HOME | DD

Description
Chapter Three

It was going to be one of those days, Sarah decided early that morning. She’d fallen asleep sometime during the night and now had a terrible crick in her neck for never making it to her bed, her shop was frighteningly devoid of customers, the weather man was predicting a storm to hit later in the afternoon, and she’d thought she had caught a flash of blonde hair when she had been opening her store up. So far, the new day had not brought her the new hope she had been wishing for.

The door chimed merrily and Sarah whipped around, her heart pounding in her throat, to see who it was.

Liz gave her a wide-eyed look. “What’s with you? You look positively hunted.”

Sarah let out a sigh. She was on edge because she couldn’t get Jareth out of her mind, because it felt like something big was about to happen, because she felt like she was being watched. You’re just being paranoid, she told herself. “Sorry Liz, I had a… weird dream last night.”

Liz looked her up and down, clearly disbelieving that she had slept at all. “I won’t hound you about the importance of a good night’s sleep,” she shrugged, “if you tell me how it went with the new neighbor.”

Her face was so delightfully expectant that Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell her she had probably made herself look insane for no reason. Luckily she was saved from answering by the door bleating out its overly chipper herald. Unfortunately, the walls also chose that minute to feel like they were closing in around her.
__________________________________________________________________

Jareth was feeling at peace with the world for once. His morning had actually been productive, and after some decent writing he had managed to unpack a few more boxes. His cabin was almost livable. The only unfinished business he seemed to have was finding his little green-eyed minx but then, that wasn’t exactly a pressing matter for now.

He ambled across the downtown area, looking from shop to shop. It wasn’t a bustling metropolitan area but this place had a feel about it, a certain charm that couldn’t be denied. It was like the very buildings were alive, promising treasures to those brave enough to enter. Jareth snorted at himself. Brave enough to enter? What sort of danger was there from a small town furniture store? Man-eating rugs; vampiric armchairs? He’d obviously been spending too much time alone.

Jareth was just about to circle back to where he had parked his car when a shop caught his eye. The building was like all the others, brick-faced and squat, but the window display was out of this world. Crystal prisms of all shapes and sizes hung down from the ceiling casting light and color upon the impish and darling figurines that lazed around in a little forest of glassy trees. Glass was an underappreciated art form, in Jareth’s opinion; it was paradoxical, fragile and yet durable, and it called out to him a way that no painting ever could. Without even realizing he had made to step forward, he was pushing open the door, eager to inspect the merchandise.

Sarah felt the blood drain from her face. Oh, god no. Please, not now, not here! Liz darted a look between her and Jareth, a sinister little smile curving her lips. Obviously mistaking Sarah’s dread for flustered attraction, the smug matchmaker slunk out the door before her friend could stop her.

Sarah watched as he curiously made his way through the aisles, idly wondering if she should run out the door before he noticed her. She had been so willing to believe that last night had been a mistake on her part, that she had been tired and seen things that hadn’t really been there. But this man moved from one display to the next with an unnatural grace, hawkish gaze not missing a single detail of anything he deigned worth his notice. In the past she had always associated him with owls, like the animal form he had taken, but now there was something altogether too feline about his presence. He was regal and commanding and…

Heading straight for her!

Jareth felt a smile curve his lips. Luck was obviously on his side today; not only had he found a wonderful little treasure-trove filled with more things that piqued his interest than he could probably afford to buy, but the woman behind the service counter was just the lady he had been hoping to meet today.

She looked even better bathed in sunlight, he decided. The girl was absolutely adorable, flushed and fidgeting, her hair pulled away from her face by a few unadorned clasps. And what a face it was! Freckles danced across her nose and lightly dusted her cheeks, while pearly white teeth worried a beautifully rosy lip, and he nearly groaned at how delicious that innocent action looked.

He finally came to stand before the counter. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said conversationally, curious at the flair of panic he saw entering her expressive emerald eyes.

She seemed to wrestle with herself for a minute, turned a narrowed-eyed glare on him, then said, “What are you playing at?”

His presence had always gotten a myriad of different reactions, but this had be the first time Jareth could remember being faced with outright hostility from someone he didn’t even know. Inwardly he shrugged; lord knew the muses were always fickle, why should this one be any different? “I can’t help but feel that there’s some sort of misunderstanding hanging between us,” he offered bemusedly.

