A/N: I wrote this one-shot for my friend fourfeathersonegoal on tumblr and decided to post it here, too, so enjoy!
It started on a Tuesday afternoon, which came as no surprise because historically Tuesdays were the worst days for Sarah. It was on a Tuesday Merlin died. It was on a Tuesday her first boyfriend had broken up with her. It was on a Tuesday her last boyfriend had broken up with her. So, yes, Sarah was not a fan of Tuesdays.
Sarah, who had been washing dishes and minding her own business, thank you very much, was humming tunelessly when she heard a crash.
"Shit, shit, shit." She frantically wiped her hands on her pants and ran into the living room, where she assumed her cat Oliver had knocked over something. The cat was always getting up to no good, and, to be honest, Sarah could've done without him but he was a gift from Karen, so in the interest of keeping her step-mother happy she had kept him.
And there it was, her favorite lamp was laying on the ground and the orange fur ball was nowhere in sight. Cursing him, she picked it up and inspected it. Seeing no massive damage aside from a crooked lampshade, Sarah moved to put the lamp back on the end table it usually rested on.
However, a twinkle stopped her. She leaned in closely to the end table, scrunching up her nose as she poked the offending glitter. There was only a little, barely enough to brush off, but it was there all the same. She stared at it for a bit, debating mentally as to how it could've gotten there.
Finally, she decided it must have been left over from the party her friends had thrown last week in celebration of the end of the semester. Kelsey in particular was fond of shimmery things, so it made sense that there would be some left over from when she had spent several hours perched on the end of the couch closest to the end table, right? Right?
"That's probably it," she muttered as she placed the lamp back, wiped the glitter off the table and went back to the dishes, mentally shaking herself for being stupid.
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A month later Sarah was giggling drunkenly as she opened the door to her apartment. She was definitely on the drunker side of tipsy and stumbled a couple of times on her way to her bedroom. Her friend Rachel wasn't in a much better state.
"Sarahhh," she sang. "We're drunkkk."
Sarah snorted. "Yes, we are. Come on, bed."
Rachel yawned and kicked off her shoes before flopping on the couch. "Mkay."
"Come on, Rach. You can sleep in the bed with me, it's big enough." Sarah was struggling with her jacket. Were the buttons always this difficult?
Rachel sat up suddenly. "Mkay."
Sarah gave the jacket up as a lost cause and stumbled through the doorway of her bedroom. Rachel pushed past her and fell on top of the bed. "G'night."
Sarah snorted again and draped a spare blanket over her friend. She couldn't quite get it to land on Rachel properly, but she figured as long as her legs were covered, it was good enough. She collapsed under the covers on the other side of the bed and quickly fell asleep.
Her first though waking up was how bright it was. Cursing herself for forgetting to close the blinds the night before, she got out of bed and quickly shut them, blocking the offensive light. She looked over to the side of the bed where Rachel had been the night before and was surprised to see the bed empty.
"Rachel?" she called out, leaving her bedroom to look for her missing friend. The mystery was solved when she found a note pinned to her fridge.
Sarah - Got called into work. Massive hangover, but have to go in. Let's never do that again. XOXOXO - Rachel
Satisfied, Sarah headed back to bed. She flopped down on it, only to get a noseful of something. "Achoo!"
She scrambled up and pushed herself to the foot of the bed. "What the fuck?!"
The pillow Rachel had used last night was coated with a fine layer of glitter.
Sarah chewed nervously on her thumbnail, eyeing the pillow like it was about to bite her. She couldn't recall Rachel wearing anything particularly glittery last night, so why was the pillow glittery? Could it be...?
"No, no, she must've put that glittery hairspray in her hair last night," Sarah reasoned. "That's it. Her hair was sparkly, and it came off last night while she slept. That's it. Of course. Silly Sarah."
She still threw the entire pillow into the dirty laundry hamper.
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"And Sir Didymus wins with 300 points!" Sarah cheered as her little fox friend did a bow.
"Thank you, my lady. It was a most difficult battle," he said gravely.
Hoggle snorted. "Not that difficult if you beat us all by 100 points," he muttered.
"All right you guys, I need to be going to bed." Sarah got up and led them to the large mirror in her bedroom. "Sorry for not being able to stay up later."
"Nonsense, my lady! 'Twas a fun night." Sir Didymus kissed her hand. "Thank you for spending time with us."
"Sawah fwiend!" Ludo crushed her in a hug and followed his brother into the mirror.
"Yeah, 's always nice to see you, Sarah." Hoggle patted her hand. "I's glad you still got time for us."
"Of course, Hoggle! You're my best friend." She waved until the portal closed behind him. Sighing, she got to cleaning up the apartment. She loved her friends, and always called on them for a Scrabble night at least once a month, but she wished they weren't quite so messy.
After she finished vacuuming the last of Ludo's hair, she began getting ready for bed. Humming again, she opened the drawer in her dresser that held her pajamas. And stopped.
All of her clothes in the drawer were covered in glitter.
"Oh my God." Sarah quickly slammed the drawer shut and sat down on the floor, hard.
