Slice of Life
For a long time, as far as Sarah was concerned, whatever the Goblin King was up to was none of her business. She stayed in touch with her friends from the Labyrinth and focused on school, drama club, college – normal things, albeit done in the presence of goblins and dwarves and fox-knights and a rock-calling beast. She happily spent the remainder of her high school years in that manner and so far her college years looked like they would, thankfully, go similarly.
There were whispers, of course. Stray bits of rumors that reached her through Didymus or, more often, through the friendly and chatty goblins – but never through Hoggle; he avoided the topic entirely, protesting loudly while twisting his plastic bracelet frenetically if Didymus brought up the King in his presence. As it was, all Sarah really heard was that the King was keeping strange hours – very, very strange hours, rising well before dawn many days and winging into the sky before the roosters crowed, returning at late at night and even, rarely, staying away for several days on end – and that he seemed distracted when he was in the Castle, curt with Runners and cranky with goblins when a Wished Away cut into this weird new schedule. Wee, grim Rimin solemnly whispered that the King smelled sweeter than usual, but wee, grim Rimin was largely regarded as a dubious judge of, well, anything by the other goblins, so Sarah wasn't sure if she believed him (or what she would make of it if she did).
Still, that was the extent of what Sarah Williams knew at age twenty, when she finally encountered the Goblin King again during a trip to Milwaukee over her spring break. He seemed rather surprised to see her, but not shocked the way she was.
Admittedly, there were several reasons for her shock. For one, he didn't seem to be about to attack and maim her on sight, which she had vaguely expected, should they meet again. For another, hell, they were in Milwaukee. With the exception of her aunt, who she was visiting, Sarah hadn't expected to recognize anybody in Milwaukee. Thirdly, they met in a charming bakery called Take the Cake. Fourthly, and most shocking to Sarah, he was apparently working there, looming comfortably behind the display case in a black and silver apron.
In comparison, all Jareth had to surprise him was that Sarah was in Milwaukee. One may forgive such an imbalance of reactions in such a situation, and one did, as Jareth rather patiently put up with Sarah's gawking for a few minutes. Well, a minute. Thirty seconds, maybe. The ability to reorder time doesn't make for patient people, really.
With a very sardonic lift of his brows, he asked sharply "Can I help you?"
At this point, Sarah made a somewhat strangled noise, pointed vaguely at him, and wheezed, "Here?"
"Where else?" he asked defensively. "It's as good a place as any."
"But – but you – are you working here – why here – you're a King for crying out loud –"
"Excuse me," said a woman from behind Sarah, "if you're not ready to order, could we go ahead and order?" Sarah turned to look at her – the woman was there with three other women, all of whom were giving Sarah a faintly disproving and wary look, as if Sarah was the dangerous person in the room (ha!) – and nodded mutely, stepping out of the way, keeping a leery eye on Jareth.
Well, it started out leery. It ended up being more of a leer, period, as the other women diverted his attention. His hair was as radiant as always, though pulled back in a somewhat-messy tail. His eye makeup wasn't as prominent as before, but what he used highlighted his eyes wonderfully. Beneath his apron, he wore a grey striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his hands were scandalously bare – alright, so not scandalously, Sarah corrected herself peevishly, it was just… another somewhat shocking change to notice. As subtly as she could manage, she tried to lean over to see what sort of trousers he was wearing. He couldn't possibly wear them as tight as she remembered, could he?
At about that point, he had finished doling out the ordered baked goods to the other women, who shot Sarah another nervous glance and hurried by her to a table in the far corner. Jareth cleared his throat and Sarah blinked.
"Just – why are you working here?" Sarah asked again. She looked over at the nervous women, shuffled closer to the counter, and lowered her voice as she continued, "Shouldn't you, you know, be back you-know-where? How can you leave your kingdom to work in a bakery?"
Jareth leaned forward, resting his weight on his forearms, which brought Sarah's attention back to his hands. They were very nice hands. Very distracting. She knew some of what he could do with them…
"What makes you think I'm not in my kingdom?"
Her attention snapped back up to his face.
"We're in Milwaukee, for Pete's sake!" she said, hands gesturing widely. He snorted.
"Yes, well, this bakery –" now he gestured widely – "was wished away to me, and is part of my domain. As far as I'm concerned it is part of my kingdom – though blessedly goblin free, of course, as that would ruin my chances of passing health inspections. So, would you like some manner of confection? Our special today is p – "
"Peach?" she squeaked.
"Pomegranate and lemon cake," he finished, clearly amused. "There are a number of other flavors, though, take your pick." Bemused, she finally looked at the goods in the display case and realized there were a number of tasty looking cakes there, sliced and ready for consumption. The pomegranate and lemon cake was prominent at the top of the display, more than half already sold. It was very tempting, but understandably wary of fruity food where the Goblin King was concerned, she turned her eye instead on the chocolate cake. "Chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache frosting, good choice," he said. He tapped his fingers on the counter and two slices appeared on small silver plates, along with two forks and two napkins. He promptly picked up a fork and motioned for her to take the other. Once she had, he began eating in delicate bites, apparently savoring the chocolate.
Poking at the slice with her fork – it did look very good, but should she eat it? He was eating his, true, but that didn't mean it was necessarily safe ('we must not look at goblin men, / we must not buy their fruits' – but Rossetti didn't say anything about cake, damn it, but then chocolate, should she risk it for chocolate?) – she asked, "Why baking? Why cakes?" She tasted it tentatively, unsurprised to find that it was extraordinarily delicious.
He was in the middle of chewing when she asked, as pretty much everyone is when discussing anything over food. He took his time masticating before responding, "I decided I should take up a new hobby. The bakery was wished away, conveniently, not long after I decided that neither embroidery nor sculpture was for me." He waved his fork indulgently. "I tried my hand at it and found that I'm a natural genius at baking – much better than that sod who wished this place away. Probably," he said thoughtfully, "learning baking from the Castle brownies as a lad helped. Anyway, the specialty of the shop was already cake; all I did was immensely improve the product."
That… made some sense, Sarah thought. She looked down and realized that she had absently eaten most of her cake while he was talking and frowned a bit. It was very good cake and there was distressingly little of it left.
Jareth tapped his fork on his plate to get her attention. She looked up to meet a look of sheer mischief. Wickedly amused, he leaned closer to her and said, "So how did you like that little slice?"
There's no excuse for this. It's pure fluff, brought on by that line and the bizarre thought of Jareth with a slice of cake. That's it. That's the whole thing, we can all go home now...
This is also being posted at Archive of Our Own, where I am possiblythreefourthspeahen.
(Psst. I still don't own anything. Not Jareth, not Sarah, not the Labyrinth. Not Milwaukee. Not even a slice of cake.)