Title: Something Has to Give
Author: Ash (I'm still lurking, I swear! In the closet, as it happens.)
E-Mail: aka_jay66@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine. They belong to Jim Henson Productions.
For the most part, this is a good thing.
Feedback: Would be appreciated.
Summary: Wouldn't that involve some forethought on my part?
Author's Note: Man, I'm tired. Really, really tired. You wouldn't believe
how tired I am. Read more about it in the afterword, because I really can't
justify talking about it here. This note is more about saying how I've replied
to my comments, which I have (yay!), and saying how much I enjoy talking to
all of you guys, which I definitely do. :)
You know, I don't think I could ever give up the rush of replying to people.
Because that way, it's not just that I know that someone enjoys my story
I know that people I *like* enjoy my story. That means a lot to me. Besides,
some of you people are even stranger than I am. I like that, too. *g*
Part Ten
Sarah's eyes were fixed on the screen in horrified fascination; her nails were
digging holes through the rough denim of her jeans. Her reaction was distinctly
at odds with that of the rest of the moviegoers, who were laughing uproariously
at the antics of Puck.
Sarah bit back the urge to scream as Oberon, king of the fairies, appeared in
a cloud of glitter. She had to get out of there.
Glancing quickly to Lisa to make sure that her friend was distracted, Sarah
decided to make a break for it. She rose from her seat and hurried away down
the aisle. She slipped out the door quietly and walked out of the theatre.
Seconds after she'd left, the door at the back of the theatre cracked open again.
A radish rosette maker climbed over the discarded soda can It had wedged in
the crack of the door. It hopped slowly after Sarah, Its tiny gears whirring
with effort.
Sheer instinct led Sarah down the corridors of the mall until she finally came
to a familiar door. Pushing it open, she stepped inside and closed it firmly
behind her. She leant back against the plastic door and let out a long breath.
Raising her head, she looked around for the first time.
Hand dryers.
Pink hand dryers.
Sarah looked at the restroom with slightly more horror than was strictly warranted
by the bright pink tiles, floor to ceiling mirrors and general air of sterile
femininity.
It isn't really fair to blame Sarah's instincts. After all, when her father
had invited the boy Sarah liked to her twelfth birthday party and told him that
Sarah liked him, Sarah had refused to come out of the bathroom for six hours.
When Toby was born, they found Sarah in the public restroom off the hospital
lounge making a fairy crown out of tissue paper.
Instincts are almost exactly not like rubber bands; thus it was entirely natural
that Sarah's instincts had not yet realized that public restrooms were now to
be considered on a par with untamed jungles and pep club rallies: Don't go unless
you have to but, if you have to, don't go alone and don't go unarmed.
Even so, the fact remained that Sarah was now in a place that she didn't want
to be. Not only had recent events made her more than a little bit afraid of
public washrooms in general, but- she stole a glance at the innocent-seeming
appliances- there were also the hand dryers.
Once you've seen a pack of hand dryers circling a wounded soap-dispenser, closing
in for the incredibly hygienic kill... Well, once you've seen that, you can
never go back to the days of blithe ignorance. Or put your hand under one of
them without worrying about it being bitten off.
Shaking her head, Sarah turned to leave the washroom to search for a hiding
place less redolent of memories and lilac air freshener. She took hold of the
door hand and tugged sharply. It didn't move.
Darn it, she thought. I can never remember if these things are push or pull.
She pushed hard against the dark wood. Still nothing. Now, she thought. Did
I push the first time too, or -
This might have gone on for a while, but fortunately:
Wood? Sarah thought. In a mall?
She jerked her hands away from the heavy wooden door as if it had burned her.
"Sarah." His voice came from behind her.
*****
A small terrier through the pathways of the mall, Its sensitive nose easily
picking up Sarah's trail. Thudding down the corridor, It came to an abrupt halt
outside the ladies room door. Here, isolated from the pressing desires of mortals,
It returned to Its true form.
Stretching with relief, It tried to open the door. Locked?! Squeaks of rage
rattled down the empty corridor as It began scrabbling at the door, claws scratching
long white welts into the darker wood.
