This is the final piece of literature that I've transferred from my DA account - posted over there on December 23, 2010. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!
Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever, owned Labyrinth. Labyrinth is the property of Henson, etc.
"Ah-ah-AH!" Sarah grabbed a tissue from the box and buried her nose in it. "AH-CHOO!" Sniffling, she tossed the used Kleenex into the trashcan to greet others of its snot-covered kind. "Stubid colb." The college student who had been once known as the girl who ate the peach grumbled, pulling the fuzzy blanket she was wrapped in tighter around her.
Sarah Williams had succumbed to the airborne menace of the holiday season a few days earlier and had the unmitigated joy of suffering through it during the week of final exams for the fall semester. That morning had seen her shuffling out of bed, box of Kleenex in hand, to take her last final. Now she was cuddled up on the couch in the small common area in front of the TV she had gone half on with her roommate Jennifer and enjoying being able to watch whatever she wanted on TV but precious little else. Although she had told herself it would be nice to have some quiet time by herself, in an attempt at positive thinking, she hadn't gotten much happiness from it thus far.
For one thing, she'd only been alone in the apartment since yesterday and she was already feeling incredibly lonely. Normally she didn't have to worry about loneliness when she had the apartment to herself, in actuality she lived for it, because it meant her friends from the Underground could come to her side of the mirror. It was nice to be able to spend time with her otherworldly friends without worrying about Jenny walking in on them and promptly falling into a fit of screaming hysteria.
If she wasn't sick then they'd be here at this very minute. A mental image of Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus and herself spread out like a Christmas ad around a table playing board games and drinking perfectly made hot chocolate in nice festive mugs popped into her mind.
Her inner child, the part of her that was still inclined to whine about the unfairness of day-to-day life, had desperately wanted her to take up Sir Didymus' offer to "care for her in her state of ill distress" as he had put it. Her friends had been very concerned when she had called them when she got home from her final, but she had denied their offers of assistance. "No use in all of us being miserable." She had said. "I don't want to get you guys sick."
It is a generally acknowledged tenet of Freudian psychology that the human mind can be divided into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is composed of a person's selfish, primal needs and desires while the superego is composed of a person's concepts of what is moral and right. The ego serves as a mediator between the two-balancing a person to act between what they want to do and what is the right thing to do. It was a tribute to how ill she really was that Sarah had assigned voices of actual individuals to these parts of her brain-with her own humble self acting as the mediator.
'Now you're all alone. Miserable. Pathetic.' Her id whispered to her. 'But it would be ever so easy to just call-'
'You did the right thing, my Lady!' Her inner Sir Didymus, the mental personification of what was good and right, interrupted the other voice.
The twenty-one year old nodded her head, glaring at her traitorous inner child who had been eagerly bobbing her head to the pronouncements of the dark side of her brain. She had done what was right. It wasn't much comfort though.
'Maturity is over-rated.' She thought grimly, pulling another Kleenex from its cardboard home. Maturity had gotten her stuck at her apartment over Christmas break while her family had gone off to Europe with Karen's parents for the holiday season while she remained in the US. Maturity had gotten her all alone because she did the noble thing and told her friends they couldn't come over to avoid giving them her plague germs. Maturity had reduced her to the point where she missed the friendly arguments she and Jenny had over what to watch on TV.
The TV and the sound of her own sneezing seemed to be the only sounds outside of the wind within a ten mile radius. With the completion of finals week the small apartment complex near the campus had turned into a veritable ghost town. When the senior had stepped off the shuttle from the campus around lunchtime she had half-expected to see an icicle-covered tumbleweed roll by.
"It's alb Crabtree's fault." The pronouncement she'd muttered to herself all week was uttered yet again as she turned up the volume on the Christmas special featuring a beloved pumpkin-headed kid and his beagle. All of her other professors had been willing to allow her to take her final exams early in order for her to go to Europe with her family. Karen's parents had gotten a special deal that whittled the exorbitant price down to something resembling reasonable, but there was a catch. They had to fly out on that specific date or else it was normal prices. Normal prices that practically made Sarah's tuition look small in comparison.
