Disclaimer: I don't own Labyrinth, Jareth or Sarah. But I would happily snog Jareth within an inch of his unnaturally long life if ever given the chance. Just sayin!
I also don't own 'Skeep' the gender-confused goblin (he belongs to the most wonderful Lixxle) but he does get an honorable mention in this story.
Warning: This is a silly story. Please do not attempt anything you read here at home. The goblins are not professionals, but they are goblins, which is why they aren't dead from doing what they do.
The S'mores Incident (AKA: Flaming Marshmallows of Love)
An out of sequence chapter for "Life With the Goblin King: What Happened Before – Sarah, age 19)
Written as a gift fic/Halloween chapter for AutumnSwanO'Shea from the jdbfangirlharem. :)
PLEASE REVIEW! Reviews are the only thing that keep me out of a rubber room some days :)
Chapter 4: Patty Strikes Again
Sarah should have known better than to leave the Halloween candies unguarded when they left the house, but she told herself that the goblins were (generally) good for her thanks to her frequent use of bribery. While her run through the Labyrinth did teach her not to take anything for granted, sadly in this instance she had indeed taken it for granted that the goblins would behave themselves merely because of her promise of snacks when she returned home.
Actually, if one particular goblin had behaved herself, everything that followed could have been avoided, leaving Sarah more time to ponder Jareth's parting words. As things stood, she was so busy fixing the mess the goblins created, she completely forgot about what he said – which was probably for the best anyway.
"Patty!" Sarah shouted, upon seeing the Peppermint Patty wrappers strewn about the kitchen, lounge, foyer and even bathroom, "Get your skinny orange butt in here!"
Hearing Sarah bellow, half of the goblins vanished with a puff of rust colored glitter, preferring to hide in the throne room, while the other half came running wanting to see if 'The Lady' would bog whatever goblin had caused the yelling fit. Racing into the kitchen, they found Sarah still in her pretty red ball gown, holding the empty plastic bags that had, until recently, been full of candies. When Bob and Squint saw the empty plastic candy bags and Sarah's angry look, they sheepishly backed out of the kitchen.
Bob and Squint had been in search of dog biscuits earlier in the evening (their favorite snack aside from snickerdoodles, but Sarah only gave them those on special occasions), when they found Patty happily munching spicy smelling, chocolate covered treats in the kitchen. Since Patty was the only goblin who was fond of peppermint flavoring (the rest found the flavor to be 'burny'), Bob and Squint ignored the bags she was eating from, finding their attention drawn to the extra large brown bag full of other candies. Given that they were goblins of limited intellect, they reasoned (if you can call what passes for goblin logic, 'reasoning') that if Patty could eat the candies Sarah had left on the counter, then they could too. So, they took the brown bag back to the family room and helped themselves to the contents.
It was at this point that a fight broke out amongst Bob, Squint and the rest of the goblin crew, with the notable exception of Patty who was in a chocolate induced coma by this point, laying under the dining table muttering about 'lips like sugar….sugar kisses' something she apparently learned from Sarah. The goblins wrestled over who got to eat the candies in the brown bag. While squabbling over the bag, it burst, sending wrapped candies flying in all directions – some falling under the couch, behind her father's recliner, on top of the bookcases, behind the TV, in the potted plants and yes…even on top of the paddles of the ceiling fan.
Having played 'scavenger hunt' with Sarah and Toby before, the goblins merely decided this was a unique and fun new version of the game, and began to search out the candies with their usual enthusiasm – which led to them ransacking the room, leaving cushions upturned, books on the floor, plants pulled out of planters. In short, they left the room a horrific mess.
Having lived with Sarah as long as they had, Bob and Squint, despite their limited brainpower, knew that once she found the mess in the family room, any promise of 'snacks' would be taken back in favor of demanding that the King bog the lot of them. Leaving the kitchen, they stood in the hallway, having a hurried discussion regarding whether it would be better to poof themselves into an oubliette until Sarah's anger faded or clean up their mess. Given their love for Sarah, they decided that discretion was the better part of valor (although in goblin-ese the saying was 'cleaning beats bogging'), and retreated to the family room to pick up the wrappers littered around the place.
