Disclaimer: Zippity do dah, my darlings.
Challenge #26: Tears
Sarah stabbed the spoon back into her hunk of chocolately, fudgey, brownie-speckled substitution for actual human contact, and sniffled at the fire crackling in the grate.
"I hate my life," she confided to the flickering firelight. It dulled in sympathy briefly before bursting to life, writhing enthusiastically and dancing for her, trying to cheer her up.
Wedging another monstrous bite of ice cream from her pint of Ben & Jerry's, she waved off her flaming log's attempts to lighten her mood.
"No, don't bother. Nothing can help," she sighed. "The universe hates me, and my slutty ex-boyfriend hates me, and my slutty ex-best friend, and my boss, and now even my little brother would rather spend the weekend helping Karen garden than hang out with me. I've earned this pity party, dammit, and I'm going to wallow until my toes go numb," she declared. She shoved the frozen comfort into her mouth, concentrating on the taste of chocolate overkill and steadfastly ignoring the tears pricking at her eyes. She would not cry, dammit, not over them, not over him, he was so not worth it, that rotten ex-bastard…
"My, you do have it rough, don't you?" asked the new inhabitant of her previously uninhabited armchair.
Sarah nearly swallowed her spoon.
Doing her best to hack it back up before it wound up in a lung, Sarah squinted tearily at the fuzzy blonde thing lounging in her lazyboy, and hoped that what she thought just happened hadn't really. Hoped that the one man in her life who she'd managed to get the better of hadn't just popped while she was at her worst, hadn't just heard her bemoaning her ill circumstances –
Hadn't just watched her accidentally drool chocolate drizzle all over her silk pj's…
Wiping her eyes, and surreptitiously trying to cover up any drooly incidents, Sarah turned to the last guy she wanted to see right now and tried to not look pathetic.
"Have you never heard of a door?" she demanded.
"Certainly, but waiting outside a door implies a certain formality and unfamiliarity," he replied. "You and I are far more intimate than doors, Sarah mine."
She sputtered a little more. "Intimate, my ass! I haven't even heard gossip about you in five years, and I haven't seen you in twice that! We are so non-intimate that there should be three doors, and possibly an electric fence!"
He tutted. "Now, don't cheapen what happened between us with silly things like the passage of time. You know how little that means to someone with my talents."
Sarah glared venomously, brandishing her spoon. "Nothing happened between us! And do you really want to be bringing up your talents with me right now?"
Jareth looked properly chastised. "In fact, no. I did not come in my capacity as the Goblin King, and for the time being, I technically have very few talents and even less inclination to use them."
Frowning, she kept her spoon leveled at him threateningly. "Why are you here?"
"I caught wind of a pity party, and I wondered if it could use another participant," he said, and suddenly, she realized he looked older, more worn – He had circles under his eyes and crows feet in their corners, his lips were thin and chewed nearly raw as though by a nervous habit, and his hair seemed lank and deflated. Sarah blamed her shock and mild despair for not noticing his haggard appearance earlier.
Lowering her spoon, she considered this. He obviously wasn't here to gloat over her, not looking like that, and how bad must things be for him if he'd come to her for companionship?
After a brief debate whose outcome was decided before she'd really started, she scooted over on the couch and lifted the side of her blanket invitingly. It sucked to need comfort and not have anyone, and she wasn't about to inflict that sort of awfulness on anyone else. He was helping her as much as she was helping him, anyways.
"I'm only sharing my ice cream with you if you promise not to get glitter in it," she warned. Jareth blinked disbelievingly for a moment, as though he'd never really expected her to say yes, and gingerly moved to sit next to her. Sarah smiled inwardly as he kept a few inches of space between them under the blanket, barely even close enough to feel his body heat.
Scooching closer to him, she offered the container of chocolate salvation and smiled softly.
"So," she prompted. "Tell me why your life sucks."
A/N: D'awww... Cuddle time. :D