Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters. They are all the property of their creators.
A/N: First and foremost I want to thank BowieQueen for being my Beta again for this little adventure. She is awesome, and has been such a help to me. She has some great fics out there, so check them out if you have not.
I had this crazy plot bunny attack me while I was in the middle of Sanctuary. I started it as soon as I finished Sanctuary. The idea of the goblins going on vacation with the Williams family seemed like a good idea at the time.
As for the setting of the Jersey Shore, don't ask me where that came from. I have never been there. I did not watch the show, the closest I came was staying in a hotel in Jersey while on a group trip to see the Pope in Philadelphia. So if you are familiar with the Jersey shore and I completely messed it up I beg your forgiveness. I did a little research, and tried but I am not 100% confident.
I had planned to have a short 4-5 chapter fun little story centered on Sarah, Toby, and the goblins. Well then the Goblin King showed up and the whole fic went completely out the window and ten chapters later I have this to show for myself.
This is the first time I have tried to purposely write humor into a fic. I hope it doesn't fall completely flat. Please if you read leave a review to let me know how I did. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this story, I did have a good time writing it.
Chapter 1
Cautiously Sarah opened the door to the house she grew up in. A surprising summons to the house was never a good thing for her. She had just seen the family two months ago for Easter, they talked on the phone weekly, what was going on that couldn't be discussed then? Oh well, she thought. No time like the present to find out. She used her key to unlock and open the door.
Stepping into the hall Sarah was met with silence. This was unusual, anytime you were in the house you were either assaulted with the noise of her thirteen-year-old brother, or the happy homemaker sounds of her stepmother cleaning or cooking in the kitchen. Sarah was about to call out to announce her presence when a hand reached out from around the door and grabbed her arm. Sarah let out a surprised squeak before her assailant showed himself.
"Toby, damn it," Sarah hissed. Karen hated swearing. "What the hell?" Sarah turned on her little brother.
"Relax, loser! Mom and dad aren't here." Toby smirked at her. Sarah looked at her brother. He was dressed in baggy jeans with a flannel shirt over a graphic tee-shirt. It was as grunge as Karen would let him get away with. "I wanted to get to you first to give you a heads up. That is if you want to know what they have planned for you." Sarah wanted to do something to get the I-know-something-you-don't smirk off his face.
"Ok kid, spit it out. What's up with Dad and Karen? Are they going away and need me to sit with you?" It was the worst that Sarah could come up with.
"Don't you wish?" Toby replied, the smirk firmly affixed to his lips. "Let's see—I can supply you with the information you seek, but I will need a donation of 10 bucks to my skateboard fund." He extended his hand palm up.
"Are you trying to blackmail me, you little shit?" Sarah thought back to when she used the same tactic with Hoggle once upon a time and she smiled. She wasn't sure If she felt insulted or proud of her brother. "No way! You're going to tell me and I'm not paying you a cent."
Toby appeared unperturbed. "Fine go in cold. I don't care. You don't think that fast on your feet anymore. If I were you I would like time to prepare my argument." The smirk and the extended hand remained.
Sarah sighed. He was right. If it was something that she needed to debate she would need time going up against her lawyer father. The knowledge of what awaited might just be worth the ten dollars.
She dug into her shoulder bag and took out her wallet. Opening it she took out two five-dollar bills and handed them to her brother. "If your info is not worth this I will be getting my money back one way or another," Sarah promised him with a glare.
Toby folded the money and put it into his back jeans pocket. "Ok well, it is the start of summer," Toby started.
"Really," Sarah said sarcastically. "I never would have guessed. That better not be the information I spent ten dollars on."
"Let me finish," Toby countered. "Geeze, you are getting impatient in your old age." Toby ducked the hand coming up to cuff his head. "As I was saying, it is summer. And mom and dad are planning our yearly trip to the shore. This year you are going with us after your three-year pause." The smirk became a full-blown smile.
"Oh, I'm not worried about that," Sarah said breezily. "I've gotten out of the last three trips, so I'll just make an excuse not to go this year." Not that she would enjoy spending time with her family, but she was not excited about going on the yearly trip to the Jersey Shore with them.
"If you say so," Toby answered, sounding more like, 'it's your funeral.'