After reading Patty and the rest of the assembled goblins the riot act for eating all of the Halloween candy, Sarah left Toby in charge of seeing that they picked up every last empty wrapper, and went to change out of her ball gown. Pulling on jeans and a comfortable thick sweater, Sarah wracked her brain trying to figure out what she could possibly give to the trick-or-treater's who would shortly begin arriving at the house. She could not remember a single year since she had been a small child, that they had not given out candy on Halloween and she was not going to let a bit of goblin mayhem end that perfect record this year.
Checking the clock she sighed, it was too late to run to the store, the over seven trick-or-treaters were due to arrive soon.
…I should make Jareth run to the store for me, she grumbled as she began going through the cabinets in the kitchen.
Seeing cookie mixes, she paused, then looked at the clock again. Nope. Not enough time to bake cookies. What I need is something fast and easy.
And that was when she saw them – bags of big, fluffy, mouth-watering, marshmallows, sitting next to several bags of Hershey's kisses.
Digging through the pantry, Sarah muttered, "All we need now is…." A pensive frown haunted her pale face as she rummaged through the shelves, oblivious to the audience of goblins that watched her every move. "Graham crackers! Yes!"
Sarah sent Toby to the front porch with the marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers, while she headed toward the back door, only to be stopped by a small crowd of very concerned and contrite looking goblins.
"Snax now?" asked Runt, his watery blue eyes looking up at her hopefully, as he peeked around Dart's arm.
"No. You guys ate all the candy," Sarah replied firmly, glaring at Bob and Squint, who had the good sense to look sheepish. "I found the wrappers from the rest of the candy in Ambrosious' dog bed. So, no snacks for you tonight."
Pouting, Skeep pointed at Patty, still snoring under the table, "Bad," to which the rest of the goblins nodded in agreement.
Sarah looked down at the sad goblin faces that surrounded her. Shaking her head she groaned. I can't believe I'm going to say this…
"Okay. If you guys can stay out of trouble for the next three hours, I'll give you a snack before you go back to the castle. But you have to be good! Stay in the family room, watch TV and stay out of trouble."
She laughed as a wild yawp went up, little goblin arms wrapping happily around her legs before the pack of goblins thundered down the hall and back in to the family room. Peeking into the room, she sighed at the potted plant that was now upside down in the pot, the roots pointing at the ceiling. She flicked on the ceiling fan and was only vaguely surprised when a mini-Snicker's bar came sailing at her head from the top of the fan. Mental note – must search family room for remaining candy before Karen and Dad get home.
Sarah initially put on 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory', thinking that it was a 'goblin-approriate' movie, but they found it too boring and (as hard as it was to believe) 'unrealistic'– this from what were, by most accounts, fairy tale creatures. So, in the name of keeping the goblin horde out of mischief for the rest of the evening, Sarah let them choose their own movie, surprised when they seemed happy with the pseudo-medieval look of 'Army of Darkness'. Once they saw that the movie had a king, magic and a castle, they were hooked, (although somewhat disappointed by the lack of chickens). The gun-toting lunatic from the future only sealed the deal as far as the goblins were concerned.
Leaving them to comment on the merits of goblin warfare in relation to 'Army of Darkness' (Who knew the goblins could philosophize about movie special effects and plot points? she thought), Sarah slipped into the backyard with Ambrosious trailing behind her.
It only took her a minute to locate the grill in the garden shed, and another few minutes to load it up with charcoal. A few minutes later she had gathered up some nice thin sticks with pointed tips, and was dragging the grill to the front of the house. Before long, she had the grill going in the middle of the front lawn, right next to the tableau of fake tombstones that her father put out every year, much to Karen's annoyance. Feeling pretty pleased with herself for coming up with a solution to what she had started to think of as the Halloween treat fiasco, she set the marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers out in bowls on a garden table that she found, and stood back to wait for the trick-or-treaters to arrive.
As it turned out, the 'smores were a huge hit with the trick-or-treaters.