“Misunderstanding?” she asked lowly, incredulously. “After everything you put me through you’re lucky I don’t-“

“You see, there you go again,” he interrupted, “talking as though we’ve known each other from somewhere before last night.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Well, don’t we?” she growled angrily.

He stared at her for a moment. “No,” Jareth finally answered, “I’m afraid not. I’m rather certain I’d remember someone as… interesting as you.” She opened her mouth, no doubt to show him the sharper side of her tongue, but he carried on before she could start. “I came here to thank you. Though you seem to have me confused with someone else, what you said last night, something about a Goblin King, helped me a great deal.”

“You mean you’re not Jareth?” she eyed him suspiciously.

He could have laughed. Though it galled him somewhat that she had him confused with another person, and one she didn’t appear to like very well at that, her angry and disbelieving attitude was, by far, the most interesting thing he had seen in a very long while. “I most certainly am. Jareth Corbett, at your service, milady,” he introduced himself smoothly, unable to contain the slightly mocking bow that accompanied his words.

Sarah’s mind was on the verge of shutting down from overload. He denied knowing her, and seemed rather genuine about it too, but didn’t deny that his name was Jareth. The part that had her reeling though, was his last name. Corbett. Jareth Corbett, who was almost certainly the Goblin King, was her favorite author. Was in Rockport, standing in her very own shop, and staring at her in a combination of interest and entertainment.

She did not need this, she decided with an inward groan. Okay, so life had been cruising on the boring side lately. So she was a little lonely, and kind of worried that she’d end up dying as a crazy old cat-lady. So maybe her greatest joy for the past couple of years had been the racy books she chose to read in lieu of a love life. Did that mean that the one man she knew could shake her without even trying had to come over and, well…shake her world?

No.

She was quite content to pine from afar and use that pining as a convenient excuse not to have to show some sort of interest in the local stock. If commitment were a house she’d happily set it on fire.

“As in the writer, J Corbett?” she asked, though she was pretty sure she already knew.

He nodded, blonde hair shining like slivery-gold in the excessive light cast by all the different prisms, and made a noncommittal sound that could have been agreement.

“And not the Goblin King?” Sarah pressed, though she hardly expected him to honest if that were truly the case.

He stared at her for a while again, his eyes sweeping over her so leisurely it was nearly a caress. It was hard to tell, but at the moment Jareth looked nearly as bewildered as she felt. And it was an honest expression too; there was nothing calculated about it at all. It was damn near driving her up the wall trying to figure out what was going on. “Sorry to disappoint,” he finally said, a puzzled smile quirking his lips.

It was a smile that did funny, and completely unwanted things to her insides. “So what are you doing in Rockport then?”

“Writing, as it were. Funny thing, that; a writer writing,” he teased, looking so much like the otherworldly king who had stood in parents' room it was freaking her out.

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude,” she was pretty sure she heard him give a disbelieving snort at that, “but what do you want from me?”

The fact that Jareth had to stop himself from blurting out, ‘You underneath me would do rather nicely,’ had him kind of worried. Good lord, he’d barely even known the nutty little nymph for a day and already he was lusting after her! He tried reasoning, in his own defense, that she was built like a dream but it merely brought his thoughts back to wondering how nice she would feel pressed up against him.

Thankfully she interrupted his wayward fantasy. “If you’re not who I think you are, then what business do you have here?”

Jareth chose to ignore the obvious fact that he was standing in the middle of a store that was open to the public. “I’ve already told you, I came to thank you and to clear up this misunderstanding between us.” Which was obviously going to take more effort than simply introducing himself, he added silently. Fine by him, he was just itching for a challenge that didn’t involve his latest book.

She replaced her frown with an aloof expression. “Well, you’ve said you piece. Now, if you don’t intend to buy anything, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

A tactical retreat or a panicked recoil? He’d leave for her peace of mind, but she was sorely mistaken if she thought they were done. Jareth lived for the thrill of a good game, and he was determined to play this one out, whether the minx wanted to or not.

