A/N: I want to thank all my readers who decided to take a chance on this holiday fic. For those who have followed or favorited it thank you.
Special shout out to my beta RMBiehl for her help in getting some of this to make sense. It wasn't easy I know.
So I honestly don't know where this chapter came from. I had planned to write a fun little Thanksgiving story focused on Toby and the goblins. Then I turned around and I have a lemon right in the middle of my cute little kid-centered story. Again not sure why. So this is your warning this chapter starts out with a bang and is very lemony.
I do get back to the original plot toward the middle so you do need this chapter or at least the second part of it for the plot to make sense.
I hope you like it. Thanks for reading I would love to have a review to know your thoughts on it.
Sarah went home, feeling tired. She loved her brother and the goblins, but they could make her exhausted just by being around them.
Looking at her teacher's tote bag, she remembered the English tests she brought home to grade. She considered the bathtub and bubble bath in her bathroom and was about to walk into her bedroom to undress when a better thought occurred to her.
She checked the locks on her front and back door and grabbed her bag and keys, Then she stood in her living room and said, "I wish the Goblin King would take me away right now."
A breeze blew through the room, and Sarah could sense him, even if she could not see him.
Even so, she jumped when she heard Jareth's voice coming from behind her and felt his lips right next to her ear.
"Sarah, this is a surprise. Why, may I ask, did I get this unexpected call?" he asked her.
Sarah turned and wrapped her arms around him. They had been seeing each other for the last three years, and while they were getting closer, and had become intimate when it came to him and their relationship she found herself holding back for some reason.
Jareth had let her know in no uncertain terms that he wanted to make their relationship permanent whenever she was ready. He never pushed her but he always made sure she knew exactly where she stood with him, and where he wanted them to end up eventually.
"I missed you," she said, turning her head so it rested on his chest just below his shoulder. The muscles in his back below her palms felt unusually tight. She wondered about it then a thought hit her.
"This isn't a bad time is it?" she asked. "I know you have been busy lately with runners. Is everything going well with the new arrivals? There isn't anyone in the Labyrinth now that you should be keeping an eye on is there?"
She felt his chuckle under her ear where it rested against his body.
"You have to know that it is never a bad time for you to call me. And, yes, it has been busy lately, but I have everything taken care of. Now why did you call me, not that I am complaining," Jareth asked her.
"Eh, I am just tired, and I was just about to take a bubble bath, but then I thought about your Olympic-sized tub and wondered if you might want to make it a couples bath," Sarah offered, leaning back and looking into his eyes.
Jareth gave her one of his wolfish smiles that always made her heart beat faster.
"Not that I have a clue about your name for my bathing facilities, but you must know that that is an offer I could not refuse," he told her.
Sarah smiled.
"I was hoping you would say that," she said.
"Ready?" he asked her, and Sarah nodded, hoisting her bag on her shoulder.
In an instant, Jareth had slipped his arm around her, the world seemed to melt away, and they were in his private suite of rooms in his castle.
She could hear water running in the adjoining bathroom and knew that a perfectly hot tub filled with scented bubbles would be waiting for her in set her bag down beside the bed and turned to Jareth, a smile on her lips.
She and Jareth undressed each other in between kisses and caresses. He then swept her into his arms and carried her through the door into the bathroom.
The sunken marble tub that was easily five or six times the one in her house at home was filled with peach-scented bubbles.
Jareth walked into the tub with Sarah still in his arms. He slid her down so that her body touched every inch of his.
She moaned when she felt the evidence of his own arousal as her legs and body came in contact with his. She wound her arms around his neck and leaned up for the kiss that she knew was coming.
Their tongues danced together, and their bodies pressed closer together.
The relaxation that she thought that she craved with the bath she had planned was a distant memory as Jareth's hands traveled up her body. When he touched her like this nothing else seemed to matter anyway.
Continuing to kiss and caress her, Jareth maneuvered her across the tub through the warm frothy water. Then with a turn, he sat on a bench that was built into the side. When she first had witnessed its existence more than a year before, Sarah raised an eyebrow at why it was there. Benches were common in a shower but a bathtub? She quickly found out all the ways that it could be used to make their shared baths much more fun.
Sarah released his lips and grinned.
"Someone is eager to get started," she chuckled.
But she was almost as anxious as he was, and with Jareth's hand holding her at the waist, she straddled him, her knees resting on either side of his hips.
Using a rocking motion, she rubbed his erect cock over and over again. Not letting him close enough to enter her but stimulating them both with each pass that she caused him to make against her folds.
