Disclaimer: I own nothing (especially a social life which is why this chapter has appeared less than a day later than the previous I am being consumed by this story). But be warned, I am about to do something very mean to you guys and Sarah. I'm teaching everyone a lesson:this is why you shouldn't drink too much (soju)! But, to be honest, I am just a huge troll :P
CHAPTER 4: Don't believe for just one second I'm forgetting you
Sarah woke up the next morning after a long dreamless sleep with a slight headache and a horrible chunk of memory missing. "Oh gawd, what did I do at that club?" Sarah immediately demanded. She remembered seeing another Jareth double and rushing to the stairs at the side of the stage but everything after that crucial moment was a blur. She jumped out of her bed to go find out from Melissa and Masha what had happened. She found Masha lounging on the couch watching BBC Breakfast while sipping on an alka-seltzer. "Masha what happened after I ran off from you guys in that club last night?" Sarah demanded somewhat panicky.
"You can't remember?" Masha asked, "I didn't think you had that much to drink."
"Neither did I," Sarah agreed heading to the kitchen for a much needed glass of water. "And what's weird is I remember after that when we were walking home. I was whining about missing Toby and Melissa told us about her crush on some barrista," Sarah continued.
"Yeah you're right," Masha pondered then stated, "That's strange." Sarah sat on the couch next to her friend and dropped an alka-seltzer in her water. "Well I'm not entirely sure what happened after you body tackled that guy while he was singing."
Sarah groaned, "Nooo. Please tell me you're joking. I didn't do that."
Masha laughed, "You sure did! And all of those fan girls were up in arms about it. That one chick next to us who was all decked out in black tried to follow you and tackle him too but a bouncer finally appeared and restrained her. She kept screaming 'She's not a proper fan! She's married!' or something like that. Then some old blond lady was shouting that you were married to Jareth which was hilarious and then some tiny redhead said you and Jareth had a ton of children. It was a mess. Very funny though."
Sarah listened to Masha's story with her head in her hands just wanting to crawl in a hole and die. All those jokes she made last night about being married to Jareth suddenly were not funny to her anymore. As much as she wanted that singer to be Jareth before, she now hoped it was all just a huge coincidence or a massive drunken mirage. She groaned and downed the alka-seltzer.
"Well what happened next, were we kicked out?" Sarah asked hoping the story couldn't get any worse. She wanted to grab last-night Sarah and shake her senseless.
"No. That really gorgeous singer carried you off behind the stage and we couldn't get to you till about ten minutes later. You were acting all spaced out and gooey. A bouncer was there looking after you, but your singer had disappeared without a trace. So we grabbed you and then tried to sneak out the back—you kind of ruined the show ya know. Women were rioting out there. You didn't say anything about what happened when we tried to ask you about it and you kind of acted like the whole thing didn't happen. It was weird. And it's weird you can't remember that bit. You didn't accept any strange drinks from any strange men last night did you?" Masha asked a bit worried.
Sarah just shook her head somberly when Melissa appeared from the bathroom freshly showered and made up.
"Good morning Mrs. Jareth!" she teased Sarah. Then laughed along with Masha while Sarah blushed hoping that terrible joke would die out very soon.
"Ohh don't say that. I hate myself right now for going along with that," Sarah pleaded covering her face with her hands in despair.
"But you are wearing your faux engagement ring!" Melissa said pointing at a ring on Sarah's left hand. Sarah looked expecting to find a the grubby straw wrapper she had fashioned into a ring but instead saw a familiar ruby ring. Sarah looked in horror at the offending object. It was the ring given to her by her mother so many years ago. She thought she would never see it again! She gave it to the wiseman in Jareth's labyrinth! How did it suddenly return to her finger? It must mean that the singer from last night had to be Jareth! Did he give it back to her? Sarah thought removing the ring from her ring finger, but that thought disappeared from her mind when she saw the time.
"Oh my gosh! I have to get ready!" she cried when finally realized she had to leave in an hour for rehearsal. Quickly grabbing a bathrobe, Sarah headed for the bathroom hoping a nice warm shower would help her remember her follies from last night and especially a vital ten minute chunk in which anything could have happened.
Sarah reached the studio space on time and feeling a little better after a quick coffee and yogurt parfait. She forced herself to ignore the fact that she might have met Jareth last night and instead wanted to be completely professional and involved in her acting. Nothing meant more to Sarah than becoming a legendary stage actress. Getting too distracted now might jeopardize that dream. She took the elevator up to the third floor and when the elevator doors open she caught the tail end of Charles yelling at his unresponsive nephew, "Honestly a baboon could handle this job better than you could!" But he stopped as soon as he saw Sarah, "My dear you are looking bright and healthy this morning! You must have had some good beauty sleep!" She scoffed but he couldn't have heard it as he walked over to her and took her arm, "I want to work on your first scene with Ron if that's alright?" Then he quickly whispered to her, "I wish that boy would get something right one of these days. He mislaid my notes from the read through. But it's no matter I had so little to correct I can remember most of what I need." Sarah felt a little bad for Charles's nephew. She resolved to try and talk to him at some point to see if she could help the strained relationship between the two.
