Chapter 20: Watching the Master at Work

Sarah and Hoggle leaned over to gaze into it. They saw Jareth at the conference table arguing with a fearsome, gigantic creature with long arms and a club, and a tiny, belligerent creature that looked not unlike Hoggle. "That's His Majesty King Daxon of the Dwarves," Hoggle said. "The other one is King Blug of the Trolls."

They watched as Jareth leaned forward and shook his fist in the Troll King's face. Sarah smiled to see him looking so small and dainty in comparison -- but Jareth didn't seem to see the difference in their sizes. He's like one of those tiny dogs, she thought, who scares away the big ones because of the size of their bravado rather than their bodies. Watching him in conference was like watching a Chihuahua ripping the Mastiff a new one!

Jareth leaned back and folded his arms, shaking his head vehemently. The Dwarf King made a comment that raised the ire of the Troll, and Sarah watched, amused, as Jareth smoothed things over by the simple expedient of magically tying up and gagging them both.

She watched as a crystal rolled in and bounced into Jareth's hand. It turned into a letter, which he read quickly and shoved triumphantly into the Troll King's face. Whatever was on it made the Troll King back down, grumbling. The Dwarf King laughed and Jareth nodded in stern satisfaction. Almost as an afterthought, he waved his hand and released their bonds.

Another crystal rolled in and Jareth reached down for it to jump into his hand. This one turned into a letter too, that Jareth skimmed over once, before leaning back to read it more slowly. He began to smile, ignoring the two other kings' curiosity. He turned his head and looked right at Sarah in the crystal, and winked at her.

He took a pen and briefly scrawled a note on the bottom of hers, then blew on it and it was gone.

Sarah jumped as it reappeared under Hoggle's crystal. Her friend grinned and pulled it out, reading it before she had a chance to.

"Dearest Sarah, Call me and I'll come as soon as I can get away from these two blithering idiots. Yours, J."

"Give me that!" Sarah demanded.

Hoggle grinned. "Woo-woo, looks like you're more than a distraction now, 'dearest Sarah.'" He skipped around the room, laughing as Sarah chased him.

"Hoggle, give me that right now!"

The chase continued for several minutes, with Hoggle taunting Sarah about being in looooooooove (that's how he said it) with "That Rat who calls himself Jareth." Sarah finally cornered him beside the bed and snatched the letter out of his calloused little hands. Throwing herself back on the bed, she read the note again and blushed.

"It wasn't nice of him to call my king a blithering idiot," Hoggle grunted, sitting down next to her on the edge. He raised a bushy eyebrow at her. "Well, Sarah, aren't you going to call him?"

"With you here?"

"Why not? It'll save me writing him a report."

"What?"

"Oh, you didn't know? He made us write reports on you every time we visited. He wanted to know how you looked, what your room looked like, if we thought you were happy... all of it."

Sarah's jaw dropped in shock, and then she started to laugh. "That Jareth!" she said in exasperation, and laughed some more. "I might have known!"

"Might have known what?" asked Jareth's silvery-smooth voice from where he suddenly appeared in the desk chair. Hoggle leaped to his feet and bowed.

Sarah giggled. "You made them write reports about me! I can just imagine what Ludo's would have sounded like."

Jareth grimaced. "Two of three pages of 'Sawah, fwiend,' usually." Hoggle went to Jareth and bowed again. "Yes, Haggler?"

"Hoggle, Sire. My report is that Sarah was unhappy at first, but rallied admirably after she got Your Majesty's message."

Sarah blushed again. "Hoggle!"

"Thank you, Hoggle. Oh, and one more thing." Hoggle turned back and waited. Jareth grinned and conjured a crystal to toss at the dwarf. "Go home." Hoggle caught the crystal and was gone.

"Now then, Sarah," Jareth purred, rounding on the woman still lying on her bed. "What shall I do with you?" He advanced on her, stalking her like a cat. Sarah started to look a little nervous; what would happen when he pounced? "So you'll try not to get angry as you find out more things, will you? Well, I'm not sure that will do at all. You see, you're really quite breathtaking when you're angry," he said towering over her prone form. "And then there's always..." he sat down beside her on the bed, "...the pleasure..." he leaned over her, his hair falling forward to brush her face, "...of making up afterwards." He kissed her.

A/N: I got a bunch of requests for more fluff, so I figured ah, what the heck. Enjoy!