Within an hour, word had spread that the Williams' house had 'smores instead of the standard Halloween candy and kids from blocks around were converging on the house. It was almost enough to make Sarah wish they had a proper fire-pit in the front yard, as the yard was filled with kids standing around in groups, toasting their marshmallows, before smearing them on a graham cracker and covering it with chocolate. Even the parents were getting into things. All of a sudden, Sarah's spur of the moment solution to her missing candy had turned her front yard into an impromptu party, much to Toby's delight. Sarah had to giggle at the way he was strutting around the yard, looking for all the world like a miniature version of Jareth – or at least King of the Williams front lawn.
Unbeknownst to Sarah, the movie had ended and the sound of laughter from the front yard drew the attention of the small horde of goblins. One by one they crept unseen through the house, making their way to the lounge. If the trick-or-treaters and neighbors had looked closely, they would have seen rows of shining eyes peering intently from beneath the lace curtains that adorned the front windows of the home, as the goblins watched what was going on in the yard.
"Oh! Biiiiiiiiiig fire," grinned Bob, who had pyromaniac tendencies and was the reason that Sarah had secreted small fire extinguishers all over the house – with Bob around you never knew when one would be handy.
"Lady makin flaming food?" asked Runt, jumping up and down, trying to see, as he was too short to see out the window.
"Yup, she's turning the sugar pillows into firey fluff," commented Squint knowingly, being the most culinary of the bunch – which wasn't saying much as most of them would burn water.
"Yummy. Sugar pillows," sighed Skeep, holding his rubber ducky up to look out the window.
As the goblins watched the party in the yard, one of the teenagers lifted a flaming marshmallow from the fire, waving it wildly in the air, the flames seeming to leap and dance as the stick moved.
"Ahhhhh," gasped the goblins, enthralled by the sight of the flames licking at the marshmallow as it was waved about.
Turning from the grill, the zombie kid with the flaming marshmallow moved toward the table to make his treat and ran into Toby. The force of the impact knocked both boys to the ground, sending the flaming marshmallow flying through the air to land with a sticky smack against the glass of the lounge window.
The goblins squealed with delight at the sight of the flaming ball of frothy sugar goo now sliding down the window, Skeep clapping as if it were the best fireworks show ever. As far they were concerned, flaming food was good – but flying flaming food was infinitely better.
Stifling a yawn, Sarah wiped the last of the marshmallow from the front window of the house, before standing back to survey her work. The yard was once more clear. The grill and camp table back in the shed. Every last candy wrapper had been thrown out, and she had checked the family room for any leftover candies hidden in odd places, not to mention reseating the potted plants upright in their planters. Despite the initial, goblin-fueled chaos, it had turned out to be a very good night.
After seeing the last of the trick-or-treaters off at 11pm, Sarah made enough extra 'smores for the goblins inside. She knew they liked exploded food like popcorn, so it only made sense that they would be excited about food that had once been on fire – and they were. Very much so.
They ate their snacks, chattering enthusiastically about flaming sugar pillows and the costumed kids who had been in the yard. She and Toby spent quite a while trying to explain that the zombies weren't really dead and the knights were not related to Sir Didymus, suffice it to say, the discussion went no where. By midnight she sent the now sugar-filled goblin horde back to the castle for the night, several still with sticky fingers and faces, having managed to avoid her when she swooped in with the wet washcloth and began scrubbing faces and hands.
… At least I kept them out of Jareth's hair for the evening, she thought with a smile as she waved Skeep through her closet door and shut it for the night.
Sarah threw her robe over the mirror on her vanity as she did every night, and quickly pulled on her pajamas, before uncovering the mirror again. As she sat at the vanity plaiting her hair for bed, she was vaguely troubled by the idea that she was forgetting something. Something important to do with Jareth. But try as she might, she couldn't remember.
And it was with the thought of Jareth tickling at her mind that she curled up in bed and fell asleep, only to end up dreaming about a zombie-fied Jareth, being chased by sticky faced goblins shouting 'Suuuuuuugar pilloooooowzzzzzzz' instead of 'braiiiiiins'.