet him. Instead, she was huddled in a little ball under her sheets, turned away from the mirror.

"Hey babes, you all right?" He hovered just over her mattress on his stomach, arms crossed and chin tucked at his elbows, waiting for her to roll over. "Yer not cryin', are ya?"

She sniffled wetly and still didn't turn to face him. "No."

"C'mon, what's the matter?"

"I guess I had a bad dream."

"That's great!"

She didn't say anything and that made his stomach clench a little. Weird how she could do that: make him scared when there wasn't anything trying to eat them.

"Oh, so a 'bad' bad dream."

She rolled over then and he was actually relieved just to see her wide, wet eyes blinking through the darkness at him. Again, weird.

"I'm sorry, Beetlejuice. You don't have to stay. I wasn't really thinking and it's not that big of a deal." She inhaled and her breath shuddered a little bit with that after-cry sound.

"No, I'm good." He let his body come down so that he was sitting on the floor, his elbows still propped on the corner of the bed, chin cupped in his hands. Lydia was usually a lot smarter than him - not that he'd ever admit that out loud - but sometimes she could be just plain dumb. What kind of best friend would he be if he just left her while she was crying?

o-o-o

He'd sit there all night if she let him.

"Really, Beetlejuice, it's okay. I - I just was scared." She was still scared. The pit of her stomach was still doing little flip-flops, even if just seeing him here, completely abnormal and safe, was making her feel better already. She uncurled and sat up, her knees pulled up to her chest.

"Lyds, you're the bravest person I know." He said it like it was so obvious and that made her smile a little. "So what's eatin' ya?"

o-o-o

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. The smile that had been beginning to crinkle her cheeks disappeared and she looked down at her toes. He buried his big fat mouth into his arms and just stared at her, waiting for her to talk.

o-o-o

"I dreamed I was in my living room and my parents were there."

He had a joke. She could see it trying to make its way out, probably something dumb like "That's a nightmare all right." And normally it would make her laugh, but just remembering the dream made her curl up a little tighter. And he didn't say anything.

"They were dressed in wedding clothes and they were floating."

She couldn't figure out how to describe the way they had filled out the clothes. It had been just clothes, floating, and then it was like someone had blown up a balloon of her parents inside of them. Her mother's head growing out of the lace collar of her wedding dress or her father's tuxedo jacket filling out from a flat emptiness.

"And then you were there, but it wasn't you. You were all... mean."

He had another comment. She was impressed that he didn't burst with the effort it was obviously taking to keep it in. He'd stood up and was rocking back and forth ever so slightly on his heels, hands jammed in his pockets.

"And you were riding on a sandworm."

That deflated him a little, probably just from the thought of anything involving sandworms. But he was still waiting.

"And then I was the one in the wedding dress and all my skin was drying up, like a raisin."

She had been all alone, hovering in mid-air, with her skin constricting in as if it were a snake, pulling along the ridges of her bones. And he was watching her with his tongue sticking out. Like he wanted to eat her.

"Then the sandworm ate me."

It was lame, the way she told it. It sounded dumb. It didn't explain the way the chills were still skating up and down her spine from when she'd looked down and seen her hands shrinking into a mummy's beneath the lace, or how the not-Beetlejuice had patted the sandworm's head, like it was a puppy, and grinned a grin that wasn't full of beetles.

o-o-o

"You okay?" Beetlejuice asked when she didn't say anymore.

"Yeah, I'll be okay. It was dumb."

"Nah, it wasn't."

He leaned against the bedpost, hands still jammed deep in his pockets. They were quiet for a little while, Lydia still looking down at her knees, Beetlejuice seeing the way her shoulders were hunched.

"Hey, you really scared of me, babes?"

Everyone in the world, Neither or otherwise, was afraid of him. He was the Ghost with the Most, after all; the biggest, baddest, most disgusting poltergeist to ever crawl out of his grave.

But...

"No."

...that was exactly what he wanted to hear. He tried to hide his slump of relief.

"I was just askin', y'know... Makin' sure."

"Yeah." But her smile was a little shaky still. "I'm sorry."

"Nah, don't be. Gotta practice some more, I guess. Just don't go spreadin' it around, all right?"

She finally smiled for real then and she looked up at him. "All right."

The smile made him smile.

"Thanks, Beetlejuice," she said, and her skinny little arms were wrapped around him, squeezing tight enough to strangle if he'd been alive. He had to be a bit more careful with her, so his big dumb dead arms didn't send her to the Neitherworld permanently too early.

"No problem, Lyds." He grinned at her. "Whaddya say? Slumber party? We can put snails in your parents' slippers."

She laughed. "Or not. But the slumber party sounds nice. I'll make us some popcorn if you find the sleeping bags."

"On it, babes."

o-o-o

She was going to be tired the next day at school, she knew it. But they laughed and danced and ate too much junk food and when they were finally wrapped up in their sleeping bags, heads together and feet pointed opposite directions, Lydia looked up at the ceiling and smiled.

"Beetlejuice?"

"Yeah, Lyds?"

"I'm glad I'm not scared of you."

"Can you keep a secret, babes?"

"Yes."

"Me too."

She dreamed of monsters that night. Monsters and spiders and the dark. And it was wonderful.

A/N: Mmm, kinda simple, but the bunny wouldn't leave me alone. Her dream is obviously a very screwy take on movie!verse events. I wonder occasionally how both Lydia and the B-man would respond to meeting each others' movie!verse counterparts and vice versa. Thoughts?