"Here you go!"
Sarah slid a plate across the kitchen counter to Flint, who eagerly gobbled up the s'more in one bite.
"Yum!" He pointed to his opened mouth again. "More now!"
"Manners!" Evie chastised him as she placed a hand under his chin, closing it promptly.
"Thank you, Lady! Very yummy," she addressed Sarah, showing off her manners.
"I appreciate it, Evie." Sarah patted her little head and then patted Flint's too, so he wouldn't feel left out. "I'm all out of marshmallows though, so no more tonight."
"Awww!" The chorus of goblins whined.
"Besides, the king himself said only one s'more per goblin," she wagged her finger in warning.
They all grumbled with each other to the point where Sarah had to smack the counter a few times to get them to be quiet.
"If you guys keep complaining, I'm sending you back to the Underground. No Muppet Christmas Carol movie."
"NOOOOO!" Blaggerspout screamed until a hand clamped over his mouth.
"We'll be good!" Evie promised, not removing her hand from Blaggerspout's face.
"Everyone, go wash your sticky, marshmallow-covered hands. With soap," Sarah instructed. "And then I'll turn on the movie."
"YEAH!"
They all ran to the bathroom to wash their hands in the bathtub. Sarah figured that it was less messy than to have them go one at a time in the sink. Especially with how much they loved to splash.
Gathering them in her living room, she laid out blankets, pillows, and space heaters, so that they could comfortably watch. Fortunately, for her, all their running around left them all quite content to quietly snuggle as they watched the movie.
Back in the kitchen, she placed the dishes in the sink, washing them one by one. Her eyes wandered to the left where her calendar was posted, groaning at next week's date.
Her mother had invited her to her Christmas party, and Sarah did not want to go.
"I appreciate it, Mom," she had said into the phone. "But I don't want to go to a party. I want to spend Christmas with just you. Not other people."
"Well, I won't be available that day because of my party," Linda said with offense. "I already have plans. You should have told me earlier."
"Mom, it's September. I think that's plenty of time. Besides, won't those people want to be with their families at home too?"
"Sweetie, they're my friends, and it's the perfect time for it! No other celebrity is hosting such a big party on Christmas Day but myself. Plenty on New Years, and you know if I host one at that time, I'll get overshadowed or there will be drama if people don't come. It's one year out of many. Besides, they spent it with their stuffy families and boring kids the years before and will the next. If you can't come visit me at my party, then I won't be able to see you until after the New Year."
Sarah tried to push off the words "stuffy kids" out of her mind, despite it echoing like a gong in her head. Her mother could be tone-deaf and careless in her words with her.
Once again, Sarah attributed it to Linda having to think about how to phrase her words so often in public that she felt she could dress down with her.
After all, isn't bluntness a sign of being comfortable with your family?
"Yeah, okay. I'll be sure to come," she relented, as she always did.
"Wonderful!" Linda's bright voice shined through. "Oh, and please invite a man this time."
Not this conversation again. "Mom, you know I'm single."
"You are now, but you have three months to find someone. If you don't, one of my colleagues will be sure to try to snatch you up. It's like a crocodile-infested water out there. The producer of my last movie already mentioned that you look like a younger version of me, and he would ask you out if you were single."
The icy, envious tone didn't go unnoticed by Sarah.
Sarah counted to ten, trying to ground herself and not lash out at her mother.
"Maybe that's an argument for the entertainment industry to stop being so sleazy instead of us having to come up with stupid ways to tell them off. At a regular job, that would be an HR violation. The entertainment industry should not be exempt from that kind of thing."
Not that HR always helped, but it was the best argument she could think of at the moment.
Linda sighed very dramatically, as if she was imagining their little argument was for a movie or a TV show with how to best play it for the camera.
"Well, we're not going to be the ones to fix it. This is the game that's happening and we need to play it."
Sarah bit her tongue, barely stopping herself from retorting that they didn't have to play this game at all if Linda just had a normal Christmas get-together with her.
"Anyway, I don't need a guy to come with me as my date. You'll be with me, right?"
"Not the whole night! I'll be with my friends and have to be a good host with whoever my date will be."