Jareth leaned his head back, and the ends of his long, wild blond hair sank into the water, and he gritted his teeth.
His hands tightened on her hips, and he began applying pressure, trying to guide her into a position where with a thrust of his hips he could slip inside her.
Sarah, knowing exactly what he was doing was able to elude him while continuing to drive him crazy with her undulations.
She decided to up the ante and moved her lips from his down his neck, making sure to lick and nip at his pulse point, to a spot where his neck and shoulder met. She had found out long before that this was possibly the hottest of his hot spots, and she loved using it to her advantage.
Here she kissed him hard, sucking his skin into her mouth with the pressure, knowing it would make a mark. At first she worried that something like that would not be welcome Jareth being who he was. But he had let her know that he was more than happy to wear any mark she gave him with pride. Even so she tried to keep them from places that would be too visible to others.
All the while she skimmed her fingers over his chest, pinching and rolling his nipples as she continued moving on his lap.
Jareth, having taken enough and needing her more than he could believe, took one hand and moved it from her hip to delve between folds made wet from more than the warm water in the bathtub and her need for him.
Skillfully, his fingers toyed with her as she moved, putting pressure against her clit, and using her own movements to help him to stimulate her.
"You win," Sarah said with a breathy moan, and on the next rock, she allowed his rock-hard cock to slide inside her.
The minute he entered her, Jareth let out a hiss of pleasure, while Sarah groaned and moved her head forward to lay her forehead against his shoulder.
Together, they started a rhythm that had become so familiar to them over the last year that they had been intimate. As he plunged inside her, her walls trembled and Sarah moaned and sighed loudly, music to his ears.
Jareth had taught her early on that there was no place for shyness between them.
When they had first made love, she had tried holding back her own reactions and worried about her lack of experience and technique. She had not been a virgin, but she also had not slept around much. She didn't want to disappoint him.
Jareth, however, wouldn't let her hide her reactions. She remembered how it sounded when his voice rumbled in her ear during one of their first encounters, telling her how much the sounds she made turned him on. How they made him harder and more desperate to cum inside her. How he wanted to feel her cuming on his cock. By being so open with her he taught her how to be more open about what she wanted and needed from him too.
"Deeper, harder," she breathed, and he obliged, moving his hips more forcefully to give her what she wanted.
They continued to move together, their voices bouncing off the walls as they each caused both their own pleasure, and wanting to give it to each other.
Sarah could feel her whole body vibrating as his orgasm threatened to overcome her. It washed over her, and she called his name as her world fell apart, and he put it back together again just as he had promised her long ago.
Her internal convulsions caused Jareth to go over the edge himself. With a groan at her name, he wrapped his arms around her and emptied himself into her, twisting deeper inside her. He continued thrusting through both their orgasms riding them out until they were both spent.
After a few minutes, when she was able to catch her breath, Sarah sat up and looked at her fae lover. She reached her hand up and smoothed some of the flyaway blond hair off his forehead, removing the strands from in front of his eyes.
"I was just hoping to take advantage of your tub. I had almost forgotten about the other benefits of bathing here," she lied, shifting and feeling him still intimately joined with her.
Jareth smiled, looking into her eyes. Every time she called for him, every time he was able to see her, not to mention every time he was able to make love to her, he could not believe that it was real. He half expected to find that this was all merely a dream, a fantasy born of his wanting her for so long.
He also hoped that when she called for him it would be to tell him that she was ready to be his truly his, but he didn't want to rush her and have her run away. It had taken him so long to get to this place with her, he could wait for her to be ready for more from their relationship. He just hoped that it wouldn't take too long.
"You know all you have to do is say the word and all of this," he gestured to the immense bathroom. "Can be yours. Along with all the other benefits that go with it," he said, not wanting to pressure her, but wanting her to agree to move here with him, to marry him, to rule with him.
Sarah sighed and moved off his lap, letting his now softened cock slide out of her to sit on the bench next to him.
"I know, and believe me, I am tempted, more and more often it seems," she admitted leaning her head back on the edge of the tub. "I just can't do it right now. I'm just not ready to leave not just my home or hometown, but my… my… dimension… world… or whatever you call the Above."
He looked disappointed, and Sarah felt a twang of regret. This was not the first time that they had had this discussion. It also was not the first time that they had had it while naked. In fact, it seemed to come up more and more when they were naked after making love.