Every professor had been willing. Every professor but Dr. Emmanuel Crabtree, or as he was…fondly…referred to by the student body, Dr. Evil Crab. The crotchety old coot had all but flat out accused that she would somehow reveal the contents of his final exam to the other students if he let her take the test early and in the interests of "preventing cheating" had grouchily denied her request. Heaven forbid he be denied the pleasure of making his students cry at the sheer difficulty of the comprehensive final.
'More like "if I can't go to Europe then neither can you".' Sarah pulled up the blanket to her neck and leaned further back into the worn sofa. Dr. Crabtree's request had doomed her to Christmas break alone since the scheduling and cost prevented her from flying out at a later date to be with her family. Her mother had promised to try to swing by to see her, just as she had almost every year since Sarah was fifteen. Sarah let out a snort at her mother's empty promises. A snort that sounded strangely squishy, like a squid falling on the floor of a Japanese fish market.
"Yuck." Sarah winced at the sound of her own congestion. Then she sighed. 'I AM pathetic.' She imagined her id smirking at her and glowered at it, but his smirk only widened in the confidence that he was right. On this depressing thought, the accuracy of which doing little to improve her mood, the Champion of the Labyrinth reached for another Kleenex. Only to come up empty handed. Grumbling, Sarah rose from the couch to search for more tissues. 'I look like the Grinch.' Sarah mused in minor amusement, catching sight of her reflection in the tiny bathroom's mirror. Turning her attention away from how her green blanket thrown over her head babushka-style and pink nose made her resemble a character from a book, she began to rummage in the closet for more Kleenex boxes.
Only to come up empty-handed, yet again.
"I'll just hab to use toilet paper." That was when she discovered that they were down to their last roll of toilet paper.
'Are you sure you don't want to take my suggestion into consideration precious?' Her id remarked smugly.
"UHG!"
All in all, Jareth was feeling rather benevolent. The day-to-day boredom that plagued him throughout the year was alleviated by the steady stream of runners in the Labyrinth of late. The holidays were always their busy season in the Underground. With all those families getting together it was inevitable that arguments would start. Arguments that happily, from the Goblin King's point of view at least, ended with someone wishing away a relative, or in one recent case a strand of horrifically tangled multi-colored Christmas lights, and thirteen hours of entertainment.
Entertainment for him that is; it's doubtful that any of the runners would consider their trip through the Labyrinth entertaining.
Stressful would probably be the more polite description. Pure unadulterated migraine-giving, hair-graying insanity, however, would be more along the lines of the truth.
Jareth stretched in his throne, legs splayed out in relaxation with his hands behind his head as he observed the majority of the goblins present attempting to hang the Christmas lights around the perimeter of the room.
Partially because Christmas lights were relatively easier to replace than a human being and mostly because he was stone-cold drunk from one alcoholic eggnog too many, the middle-aged plumber had opted to swap his lights for one of his dreams. Then he promptly passed out face-down in the snow in front of the mildly insulted Goblin King-who nonetheless took the lights and gave the dream on principle.
It probably would have been infinitely easier if he had used magic to untangle and hang the lights. Infinitely easier, but most definitely not as entertaining. The mess of plastic and twinkling lights, which Jareth had enchanted to shine without electricity, was proving to be a veritable Gordian knot. Jareth smirked as a small goblin with frizzy purple hair was accidentally wrapped up as the goblin next to him attempted to straighten out his section of the strand.
"You're looking particularly festive, Riggle." Jareth addressed the little goblin draped in lights.
Riggle beamed up at his monarch. "Thanks Kingy!" He replied with a wide grin, momentarily stopping his squirming. "Festive is very hard to get out of though." He added in a somber tone.
