Sarah Williams woke with a gasp. She found herself on top of the covers with the alarm blaring loudly. Her frightened eyes darted over to see the time, the numbers red and bold: 7:15. Too shocked by an exceedingly vivid dream to curse, she turned off the alarm and just looked up at the ceiling for a moment. It happened again – another incredibly great dream about –

No. She was NOT going to say his name today. Or ever. No matter how good of a ballroom dancer he was, or how frickin' devilishly handsome he was, he was NOT worth her baby brother getting kidnapped again. Groaning, she pushed herself out of bed and the moment she opened her door, the dream was forgotten.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Toby shouted wildly, spraying her with silly string. Sarah shrieked and put her hands in front of her face to shield herself.

"TOBY!" she screeched as the little boy laughed manically and ran in the opposite direction. Sarah looked down at her once-yellow-but-now-pink pajamas. "You little – WHY DID YOU HAVE TO USE THE PINK ONE?" She followed him down the hallway, leaving behind little pieces of pink everywhere behind her.

Pink was definitely NOT her favorite color. It was too girly and annoying and stereotypical. Plus, HE liked to disappear in pink glitter.

What kind of a guy disappears in pink glitter?

Like, seriously. Ew.

When she caught up to Toby, she promptly put him in a headlock and gave him the lecture of a lifetime, involved with a lot of yelling. She dragged him into the kitchen in the same state and directed her yelling-ness now at her stepmother.

"Kar-EN!" The woman barely contained her laughter when she turned around to see Sarah adorned in pink mushy string. "I KNOW you put him up to this!" Sarah accused, shoving Toby away from her in disgust. He was grinning from ear-to-ear as he darted over to the table and sat down for breakfast.

"BIRTHDAY, BIRTHDAY, SARAH'S BIRTHDAY!" he sung happily and loudly as Karen placed pancakes on his plate. He smugly began to drown them in syrup.

"Inside voice, Toby," Karen reprimanded gently before turning back to Sarah. "I just thought, dear, that you needed a good way to get up this morning. Toby was up, and . . . well . . ." She shrugged innocently under Sarah's death glare.

"I'm going to go change," Sarah turned her attention back to Toby who still wasn't done with the syrup. "And you, little monster . . ." she growled menacingly. "You better watch out or . . . or . . ."

Toby stuck out his tongue at her. "Or what?" he goaded, sticking his fork into a pancake and beginning to devour it.

"Toby! Manners!" Karen berated, turning back to her cooking.

"Or I'll . . . " a wicked gleam grew in Sarah's eyes. "Or I'll wish for the goblins to . . ."

Toby looked at her in absolute terror, waiting for her to finish. Karen was humming along to the song in her head, blissfully unaware of the tension between the two children of the house.

"To come and clean my sock drawer. RIGHT NOW!" Sarah grinned and cackled maliciously, turning and skipping back down the hallway to her room.

"MOM!" Toby wailed. "SARAH WANTED THE GOBLINS TO CLEAN HER SOCK DRAWER!"

"I do dare say it needs cleaning," Karen said.

Sarah chose to ignore the conversation in the kitchen by slamming the door shut behind her and promptly locking it. Hands on her hips, she twirled around with a pleased smile on her face that automatically faded. "What the hell?"

Her sock drawer was on the ground, which would seem abnormal enough, except that at least twenty goblins were scrambling about inside of it, trying to figure out if the yellow sock went with the blue and the polka-dot with the panty hose. They looked up at her innocently before resuming their work.

"You little monsters . . .!" Sarah rushed forward and tried to grab her socks out of their hands. Squealing in delight and their new-found game, they took off with their treasures as she tried to recover them. "Give them back! Or at least do a decent job cleaning!"

"Well . . ." an entirely too-familiar voice drawled from behind her. Sarah froze, one hand still outstretched for a goblin under the bed. "It looks quite like I am missing out on all the fun."

She stood quite quickly and flushed a deep shade of red. 'Okay, don't panic,' she told herself. 'The guy in your dreams just showed up with you crawling around on your hands and knees chasing after goblins that have a hold of your socks. No biggy.'

Turning around, she saw, in all his manly, awesome glory, the Goblin King. About two, maybe three feet away from her. Yep, it's an off day when you don't see an incredibly hot, presumably not human, KING smirking at you.

"Yeah, that's because you are." Placing her hands on her hips, Sarah tried her best to act defiant and not horribly shocked and embarrassed like she felt.

The Goblin King raised an eyebrow, but that unbelievably annoying smirk seemed to grow even wider. "Then perhaps you could teach me the rules of the game, Sarah," he said as he stepped closer.

Her eyes narrowed. There had to be some kind of double-meaning there, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She was silent for a moment, staring him down and holding her ground, even when he was just a couple of inches away from her. "It's simple," she said finally. "Collect the socks. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars." It sounded kind of lame, even to her, but she knew the Goblin King wouldn't get it and he would be curious to know what she meant

She was right. He stared at her, puzzled. "And I want to collect two hundred dollars, why . . .?"

Sarah grinned and shrugged. "Guess you'll never know!" She tried to dart to the side to avoid any further questions about Monopoly, but the Goblin King's hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm, pulling her closer.

"I demand that you tell me this instant why I would want to pass this 'Go' place," he glared at her, his curiosity overwhelming. Honestly, what was she talking about?

She tried to wiggle out of his grasp, but it was a fruitless attempt. "No."

The Goblin King's eyes narrowed, but only briefly, because a wicked smirk quickly grew to take over. "I do want to know what you meant . . . eventually. But for now, I believe we have other matters to attend to." His hand on her upper arm traveled down her side and further to her hip, where it lingered momentarily before settling at the small of her back. "Like the matter of your socks."