The rehearsal went slowly because Ron had a method of learning his lines during rehearsal to help him get into the character's proper mindset. Sarah had of course learned all of her lines by heart a few days after getting her script. Her knack for learning lines quickly was a trick she suddenly picked up immediately after her journey through Jareth's labyrinth. Her flawless recitations greatly impressed the crew and Charles who were all getting a bit stressed out from Ron's constant flubbing. When it was decided that they all deserved a large break for lunch, Sarah finally caught a glimpse of Francis. He was hiding in the corner of the room and had apparently been watching their struggling rehearsal for quite some time. He was wearing a very TopMan look with a long blue and white striped shirt covered by a dark blue bomber jacket and lightly ripped and skintight black jeans. He definitely looked like a gorgeous model but Sarah was surprised to find that his affect on her today was not one of attraction but of wariness. That was strange after all now she knew that he couldn't be Jareth since she had apparently tackled Jareth last night. Even when she thought back to her previous chemistry with Francis, the not-kiss they shared and the way he caressed her hand, she felt nothing but uneasiness in his presence now. Perhaps noticing her nerves, Francis smiled pleasantly at her and said, "You were very good out there."
"Thank you," she smiled in return and her nerves immediately washed away. She was struck by how innocent and kind he was. He was obviously just a regular man. Why she just felt fleeting distrust Sarah had no idea. She ended up dismissing her random feelings as arbitrary after-effects of her wild night last night.
She was about to ask if he was going anywhere for lunch when Charles shouted from behind her, "Come Francis, we need to work on your first monologue!"
"I have been summoned," Francis said to her with a wry grin and Sarah smiled back as she continued on her way out to find an interesting lunch spot.
She paused at the elevator and turned on a whim when she decided to talk to Charles's assistant/nephew. "Hey," she said but he didn't reply or look up from his tablet, "I'm looking for a cool and fast lunch spot around here. Do you have any suggestions?"
The youth quickly replied with eyes still glued to his tablet, "I personally like 'Hummus Bros' but I'm vegetarian. If you are looking for meat I'm told 'Herman ze German' is good."
"Hummus sounds good right now I think I need something light," Sarah said then asked, "When do you get your lunch?"
"Uncle Charles doesn't let me leave the desk when he isn't here. And he doesn't like letting delivery men inside the studio. When he goes on lunch break I'll go grab some food," he explained.
"Oh but Charles is still working and it is already way past lunchtime," Sarah said looking at her phone clock which read 2:25. The hipster boy just shrugged and continued watching his tablet. Sarah glanced over to see what he was watching, it was a cooking video. The poor kid must be starving so she offered, "How about I grab you some hummus from Hummus Bros while I am there?" Finally the boy looked up at her. Behind his hipster glasses she saw that he had lovely brown eyes. In an odd way he reminded her of Ludo. He couldn't be more than 16 years old.
He said, "Could you? I'm starving. I'm Chaz by the way."
"Of course! What would you like Chaz? I'm Sarah by the way," Sarah said smiling.
"I know," Chaz smiled back at her suddenly ignoring his tablet completely. Sarah was happy, it looked as though she had just gained a new friend.
She returned later after waiting in a long queue for their hummus or 'houmus' as everyone else seemed to call it here. She sat and ate the delicious hummus with vegetables and pita with Chaz. He turned out to have a lovely personality but he was a bit shy. Sarah learned that he just finished secondary school and really wanted to work as a stage producer. He was disappointed to only have his Uncle Charles assign him to secretarial work when his mother tried to get him a kind of apprenticeship. Sarah was about to give him an inspiring speech to give him the confidence to discuss his work with Charles himself when a frazzled young woman appeared from the door to the rehearsal stage and shouted "Ms. Williams you are needed on set!"
"Bye Chaz gotta go!" she said getting up to leave.
"Bye Sarah, thanks for the food," he said smiling at her as she left.
Sarah then spent the next three hours working with Francis on the scene where their characters first meet.
"You are a beautiful man," she stated with conviction only partially in character as Leo.
Francis as Julian gave a convincing startled reply, "I hope you don't say that to every strange man you meet!"
