Merry Christmas, Sarah

a seasonal Labyrinth fan-fiction

"You don't mean it, Sarah. I know you don't."

"I do, and I'll prove it. I'll have a boyfriend by Christmas, wait and see." Sarah Williams tossed her long hair over her shoulders and glared at her best friend.

Gi rolled her eyes. "You already have a boyfriend, remember? Jar- what's his name? The Lord of the Dance himself."

Sarah snorted. "Jareth is not my boyfriend, Gi. I've told you that a million times. He's ... he's..." She lowered her voice and stared into the murky depths of her coffee mug. "I don't know what he is. Not really."

Gi shook her head. "I don't get you, Sarah. For months after his last appearance, you mooned around, skipped classes to take naps, and generally behaved like a girl with a major crush." She poured them both more coffee. "I even thought you might be in love..." her voice trailed off on a wistful note. Gi was a hopeless romantic.

Sarah frowned. She was working herself into a right, proper funk, and wasn't about to be derailed. "I can't live in my dreams." She shoved her mug away sharply, sloshing its contents onto the scratched Formica counter. "And I won't live there with him." Her voice was rising again, anger seeping in. "I want a real boyfriend. Someone who will be with me here."

"Why the sudden change?" Gi sipped her own coffee, politely ignoring the puddles that lay like an oil spill at her elbow. "I mean, what you're saying makes sense, but those are all points I brought up before. Why are they bothering you now?"

"I don't know..." Sarah bit her lip, taking a perverse pleasure in that little pain. It was better than the larger one lurking behind her breastbone.

"You don't know?" Gi didn't bother to disguise her skepticism. "Are you sure about that?"

Sarah leaned forward, her arms stretched out before her, oblivious to the coffee soaking into the sleeves of her shabby, beige cardigan. "All we do is dance. All we ever do is dance." She put her head down on her arms and closed her eyes. "I'm sick of dancing."

"So talk to him, Oh Clueless One. Tell him what you're telling me." She stopped, considering. "Well not the part about wanting a new boyfriend. Leave that out."

Sarah's voice was muffled. "He barely says a word to me lately. We just dance and dance and I don't even think he's enjoying it anymore." Her throat felt hot. Why couldn't Gi have made them iced tea?

It was Gi's turn to snort. "The way you and Toby described him, this guy lives to dance. Why do you think he's not enjoying himself?"

From beneath a curtain of hair that had slid down across her face, Sarah said, "I can just tell. I can tell by the way he holds me. It used to be that he held me as close as he could. Sometimes it was too close, if you know what I mean." She felt her cheeks growing hot and was grateful for her concealing hair. "But lately, it's like he's holding me at arm's length - not literally, but..." she let her voice trail off. For months she'd been dancing with the Goblin King nearly every time she closed her eyes. They were dreams, but they were also real. To tell the truth, she wasn't entirely sure how it worked, but what had seemed like an acceptable compromise to the very real problem of their different worlds had begun to seem...tedious.

"You don't think he wants you anymore, is that it?"

Sarah groaned. "I don't know. I think...I think maybe he's disappointed in me."

"Disappointed?"

"I don't think I really want to talk about this anymore, Gi."

"Come on, Sarah. What do you mean? Why would he be disappointed?"

Sarah gave a long sigh, and pushed herself upright again. "It's dark, Gi." As they'd talked, night had fallen. Unlike summer nights which skated gracefully across the land, winter nights came down hard, like a boot. One minute it was light, the next dark. Bam.

Gi reached behind her and flipped the wall switch, bathing the tiny kitchen in their shared basement apartment in a wan, fluorescent glow. "Don't change the subject. Why disappointed?"

Sarah reached for her half-empty mug, now ice-cold, and tossed back its contents in one gulp. She was a big believer in liquid courage, so long as it was highly caffeinated. "Isn't it obvious? I mean, look at me!"

"I don't get it. Have you looked in a mirror lately, Sarah? You're gorgeous! You even make me look plain and boring."

Sarah managed a weak smile at that last bit. No one would ever call Gi, with her short blue-tinted curls and megawatt smile, plain and boring. "Puh-leez." She rolled her eyes. "That's not what I meant. I wasn't fishing for compliments."

"Like you need to." Gi's tone was flat as a pancake.

"Shut up! Do you want me to go on or not?"

"Please." Flat as the penny Toby had found on the railroad tracks last year.

"I mean..." Sarah struggled, but Gi held firm, her gaze unrelenting. "I mean, I'm not the head-in-the-clouds teenager he swept off her feet anymore. I've changed."

"Uh huh, so?" Gi's gaze could have leveled a building.

"So...I think he expected me to give in by now - to come running to him, run away with him. Fifteen-year-old Sarah would have."

"Bullshit, Sarah." Gi picked up her own mug (empty) and set it back down forcefully. "You didn't care about him then. You thought he was just after Toby."

Sarah shook her head. "You're wrong, Gi. I knew he wanted me, only -"

"He frightened you."

"No! I mean, sort of. Maybe." Sarah slid her hand through a lock of her hair, idly twisting the end around one finger. "I mean -afterward- it was like a dream. I wasn't sure I hadn't just made him up out of all the things I always fantasized about. He was all I ever saw when I closed my eyes. But I didn't know..." She looked Gi in the eyes. "Did you ever want something -something you knew was bad for you? Did you ever find yourself drawn to something that would make other people, normal people, run away?"

Gi considered. "You mean like those one-million-calorie muffins at the coffee shop?" Her serious expression was betrayed by a twinkle deep in her eyes.

Sarah didn't smile. "I mean I spent my transitional years fantasizing about a guy I believed to be a villain, and hating myself for it. Every relationship I had, faltered -eventually- and do you know why?" She didn't wait for Gi to answer. "Because they were too good; too good! Don't you see!" A choking sort of half-sob escaped her throat.

"Color me confused, Sarah, but I'm not sure I do. What does all that have to do with his feelings for you?"

Sarah shuddered as a small tremor ran through her. Her fingertips felt hot. Her eyes felt hot. If she hadn't known it was gone, she'd have thought the silver fire still ran through her, seeking escape. "I just think maybe, now that I know he's not a villain, maybe he thinks I don't want him anymore."

Gi rubbed her eyes, trying to follow her friend down that labyrinthian pathway of reasoning. "Let me see if I understand. You think he doesn't want you because he thinks you don't want him? Is that right?"

Sarah nodded. "Basically. Yes. Close enough, anyway." She yawned, suddenly exhausted despite the fresh coffee infusion.

"So he's trying to do what he thinks you want him to, right?"

Another nod, miserably this time.

"It's all very gallant, in that light." Gi patted her on the arm, avoiding the coffee splots.

"It's all too much, in that or any other light." Sarah climbed down from the stool and carried her mug to the sink. "I'm going to find some simple guy who's just bad enough to be good." She paused, "Or good enough to be bad. Whatever. And then I'm going to forget all about the Lord of the Dance and his expectations ... and disappointments." She flicked off the light, plunging them back into darkness. "And I'm going to forget about mine too. Goodnight, Gi."