He was halfway down the block when he realized that he still didn’t know her name.
It was pitch-black outside.
__________________________________________________________________

Sarah didn’t normally stay at the shop so late. And it was not because she hiding. Nope. It was the weather. Just like they had predicted, the tempestuous little gale had slammed into the coast, bringing with it some damn cold air and rain that couldn’t quite decide if it was a liquid or a solid. Now she was afraid that she might not be able to get home without sliding off the road. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was determined to avoid a certain blonde haired man as if he were the devil.

Oh god, who was she kidding? She had sequestered herself away in her store like a little girl hiding in her closet. Sarah wasn’t sure what disturbed her more, the fact that he was Jareth, or that she almost believed him when he said he wasn’t the Goblin King. Either way, she had no intension of crossing paths with him again any time soon; she’d had the uncomfortable feeling that every time she opened her mouth around him she sounded absolutely crazy. But damn it, this was too much of a coincidence! The man looked, acted, and sounded like the Goblin King. He even had the same name, for crying out loud!

With a sigh, Sarah closed up her store, dashed wildly through the pelting and slightly painful rain and shivered until her car heater roared to life. Now all she had to do was make it home, where she could proceed to forget anything unusual had happened.

But things could never be that simple for Sarah. A ride that should have been over in less than twenty minutes had taken an hour, and she still wasn’t home. Instead, she was off on the side of the road peering under the hood of her car.

Something was smoking. She was pretty sure it was her radiator, but then she didn’t really know what scrap of metal that was supposed to be. Engines had always confused her. She wasn’t really the mechanical sort, a fact which she now lamented, standing in what had turned into a heavy sleet being driven by a very wicked wind. If it weren’t for the fact that she was about as close to her engine as possible without sitting on the damn thing, she knew the little ballistic ice-missiles would have cut her up. The problem was she couldn’t stay that way; she had absolutely no idea how to get her car moving again and she would have to find a way home eventually.

As if a guardian angel had heard her prayers, a sleek car pulled up next to her. An electric window rolled down smoothly and, before she could even begin to offer her deepest gratitude, that hauntingly familiar voice, cultured and oh-so-decadent, issued a simple command. “Get in,” Jareth ordered.

Apparently her guardian angel was Lucifer.

Description
Chapter Three

It was going to be one of those days, Sarah decided early that morning. She’d fallen asleep sometime during the night and now had a terrible crick in her neck for never making it to her bed, her shop was frighteningly devoid of customers, the weather man was predicting a storm to hit later in the afternoon, and she’d thought she had caught a flash of blonde hair when she had been opening her store up. So far, the new day had not brought her the new hope she had been wishing for.

The door chimed merrily and Sarah whipped around, her heart pounding in her throat, to see who it was.

Liz gave her a wide-eyed look. “What’s with you? You look positively hunted.”

Sarah let out a sigh. She was on edge because she couldn’t get Jareth out of her mind, because it felt like something big was about to happen, because she felt like she was being watched. You’re just being paranoid, she told herself. “Sorry Liz, I had a… weird dream last night.”

Liz looked her up and down, clearly disbelieving that she had slept at all. “I won’t hound you about the importance of a good night’s sleep,” she shrugged, “if you tell me how it went with the new neighbor.”

Her face was so delightfully expectant that Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell her she had probably made herself look insane for no reason. Luckily she was saved from answering by the door bleating out its overly chipper herald. Unfortunately, the walls also chose that minute to feel like they were closing in around her.
__________________________________________________________________

Jareth was feeling at peace with the world for once. His morning had actually been productive, and after some decent writing he had managed to unpack a few more boxes. His cabin was almost livable. The only unfinished business he seemed to have was finding his little green-eyed minx but then, that wasn’t exactly a pressing matter for now.

He ambled across the downtown area, looking from shop to shop. It wasn’t a bustling metropolitan area but this place had a feel about it, a certain charm that couldn’t be denied. It was like the very buildings were alive, promising treasures to those brave enough to enter. Jareth snorted at himself. Brave enough to enter? What sort of danger was there from a small town furniture store? Man-eating rugs; vampiric armchairs? He’d obviously been spending too much time alone.