"Only the beautiful ones," she teased and winked at him. As talented as Francis was he couldn't capture the proper meekness in that moment that Charles was trying to get him to portray. Every time Sarah winked, he looked as if he wanted to carry her off to explore more of her boldness—stage production be damned! Their chemistry had returned ten-fold and Sarah found it hard to concentrate on her own character. They ended up working for such a long time on positioning and Francis's body language that they didn't get past those first few lines and Charles said, "Sarah you can go get some dinner while I work with Francis a bit more. But please come back in an hour." She left with a parting glance at Francis who was looking at her hungrily—for food? Sarah felt a small shiver then left the space and headed back to Chaz.
"Do we have any hummus left?" she asked him then dragged a chair nearby to his desk so she could sit across from him. He offered her the remaining pita and the remains of their tabouleh and lemon hummus. She hungrily ate while Chaz chatted with her.
"I guess Uncle Charles doesn't eat when he gets really worked up," he observed. "I will see if I can talk to him later about maybe offering to help him out more with the actual directing instead of just sitting here waiting for the phone to ring, which it never does."
Sarah happily encouraged him, "That's a great idea!s I'm sure your Uncle would appreciate the help." She finished up the remains of their lunch then said, "I guess I will wait for Francis until getting dinner."
"Why are you waiting for Francis?" Chaz asked highly curious.
"He said we were going for drinks after rehearsal but since he didn't get a dinner break maybe he would rather grab food," she explained. Chaz suddenly looked very disappointed, he reached for his tablet. Sarah couldn't help but notice his mood swing, "What's wrong?"
"Oh nothing, I was just kind of hoping Francis was gay but I guess he isn't if he asked you on a date," he said gloomily.
Sarah suddenly felt guilty, "Oh sorry I didn't know you had a crush on him. Don't fret! Besides I don't think I'm really looking for a relationship right now and he could be bi maybe? Or he could just be trying to get to know me for the sake of the production."
"Hmm that's true," Chaz said sounding hopeful, "But I'll still just crush on him from afar anyways. I'd never have the balls to actually talk to him."
Sarah was getting ready to give this kid a serious pep talk but before she could Charles popped out from the behind the stage door and upon seeing her he said, "Oh good Sarah you're here! I'm sorry to cut your dinner short but we are finally making progress and if we run through with you I think we can head out early tonight."
"Oh perfect I'll be right there!" she said excited by Charles's announcement.
On stage, she and Francis ran through their lines with perfect inflection and pacing. Their body language was perfectly subtle and their movements exact. Even when Sarah winked at Francis, she found that he was finally able to summon up an air of awkwardness that belied his true nature. At the end Charles was so happy with their performance, he was clapping and jumping up and down. "Perfect, perfect! Let's lock it in!" he shouted, "A few more times from the beginning if you please."
Sarah and Francis began again repeating their perfect performance from the last time. This time, Sarah had time to observe Francis's amazing technique. When she told him he was beautiful, his face twitched very slightly which betrayed the repressed excitement and latent sexuality in his character. Sarah was highly impressed he could make himself twitch like that. After running through the scene two more times, Charles was satisfied and let them leave. Francis shed the repressed mannerisms of his shy character and walked over to Sarah grabbing her hand in his, "I think dinner is in order don't you think?" He walked her towards the door and before he opened it, he looked at her and said, "I'm famished," with a hungry expression that made Sarah tremble. She wasn't entirely sure he was thinking of food when he said that. As she walked through the open door, Sarah found it funny that their roles had completely reversed. Now he was being bold and she was being meek. What was wrong with her? Wasn't she supposed to not be very interested? They walked by Chaz who was completely absorbed again in his tablet. Francis hit the elevator button and turned to look at Sarah with that same hungry look. Then they waited in a silence so tense with desire that Sarah couldn't help feeling sorry for Chaz who was being forced to witness it.
When the elevator finally arrived after what felt like ages, Francis gestured for Sarah to go first so she waved bye and shouted "See you tomorrow Chaz!" as she stepped inside the elevator.
He looked up and although obviously jealous he shouted after her, "Bye Sarah!"
Then Francis entered the elevator behind her as she mentally tried to brace herself for what promised to be another interesting night. Hopefully this time she will be able to remember it.
End scene! Sorry for all the food in this bit I was hungry when I wrote it. I felt like a had to include a scene where Sarah befriends a loner since her knack for making friends was what I loved most about her character in the movie. And I'm sorry about the fake out with the blacking out the fun bits. I promise you will all eventually find out what happened after Sarah was alone with her singer-Jareth. But first get ready for a steamy night out with her actor-Jareth! And pretty soon Jareth-Jareth will be making an appearance :D In the meantime please R&R lmk what you think might happen (I might have to steal your ideas since I am about just as much in the dark as Sarah is rn) FYI the title of this chapter is from Dollar Days which is my second favorite song off of DB's Blackstar.