"Indeed." Jareth watched, bemused, as Riggle recommenced his wriggling. Moments passed as he watched the ongoing show that was the goblins decorating and the thought struck him. 'I wonder if Sarah is hanging Christmas lights.' Then he sighed, slightly shaking his wild mane of platinum blonde hair as he recalled that Sarah was spending the holiday with her family in Europe. The influx of runners in the Labyrinth had prevented him from getting his normal report from Sarah's friends. 'Well, at least she won't be able to consort with the dwarf from her hotel.' He thought to himself consolingly, trying to find some comfort in the fact that another year was passing in which Sarah Williams wasn't his Queen. 'I'm letting her finish her education.' He reminded himself.
It was the excuse he always used to keep himself from using Sarah's frequent Labyrinthine visitors as messengers for his courtship, since her declaration had banished him from her presence. He watched the lovely woman with the fiery jade eyes through his crystals and lived off of news scrounged from those who weren't denied her company. He told himself it was only right to allow her to finish her education since she derived such enjoyment from it and he could deny her no happiness.
This didn't stop him, however, from sabotaging all the boys who would have romanced her. Or stop him from hoping that she would call him before then-that she would miss him, love him, as he missed and loved her.
While Jareth sat in his throne contemplating his love life, deep in thought, four more goblins had gotten tangled in the viciously snarled lights. One of the goblins was now dangling upside down from the ceiling and was uncertain as to how precisely she had gotten up there.
Goblins and King alike were both disrupted from their endeavors when the voice of a person about to wish away another echoed in the stone familiar and beautiful voice immediately brought surprise then a wide grin to Jareth's face as he felt the only barrier on his power melt away at the speaker's words, incomplete as they were.
"OH! I wish the goblins would take you away-"
"Try not to cause too much chaos while I'm away." Jareth addressed the room, thoughtfully conjuring a crystal and tossing it on the ground before he disappeared from the room, a look of delighted excitement on his face.
"I'm free!" Riggle cheered happily as the obnoxiously knotted lights straightened out into a picturesque line.
A loud clonking noise accompanied this remark. "I see two of everything!" The goblin who had previously been on the ceiling remarked, her speech slightly slurred.
Five Minutes Earlier
Clad in a thick jacket with flannel pajama pants and fuzzy socks under her tennis shoes, Sarah pushed her cart down the aisle of the grocery store. A tell-tale tingling in her nose started as she paused before the wall of toilet paper. 'Just this and I can go home.' She avoided looking at the Kleenex in her cart and pulled the wad of toilet paper from her jacket pocket. The temptation to open the soft, correct size to sneeze into tissues was great but she had resisted thus far.
'Your willpower is great!' Sir Didymus chimed in her head encouragingly as she sneezed into the cottony square.
"I would think you would have the self-restraint to wait to open your toilet paper until you got home, Miss Williams." A disparaging voice remarked.
Sarah looked up from her cart to behold the pinched, wrinkly face of the crabbiest of crabs, the Evil Crab himself.
"Surely you at least possess the intellect to know to sneeze on the object designed for it." He sneered, gesturing at the economy box of Kleenex in her cart.
Sarah was about to explain her situation when the spark of irritation burst into full out anger when he continued. "Though I don't know if I should expect that much from a student who can barely manage a B in my class."
'I'm sure I got A's in all my classes except his!' Sarah fumed, nostrils flaring and eyes snapping dangerously.
'This poor-excuse for a man deserves to be punished for treating you like this, precious. Let me take care of him.' Her id commanded in a dangerous tone, a tone that spoke of violent whirring metal tanks hurtling down narrow pathways.
Perhaps because she was undoubtedly furious, or possibly because her cold was a severe one and she wasn't thinking quite right, Sarah agreed.
"OH! I wish the goblins would take you away-"
'STOP!' Her knightly superego clamored. 'Remember Sir Toby!'