"We can't host together?" She didn't hide the contempt from her voice at all.
"Do you really want to be front and center of a tabloid magazine? You told me you didn't want that."
Linda was right about that, but still, it hurt that she would place so much importance on other people over herself.
Truth be told, she would host it with Linda if her mother wanted to, tabloids be damned. But it was clear that she rather Sarah didn't. So she settled with: "Yeah. That's true. Okay, I'll see you then."
"Great!" Linda chirped. "Glad we figured that out. I have to go now, do some fittings for a dress and all that before catching my flight to Italy."
Sarah was glad that they were speaking over the phone, or Linda would have seen her failed attempt at a smile.
"Yeah. See you on Christmas."
Back to the present, Sarah was now finished with doing the dishes, holding a bright red marker to cross off today's date, still staring at her mom's party posted for next week. She froze in place, the marker not moving.
"Are you going to do something with that writing utensil-"
"GAH!" Sarah dropped the marker, startled by the familiar, low voice.
"-Or are you going to actually write something with it?"
She bent down to pick up the marker, finding that Jareth beat her to it.
She snatched it from him, crossing off today's date. "Hey, Jareth."
She turned to give him a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I have one last large marshmallow. The goblins already had their fill of s'mores. Would you like one?"
He folded his arms and leaned against the counter. She wasn't sure if he was effortlessly sexy because he was one of the fae, or because it was just him. She concluded that being fae definitely added to it but that he had his own charm.
He smirked. "That would be lovely, if it's not too much of a hassle for you."
"Nope." She turned on her stove and started to roast it. "Got all the ingredients here. Was waiting for you to pop in, actually."
She enjoyed having Jareth here. Their unlikely friendship had blossomed from the crazy goblins invading her home. He came to wrangle them up, and the rest was history.
They got along with each other in such an easy, comfortable way. Despite him always looking like he stepped out of those romance books, she never felt that she had to change her appearance to impress him.
Perhaps it was because she already defeated him as a teenager. There was nothing that was more impressive than that.
He was the same, letting her see a softer, more playful and sweet side of him whenever she visited the Underground or when he would visit her here.
Oh, he could be ornery and capricious at times, but deep inside, he was a good person.
After the marshmallow was nicely toasted, she slid it on the graham cracker with the piece of chocolate.
"Here you go."
Jareth took the plate, his eyes wide like a child's.
"Thank you."
She watched with satisfaction as he ate it up. "Glad you like it."
Her eyes wandered past his head and back to the calendar, still thinking about her mother.
"Sarah?"
She jumped slightly, realizing that he was standing right behind her, looking at the date too. "Something bothering you?"
"That obvious?" she asked, her voice as tired as someone as old as the Earth and as small as that of a mouse.
"To me? Yes. To those cretins?" He gestured towards the living room where half the goblins were enamored with the TV while the other half were enamored with their s'more. "Absolutely not."
She snorted, laughing at the comparison.
"It's just, well, my mom has a Christmas party coming up with a bunch of friends and probably a lot of other famous people. On Christmas Day of all days. I don't want to go. She's expecting me to bring a boyfriend too. Both to keep me entertained and to make herself look good, I suppose. Never mind the fact that I don't have one."
"Why not just have a nice dinner with her then?" he inquired, perplexed.
They had been friends long enough for him to understand that Christmas Day in her culture was very much expected to spend with loved ones instead of hosting a big party.
"Because she says it's the only chance I'll get to see her until after the New Year. I haven't seen her since her birthday earlier this year, and that was back in August."
She took his plate, washing it as she needed her hands to do something.
"Sarah."
He took the plate from her once she was done washing it and dried it for her.
Gently, he guided her to a chair in the dining room and sat her down.
"Why do you need to see her? It's clear that every interaction you have with her is negative."
The words automatically left her mouth. "That's not true."
Jareth raised a challenging eyebrow.
Sarah took a half breath and exhaled quickly.
"Well, that's my fault for making you think that way, since I complain about her more than anything else. I have some wonderful memories of her."
He continued to stare unblinkingly at her. "Why do you continue to put up with a woman who won't even have a simple one-on-one dinner with you?"