Her hands balled into fists at her sides, her eyes slits. "Yeah?" she grunted.

"Would you like to run the Labyrinth again for your socks?" he smirked maliciously.

Sarah's jaw dropped. "HELL no!" she shrieked, trying to jerk away from him again. But his other hand flew to her middle back, and instead of being farther away from him, was closer. "Jerk," she muttered under her breath.

To the Goblin King, this was just getting more and more amusing. "I do believe it is 'Jareth', not 'Jerk', dearest," he purred in her ear, noting with pleasure when she held her breath.

"They do sound quite alike," she commented breathlessly.

He chuckled as he nuzzled her neck. "Quite." Jareth enjoyed the softness of her skin and the smell of it as well . . . the scent to be strawberries and . . . peaches? Was that possible? "Well, there is one other option."

"Well, then, tell me what it is!"

He pulled back to look into those cruel, but unbelievably beautiful eyes. "I'd be willing to return your socks for . . . a kiss."

She blinked. "Um . . . okay." That would be easy enough to give him just a quick peck on the cheek. Then her socks would be hers once again! MUWHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

"Oh no, precious thing, you're not getting off that easy," he shook his head mockingly, interrupting her internal evil laughing. "A real kiss, right here, right now."

She made a face. "But . . . that's not fair!"

Jareth tilted his head. "And your point is . . .?"

Sarah huffed. And she puffed. And she was tempted to blow the whole house down, but she didn't. "Fine," she frowned. "I want my socks back."

"My ladies' wish is my command," he teased, entangling the hand at the middle of her back now into her hair and lifting her face up closer to his. But, to Sarah's dismay, he made no move to kiss her, and instead waited for her to make the first move. They stayed like that for awhile, the goblins watching with wide eyes and eating popcorn from Sarah's bed, until she finally got up the courage to lean forward and press her lips cautiously against his.

To her utter shock, he didn't automatically take control. He patiently responded to her inexperienced kissing abilities and drew her closer to his body so no space separated them. The kiss lasted for several seconds, and it was actually rather pleasant, soft, and gentle.

When she decided that it had been going on for entirely too long she pulled back to look into the Goblin King's eyes. Instead of the disappointment, or worse, the satisfied look she had expected, her mouth dropped slightly to see the fire in his eyes, boring into hers. Before she knew it, Jareth had kissed her again, and this time, he was totally in control.

It was nothing at all like the first one – this one was lustful, passionate. It felt like he was devouring her very soul. She gasped when she felt his tongue run along her bottom lip, and he took this opportunity to deepen the kiss further.

It was embarrassing to admit it, but . . . she melted. In fact, if he wasn't holding her so tightly, she probably would have become a puddle right then and there. God, he was good. Her hands found their way up around his neck to pull him closer, though how that was possible was a problem needed to be figured out by someone really smart like Albert Einstein. But Sarah could care less about that, she was thinking about more important things, like how nice Jareth smelled (peaches, of course, just like herself, which you'd find odd but she really did still like peaches, and dark chocolate) and how good his hair felt (not only was it incredibly sexy, it was soft too!).

He was the one who pulled away, his eyes still smothering. "Happy Birthday, Sarah," he murmured breathlessly into her hair, before nuzzling her neck.

"Hey, wait a second," she said, moving her hands off (reluctantly) his hair and pushing slightly against his chest (her hands no longer complained). "That was two kisses!"

"Yes, well, think of the second one as your birthday present," Jareth pressed another kiss into the side of her neck before allowing her to slip out of his crushing embrace.

She was about to protest, but then she noticed that her socks were all organized in the drawer, looking much better than they had in years. She shrieked with glee and picked it up and put it back into the dresser. "Yay! Organized socks!"

She turned around to thank him, but he was gone. Sarah frowned. 'We just shared an incredibly intimate moment together and he just goes off and leaves? Without saying goodbye? NOT cool!' And there was freaking pink glitter on the floor!

She crinkled her nose and sighed. She already missed her Goblin King. He probably would've been an entirely better present as a whole then just two kisses.

But she interrupted her own thoughts when her eyes suddenly were drawn to a small, circular object on her bed. Of course, she drew closer and identified it immediately as one of his crystals. She reached out to pick it up, but hesitated a hairs breath away from it. If she touched it, she would probably be whisked away to the underground or granted her dreams or something fanciful like that.

'What is it?' Sarah remembered asking him, that night just a couple of years ago.

'It's a crystal. Nothing more.' Jareth stated, dazzling her with his ability to manipulate it. 'But if you look into it this way . . . it'll show you your dreams.'

'Dreams are nice," she mused and threw caution to the wind as she captured it within her hand.

Nothing happened at first. She brought it up closer to her eyes and paused before turning it slightly so that she could examine it at a different angle.

A scene began to play out within it and a grin grew on her face as she watched. It was her ballroom dream; the one that happened after Hoggle had given her that enchanted peach. It played over and over again, leaving out the part where she wrenched herself from Jareth's arms and threw a chair against the big bubble. It played the nice parts of it, where she and Jareth swept across the dance floor in those ridiculous, but very cool, outfits.

When it played itself out for the fourth time, she cradled it against her chest and turned her gaze towards the window where and owl watched her serenely. "Thanks, Jareth," she said quietly before laying herself down on her bed again. It was her birthday – she could sleep in a little more if she wanted to!

As she closed her eyes and held the crystal close to her body, the owl watched her for a moment before finally flying away into the early-morning sky. He honestly could not wait until next year. Perhaps Sarah's next birthday would be almost as eventful as this one.

My first fan-fic ever! I really hope I've improved since first writing this . . .

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed it, and don't forget to leave a review on your way out! By the way, the sequel is out, and it's called "Peach Juice." Go check it out!

Disclaimer: I am disclaiming, thus you shall not sue!