*****
Sarah couldn't make herself turn around. She just couldn't. If she turned around,
she'd have to admit that he was there.
"Why are you still bothering me?" Sarah said to the door. "I
told you, I don't want to play anymore games with you. I just want to be left
alone. Please."
Jareth's hands closed on her shoulders.
Sarah's heart leapt and fell at the same time, meeting itself on the way up.
He didn't touch her, he wasn't supposed to touch her, was he? That wasn't in
the rules, that wasn't part of the game. She could feel leather warm and soft
against her neck and it was suddenly much harder not to turn and look at him.
"This isn't a game, Sarah." Jareth said into her ear, his tone low
and angry.
Sarah's eyes flew open - (when had they drifted shut?) - and she shrugged away
his hands. Her own hands already clenched into fists at her sides, she turned
to face Jareth.
He was much closer than she'd thought he'd be, his black cloak a dark wall cutting
her off from the rest of the room. And yes, he was beautiful. And yes, he was
terrible. But he was also trying to claim the moral high ground and damn it,
Sarah wasn't going to put up with that.
"Oh, no!" Sarah said, meeting his eyes. "I never said it was
a game. I said, 'Why are you here?' You said it was a game!"
She thought for a moment, trying to reconstruct their earlier meeting in her
mind. "Okay, so you only implied it, but it was pretty clear at the time!"
Jareth's face was a frightening thing. No smile, not a kind one, not a cruel
one, not even that one that said that he knew something you didn't know and
oh boy, if only you knew. No smile at all, but his eyes like windows into the
heart of the sun.
"It was a game." Jareth said, his tone dismissing the distinction.
"But we have no more time for games, Sarah. You must wish yourself back
to the Labyrinth now."
He was half-leaning towards Sarah, towering over her, those burning eyes focused
on her face.
Sarah swallowed and dropped her eyes.
"Stop it!" she said, "You're just trying to trick me!"
This encounter would later provide the inspiration for the creation of a popular
children's story in the Underground. Called "The King Who Gave Peaches",
it taught young faeries and goblins a useful life lesson. Namely: "If you
go around playing mind games, don't expect people to believe you when you show
up again with fruit and tell them that this time you just want them to eat it
for the vitamins."
The story survived Jareth's displeasure, which is more than you can say for
the author.
"I'm not, Sarah," Jareth said. "I swear it." He reached
out towards her and Sarah jumped back, banging her head painfully on the door.
His hand dropped.
Sarah stared at him and thought that maybe that was what he wanted her to do
because he was smiling again, just a twist of the lips but still smiling. Jareth
smiling was just as disturbing as Jareth not smiling, she decided.
And those eyes
"Listen to me carefully," Jareth said. "You have done something
very foolish, Sarah. It may cost you your life."
This was almost a lie, but not quite. Destiny wouldn't take away her life in
the literal sense, at least not immediately, but it almost certainly would in
the "When was the last time we went out to dinner?" context.
When you have a Destiny you can still go to dinner parties, but the odds are
good that the host of the party will be murdered, attractive people of both
sexes will follow you around flirting madly and/or poisoning your drink, and
you'll emerge at the end of the meeting heroically victorious, the darling of
millions, and without having had more than one small crab puff and a few sips
of suspicious tasting wine.
After a while, people with Destinies just eat at home; at least then, all you
have to worry about is the ninjas.
"But-" Sarah said, intending to point out that the only thing she'd
done since she got back from the Labyrinth was go to school and avoid him,
not necessarily in that order.
Jareth cut her off. "I'll save you, Sarah. But only if you come with me
now!" His tone was the same one used by dog trainers and
home shopping networks, the one that goes straight to the choke chain of the
mind and yanks hard.
The burning eyes and the commanding tone met somewhere in the back of Sarah's
brain and momentarily short-circuited it.
"I wish" Sarah said haltingly, staring into Jareth's eyes. His
eyes were beautiful, she thought. "that the goblins" Beautiful
eyes, she thought again. But were they smiling like that a second ago?
