A/N: I am so excited to be doing this with the permission of Pika-la-Cynique and AsheRhyder. This story and all of its insanity is based off of both of their crossover comics on deviantart entitled, Girls Next Door and Roommates. I hope you will enjoy, will review, and will pretty please go and check out their comics. I guarantee you will not be disappointed! Thanks and enjoy!
Too Thin A Ceiling
Chapter 1: Tea, Ghosts, and Socks
Sarah Williams grinned as she took in her new surroundings. Finally, a place she could call her own and not have to worry about what Karen or Dad thought. This was exciting in itself. She was sitting cross legged on the floor of her new bedroom, unpacking her belongings. She had finally done it. Finally had her freedom. The apartment was modest, with two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and shared bathroom and living room; but it was enough for Sarah. Her new roommate seemed pretty cool too; kinda old fashioned, but cool. Sarah grinned as she tore open the box she had finally managed to get the tape off of. Oh her David Bowie posters would look killer in here. She paused for a second, wondering if the apartment building had a beef with holes being made in the walls.
She was shaken from her thoughts by a certain brunette sticking her head in the doorway with a cheesy grin on her face. Sarah smiled at her new roommate, Christine Daae with an equal cheesy factor.
"Heeeyyy new housemate!" Christine exclaimed, waving her free hand that wasn't holding her groceries.
Sarah waved back, feeling a bit immature but happy to respond with "Heyyyy new housemate! How're you doing?"
Christine shuffled through Sarah's open bedroom door and placed her groceries down on Sarah's currently empty desk.
"Pretty well, thank you. Did you get all of your stuff out of the car or do you need some help?" She offered.
Sarah stood, dusting her hands off on her blue jeans and shaking her head.
"I'm all settled in, thanks. You know, this place is pretty nice. I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out." She offered.
Christine nodded, leaning against the doorframe with a grin.
"Yes, I do like this little arrangement we have here. This is going to be a great semester I believe. Care for some tea?" She stated.
Sarah blinked. Tea? Man she was old fashioned. How many people actually had tea time anymore? Not wanting to start out on a bad foot Sarah nodded her head.
"Sure, that would be nice." Besides, she'd never actually had hot tea.
Christine gestured for Sarah to follow and the two went into the small kitchen they would be sharing. Sarah smiled as she watched Christine prepare their tea in two identical mugs and gave her thanks when she was handed one.
Sarah took a sip tentatively, and gave a pleased sound. 'This stuff is actually not bad.' She thought.
"This is good Chris. Is it ok if I call you Chris?"
Christine nodded with a fond smile, taking a sip of her own tea.
"That's perfectly fine. I haven't had much of a normal nickname before actually. I kind of like it." She answered, walking into the living room and leaning against the back of the couch.
Sarah raised an eyebrow and followed, flopping down on the couch with her tea.
"Normal nickname? What kind of goofy ones were you cursed with before?" She asked with a laugh.
Christine cringed and shook her head. "Don't ask." She laughed.
Sarah brushed it off and took another sip of her tea, glancing up at Christine over the rim of her mug.
"I will say, I was very surprised to find a roommate this far into the semester. You usually have to apply or go looking around weeks ago!" Sarah stated.
Christine smiled and stirred her tea a little more with her dainty spoon before taking a sip.
"I'm thrilled that you could move in one such late notice."
Sarah contemplated that statement for a moment or two in silence, before asking the question she had been meaning to ask for a few days now.
"I am curious though, why did your roommate hoof it out of here on such short notice?" She asked.
Christine grimaced, but came around the side of the couch to sit down next to Sarah.
"You might not believe me if I told you, actually." She said, staring down into her tea.
Sarah chuckled, "Oh you would be surprised at what I would believe." She answered jovially.
Christine regarded her with scrutiny for a few moments before leaning back against the couch cushions.
"She couldn't handle my psycho stalker ex-boyfriend, who really isn't my ex-boyfriend sneaking in and leaving nooses hanging from the ceiling when my fiancé comes to visit." She said quickly.
Sarah waited for a moment to make sure she was being serious before she burst out laughing, much to Christine's chagrin.
"Are you kidding me? I had to leave home because my step mother kept finding creepy gifts from my obsessive rejected supernatural stalker. Can you imagine me trying to explain random lingerie appearing in my room?" She snorted.
