Sarah groaned, shoving her head under her pillow as her alarm went off, trying to reach the elusive warmness. She'd had just enough artisan beer last night to realise that she'd had a little too much. And that bloody heater still wasn't fixed. She was honestly going to need to have a chat with Janice about that.
Oh well, at least Ronnie won't bother me again until New Years.
"Wake up your sleepy head," crooned the young, pre-cocaine Bowie, or was it post-coke Bowie? She wasn't too sure. Sarah considered this as she rubbed at her eyes, trying to crack them open. It was too goddamn early to make assumptions on David Bowie's drug habits.
With goose-bumps prickling her skin lightly, Sarah rolled herself up a little more in her duvet, seeking that hard to find toastiness. Maybe she could sleep for five more minutes. Ryan wouldn't be that upset if she was late to the troll thing.
"Put on some clothes, shake up your bed."
Rule one, Sarah told herself, dragging one stiff leg after another from under the safety of the duvet. Never make one of your favourite songs your alarm for when you're waking up at the most ungodly hour of the day. It was too early! Aside from the one day of hell with the hippy dryad, it had been extremely peaceful at work that week. One could almost say too peaceful. Sarah grumbled as she dragged a brush through her bed hair. Why couldn't all her weeks be too peaceful? The faint glow of her phone flicked from 5:29 to 5:30, which was important because everyone knew goblins got up at that time, to watch their early morning cartoons. It also meant-
"I had a girl. Her name was Sarah.
Never met any chick fairer.
She had good eyes.
I'm sure they saw lots of things."
Sarah listened carefully to the muffled squalling through the thin walls, choking back a snort. Admittedly, she should have called them off after her and Jareth's little make-up last night, but it had slipped her mind and surely one more day of Goblin singing wouldn't hurt. Sarah smirked to herself as she shimmied a pair of jeans over her pyjama bottoms. Pressing her ear against the plaster board, she was also quite certain she heard the beast awakening for the day.
"-he gets us to steal. Her bras an' her jocks. Yes our old dear..."
"Out you blasted buggers! Now! Before I bog the lot of you!" came the exasperated tones of the ex-Goblin King.
Sarah grinned at the scampering sound of fleeing goblins.
"Sorry Jer," she called through the off-white wall, "I'll call them off today, I swear."
All the muttered swears from the other side came to a stop.
"Really? And what would the notoriously famous night owl, Sarah Williams, be doing up at this time of the day?"
"I've got a case this morning," said Sarah, "Ryan and I are going after a drug-dealing troll."
"Fascinating!" Jareth did not sound at all fascinated.
Sarah rolled her eyes at the wall. "I'm sure it's better than whatever it is you do," came her muffled response as she dragged a thick, navy jumper over her head.
Jareth's scathing comment in return was interrupted by the buzz of her phone. Sarah hurriedly shooed away a stray chicken that had started to nest there when her back was turned, and pressed it to her ear.
"Hey Ryan, listen... I'm up! You didn't even have to phone," Sarah laughed, mostly to herself. "In fact, I didn't even know you had a phone."
A very terse female, not-Ryan voice answered her.
"Hello Ms. Williams. This is Margaret speaking."
Sarah gnawed a lip. Who had gotten her number and why were they calling at this hour?
"I'm sorry. Who?"
"Margaret Jones. I'm the admin worker... for the agency?"
Sarah could have smacked herself in the face. "Yes, of course," Sarah gave a flustered laugh, running her fingers through her hair, an old nervous habit. "Of course I know who you are Margaret," she said, followed by another nervous laugh. "You know what early mornings are like, huh? How can I help you?"
Sarah thought she heard a miffed sniff before Margaret started talking again. "We're sorry to inform you but your partner, Ryan Hudson, is still suffering from an allergic reaction," Margret's voice had the dead-inside drone of someone who has worked at an office desk for too long, and as such, it was pretty forgettable. "You'll be doing the mission without him this morning," she continued. "However, we do advise you to take someone else with you. The agency understands that although you can handle yourself, Trolls are known to prey on lone women."