She looked at Jareth and saw that his grim expression had turned into a wolfish
smile. It was a visual splash of cold water. Sarah's eyes snapped back into
focus and she ducked under his arm and moved away from him, deeper into the
bathroom.
She noted the ongoing transfiguration of her surrounding with dismay. As disturbing
as watching bits of her reality being invaded by magic normally was, the soft
pink mood lighting overhead was adding an especially horrible note of grotesque
cheerfulness to the proceedings. It was like learning about a death in the family
via singing telegram.
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on!" Sarah
said firmly, backing away from him. "And probably not then, either!"
Jareth had already turned to face her; she hadn't even seen him move. His cloak
was stirring as if moved by a sudden breeze, whipping and snapping around his
body like a panther's tail.
"There isn't time." Jareth said, biting off each word. "They
could be being efficient today - we need to leave now, Sarah!"
"No! I'm not going!" Sarah said, taking another step away from Jareth.
There was a soft squelching sound.
Sarah looked down and saw that there was water welling from between two of the
shell-pink floor tiles. The water was spreading into a pool that was clear as
glass; two of the hand dryers were lapping at it eagerly. Bemused, Sarah tried
to figure out exactly how they were drinking.
She put a hand to the wall to support and lifted her foot out of the water,
putting it down again in a dry area.
Squish. Water was swirling in by her other foot now. Miniature springs were
appearing all over the floor.
A sudden icy shock sent Sarah jumping away from the wall. Her hand was wet.
From the center of the room she stared at the waterfalls springing into life
at every tile junction, sending forth sheets of liquid that blurred the walls.
"Would you like to reconsider your decision?" Jareth said.
Sarah glared at him, noticing with intense irritation that the already ankle-deep
pool of water on the floor was curving to avoid him, growing liquid walls
constantly changing shape to avoid his flowing cape.
"No." Sarah said, her bravado only slightly marred by the shiver
that fractured her voice as the water rose past the tops of her boots, soaking
the cuffs of her jeans and sinking happily down into her socks.
"If you're sure" Jareth said with an arched eyebrow.
Sarah nodded quickly, before the frozen feeling in her feet got to her brain.
The rush of the waterfalls sounded like music. A funeral march, she thought.
Burial at sea.
"I'll leave you alone, then." Jareth said, laughter in his voice and
in his eyes. "As you asked."
He turned and walked into the full-length mirror, passing through it like an
open door. The mirror fogged over for a second, and when it cleared the only
image reflected was Sarah, glaring at her own reflection. And the water, slowly
rising around her.
"If you are lonely, Sarah," The water-music said in Jareth's voice.
"You have only to ask and I will come and keep you company."
But no pressure.
Really.
_______
End Part Ten
It's fascinating that so many of you have heard about the Forbidden Game series.
That makes me very happy. It's such a good series. Almost makes up for Jareth
spending so much time at his castle and so little time with Sarah. *g*
Ah yes, on to the rambling. All right, you guys want to know what I did today?
I moved a two hundred pound bar up a flight of stairs. Yep. Just me. All by
my lonesome. It was six feet long and very wide and awkward and I have cuts
on my legs and arms and I'm pretty sure there's going to be a huge bar shaped
bruise on my back and there's a long pole I used as an impromptu lever that
is *never* going to be the same. I feel happy and sore and generally pleased
with myself.
(There was no reason for this. I had people lined up to come and help me. But
I got tired of squeezing past it and so I looked at it, and it looked at me,
and I said, "All right, Moby Dick. Your time has come." I tell you,
I feel like I've *bonded* with this bar. I want to go out and shoot golf with
it and tell stories to it and comfort it when it's sad. If I move a few more
pieces of furniture like this one I could be over my intimacy issues in no time.
)
But enough about me and my compulsion to treat stupid things as challenges and
challenges as double-dog-dares I hope you guys are still enjoying the
story. Did any of you suspect that hand dryers would play such a large role
in the story? I know I put it in the summary, but really who could have
guessed? *g*