Christine looked relieved at Sarah's reaction and joined in on the laughter with her. They laughed for a few minutes trading random weird things that their stalkers had done to them, prompting even more whoops of laughter.
Christine wiped a tear from her eye that had escaped due to her shrieking in laughter, as Sarah quieted down as well. Christine looked down at the floor for a few moments before looking up at Sarah with complete seriousness.
"You do know I was being serious don't you?" She asked.
Sarah quirked an eyebrow. "So was I."
Christine cracked a smile at her new roommate.
"As strange as this coincidence may be, I repeat myself when I say that I do like this little arrangement we have very much Sarah."
Sarah grinned, a little confused but excited about having a comrade in arms and held up her mug to toast her new friend.
"To a new friendship and a new motto, stalking isn't sexy." She stated with a grin.
Christine clinked mugs with her, "Here here!" She exclaimed.
Sarah gripped one of the couch's many throw pillows to her as she sat with eyes wide and ears perked as she listened to Christine tell her the story about her "psycho ex-boyfriend who really wasn't her boyfriend" and how he had burned down an opera house in despair of her rejecting his love.
'Thank God Jareth couldn't burn anything down. It would be kinda stupid if he burned down his own freaking castle.' She thought.
"And as the vengeful mob moved into the bowels of the opera house, Raoul and I fled the Opera de Paris, leaving the Phantom of the Opera behind us…" Christine finished, taking the last sip of her tea, a far of look on her face.
"Omigodthatwassocool." Sarah said quickly.
Christine grinned, "You know they made it into a film? I'll have to show it to you sometime." She said thoughtfully.
Sarah pondered this before asking, "So was that the end of the opera ghost?"
Christine waved her away and reached down to the end table beside her and picked up a small tinder box. She opened it and pulled out a stack of envelopes; smiling and handing them to Sarah.
"Oh no, Erik and I got back in touch a few years ago. He writes to me regularly. I believe the concept of email is still a bit too advanced for Erik. He still uses parchment to write on for pete's sake."
Sarah opened the top letter to read, tuning Christine out as she rambled on about being happy that Erik survived and wondering where he may be. She raised an eyebrow as she scanned the Phantom's fluid handwriting. She would be surprised if Jareth could even write. He probably made some goblin scribe for him.
She suppressed a snort of laughter as she read over the last part of the letter and the return address on the envelope.
'I have unfortunately been forced to share my lodgings with the most insufferable git in existence. He is vain, loud, obnoxious, and I will refer to him as J. He drives me to distraction…'
Sarah looked up with her eyebrow still cocked as she waited for Christine to stop her ramblings on the well-being and location of her previous tutor.
"You know, it sounds ridiculous, but I swear that sometimes I can still hear his organ music. It was so lovely." She trailed off.
Sarah allowed the snort she had been holding in to escape, and Christine glared at her.
"What pray tell is so funny to you?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.
Sarah waved the envelope around with glee.
"You probably can hear the music. Have you not looked at the return address? It's right down stairs!" She wheezed.
Christine snatched the envelope away from the shrieking brunette and scanned the address. She slumped down in her chair with shock.
"Oh merde." She replied.
This response caused Sarah to howl even louder and Christine hit her in the head with envelope.
"Oh you are SO not funny. Do you happen to know where your stalker is currently residing? Didn't you say his name was Jareth? Could he not be the mysterious J that Erik mentions in his letters?"
Sarah ignored the fact that Jareth could very well be the Phantom's roommate, considering she probably did not want to know, and wheezed.
"I dunno, why don't we go downstairs and ask Erik?" She whooped.
"Shut up! How was I supposed to know he lived downstairs?" Christine said through clenched teeth.
Sarah had better be glad she was liked, or this would not bode well for her.
Sarah clutched her sides as she laughed. "Don't worry, if Jareth was the mysterious 'J', Erik would be complaining about how distracting his choice of pants can be to his opera writing."
Christine frowned.
"Now what has that got to do with anything?" She asked, grateful that they were starting to get away from her failure to notice that Erik was living in her apartment building. 'He is so getting yelled at later.' She thought.
Sarah breathed in; relishing the relief it gave her stomach muscles.
"Oh he either was extremely blessed, or has a steady supply of rolled up socks." Sarah replied, leaning back in her chair.
Christine laughed, and put her hands on her hips.
"Oh really? It can't have been that…well…notable Sarah. Didn't you say you were fifteen the last time you saw him face to face? Maybe you just didn't understand what you were looking at yet." Christine scoffed.