Sarah pulled a face. "So, I can't take the other girl from my office? The one with the blue hair?"
Sarah heard another disapproving sniff from down the line. "Heather is on recon in Blackpool at the moment. Honestly, we've been stretched so thin this past month. We really don't have anyone else to spare."
Sarah chewed on her lower lip, "I dunno then..." There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, followed by a sharp burst of tapping on a clunky, agency keyboard. Suddenly, Margaret's voice returned.
"Listen," she said in hushed tones, "this would be completely off the books and usually I so disapprove of his kind but..." There was another few seconds of keyboard tapping, followed by a deep breath. "You live with the previous Goblin King correct?"
"Yeah," Sarah breathed back. "Jareth and I share a flat."
Margaret's next words tumbled out of the phone in a rushed whisper. "As I said before... Totally off the books... but perhaps you take... Jareth?" She said the name like it was some sort of exotic slug that had slithered off her tongue.
Sarah cocked her head. This was very unlike an agency official. If anything went wrong then the phrase 'Up shit creek without a paddle' wouldn't even begin to describe how much trouble she could get in. "But, Margaret! I could get in serious trou-"
"That's why we keep it off the records Ms. Williams," Margaret replied smoothly, the sound of her rapid fire typing in the background. "Please be stationed at the troll bridge around 6:15 am. Your cover is that you were introduced to Pixie Dust at a mixed Fae/Human warehouse party, and you're now hooked. Good luck Ms. Williams."
Sarah went to protest but by then it was too late. The line was dead. Looking at the slightly bent, blue-grey nail jutting out her door, Sarah realised that she had a massive problem. And so she said what most would in such a situation, "Well, fuck!"
The chicken on her bed cocked its head at her in apparent agreement. Sarah was having a range of conflicting emotions right now. After her trip in the Labyrinth, she was certain that she could do anything and ultimately, the final confrontation between herself and Jareth showed her that she could do anything by herself. She'd taken that motto into her life. All her effort that had gone into schooling, she did by herself. Escaping from America and Mr. Smith, she'd done by herself. Getting as far as she had done in the agency, she'd done by herself.
Sarah sat down on her bed with a dull thump and gave the chicken a tentative stroke. Sure, she'd had help along the way. In the Labyrinth, her friends had helped her. During her high school years, her parents had always supported her decisions to the best of their abilities. And at work, Ryan and Bea helped her. But, asking Jareth for help was different. Because when she and her friends worked together they worked as a team. And when she and Ryan or Bea worked together, they worked as a team. But with Jareth it was different. They weren't a team. It was the mighty King Jareth and the tragic heroine, Sarah, bashing heads all the time. It was like a power play between someone who could potentially be her ally, but could also potentially throw a snake at her at any given moment.
Furthermore, Sarah definitely had feelings. And God, weren't feelings stupid?
Like really, really stupid.
She wouldn't say she loved Jareth, because that would be really stupid. She DID NOT love Jareth. But had she never met the man before and saw him in a bar one night, Sarah would have sure as hell tried riding his dick to orgasm town.
And here lay the problem. There was way too much grey in their kind of relationship for Sarah to go riding that dick to orgasm town. Had she loved him in that wonderful, selfless, innocent way people fall in love in Disney movies, there would be no problem with any of that, but she didn't love him.
Jareth was just really good looking and Sarah was more than slightly afraid that the more time she spent bonding with Jareth, the more likely she was to forget that he had the real potential to be a fuckwit, and then she could make a really, really stupid mistake.
Another really, really stupid mistake though, would be facing the troll alone. Sarah tended to avoid being prejudiced towards any supernatural creature. She snorted, Look at Ludo after all. Most people would bolt seeing a face like that.