Her mind raced, trying to rationalize what she'd just seen. "Okay, okay, Hoggle, Didymus, and Ludo opened the portal to come see me, but a goblin could've slipped through, right? They're not that big, they could've come through without me seeing them. That's not unusual. And they love going through stuff, especially stuff that's not theirs. So it could be a goblin, right? A goblin that Jareth had recently kicked. So he would be covered in glitter because of that. So it was a goblin. It was a goblin."
She slept in her jeans.
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"You know, Sarah, the first sign of going mad is that you talk to yourself," Kelsey said casually as she stirred the creamer into her coffee.
"What?" Sarah looked up, startled. She had been trying to rationalize the glitter she had just found in her purse. There was a pinch of it in the pocket where she kept her cosmetics.
"What's the matter?" Rachel leaned forward over the table. "Is everything okay?"
"Of course!" Sarah plastered a grin on her face. "Of course! Everything's great, just great. Why wouldn't it be?"
"You've been acting strangely," Kelsey stated matter-of-factly. "You've been muttering to yourself and have dark circles under your eyes the size of silver dollars."
Sarah sighed and rubbed her temples. "It's just been a rough month." She gnawed at her bottom lip for a moment, and then sighed again. "At the risk of sounding crazy, I have a request to make of you guys."
Kelsey shifted in her seat. "What is it?"
"Could you not wear glitter to my place anymore? I'm... allergic." Sarah winced. It sounded crazy even to her own ears.
"You're allergic." Kelsey said flatly.
"What do you mean, Sarah?" Rachel asked.
"I just... do you remember that night we went bar hopping, Rachel? And then you had to leave for work? Well, the pillow you used was covered in glitter and... and it was just bad for me. I know this sounds -"
"What are you talking about, Sarah?" Rachel interrupted. "I didn't wear anything glittery that night."
Sarah could feel the panic start to bubble in her chest. "But... weren't you wearing that hairspray Kelsey got you for your birthday last year?"
"I ran out of that ages ago." Rachel's brow furrowed. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Things started to snap into place for Sarah. Anger replaced panic and she jumped up. "I have to go."
And with that, she rushed out of the coffee shop and ran towards home. She was pissed and had a certain Fae fucker to confront.
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She had a copper skillet in one hand (not iron, she didn't want to kill the bastard), and a pillow in the other as she faced down her mirror.
"JARETH! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME YOU ASS. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!"
She waited a few beats, but was only met with silence. She scowled. "JARETH! FACE ME LIKE THE BASTARD YOU ARE!"
"No need to shout, dearest. I'm right here."
She spun around to see Jareth lounging on her bed, examining his gloves with an air of nonchalance.
She smacked him across the shins with the pillow (the skillet was for intimidation purposes only). "Get off my bed, asshole! I have a bone to pick with you."
He scowled and swung his legs off the bed. "I rather gathered from your dulcet tones. What is it?"
"You need to stop stalking me! I can't deal with all the fucking glitter you leave behind. Not to mention you're destroying my peace of mind and my privacy!"
"Me? I've done no such thing." He looked mildly offended. "Don't you think I have better things to do with my time than following you around? Things like running a kingdom?"
Sarah closed her eyes and sighed before striding over to her dresser, setting the skillet on top of it. She glared at him as she wrenched open the drawer that held her underwear and dumped it out on the floor.
Instead of the regular lacy underthings that occupied the drawer, all that poured out onto the floor was a very large mound of glitter. "Care to change your answer, Jareth?"
He paled, and then blushed.
She set the drawer on the floor and approached him. "What the fuck are you doing, Jareth? Why?"
"Perhaps I miss you," he muttered, looking embarrassed as he stared at the floor.
Sarah's heart softened. Not much, but a little. "That doesn't give you the right to go through my things. You know, when normal people miss other people they usual give them a call, or drop by and see how they're doing. You know, face-to-face interaction."
"And how was I supposed to know that you would be amenable to such interactions?"
She fought to keep a straight face. He was actually pouting. "For fuck's sake, Jareth. I send you a Christmas present each year. You just enjoy creeping around."
"Perhaps." He glanced at her before walking to the center of the room. "Well, you have made your point quite clear. I shall bother you no more."
"Wait!" she cried out. He looked at her with confusion, and she blushed. "Maybe... maybe I've missed you, too."
His face froze as she approached him. "Here's what you're going to do. You're going to stop going through my things and leaving glitter everywhere. What you are going to do is pick me up tomorrow night at 7 and we'll go to dinner. Aboveground."
"You wish me to court you?" he asked quietly.
"Courting is such a loaded term." Sarah chewed on her bottom lip. "I'd say we're just getting to know each other. Sound good?"
He nodded, but then his eyes narrowed. "This isn't a trick, is it?"
She snorted. "You idiot." She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and tugged.
He froze once again as his lips touched hers, but as she kissed him she felt him begin to respond with fervor. Their lips tangled with heated passion and she felt like she was on fire.
Several pleasure-filled minutes later, Sarah gently eased back. She giggled as she took in his star-struck expression. "Tomorrow, 7. Don't forget."
"Never," he breathed. He brushed a kiss to the back of her knuckles and disappeared.
In a poof of glitter.
Sarah's smile fell as she took in the sight of her glitter-covered room.
"God fucking damn it."