(A/N) So here's the next chappie…if anyone out there knows were the hell I'm going, please be so good as to let me know! Oo
DISCLAIMER: YES! I OWN IT ALL! It's mine, Mine, ALL MINE!!
DISCLAIMER TO THE ABOVE DISCLAIMER: I am lying….
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CHAPTER II - Can't Taste A Thing...
Sarah sighed, it really wasn't fair; did he have to be so damnably sexy? She pushed her mind away from that train of thought, if she got started she knew the chances of actually finishing her paper would be worse off than the soldier who'd let in the Trojan horse when his buddies caught up to him. Her traitorous brain was happy to supply her with various other suitable adjectives-attractive, hot, smashing-NO!
Bad Sarah! She gave herself a mental slap, Homework now, fun later!
"You know, despite what it may look like, I do have a paper that I need to finish, along with a heaping mound of various other homework, work-work, and possibly even studying to do so I don't…oh, I dunno…fail-?"
He raised one sardonic brow.
"All of which you're distracting me from!"
He lounged back across the checker board coverlet, completely at home sprawled on her bed as he was sprawled on his own throne. The only flaw to the effect was that he was still a good foot taller than her, and half a foot too long for her bed, so that his boots hung out more that half way off the edge and gave him a decidedly cramped appearance.
He smirked at her, "Admit it, if it came to a choice between that paper and me, you'd pick distraction."
Sarah snorted, picking up a copy of Twelfth Night and chucking it squarely at his chest, "Admitting things to you is dangerous."
Just because he was dead on didn't mean she was going to tell him that.
Jareth snorted right back, "So is climbing onto that overgrown monstrosity you and racing headlong over obstacles, yet you claim to enjoy it so…"
Sarah smiled despite herself at the mention of her baby; a nine year old Percheron Friesian cross affectionately named Beast-he'd been a bribe on her fathers' part to keep her from moving cross country to attend college.
"Yes, I do, and I'd be happy to share that with you just as soon as I finish this paper." She swiveled her chair back around so that her view of him was completely cut off. Out of sigh, out of mind…maybe…
She heard the squeak of her old box spring as he rolled over onto his stomach, "I thought you wanted to become an actress?" If she didn't know better she would have thought he was whining, "Surely that career would not have required such monumental, intricately documented effort."
So much for that paper…
"I did, at the time."
"And now?"
"Somehow, after living one of those fairy tales I loved so much, acting them isn't quite the same. Unless I can make a living telling stories about a talking maze, inebriated goblins, and a guy with a thing for leather gloves and Escher art, this is all I've got."
Having discarded the notion of finishing her paper, Sarah slid her books and notes into what may have been orderly piles and replaced her pen in it's usual place. She rolled her shoulders and stretched, arms over head, until something popped and she felt marginally better.
A glance at her alarm clock; 2:37.
Sleep would be good…She looked over at Jareth, still regarding her with that unmoving, unnerving, unnatural stare, and still sprawled across a bed that was already several sizes too small for her…coffee's good too.
Yawning she made her way across the room, avoiding the various piles of laundry that called out to be washed-yet another thing on a long, long list of things that needed doing-and paused in the door way.
"I'm going to make coffee, do you want some?"
He gave her a look to melt glaciers; Sarah was almost certain that he'd rather have a cup drawn straight from the bog of eternal stench. "I'll take that as a no. Tea, then?"
He sighed in a draw-out-long-suffering sort of way.
"Must you be so inherently difficult?"
In less time than it had taken Sarah to blink, a steaming mug had appeared on her desk. She could tell from that delicious smell alone that it was not only coffee but it was her favorite blend from Starbucks. (Too expensive to splurge on more than once or twice a month but dearly loved none the less.)
He hadn't moved.
He hadn't so much as blinked, but Sarah knew he'd done it-who else, after all? Even so she didn't bother to thank him. If she had he'd have shot it down with several sarcastically cutting remarks. That was just his way; he had explained once that among the Fae, everyone was expected to have magick and brains, and to put both to prompt use. Thanking someone for that very ability was tantamount to admitting surprise that they could manage such a thing on their own.
He still hadn't taken his eyes off her. His gaze followed as she walked slowly back to her desk and picked up the mug, pausing to savor the caramel hazelnut scent before taking a sip.
The slow, sweet burn of the liquid down her throat spread needed warmth to the rest of her body, reminding her that she would eventually need to pay the electric bill. Somehow, she never really figured out how, Jareth always managed to add just the right amount of cream and sugar to her drink. The only problem was a slight tingling aftertaste; not unpleasant exactly, just strange, like drinking carbonated coffee, which she had come to associate with magically constructed food.
"You can taste it," his voice was flat, "can't you."
It wasn't a question. She'd mentioned it once, and though he'd never explicitly said as much, Sarah knew he'd been trying to find away to eliminate the problem. It had to be a knife to his pride that something so simple as making coffee that tasted like normal-mortal-coffee could elude him.
"No," It was coffee. It was the coffee she liked. It was the coffee she liked; the coffee she looked forward to each week. This was the closest he'd let her come to 'thank you'.
She took another sip, "…can't taste a thing."
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(A/N) hope you like it so far. I'd give you more but my parental unit is screeching for the computer