Trolls however were different. Roughly 1 in 16 assaults made on mortals were committed by trolls. And although that didn't sound like a lot, it was when you put into perspective that there were approximately 1,742 different types of Undergrounders living in London.
"So ultimately for my own safety, I'll have to take Jareth with me. Which is bad,"
Sarah explained to the chicken, and it clucked in understanding. Well, Sarah sighed to herself, at least one of us understands.
Checking her phone (5:40) Sarah resolutely made her way to the kitchen. The worst thing Jareth can say is, "No, I'm not going to help you." And if he does say that, it doesn't matter because I can just emotionally blackmail him to come.
In the kitchen, Jareth was hunched over the table, trying to drown himself in his cup of tea. He'd never been much of a morning person. Sarah suspected it was due to being part owl.
"Mrnahouphalm," said Jareth.
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that," Sarah replied, nursing the tea Jareth had made for her.
"You need to call off the Goblins, mmmkay?" slurred the ex-Goblin King. "How am I expected to be my usual perky self if I don't get enough sleep?" he said with a lethargic eye roll.
Sarah patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. "So it is true that big nights out really drain the over-thirties."
Jareth gave her the evil eye, sipping his tea through tight lips.
"Okay Jareth," Sarah smirked, taking a sip of her own tea. "I'll call the goblins off, but only if you grant me a favour."
Jareth took another slow, suspicious sip of his tea. "What kind of favour?"
Sarah took a deep breath, like ripping off a Band Aid, she thought, pulling on a loose thread in her jumper. "I've been given an assignment by my work and um, I have to go ask a troll for drugs, and um," Sarah noticed that her voice was getting higher and higher, just as Jareth's eyebrows were cynically raising higher and higher. "The agency said I should take you along because trolls are dangerous?" she ended with a squeak.
If possible, Jareth's eyebrows rose a fraction more. "And you're going dressed like that?"
Sarah wasn't sure how or when it happened, but suddenly she was leaving the apartment dressed like a down-town mob-boss' wife with half a pound of Jeffree Star cosmetics on her face, and Jareth's arm linked with hers.
The deep red, velvet, thigh high boots were pinching her toes. Sarah was pretty sure the only reason her ass cheeks weren't frozen was because the black mink fur coat only just covered them. The knit dress she was wearing was clingier than Jareth, and barely covered the decent parts. In other words, Sarah felt fabulous.
Sarah had no idea where Jareth had gotten these clothes from. Or the make-up for that matter. She didn't even want to know why he had these clothes readily available. But she felt fierce. Even if her ankles hated the ankles hated the boots.
Obviously the clothes had been Jareth's idea.
"A troll, no matter how thick in the head, would get pretty suspicious if an average girl had walked up and asked for fae drugs," he had explained, as he carefully applied lipstick to Sarah's face (Obviously, he'd colour coordinated it to go with her boots). "However, if say, a couple who had just left a mixed-species, illegal, Underground party came and asked for drugs, no questions would be asked."
The clouds moved like sluggish, fat, black sheep across the grim sky. Like they too really hated moving quickly in the bitter cold. For once the streets of London were nearly empty apart from the occasional early morning jogger, who completely ignored Sarah and Jareth. Loutishly swaggering in a pair of brown ankle boots, skin tight black jeans and a three-quarter length red leather jacket that hid the blinding white of his shirt, it truly was as if the Goblin King inside Jareth had never left. The look was finished off with a dusting of orange eyeshadow and a cane which he periodically tapped against the icy footpath. Jareth looked as if he'd wandered out of Paris fashion week. Like most of the Paris fashion week models, he was kind of alluring, in a freaky looking, alien sort of way.
"So," Sarah fingered the collar of her coat, "how do people act at these fae parties?"
Jareth had a moment of thoughtful silence. "The usual way I think. Lots of alcohol and music and drugs and sex."
Sarah nodded, "Makes sense I guess. You been to many?"