Sarah looked at her with determination and got up from her seat. She held up a single finger, signaling for Christine to wait. Christine watched her curiously as Sarah entered her bedroom. She returned moments later with a DVD in her hand.
Christine raised an eyebrow as Sarah knelt in front of the television and placed the DVD in the tray.
"Oh so you've got evidence of this said 'sock endowment?' I thought this happened in the eighties. Shouldn't you have this on VHS?" Christine teased.
Sarah looked at her over her shoulder with a glare.
"Shouldn't your film be black and white and silent?" She countered.
Christine frowned. "Please Sarah. I grew up around male ballerinas. I'm sure this is nothing spectacular."
Sarah grinned. "Don't say I didn't warn you." She replied.
"Seriously Sar. You're going to fast forward just so I can see…gah!" Christine's mouth dropped as she viewed a tall, blond, and fairly glittery male dancing and singing on the screen, with a very large…erm…focal point."
Sarah pointed at her. "HA!"
Christine stared, feeling her cheeks grow hot as she did so.
"Um…yeah…and this had a PG rating?"
"It was the eighties."
A few hours later, Sarah went back out to her car to bring in a few other items she had left in her trunk. Didn't want her chocolate stash to melt now did she? She propped the box against her hip as she leaned over to press the button for the elevator. To her delight, the door chimed and opened immediately.
"Woot for me." She said with a smile as she stepped in.
After a few moments the door began to close when she heard hurried footsteps in the hallway.
"Excuse me! Could you hold the lift please?"
Sarah raised an eyebrow as she pressed the open button on the elevator console. A British accent? She liked it already. She liked it even more as the owner of the voice entered. She couldn't see his face over the boxes he was holding, but she could tell he was lean, muscular, and had platinum blonde hair.
'Hello sunshine.' She thought to herself.
"Thank you miss. I would have hated to have climbed the stairs with all of this." He said.
'I'll open the door anytime you want if you just keeeeep talking.' She thought.
"No problem. Going up?"
"Yes please. Third floor." He replied.
Sarah pressed the corresponding button and waited for the door to close.
'Hmm, time to play get to know gorgeous.' She schemed.
"I suppose I should introduce myself. I just moved here. My name is…" She began
At the precise moment the elevator door closed and the finicky contraption lurched into motion, causing the owner of the sexy British voice and platinum hair to drop his boxes.
Sarah's heart stopped and her eyes grew wide when she saw his face.
As did his.
"S..Sarah?" Jareth asked with surprise. He grew even more surprised when she flung herself against the back of the elevator.
"HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?" She screeched.
Jareth winced and rubbed his ear.
"Ow…please do not shout in confined places Sarah. The fae have sensitive ears you know…and I live here with that pillock Erik."
Sarah shook as she stared at him. He was so infuriating, so imposing, and so damned gorgeous that '. She hadn't seen him in person in years!
"YOU LIVE HERE TOO?" Damn, she sounded really uncool when she screeched like that.
"Decibel levels sweetheart. Aahhh, so you're Christine's new roommate that Erik went up to spy on earlier. What a coincidence." He replied.
Christine noted that the boxes he was carrying before were now levitating next to him.
'Show off.' She thought.
"Coincidence? It's a freaking nightmare!"
As if God weren't already screwing with her enough…the elevator suddenly stopped and the lights went out.
"You are not seriously going to tell me that the elevator just broke down with me in here with a very gropey Goblin King." She moaned.
Even in the dark, Sarah knew he was flashing that pointy tooth, spectacular smile of his.
"Oh, don't these freakish coincidences keep piling up my dear?"
Sarah slumped to the floor. This is really, really bad. She had to fight the urge to kill him, strangle him, play tonsil hockey, or all three. This really sucked. She groaned and rubbed her eyes.
"THIS IS NOT FAIR! YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!"
Sarah cringed as she heard him chuckle.
"Wrong…" he said in a sing songy voice.
All was silent for a few moments.
"Jareth if you even think about taking advantage of this, I will take that roll of socks out and gag you with it."
"Kinky." He whispered.
"DID I ALREADY SAY THIS WAS NOT FAIR?"
Oh lord, let the fan service begin! :D Please read and review. Remember, the real praise goes to Pika and Asherhyder. I'm just fan servicing myself. ;)