"I love you, you know I do," she said, imploring him to understand. "I'm not just using you for the best sex I or any human has ever had. I just need some more time to come to grips with the fact that moving in with you is more complicated than it is for anyone else, choosing to cohabitate with their boyfriends."
She purposely used the term for their relationship that he hated in order to lighten the mood a bit.
"Flattery will only get you a repeat performance, Precious," Jareth told her. "Perhaps you need one, because you seem to forget I am no boy."
Sarah could hear the rumble in his voice, and she reached a hand down to find that he was indeed prepared for round two.
"Oh," she moaned as he moved to stand in front of her and hoist her up to wrap her legs around his waist. "I'm gonna need help walking to my classroom tomorrow."
"If your schedule does not permit it," Jareth began acting as if he were to let her go, but the rest of his words were smothered by her mouth as she squeezed him tighter with her legs and dug her nails into his shoulders.
Much later, when they were snuggled in Jareth's extremely large and very comfortable bed, after having finally finished their shared bath with both of them managing to get clean, and after making love again in bed, they talked to each other in low tones.
Sarah asked him about the influx of runners that he had lately. Jareth assured her that while there had been quite a few in the last couple of weeks, it wasn't anything he could not deal with. He also assured her that while some of them might have been clever none had come close to actually getting to the castle as she had. She didn't like to admit it but he knew it was a point of pride that she had beaten him at his own game…even if she did have some help.
He told her that he was switching some of the goblins from the child acquisition team that went to a wisher first to bring the wished-away back to the castle.
"Why would you do that?" Sarah asked. "I thought Stripes and the guys were good at collections. Well, as good as goblins can be."
Jareth chuckled. "Well, it is either that or ban them from visiting you," he told her.
"Me?" she asked. "What do I have to do with anything?"
"Well, Precious, you know how the whole collection duty goes. The goblins show up, do their scare the wisher, and whisk the wished-away… well, away," Jareth began.
Sarah nodded. She remembered how scared she was when the goblins had been popping up and down, making noises, and the lights not working. They sure scared her, and she was sure they had only improved with age and practice.
"Well, two wished-aways ago, I showed up, and Snips is bargaining with the wisher for some kind of cookies in exchange for not taking her son," Jareth said.
Sarah wrinkled her brow and then she remembered.
"Oh, the Oreos. Yeah, I introduced him and a couple of the others to the joy of double stuffed."
"Well, I will tell you, it took me almost an extra twenty minutes after getting the child to the castle to get the goblins under control and let them know any deal they made was non-binding. Then on the last one, half of the group wanted to stay to… how did they put it… oh, yeah, raid the fridge because they had a hell of a day. That sounded like it came from you."
Sarah giggled.
"Oh, yeah, they showed up after I came home after parent-teacher conferences. Teaching all day and then dealing with parents until eight o'clock and no dinner, I was in a mood."
"I am aware. They told me that the Lady Sarah was grouchy and said parents should be eliminated, even if it did eliminate the kids that would get wished away," he said dryly. "It took me a while to decipher that, and then calm them down because they thought you were going to wish them out of a job,"
"Sorry, Jareth, I forgot how the goblins are. By the way, are you still finding eggs? Every time I bring a dozen home from the market they steal them before I can use them," she inquired, "I should never have told them that they come from chickens and that if they hatch, a chick will come out,
"No, you definitely should not have," Jareth agreed. "I told you, stop getting the eggs for a while until it blows over," Jareth advised. "It shouldn't take long, they have short attention spans and memories, believe me."
Sarah frowned.
"Jareth, I like eggs, and they are used for a lot of the things I cook and practically everything I bake," she told him.
"I'll try talking to them again," Jareth sighed.
He definitely did not want Sarah to stop making cookies and brownies for him.
"Oh, by the way, I have another favor to ask you," she said, wrapping her arms around him and snuggling in deeper into his shoulder, feeling herself falling asleep.
"What can I do for you, Precious?" Jareth asked.
"How would you like to see a movie with me, and Toby, and a couple of his friends?"
She said the last part very quickly.
"Will there be popcorn?" he asked.
"An extra-large tub just for you," Sarah assured him.
"With butter?" he pressed.
"Tons. It will be swimming in it," she promised.
"As long as I don't have a runner, I will be there, just wish for me," Jareth told her, and with a happy sigh Sarah fell asleep.
During the next week, Sarah managed to make time to take Toby to the library to do his research. She sat at a table and graded papers while he, along with a librarian and the dewy decimal system's help, searched the encyclopedia and some books about turkeys.