Jareth shrugged, tapping his swagger stick against the ground. "More than a few."
They walked through the cold in companionable silence for a bit. Then a question struck Sarah. "Why is your human name Jared Williams? You could have had literally any other last name but it had to be mine, didn't it?"
Jareth inspected some grit that had accumulated on his shoe. "Not really. The High Court said I had to take some aspect of your name to remind myself that I was a failure and I figured it would seem strange to most mortals for a grown man to go wandering around saying his name was Sarah."
Sarah sighed, "In a twisted fae logic kind of way, that makes a surprising amount of sense."
Jareth hummed in agreement.
Sarah wrapped the mink coat a little closer. "So how are we going to play this drug bust?" she asked, keeping her eyes firmly ahead.
Jareth clicked his teeth together, "It's common enough for fae to drug humans they find attractive."
"You're telling me," Sarah muttered under her breath.
Jareth gave her a sharp look but didn't comment. "As I was saying, some fae drug humans they find attractive, to keep the humans dependent on them. I think it would be... smart if we insinuated that we have a similar relationship going on."
Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah thought she may have seen the flash of a camera. But when she looked around to check, she only saw more semi-empty streets with a couple of early morning commuters drudging along.
She nodded affirmatively, "Sounds good."
Ducking down a less than respectable alleyway, the pair picked up speed, Sarah struggling slightly in her heels. Then down some treacherously slippery stairs, along the river bank, past the one-eyed homeless man in the orange parker, then under a bridge that needed fixing up in the 80s. Sarah found her target:
Troll.
Male.
Aged 83.
Known by the name 'Slug'.
Believed to be committing petty crimes as well as dealing the drugs; Pixie Powder, Fairy Dust and Sprite. Mostly stayed under the bridge during the day, as sun turned Trolls into stone.
Unconsciously, Sarah huddled closer to Jareth. Like most trolls, Slug was over 6 ft. tall, easily. He had a thick, grey-blue hide speckled with a number of festering scabs. Sarah suspected that Slug was struggling to pull off a strong enough glamour to fool anyone other than the casual passer by, which was probably why his black hoodie was pulled low over his enormous head. But Sarah could still see his yellow eyes darting about sharply.
Slug was one scary dude.
Jareth approached confidently, pulling Sarah along behind him. Swallowing her fear, Sarah put on her slightly dazed and confused party girl face.
"Hey mate," said Jareth, wrapping his arm around Sarah.
Slug gave a slight nod. "You lookin' for som'thin mate?" his voice sounded thick and hoarse, almost Greek, maybe.
"Depends," Jareth skimmed his thumb slowly around and around Sarah's navel, "you selling anything?"
The troll grinned and Sarah caught the glint of sharp teeth and the smell of rotting fish and river water. Sarah felt her heart beating in her throat so hard that she was surprised she wasn't seeing spots.
"Who's askin'?" said the troll slowly, yellow eyes shinning at the prospect of money.
"Party goers," Jareth replied casually.
Sarah's fight or flight system kicked in and she giggled stupidly, lolling her head back against Jareth's shoulder. "That was a good party baby."
Jareth smirked, giving her hip a squeeze.
Slug's eyes narrowed slightly, "Oberon's woz it?"
Sarah's breath hitched, lungs burning from how hard she'd been holding it in.
Jareth snorted, "Nah mate. Listen can you give us anything or not?" Jareth leaned in, lowering his voice considerably as Sarah felt his eyes rake over her.
"I'm kind of in a rush to get home, if you know what I mean."
Despite herself, Sarah blushed behind the makeup.
The troll gave an understanding nod. "Yea, alrigh'. Got some Pixie Powder. Well good, ain't it?"
"How much?" asked Jareth, cocking his head.
"Sixty quid," replied Slug in a way that clearly said, 'ask me to lower the price and I'll smash your pretty boy face in!'
Jareth let out a low whistle, "That much!"