Jareth was just about to circle back to where he had parked his car when a shop caught his eye. The building was like all the others, brick-faced and squat, but the window display was out of this world. Crystal prisms of all shapes and sizes hung down from the ceiling casting light and color upon the impish and darling figurines that lazed around in a little forest of glassy trees. Glass was an underappreciated art form, in Jareth’s opinion; it was paradoxical, fragile and yet durable, and it called out to him a way that no painting ever could. Without even realizing he had made to step forward, he was pushing open the door, eager to inspect the merchandise.

Sarah felt the blood drain from her face. Oh, god no. Please, not now, not here! Liz darted a look between her and Jareth, a sinister little smile curving her lips. Obviously mistaking Sarah’s dread for flustered attraction, the smug matchmaker slunk out the door before her friend could stop her.

Sarah watched as he curiously made his way through the aisles, idly wondering if she should run out the door before he noticed her. She had been so willing to believe that last night had been a mistake on her part, that she had been tired and seen things that hadn’t really been there. But this man moved from one display to the next with an unnatural grace, hawkish gaze not missing a single detail of anything he deigned worth his notice. In the past she had always associated him with owls, like the animal form he had taken, but now there was something altogether too feline about his presence. He was regal and commanding and…

Heading straight for her!

Jareth felt a smile curve his lips. Luck was obviously on his side today; not only had he found a wonderful little treasure-trove filled with more things that piqued his interest than he could probably afford to buy, but the woman behind the service counter was just the lady he had been hoping to meet today.

She looked even better bathed in sunlight, he decided. The girl was absolutely adorable, flushed and fidgeting, her hair pulled away from her face by a few unadorned clasps. And what a face it was! Freckles danced across her nose and lightly dusted her cheeks, while pearly white teeth worried a beautifully rosy lip, and he nearly groaned at how delicious that innocent action looked.

He finally came to stand before the counter. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said conversationally, curious at the flair of panic he saw entering her expressive emerald eyes.

She seemed to wrestle with herself for a minute, turned a narrowed-eyed glare on him, then said, “What are you playing at?”

His presence had always gotten a myriad of different reactions, but this had be the first time Jareth could remember being faced with outright hostility from someone he didn’t even know. Inwardly he shrugged; lord knew the muses were always fickle, why should this one be any different? “I can’t help but feel that there’s some sort of misunderstanding hanging between us,” he offered bemusedly.

“Misunderstanding?” she asked lowly, incredulously. “After everything you put me through you’re lucky I don’t-“

“You see, there you go again,” he interrupted, “talking as though we’ve known each other from somewhere before last night.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Well, don’t we?” she growled angrily.

He stared at her for a moment. “No,” Jareth finally answered, “I’m afraid not. I’m rather certain I’d remember someone as… interesting as you.” She opened her mouth, no doubt to show him the sharper side of her tongue, but he carried on before she could start. “I came here to thank you. Though you seem to have me confused with someone else, what you said last night, something about a Goblin King, helped me a great deal.”

“You mean you’re not Jareth?” she eyed him suspiciously.

He could have laughed. Though it galled him somewhat that she had him confused with another person, and one she didn’t appear to like very well at that, her angry and disbelieving attitude was, by far, the most interesting thing he had seen in a very long while. “I most certainly am. Jareth Corbett, at your service, milady,” he introduced himself smoothly, unable to contain the slightly mocking bow that accompanied his words.

Sarah’s mind was on the verge of shutting down from overload. He denied knowing her, and seemed rather genuine about it too, but didn’t deny that his name was Jareth. The part that had her reeling though, was his last name. Corbett. Jareth Corbett, who was almost certainly the Goblin King, was her favorite author. Was in Rockport, standing in her very own shop, and staring at her in a combination of interest and entertainment.

She did not need this, she decided with an inward groan. Okay, so life had been cruising on the boring side lately. So she was a little lonely, and kind of worried that she’d end up dying as a crazy old cat-lady. So maybe her greatest joy for the past couple of years had been the racy books she chose to read in lieu of a love life. Did that mean that the one man she knew could shake her without even trying had to come over and, well…shake her world?

No.

She was quite content to pine from afar and use that pining as a convenient excuse not to have to show some sort of interest in the local stock. If commitment were a house she’d happily set it on fire.

“As in the writer, J Corbett?” she asked, though she was pretty sure she already knew.