Sarah knew that he hated assignments like this, and she also knew that her involvement would cause her to be judged by his final product by her stepmother. She had to make sure that he did what he needed to, to get a good grade on this one.
While she and Karen weren't adversarial anymore, they were not overly friendly either. She always wondered if Karen was waiting for her to mess up where her brother was concerned. If she didn't already have enough guilt about wishing him away all those years ago.
She also was able to contact the turkey farm about thirty minutes away and made arrangements for Toby and her to visit there that weekend. When she called Toby to tell him the news, he hung up and scrambled to find a later showing of the movie, he and his friends wanted to see.
After getting permission for the change in plans, he called his friends to inform them as well. Toby was relieved that everyone was able to adjust to the change in time. They decided to go out for pizza before the movie and then Sarah would take them all home afterward.
Using the information he had, Toby began working on his paper. He couldn't wait for Saturday.
Saturday morning, he ate breakfast while listening to the endless rules that his mother was droning on and on about.
"And stay close to Sarah, no wandering off," Karen said.
"I will, and I won't."
"Don't tease the turkeys; you don't know if they will turn vicious," she said.
"I won't."
"Listen to the farmer and do exactly what he tells you," she reminded him.
"I will."
Toby was never so happy to see his older sister in his entire life.
"Boy, I am glad to see you. I'm ready. Let's go!" he said all in one breath, practically pushing his sister out the door to her car.
Sarah laughed, knowing exactly what Toby had to endure that morning. She had lived in that house, too, with Karen as a teenager and had been given the "Have fun and be careful," speech more times than she cared to count.
"We will be fine, Karen. We will probably be done at the farm around lunch, so I will feed him before I return him here to change for dinner and the movie," she called out as she was being pushed through the door.
"Oh, Sarah, try not to let him get too dirty…"
Karen's voice followed them out and was interrupted by the slamming door aided by Toby's foot.
"Toby," Sarah said trying to look stern. "That wasn't nice."
She couldn't stop the laughter in her voice though.
They drove to the turkey farm, and Sarah tried to get her brother ready for what he might see. She knew that he had been to farms and had seen some animals there, but this was the first time that he had seen animals that were specifically raised to be eaten, as the main focus of the farm.
When they arrived, the farmer met them, and he seemed really nice.
The farm itself was made up of several large barns. Toby craned his neck around, looking for turkeys running around in white-fenced pastures like the cows and sheep he remembered seeing on other farms. As hard as he looked he did not see any though.
Farmer Ted took them through the brooding barn first. There he saw dozens and dozens of eggs being kept warm in incubators. Toby wondered why there weren't mother turkeys sitting on eggs in nests like the chickens did in hen houses.
From the brooding house, Farmer Ted took them to the starter house. It wasn't a house at all but a large barn with thousands of very young turkey chicks inside. The barn was very warm, hot really, and the little peepers were running around in their confined area.
Then they visited the finishing house. That was where the turkeys went after they had aged a bit. Depending on their final destination, they stayed there until they were between ten to twenty pounds or over forty pounds.
Toby wasn't taken to any of the other barns, and Sarah was grateful. She wouldn't have allowed him to have gone there regardless. She had read books about slaughterhouses in her high school American History class. It had been enough to turn her vegetarian for almost two full years.
While she was sure that this small, family-run operation was cleaner and more humane than those she had read about, she didn't want Toby to see that part of the operation. She also knew that Karen would kill her if she let him. This didn't stop Toby from asking though.
They thanked farmer Ted and got back in Sarah's car and left. All the way to the restaurant, a diner really, Toby talked about what he had seen and asked questions that he hadn't thought of when he was at the farm.
While he ate, he thought about what happened next to the turkeys. He wasn't a baby or stupid; he knew that what he would eat on Thanksgiving would likely be one of the turkeys he saw that day, or one like them. He wondered how it happened though and asked Sarah about it, but she did her best to evade his questions and change the subject.
"Well," he thought, "I will just need to find this out on my own, won't I?
When they arrived at Toby's house, he went in, and Karen greeted them at the door.
Toby gave her a brief rundown on what he had seen at the farm, but both she, and Sarah knew that there was something on his mind.
When he ran up to his room to change, Sarah stayed in the kitchen and had a cup of coffee with her stepmother.
"How did it go?" Karen asked, getting to the point.
"I had a lovely time, thank you," Sarah said a little snidely.
"Sarah," Karen said with a touch of exasperation in her voice.