Sarah took her things to her old room and unpacked them for the long weekend. She returned to the main floor and the siblings spent the rest of the afternoon playing video games and generally hanging out together. Something they had not done in a while.
Sarah's dad and stepmother came in after being out together at some afternoon function. "Hi Daddy, Karen," Sarah said, getting up and walking over to give her father a hug and a kiss, and she even managed to hug Karen. She tried but Karen and Sarah tolerated each other, but you could not call them friends.
"Hello, Princess." Robert Williams greeted his oldest.
Sarah's dad disappeared into his study after greeting his daughter and making some small talk. Karen was already in the kitchen starting to make dinner. The siblings settled down to continue playing.
When the family sat down to dinner, they said grace as was tradition. They then began passing the plates of food around, starting of course with her father. Karen insisted on things being proper. When all the dishes had been passed and the family had plates loaded with pot roast, mashed potatoes, and vegetables a quiet descended on the table as they began to eat. Sarah was buttering a roll when her father started the conversation she had spent the afternoon preparing for.
"So I finalized plans for our yearly trip to the beach house in Point Pleasant." He smiled down at the table at his family.
"That's a great dad. Send me a postcard. I'm sure you all will have a great time," Sarah said and took a bite of her roll, hoping that this will end the discussion of New Jersey as it applied to her.
"Nonsense, Sarah. This is a family vacation and you are part of the family. Of course, you are going too." Sarah's heart sank. Oh well, she knew it wouldn't be that easy.
"Daddy!" Sarah directed her best pleading glance at her father. "I am twenty-seven years old. Aren't I a little old for the family vacation?"
"You will never out-grow being part of the family. We don't see you as often as I would like. This will give us time to be together like we used to." Robert was using his no-nonsense court voice. Sarah knew she would have to come back with something good.
"If it's the last week of June and over July fourth like usual I won't be able to. I have to work. And if you finalized the plan already you won't be able to change it. It's just too bad. I will make sure to have a long visit when you get back." Sarah turned back to her food. She was satisfied that she had gotten her way.
"Sarah!" Uh oh, Sarah recognized that voice. It was the one that her dad used when he knew he had the opposing counsel trapped and was going in for the kill. "I heard you on the phone over Easter talking to Nancy. You told her that if she wanted to plan a trip to California for this summer you could get off anytime, and you haven't used any of your vacation time yet." Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but her father forged ahead. "And Karen talked to Nancy when she ran into her in town and asked about when you too might be traveling." Sarah sends a scathing glare at Karen. Sarah's father did not miss a beat. "She told Karen that you weren't going to be able to make the trip this year since she broke her leg. That you were rescheduling it for next year."
"But..." Sarah tried to interject, but her father kept going pretending that he did not hear her protests.
"You missed the last three trips, because you were getting your masters, and told us that you had summer classes those weeks. You got your degree in April, so that should have your schedule clear for this summer to spend time with your family." Her father smiled his victory smile as he effectively ended the debate. Sarah stopped arguing. She knew when she was beaten.
The rest of the dinner passed pleasantly. Well pleasantly for everyone but Sarah. She quietly finished her dinner not wanting to think about the upcoming trip. After the dinner, dishes were cleared, and dessert was served, eaten, and finished Sarah tried to make her escape. Karen insisted she help with the dishes, which she did quickly without protest. She would do anything to get away alone to her old bedroom.
Sarah flopped onto her childhood bed, her back hitting it hard enough to cause her to bounce on it before settling. She kicked her feet up onto it with her shoes still on in a silent protest of a habit of hers from childhood that she knew her stepmother Karen hated. She wanted to talk to someone about what happened, someone not in her family. Her eyes drifted to the mirror on her vanity, and a smile spread across her face. Sarah sat up, and got off the bed she sat on the chair in front of the mirror. She knew just who she would call.
"Jareth," she called and watched the mirror ripple. As Sarah waited for her call to "connect" she thought back to how the Goblin King became a "phone buddy" and confidant.
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It all started on prom night of her senior year. Since her run of the Labyrinth Sarah had used her mirror to talk to some of the friends that she made there. She and Hoggle talked weekly at least, and she had ongoing chess and scrabble games with Sir Didymus. Ludo wasn't big on conversation but he was often with Didymus when they talked, and she liked seeing him and knowing he was well. There were even a few of the goblins that liked to keep in touch with The Sarah. Their conversations weren't deep, but they could be entertaining.
