Sarah had never heard that high pitched of a scream coming from a full grown man, or anyone else for that matter. She sighed, shifted the small child she was holding to her hip.
"Jareth," Sarah called, "Come down from that tree."
"Make me," came the sulky response.
"Yeah," whined a child's voice, "Make us!"
Sarah muttered something not quite nice to herself and glared at the small hoard up in the the tree. There were six of them in all, if you were to count Jareth. Three little boys and two little girls sprawled out on the bottom branches, with Jareth regally perched close to the top, looking down his nose at the blond brats beneath him.
The family resemblance was strikingly obvious, and Sarah guessed that they were from his mother's side. All had pale hair and pale eyes, but lacked the ethereal effect that Jareth and his mother could produce with a slight change of posture and a glint of an eye. The kids, however, were all tanned, ruddy, and stout, but when they giggled down their pointy little noses, they could have been the spit image of Jareth. And they all followed him like he was the Messiah.
The girl at Sarah's hip was one of the four that hadn't followed the stripper up the tree, but only because she was too young to follow. She was darker in coloring, with curly black hair, brown skin, and bright black eyes, probably from Ron's side. The other three were crowding around her feet, all around two to five years old.
"Jawed!" the little girl cried, stretching her pudgy little hands out towards Jareth.
Sarah felt like banging her head against a wall in hopes of remembering anybody's name.
"If you're going to stay up there, at least tell me who these children belong to!" yelled Sarah, "Because if you're not babysitting, neither am I!"
"I am babysitting!" said Jareth.
"You're not babysitting, you're fu- You're dicking around!"
"Yes, Sarah, because that word is better than the other you were about to say."
A little girl tugged at Sarah's pant leg, "What does 'dicking' mean?"
"It's a word you only say to very bad people," said Sarah.
"Is Jareth a bad person?"
"Well, he's been very bad."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"No," said Sarah, "Good people sometimes do bad things and bad people sometimes to good things."
"Which one's Jareth?"
"He's..." Sarah evened Jareth with a murderous look, "He's a bad man."
"Sarah!"
"And for every minute that he spends up there, I am going to teach you a bad word for men like him."
Jareth let out a growl, but stayed put.
"Ok, kids. Listen up!" Sarah said, sitting down.
The children crowded around her, practically glowing with excitement.
"Now, repeat after me. The first word is a-"
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" yelled Jareth before Sarah could finish her sentence, "Jesus Christ, woman! Kids, come on."
"Noo!" whined one of the children, "I wanna know!"
"And you'll find out in due time," said the man, reaching the bottom branch and jumping down.
Sarah gave a small smile and stood up, handing the little girl over to Jareth.
"Jawed, is it true that you're bad?"
"Well, Addy," said Jareth, lifting the girl high in the air, "I just might be."
"I don't like bad people."
Sarah bit her lip to contain a grin.
Jareth gave her a sidelong glance.
"You could have at least called me a sympathetic villain," he said, "It has a better ring to it."
Author's Note:
I think that after this, it's time for Sarah to officially have to deal with both of Jareth's parents and his aunt. That should be fun.