"Fine, it went well. The farmer was a lovely older man, and he showed Toby everything up until the, you know, cutting off the head part or whatever they do," Sarah said. "He seemed to be a little shell-shocked while we were there, and he found his voice when we were at the diner. He asked a lot of questions, so be ready for that," Sarah warned her stepmother.
Karen gave Sarah a hard look. She asked her again and again about what Toby saw and what he hadn't seen. Sarah reassured her that he had been shielded from any blood or death of any kind. Eventually, Karen seemed mollified and let the subject drop.
The two of them chatted a bit while Toby changed his clothes. He seemed to be taking a little more time than they expected. Sarah wondered if something was wrong.
When he came down though, he appeared his usual excited talkative self. Karen insisted that she and Sarah be able to finish their coffees. Toby sulked a bit while he grabbed a juice box from the fridge and took it to the living room and turned on the television.
A few minutes later, Sarah was giving the report on their evening and their itinerary to Karen for the third time.
"I'm gonna pick the boys up and go to Mario's for pizza. We will then head to the theater. Jareth is going to meet us there, he had something to do, but should be done by show time."
"He better be," Toby muttered.
He wasn't super close to Jareth, but he liked him enough and he loved the goblins. He was definitely his favorite of anyone Sarah had ever dated. And with him to distract Sarah he and his friends might have more fun.
"You need to behave yourself," Karen warned him.
She reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet, took out a few bills, and handed them to Sarah.
"I hope this is enough. I know how much those boys can eat."
"It will be fine, Karen, and I have cash too," Sarah assured her before she and Toby left.
After she picked up the other boys, Sarah found herself at the local pizza place. Once the pies were ordered, she took notice of what the boys were talking about.
Toby was regaling them with what happened at the turkey farm earlier that day. Both of his friends were interested and peppered him with questions, some Toby could answer, but there were others that he could not.
When the boys were in the restroom, she hurried to a dark corner and made a wish. In an instant, Jareth was in the tight corner with her. The close quarters had him pressed up against her.
"Well, this is a nice surprise Sarah-mine," he purred, leaning into her more.
"Back off, Casanova," Sarah said moving his hands off her butt. "We are chaperoning three boys tonight. Those kinds of fun and games will have to wait."
She moved out of the corner, and Jareth followed her. No one seemed to notice the extra person at their party. When the boys came back to the table, Toby gave a whoop.
"Jareth!" he called out and walked around the table to where he was sitting, and they performed some kind of complicated handshake.
She would have to ask Jareth where that came from.
Together, they walked to the movie theater that was only a couple of blocks away. She paid for the tickets, and the group walked in.
She was happy that Jareth had come dressed in what she liked to call his casual human look. Tight jeans and boots, a long-sleeved button-down silk shirt, and his hair in a shorter, closer cut GQ style with an edge and definitely sexy, especially with the top two buttons on the shirt unbuttoned.
At the snack bar, Sarah rolled her eyes as the boys asked for pretty much everything displayed on the counter.
She told them they would get either a large popcorn to share or three small ones. They opted to share but convinced her to let them each get a candy and an Icee.
She, of course, got Jareth her promised large popcorn, dripping with super extra butter.
While Jareth would have preferred wine, she told him he would have to make do with a pop. Jareth begrudgingly took it and then magnanimously offered to let her share his popcorn.
They chose seats two rows behind the boys. That would give the boys some privacy and a feeling of independence, but still allow Sarah to keep an eye on them and to stop any unruly behavior.
The movie was nothing to write home about, but the boys seemed to like it. Maybe she needed to play the game to appreciate it more, but Sarah didn't think so.
While some of the martial arts were good, the story just wasn't there. Though she did like sitting in the dark with Jareth, her head on his shoulder and sharing buttered popcorn with him.
They said goodbye to Jareth outside the theater. Toby made him promise to come and visit again, and to bring some friends. Jareth knew this meant the goblins.
Sarah kissed him quickly and then promised to call him when she got home. Since they had talked about it, Jareth should know what she meant.
Sarah hurriedly took the boys home. She walked each to the door and talked to their respective parents, who answered the door.
Finally, she took Toby home. She told her stepmother a story of needing to grade papers that was partially true, she just wasn't going to. She just wanted to avoid any more coffee talk with Karen or having to listen to Dad tell her that Jareth wasn't good enough and she deserved more than an absent boyfriend.
She drove home quickly and locked the door behind her when she went in.
After calling to and having Jareth appear, she walked into his arms. They went to the bedroom together, and Jareth spent the night.