On that particular night though, Sarah was too upset to pay attention to what she was saying. Troy Rodgers, one of the most popular senior boys, had asked her to the dance. It was something out of one of the fairytales that she read so often. She was picked up in a limo and was taken to a local restaurant for dinner. Instead of sitting with other couples that had chosen that place to eat also she and Troy were eating at a small intimate table for two.
When they got to the dance her whole evening, her whole life actually imploded. They walked into the ballroom where the dance was held and Sarah felt like a princess. Troy led her to the middle of the dance floor, just as there was a change in the song. Before the DJ could start the next song Troy stepped away from her and announced to the room in a booming voice, that she then realized was amplified with the use of a wireless lapel microphone, "Ok I brought her here, everyone get your money out and pay up." And he laughed.
Sarah just stared in disbelief at the boy in front of her. He just sneered at her. "You didn't actually think I would bring you to prom right. There was a bet, most of the class owes me $20 each since I got you to come here with me thinking that it was a legitimate date." With that, he walked away to collect his winnings.
Sarah ran out of the hotel. It was four miles away but she walked home in her dress and heels. When she arrived home she found it empty. Toby was at a neighbor's house down the street, and her dad and Karen were out at a function. She ran up to her room and, crying, threw herself onto her bed. Lying there she said the one word she had not uttered in nearly three years. "I wish I could talk with someone tonight that cared about me." She never noticed the mirror ripple, but she heard the baritone voice that she could never forget.
"Sarah, what need do you have of me? Whatever is wrong that you are weeping dressed like that?" Sarah sat up and stared into her mirror at a pair of piercing blue eyes.
They talked for a good bit of the night. Sarah found that she could open up to Jareth, not knowing why, but it made her feel better. That night started a trend of her calling on Jareth whenever things in her life got rough. He would listen, give her his honest opinion, and wasn't afraid to verbally kick her in the ass when she needed it.
She was worried that this would end once she went away to school since she could not take her vanity and mirror with her. Jareth let her know that any mirror would work as a communication device, but only her vanity mirror was a full portal that individuals and things can pass through. Sarah was extremely grateful for this when she saw what trouble a portal can cause.
It was now infamously known as the Great Goblin Walk-Out. Sarah was in college at NYU when she received a phone call from Toby. All he told her was that she needed to come home NOW. She skipped her afternoon classes and grabbed a train out of the city. It took a couple of hours but when she got home Toby was hanging out of her bedroom window and called to her to come up but to not let his mom see her.
Sarah managed to slip into the house and made her way up the stairs and into her room. She closed and locked the door behind her, without really looking at the inside of her room. She decided that the lock was probably a good idea the way that Toby was acting. When she turned around back to her brother, all power of speech left her.
Filling her bedroom were about fifty goblins of various shapes and sizes and more chickens than Sarah could count. And in the middle of everything was Toby nervously standing surrounded by goblins and poultry. Everyone was silent when Sarah appeared, but that quickly wore off with a cacophony of noise.
"Quiet!" yelled Sarah, her hands covering her ears. The room was immediately silent, and Sarah listened intently, relieved when she did not hear Karen coming up to investigate the noise.
"Toby," Sarah hissed. "What is going on here?" Sarah asked, looking around at the chaos that was once her bedroom.
"Well, I was in your room talking to Blot." The goblin in question waved happily. "Then suddenly all the goblins were yelling and grabbing chickens and then they all came through the mirror. I didn't know what to do so I called you. It was either that or Mom." Toby tried to explain.
Sarah had forgotten that she had given Toby permission to use the mirror to talk to his goblin friends in the castle. Jareth knew about it and didn't mind too much. "You were right not to tell Mom. Have you talked to the Goblin King?" Sarah asked. At the sound of his title, the goblins started to boo and hiss. Ok, that's new. The goblins usually loved Kingy.
Quickly searching the room she turned to one of the goblins clutching a black fancy chicken to his chest. "Zot, what's going on? What are you guys all here with the chickens? Why do you all seem mad at the King?"
"We came to see Lady. We like Lady and babe." Zot nodded as it helped his words.