He nodded, blonde hair shining like slivery-gold in the excessive light cast by all the different prisms, and made a noncommittal sound that could have been agreement.

“And not the Goblin King?” Sarah pressed, though she hardly expected him to honest if that were truly the case.

He stared at her for a while again, his eyes sweeping over her so leisurely it was nearly a caress. It was hard to tell, but at the moment Jareth looked nearly as bewildered as she felt. And it was an honest expression too; there was nothing calculated about it at all. It was damn near driving her up the wall trying to figure out what was going on. “Sorry to disappoint,” he finally said, a puzzled smile quirking his lips.

It was a smile that did funny, and completely unwanted things to her insides. “So what are you doing in Rockport then?”

“Writing, as it were. Funny thing, that; a writer writing,” he teased, looking so much like the otherworldly king who had stood in parents' room it was freaking her out.

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude,” she was pretty sure she heard him give a disbelieving snort at that, “but what do you want from me?”

The fact that Jareth had to stop himself from blurting out, ‘You underneath me would do rather nicely,’ had him kind of worried. Good lord, he’d barely even known the nutty little nymph for a day and already he was lusting after her! He tried reasoning, in his own defense, that she was built like a dream but it merely brought his thoughts back to wondering how nice she would feel pressed up against him.

Thankfully she interrupted his wayward fantasy. “If you’re not who I think you are, then what business do you have here?”

Jareth chose to ignore the obvious fact that he was standing in the middle of a store that was open to the public. “I’ve already told you, I came to thank you and to clear up this misunderstanding between us.” Which was obviously going to take more effort than simply introducing himself, he added silently. Fine by him, he was just itching for a challenge that didn’t involve his latest book.

She replaced her frown with an aloof expression. “Well, you’ve said you piece. Now, if you don’t intend to buy anything, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

A tactical retreat or a panicked recoil? He’d leave for her peace of mind, but she was sorely mistaken if she thought they were done. Jareth lived for the thrill of a good game, and he was determined to play this one out, whether the minx wanted to or not.

He was halfway down the block when he realized that he still didn’t know her name.
It was pitch-black outside.
__________________________________________________________________

Sarah didn’t normally stay at the shop so late. And it was not because she hiding. Nope. It was the weather. Just like they had predicted, the tempestuous little gale had slammed into the coast, bringing with it some damn cold air and rain that couldn’t quite decide if it was a liquid or a solid. Now she was afraid that she might not be able to get home without sliding off the road. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was determined to avoid a certain blonde haired man as if he were the devil.

Oh god, who was she kidding? She had sequestered herself away in her store like a little girl hiding in her closet. Sarah wasn’t sure what disturbed her more, the fact that he was Jareth, or that she almost believed him when he said he wasn’t the Goblin King. Either way, she had no intension of crossing paths with him again any time soon; she’d had the uncomfortable feeling that every time she opened her mouth around him she sounded absolutely crazy. But damn it, this was too much of a coincidence! The man looked, acted, and sounded like the Goblin King. He even had the same name, for crying out loud!

With a sigh, Sarah closed up her store, dashed wildly through the pelting and slightly painful rain and shivered until her car heater roared to life. Now all she had to do was make it home, where she could proceed to forget anything unusual had happened.

But things could never be that simple for Sarah. A ride that should have been over in less than twenty minutes had taken an hour, and she still wasn’t home. Instead, she was off on the side of the road peering under the hood of her car.

Something was smoking. She was pretty sure it was her radiator, but then she didn’t really know what scrap of metal that was supposed to be. Engines had always confused her. She wasn’t really the mechanical sort, a fact which she now lamented, standing in what had turned into a heavy sleet being driven by a very wicked wind. If it weren’t for the fact that she was about as close to her engine as possible without sitting on the damn thing, she knew the little ballistic ice-missiles would have cut her up. The problem was she couldn’t stay that way; she had absolutely no idea how to get her car moving again and she would have to find a way home eventually.

As if a guardian angel had heard her prayers, a sleek car pulled up next to her. An electric window rolled down smoothly and, before she could even begin to offer her deepest gratitude, that hauntingly familiar voice, cultured and oh-so-decadent, issued a simple command. “Get in,” Jareth ordered.

Apparently her guardian angel was Lucifer.