Sarah found Christine and James in the kitchen, each curled around a mug of coffee as if it had divine restoration powers. Christine's curly hair was a glorious golden wreck and her eyes had dark smudges under them.

Sarah suspected she looked little better, so she merely mumbled a greeting and made her way to the coffee pot. She poured herself a cup of coffee, then added sugar and a dollop of chocolate syrup from the fridge.

Then she took a seat at the kitchen table and curled around her mug. She stared into the rising steam. Maybe if she thought long enough, she could figure out just what Red had been on about the night before.

After a full minute, she took a sip.

She spluttered, then immediately stood up to add more sugar and a little cream.

James chuckled. "I'm sorry. I should have warned you that Javert brews it strong. I guess I'm used to it."

"God, that's worse than my grandfather's," Sarah said, "and he was Navy."

James looked sharply at her.

"Is Navy coffee not a thing in the UK?"

"Not when I was in it. We did brew our tea strong, though." He smiled a little fondly.

After a few more experimental spoonfuls of sugar, Sarah made her way back to the table and slumped around her coffee again.

Christine surfaced enough from the pre-coffee fog to ask, "Sarah? What was that noise last night?"

Shit. She couldn't blame it on the house; Christine had lived here longer than she had. It was way too early for this.

"My laptop," Sarah said, in a fit of desperate inspiration. "It's been making that noise for a while. I'm pretty sure it's dying."

"Oh! Then you should have Crowley take a look at it." At Sarah's blank look, Christine added, "He's the guy just down the street with the gorgeous garden."

"Don't forget the gorgeous car," James added.

"And unplug it when you're not using it, will you please?" Christine smiled apologetically. "I didn't sleep a wink."

"Sure thing."

Oh god, she was going to have to banish Red back to the Underground.

Sarah smiled weakly and drank her coffee.

Once she was home from class, Sarah headed across the street. The house was every bit as breathtaking as Marsha's. Polished wood floors, books and plants everywhere. The books were leather-bound or elegantly ancient. The plants were all glossy and green, not a single leaf wilted or bloom faded. The furniture was mostly ultramodern and sleek, but every now and again an antique peeked out at her.

It was all tasteful until he took her to his den, where he kept a sleek computer and huge entertainment center.

He had the most remarkably ugly couch she had ever seen. It was plaid. worse, the plaid's base color looked like puce.

"It's very comfortable," Crowley said.

Sarah just gave a strangled nod.

And Crowley smiled. "You're here for a lie, aren't you, dear?"

"Nope. Just... saying hello to the neighborhood."

His smile turned sharp.

"Oh, don't torture the poor girl," someone said from the doorway.

Sarah turned to look and blinked.

He was Crowley's near exact opposite. Crowley seemed smooth - not in a social sense (well, not just in a social sense), but in the same way all his furniture was smooth.

The man she was looking at was quite obviously the perpetrator of the puce and plaid couch. He was also probably the man behind the antiques. He seemed to embody the word 'fussy.'

"Now, dear, you are quite obviously not only here to chat." The man in plaid and pennyloafers smiled at her, but it was just as sharp and faintly threatening as Crowley's. "I'm Aziraphale."

His parents must have hated him, she thought.

"And I'm Sarah. I, uh, need to go."

Sarah made it to the porch before she had to stop and stare. No U-haul or car, no. Of course not. No it was much worse and more obvious than that.

The Goblin King had no need of mortal transportation, after all. He only needed hands to spare him the trouble of carrying his things.

A mob of goblins scurried around the front lawn.

And there was the Goblin King, directing them.

It was like being dumped into an Arctic lake. It was like standing on a precipice above the Bog of Eternal Stench. She was paralyzed and nauseated and afraid and intensely relieved.

There was no hope of a goblin drama free semester.

The shoe had dropped. The secret was out. There wasn't going to be a normal.

And as Sarah relaxed into the idea that the worst had happened, she began to notice something odd.

Every goblin who entered the house with a box did so with the usual abstracted cheer. Every goblin who returned from the house was making Red's angry cat lawnmower whine.

And the Goblin King hadn't yet set foot there. Instead, he directed a baggage train of goblins, banishing each one back to the Underground when the whining became too much to bear.

Sarah watched intently. The pattern repeated itself again and again: happy goblin went in with a box, angrily frightened goblin returned empty-handed, the Goblin King banished it.

All right. There was nothing for it.

"What's upsetting them, Goblin King?" She'd leave the 'why are you here' grilling for later.

"Sarah." The Goblin King let his mouth linger over the word, caressing each sound.

Nobody ever had said her name quite like he did.

"Not now," she said, letting her tone fall flat. "What's bothering them so badly? Red kept me up half the night begging me to call you and making that exact noise."

"The house seems to throw off their magic," the Goblin King said. After a moment, he added, "You did call me, you know."

"I didn't even -"

"Not in the exact words, no. But even a rhetorical question can be a wish when it's something you want to happen."

Sarah debated between needling him about his reluctance to enter the house and squashing the idea that she'd wanted him there.

One of these, she knew, was a lost cause. So she went with 'taunt.'

"I notice you haven't been inside yet."

He arched an eyebrow, then drawled, as if lazy, "Why should I?"

"Curiosity?"

"That's a mortal failing." He turned his lopsided gaze back to the house, watching with an intensity that was anything but lazy. "What's said is said, what's done is done, what is... simply is, precious."

Bullshit, she thought. He was at least nervous about the house, if not every bit as terrified and angry as his subjects.

"How can a house throw off goblin magic? I've never lived any place that did that before."

"Any number of reasons. Ley lines, old curses, bad feng shui, too much iron around, allegiance to a different court..."

Feng shui? Iron?

"So the iron thing is true? And what would a fae know about feng shui, anyway?"

Jareth only gave her a half-smirk.

A man in a half-mask emerged from the house. He stood on the porch, staring intently at both the King and his goblins.

After a moment, he demanded, "Who are you, and where have those vicious little things taken my organ?"

The Goblin King snapped his fingers. "Dwold, where is the pipe organ?"

A goblin with a thatch of grayish hair, rather like someone had dropped dull gray straw on its head, looked up at its King and said, "Under."

The Goblin King tilted his head. "It is under the house."

The masked man on the porch clenched his hands into fists. "Who are you, and how dare you remove my organ?"

"I'm Jareth, King of the Goblins and your new roommate. The organ was in my room. I moved it." And then Jareth's tone changed to one she knew all too well. "I've been generous enough not to dismantle it and leave it in the sitting room."

The other man narrowed the eye Sarah could see, then turned and strode back into the house.

He was wearing an opera cape. It fluttered balefully when he moved.

Any intimidation she might have felt abruptly vanished. In fact, the only thing that could bring her down - beyond Jareth's presence - was wondering what Christine's reaction would be.

As always, there's a prettier version up at the AO3, in which house always appears in blue, wish always appears in red, and king sometimes appears in purple.