Sarah bit her lip to keep the rest of the words in her mouth and abruptly turned to the shelf, pulled out a pack of toilet paper and threw it violently in the cart. Without a further word to her former professor she spun her cart around and marched purposely towards the checkout, her inner child and Goblin King-esque id both savoring the stunned look on Dr. Evil Crab's face.
Three minutes saw her walking back to her apartment complex a block away. A shiver crept up her spine and a small part of her brain noted that either it was getting colder or she was getting sicker. The rest of her cerebellum was occupied being angry at her insensitive, grouchy, Christmas-killing ex-professor. "The nerb of him!" Sarah seethed, vaguely wondering why the pavement looked fuzzy to her eyes. "I almost wish I hab wished him away."
"Almost? I know I certainly do. You would be the first person to say the right words twice." A silky, melodic voice caressed her ears.
Sarah startled at hearing-actually hearing-the voice she was accustomed to hearing in her head only after almost seven years. "Goblin King?" She queried, squinting at the figure before her. Tight pants, glossy black boots, wispy wild white blonde hair, one blue eye and one brown, white poet shirt and black leather vest-definitely the Goblin King, but he looked fuzzy. Everything looked fuzzy!
"Jareth." The fae corrected, a concerned look coming into his eyes at the sound of her voice.
'Am I hallucinating? The Goblin King just told me to call him Jareth. I'm hallucinating. He's a pretty hallucination at least. Whoa, where'd that come from?' Sarah startled again to feel a hand against her forehead. The Jareth-hallucination had removed a glove and was feeling her forehead with the back of his hand. "You're a very life-like hallucination." Sarah said in mild awe, proving that the filter in her brain that stopped inane comments from leaving her mouth had stopped working.
The corners of Jareth's lips quirked up in a bemused smile. "And you're feverish, precious."
Sarah nodded somberly. "I hab a cold."
"Is your roommate home Sarah?"
"She flew back to Indiana yesterday. I'm all alone." Sarah frowned.
"Perfect. I'm taking you home." Jareth replied, pulling his glove back on and enveloping the woman before him in his arms. Not that it would've stopped him from taking her home anyway, but this certainly simplified things.
The Goblin King, Sarah, and two plastic shopping bags disappeared from the spot and reappeared in the bedroom of Sarah's apartment.
"I'm home!" Sarah remarked in amazement.
"You are indeed." Jareth agreed, gently prizing the bags from her hands and setting them aside. "Now let's get you to bed, precious. I can make you better but it'll cause you to sleep."
"Okay." Sarah agreed, a bit dazed as the Goblin King helped her out of jacket and she slipped out of her slippers. The room couldn't seem to hold still. It would be nice to close her eyes for awhile; all this movement was making her dizzy.
Jareth pulled the covers down and back up around her once she climbed into her bed. He was pulling off his glove to spell her to sleep and cure her illness when she interrupted him.
"You won't leave me will you? I cried because I couldn't have the real you. But I can have the hallucination can't I? You're beautiful even if you keep spinning around." Sarah ranted, her lids half-closed as she rested her head on her pillow.
A radiant smile lit up Jareth's face and his heart swelled in his chest. "I promise to never leave you Sarah, hallucination or otherwise." Tenderly he touched his fingertips to her forehead and instantly the feverish woman was asleep.
Sarah's face crinkled and she made a small soft noise of discontent in her sleep as Jareth removed his fingers from her face. A small contented chuckle escaped the Goblin King's lips as he replaced his hand and the champion of his Labyrinth let out a sigh of contentment. "Very well, my precious thing." Removing his gloves, vest and boots, Jareth laid down on the bed above the covers and wrapped the woman he loved in his arms.
Very soon he joined her in sleep.