"She's busy, Jareth."
The words sounded hollow, even to her.
The top of Jareth's lip pulled up in disbelief.
"She cannot be busier than me, a king. I have time to visit you. Surely, she has time for her daughter."
She rubbed her temple. "Jareth, I don't really want to talk about this."
"Then perhaps you should-"
"That's enough!"
Sarah stood up suddenly, her hand smacking down on the table harder than she had thought it would.
"Stop telling me what to do!"
The outburst caused the goblins to shuffle around uncomfortably at the usual sweet and patient Sarah raising her voice.
She rubbed her eyes a little, ashamed at her outburst.
"I'm so sorry, Jareth. I shouldn't have yelled at you. You mean well."
She wasn't angry at him. Not really. She was more angry that he was right. She didn't want anyone to bad-mouth her mother, and she didn't want to admit that Linda cared more about her friends than her only child.
She walked past Jareth, touching his shoulder as she walked by as a way to let him know that she wasn't angry at him.
She folded her arms and looked out the window, her heart heavy. She felt crummy for yelling at him and how hard his honest words hit her.
She could hear his footsteps stopping behind her.
His tone held no resentment, only empathy. "No harm done."
She nodded, blinking her tears away. "Thank you."
He leaned against the wall beside the window, gazing at her softly.
"If you wish to go but don't want to go alone, what if I were to come with you?"
Sarah scoffed at the very thought.
"What does that scoff supposed to mean?" he asked, sounding offended. "Am I unfit to go?"
"No, not that," she said quickly.
Despite Jareth's arrogance, deep inside he had been hurt more times than he cared to admit.
During a heartfelt conversation, he once admitted to being "a part of the lost and the lonely," like those in his kingdom. He was pushed away to do a necessary but unsavory job, at least affording to his kind.
She didn't want him to think that she of all people thought lowly of him.
After all, he was her best friend.
Her hand nervously tapped the countertop.
"It's that… you're a king. To go to some actress's party of famous people seems so beneath you. Just a bunch of freaky predators swarming in on us for no apparent reason."
"But I could keep you company." The corner of his mouth tugged upward. "I could scare off the predators along with you. You're terrifying enough on your own."
They both chuckled.
"I appreciate that," Sarah offered. "Wouldn't you rather do something else that day?"
"Perhaps," he relented. "But so would you, it seems. At least we could go there together. We could enjoy the free food."
"And then you ditch me for some pretty woman who throws herself at you?" Sarah teased, but her smile quickly faded when Jareth's face was a hurt frown.
"Sarah, I do not 'ditch' any dates that I am accompanying or being accompanied by, even if there are others at a gathering that I am interested in. I especially wouldn't do that to you, a friend of mine, and Champion of the Labyrinth. It matters not that these people don't know that, because I do. I am a gentleman and will be true to my word."
His vulnerability was interwoven with his passion for duty and chivalry.
Sarah shook her head. "This is the second time I've hurt your feelings tonight. I-"
She wanted to go on to explain that she hadn't meant to hurt him, but stopped.
He didn't need to hear that.
He needed to hear an apology from her.
"I-I'm sorry. I would actually love it if you came with me. I think it could be a nice time for us to hang out, since I'm expecting Mom to not actually spend time with me."
He smiled softly at her. "Then we'll make it so."
His warmth made her heart skip a beat. Anyone who said that goodness was boring clearly never met Jareth or got to know him deeper than the surface-level.
If only…
No.
She stopped her thoughts in their tracks immediately before they could go any further.
He was her friend.
Her best friend.
And she was his.
That was why he meant the world to her.
That was why he was willing to go to her mother's stupid party with her, not for any other reason.
"I should have known too that you were only jesting." His voice took her out of her thoughts. "I apologize if I sounded cruel."
Sarah patted his arm. "Like you said, no harm done."
Hi! I hope you'll enjoy this short Christmas fic. I actually started writing it last year and abandoned it lol. I started it again last month after my Thanksgiving fic and was encouraged by my friend and beta, RMBiehl. Thank you for being my beta for this fic!