The troll shrugged, hands thrust deep in his pockets. "You shoulda come earlier in the night if you wantit som'thin cheaper, shouldn't ya?"
Jareth was silent for a moment, gently stroking Sarah's hair, clearly deep in thought. "How pure?"
Sarah felt her heart racing faster and faster. Like a bird fluttering to get out of a cage. At least Ryan wasn't here. He probably would have fudged up by now.
Slug gave a wide grin, displaying rows of reptilian teeth. "Very."
Jareth nodded, and Sarah pulled a wad of cash from her pocket (agency money).
Jareth shot her a grin, "Thank-you Sarah."
Slug's beady eyes flitted between the pair. "Sarah?" he said slowly, staring intently before turning to Jareth. "An' yous the old Goblin King, ain't you then?"
Sarah took a cautious step back. Then another. Pulling Jareth back with her. Then another. Heels clicking slowly. Cautiously.
"Jareth," Sarah warned in a low voice, "I think we should go now," she said, pulling on Jareth's arm, giving the Troll a nervous smile. "Let's not waste anymore of the nice troll's time, huh?"
Slug's eyes slid slowly between the pair again. "I can't believe it!" he exclaimed, mostly to himself. His pointed, yellow finger nails scratching the back of his head. "They said yous looked like a pair of librarians," he muttered accusingly, then, shrugging. "Well, nothing else for it I guess. You're important to the boss."
Sarah never could quite remember what happened next. She got lost somewhere between the Troll lunging at her and Jareth grabbing her hand and yelling, "Run!"
Her legs pumped. Feet screaming at her. Each misstep of her heel making her heart pirouette. Each misstep potentially being her last.
Suddenly Jareth stopped, his hand slick in her own. "I think we're far away enough now," he panted. "He'll stay under the bridge if he doesn't want to get turned into stone."
Behind them, heavy, thudding footfalls got closer and closer. Sarah looked up at the sky and then looked at Jareth.
"Jareth," she said taking a gulping breath, "it's overcast."
Jareth's eyes darted behind them before he grabbed her hand again. "Keep running!"
Neither of them stopped until they reached the comfortingly crowded Bacon Street, only a block away from their flat in Brick Lane.
Unsurprisingly, Sarah could smell bacon. Her stomach growled. She looked over at Jareth, who was semi keeled over on the pavement, still clutching her hand despite the troll being long gone.
"Do you wanna grab some breakfast?" she asked.
Jareth peeked up at her from under his poof of hair, which had slipped out of it's ponytail as they ran. "Breakfast would be nice."
Hand in hand, they semi-hobbled, semi-staggered towards an open restaurant.
It was called "Cereal Killer Cafe."
A/N: I'm back!
As usual many thanks to Sazzle who has not only been beta-ering for the masses but also doing a super crazy amazing job a writing her own fanfic and furthermore many thanks to Sazzle76, GrowingThroughTheCracks, KBates, Anneige, MyraValhallah and the guests for their support in my 'truly ground breaking' decision to make Jareth bi and just the general little tidbits on Bowie's life.
( KBates, Iman is amazingly gorgeous and a real sweetie)
Personally, I don't think it should be in anyway confronting to know LGBT people exist and I'm under the impression that if you lived for a billion years or so, your sexuality would be a lot more fluid. Like, at some point you're going to look at a member of your own sex and go "yeah... I'd tap that."
Mad Shelly: I in no way intended to be political with Sarah being uncomfortable. Mitch is just an uncomfortable guy. I can't have Sarah magically getting along with EVERYONE because that would be boring.
Anneige: Oh my goodness I was in no way thinking about showers when I wrote that. But haha how funny would that be? I think that Mitch was asking if Sarah knew about Jareth being fae and as a fae he would probably be allowed to make a partner of his choice immortal? Mitch being extremely egotistical would want to stay young forever but Jareth would probably say nah. Also you're totally right on sexuality all the brownie points for you.