Sarah woke up, feeling warm and content - better by far than she had felt since she'd gotten sick. She kept her eyes shut, enjoying being lazy in the coziness of her bed. An inhale brought the scent of leather and peaches to her nostrils. 'I like this new laundry detergent.' She thought drowsily. Then her brain caught up to her actions. 'Wait, smell? I can smell! My cold's gone!' In her excitement Sarah opened her eyes and raised her head, finally getting a good look at the 'pillow' she'd been sleeping on - the Goblin King's chest.
Jareth had woken when he felt Sarah snuggle deeper into his chest, and had been unable to close his eyes again for looking at her. With her soft dark hair spread all over his white shirt and kissable lips, snuggled up next to him and using him as a pillow, she had been quite possibly the most welcome sight he had ever seen. The sharp intake of breath that had accompanied Sarah raising her head caused his eyelids which had been half-closed to open abruptly.
Their eyes met. "Good morning, Sarah."
Sarah opened her mouth. Then closed it. Then took a deep breath and let it out quickly. 'The Goblin King is next to me. In bed.' Sarah's eyes took in the sight of his wild hair disheveled from sleep, the way his soft white shirt tantalizingly revealed a brief expanse of the pale skin of his well-defined chest. And…Sarah swallowed…those tight pants that only he could look that good in. Quickly she turned her gaze upwards and noticed that he wasn't wearing his customary gloves. The neurons in her confused brain fizzled. Then her eyes focused on the beautiful angularity of his face with those glimmering mismatched eyes and realized that the Goblin King was looking well-pleased with her appraisal. Sarah thought quickly. 'I had a fever last night and started hallucinating. I'm always delusional when I'm feverish. Maybe I still am? The congestion's gone and I'm just feverish. But this is so real. It can't be real. I've dreamed about it too much. It can't be real. Can it?' Sarah swallowed and reached a shaky hand towards his face. Briefly her fingertips touched smooth skin. Then her hand shot back to her side.
"You're not a hallucination." Sarah whispered.
Jareth laughed, smiling up at her. "I recall having a similar conversation with you last night, although you were considerably less lucid then. I'm not a hallucination, love."
"Love?" Sarah questioned.
"Love." Jareth repeated firmly, sitting up.
"You…love me back?" Then Sarah squealed and clapped her hand over her mouth. 'Oh bravo, Sarah. Way to admit you've been hopelessly in love with the guy since the moment you-'
"I love you." Jareth said, his voice husky as he framed her face with his bare hands and effectively silenced her inner sarcastic monologue.
It felt to Sarah as if she was melting just from his proximity. She swallowed, her mouth dry. "I love you." She whispered, sighing softly as the fingers of his right hand slid down her face to trace her lips.
Hesitantly at first, she did the same, burying one hand in his soft hair while she traced his thin lips with the other.
Then their lips were busy for quite some time.
Several hours filled with a long, long conversation interspersed liberally with more lip locking later saw Sarah snuggled next to Jareth on the couch introducing him to the joys of television.
Happily resting her head against his shoulder, she admired the ring now on her left hand. A irrepressible smile spread across Jareth's face when he looked away from the entertaining contraption to where Sarah's gaze rested. Then a thought struck him that turned that smile into a grin exposing his pointed canines. "Does this mean I get to spend Christmas with you Sarah?" He asked slyly.
"I would be hurt if you didn't."
"So we'll be following all of the usual Aboveground customs?"
Sarah cocked her head to the side, treating him to an inquisitive look. "Y-esss."
"Excellent." In one fluid movement Jareth conjured a crystal and tossed it at the ceiling.
Following the object's path with her eyes, Sarah laughed as the crystal turned into a lovely sprig of mistletoe. "You seem very well-versed on Aboveground customs."
"Only in principle, I've never practiced them personally." Sarah smiled as his arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer.
"You want to practice I take it?"
"Naturally." Jareth's smile was predatory before his lips crashed down on hers.
Thus Sarah Williams became engaged to Jareth, the Goblin King - proving that even with tenured scrooges and airborne germs Christmas does bring people together.