Sarah didn't care about the noises from the apartment upstairs at nine o'clock. She was so absorbed in her book she hardly heard anything outside of the rustle of its pages. Moving in was a noisy process, anyway.

She didn't mind overmuch when she was woken up at eleven o'clock. She realized that not everyone went to bed as early as good little bookworms like herself did. She simply rolled over, pulled a pillow over her head to muffle the noise and fell back asleep.

But at two o'clock, to say she was a bit miffed was an understatement. Without bothering to put on shoes or her robe, she flung her door open, stomped up the stairs to the apartment above hers and rapped sharply on the door. As she waited for someone to answer she quickly composed what she would say. Something properly scathing but that wouldn't make them cry like the last neighbor unfortunate enough to attract her attention. (She'd never heard from Ms. Whitmore again, but she'd heard that she was teaching preschool in Florida.) While you may not have anywhere to go or anything to do tomorrow—and I congratulate you on that fact, really I do; I have a job that I have to leave for in four hours. If you don't quiet down and let me salvage the rest of the night's prime sleeping time, I will make you rue the day your mother even thought to have a drunken threesome with your father and his best friend. And by the way, good luck finding out which is which. Personally I've never had any daddy issues but I hear they're a real bitch later in life.

Then the door opened and her brain seemed to short circuit. Standing before her was a tall, longhaired— incredibly gorgeous, blonde man. His feet were bare, peeking out from beneath the cuffs of his obscenely tight jeans, which showed his… assets off to great advantage. Rather sharp looking hipbones matched rather sharp looking cheekbones, and a rather sharp looking, sardonic mouth. His band tee, advertising some obscure rock band she'd never heard of, stretched taut across his chest as he crossed his arms and leaned those slim hips against the doorjamb, raising one pale eyebrow at her. She almost regained her ability to form an angry, sarcastic remark at that, but then she caught sight of his eyes and had to start all over again, as it is quite difficult to think coherently with a melted brain. They were blue and slightly uneven. They were fire blue, ice blue. They were beautiful. They were… watching her slow perusal of his face in confused amusement. That brought her back quick enough. But as she opened her mouth to say something— anything, he cut her off.

"I'm sorry," he said, and the faint English lilt in his voice caused a strange buzzing to begin in the pit of her stomach. She had a moment to wonder where in England he was from because as an actress, she could practically feel the authenticity of that delicious accent. "Were we being too loud?"

Sarah opened her mouth, closed it again. She swallowed convulsively, suddenly too nervous to speak and nodded instead. Standing before this strangely beautiful man, she felt comparatively skuzzy in her pajamas, hair mussed and wild around her shoulders. She felt self conscious, tired, and a little cold on the bare, well-worn carpet without her fluffy slippers. And to her surprise the man looked over his shoulder and shouted, "Oi! You lot, quiet down. The neighbors are trying to sleep."

There were a few rude responses and a lot of rowdy laughter. Glancing past him, Sarah caught a glimpse of long blonde hair, high heeled shoes and smiling red lips— some perky little tart sitting on his couch, most likely, which only served to bring to mind again her own untidy appearance. His own quirked into an apologetic half-smile. "Don't worry; I'll keep these rascals in line. About time they all went home, anyway."

Instead of returning his smile, Sarah blinked, ducked her head and whispered, "Thank you." Then she turned around and hightailed it back down the stairs, tugging her oversized tee shirt so that it completely covered her boxers from the eyes she could feel burning into her back until she disappeared from view.

For his part, Jareth was only too happy to watch her flee, chuckling briefly at her obvious discomfort at being seen so scantily clad. When she was gone he stepped back inside and closed the door. His friends were sprawled across whatever piece of furniture or carpet they could fit on, bantering and laughing drunkenly as he had left them.

"Which neighbor was complainin'? Upstai's or down? I wanna know where to point th' speakers," His slightly inebriated bass guitarist, Michael was fiddling around with the stereo, attempting to pick out the loudest and most obnoxious music with which to torture the poor girl downstairs. Jareth shook his head, allowing his hair to slip forward and screen his face. It just wouldn't do to let the messy louts believe he was going soft.

"No, I wasn't joking. The normal people who sleep at night won't put up with our nonsense for too long, and I won't be kicked out for your entertainment." He picked up the beer he had been nursing before he'd answered the door and stood next to the couch until the blonde woman slipped a finger through one of his belt loops and tugged him down beside her, laughing when he growled quietly at her.

"Well, look at this, then. She must have been pretty for you to listen to a word she said," Kale, the drummer sat up from where he was slumped in a ratty armchair and studied Jareth with a bit too much understanding for his comfort. Which made him sure that he'd had enough of their antics for one night. A man could only take so much. "Trying to get on her good side. Do you plan on having your way with her?"

He didn't answer right away. First he finished his drink, then he sighed, then he stood in one smooth movement and plucked the glass that Kale was holding from between his fingers. Three long strides carried him across the room where he set both his empty bottle and Kale's commandeered glass on a table before turning to face the rest of the room.

"That is none of your business. Any of you. Now, don't you have somewhere else to go? A house, perhaps, or a hotel, or a gutter at the side of a whorehouse? I don't care really, just pick yourselves up off my floor and have a nice night wherever you end up." And with that he calmly crossed the hall to his bedroom and closed the door on all of the startled faces watching him go. It took a few moments for everyone to gather the necessary momentum to find their things and shuffle toward the door. Michael glanced across to the blonde woman, still sitting comfortably on the couch and staring suspiciously at the shadowy door that had just shut between herself and her quarry.

"He must have actually liked what he saw, eh, Carmine?" Michael sounded mildly shocked, which was not surprising. Usually their great leader would have invited the girl at the door in or sent her away blushing madly, and spent the rest of the night making her regret her courage in complaining of the comparatively meager amount of noise they'd been making before. The woman grinned in response, like a Cheshire cat that had just pounced on a rather juicy little field mouse.

"He must have." She watched as everyone else filed out into the hall, then locked the front door before moving toward the bedroom, knocking quietly and slipping through when the door opened up enough for her to barely fit.

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Ok, so, you know how I have a complete lack of follow through as far as my writing is concerned? Well, this is just me proving that habit with YET ANOTHER STORY!

But don't worry, I plan on finishing this one! I promise!

Obviously, this is an A/U and one I actually like. Next chapter coming soon. (And yes, I did snatch the title from a David Bowie song. It only seemed fitting.)

Thanks for all the comments and favorites on the other two stories I submitted! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! : )

Hope you guys like it!