"Ok Zot, I'm glad to see you guys, but what happened that you decided to come now." Usually, the goblins wouldn't even talk through the mirror without Jareth's ok. This still seemed to be an unauthorized field trip.
"Kingy got mad at chickens. Say chickens no be in castle. Say take chickens out!" Sarah had to laugh at his impersonation of Jareth as he continued to clutch the chicken to his chest.
"And you guys did not want to be without your chickens in the throne room." Sarah began to understand.
Zot noticeably brightened. "We decide we come to see Lady. We like Lady. Lady like us. Lady like chickens. We stay here with Lady." Zot grinned showing a mouthful of sharp crooked teeth.
It took some time, but she spoke to Jareth through the mirror and came up with a compromise. The throne room would be a chicken-free zone, but the garden and small courtyard outside of it would house them when the goblins were in the castle. That way they had their chickens close, but Jareth wasn't tripping over them. The goblins happily went home to Kingy and took the chickens with them. Sarah had been finding eggs in her room for weeks afterward. And she had to explain the random chicken feathers that were suddenly around her room.
So over the years, Jareth had become a stable presence in her life, so it was no wonder that she called on him now.
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The mirror rippled and then she saw Jareth as he lounged on his throne. Around it she could make out a few goblins, most were already passed out. She always did get a thrill when she saw him. She just took this as part of the attraction humans had to fae in general and discounted it.
"Ah, Sarah!" He squinted at her. "Back at the family home, I see. Well, whatever can be the problem my dear?" he asked with a sigh. "Let me guess. Your parents requested that you look after your brother again, or did someone sight you at your place of business? Don't tell me you are having difficulties with another suitor?"
"What?" Sarah asked "No nothing like that. Dad and Karen are heading for the Jersey shore, and I have to go along this year." Sarah was not happy that her voice sounded so whiny.
"So what's the issue? Do you not want to spend time with your family? I thought you worked through your problems and are close with them now, especially Tobias." Jareth spoke in his trying-to-be patient voice.
"Yeah, being with the fam isn't the problem. Going to the shore is," Sarah replied as if he should know this.
"Why is that? Please enlighten me. You always had an enjoyable time there in the past if my recollection is correct." The patient tone continued but had a bite to it.
"Jareth, the shore is awesome for families; the boardwalk, the beach, mini-golf. Kids love it. Teenagers too, hanging at the amusement park, hooking up under the pier. When you're finally drinking age, going to the bars and dance clubs is great, lots of tourists and locals to have some fun with no strings attached. But Jareth, I'm twenty-seven. Everyone my age has moved on from the young adult activities and now has moved into the parent side of the family group. I got out of going the last three years, but I'm stuck this year." Sarah sighed miserably.
Jareth rolled his eyes, not something he does much. "So what you are telling me is that going on vacation with your family is a problem because you feel you are too old to get inebriated and have indiscriminate sexual relations with complete strangers." He waited a minute for this to set in.
"Sarah, do you lack female companionship?" Jareth asked her seriously.
"I'm not going to take it the way you said it, since you already know my history with that in college. So are you asking why am I talking to you and not one of my friends about this?" She glared at him.
"Indeed. This discussion seems to be one that women would discuss with each other. So why are you giving me the honor of this conversation?" He raised an eyebrow at her.
"I don't know. Ever since that night in high school, you have always been my go-to when I have to bitch about something. You're easy to talk to, and you are far enough away not to care too much about it." Sarah shrugged.
"Lucky me." Jareth sighed. "Well, Sarah dear, I think you are as you say stuck between a rock and a hard place. Just go and try to make the best of it. You might find that it won't be as bad as you think."
"I guess you're right. I just want something to happen or someone to be there to lighten up and make it interesting. Thanks, Jareth. I'll let you get back to, well…whatever it is that you were doing." Sarah moved and sat back on her bed. She did not notice a couple of the goblins that were not passed out had been listening to her conversation with the king with interest.
"Goodnight, Sarah dear. I'm sure it will look much better in the morning." Jareth said, and with a shimmer, he disappeared and all Sarah could see was the reflection of her room again.
Well, Sarah thought. It's too early to mope around here. She changed into a tank top and tight jeans and decided to walk a few blocks to a bar and drink until her mood improved.