Christmas in the Underground

Jareth sighed as yet another brick went narrowly flying past his head. The air in the throne room was thick with chickens and joyous goblish glee. The goblins hit the eggnog hard every year, with the results increasingly disastrous. A turkey leg went hurtling across the room as a a group of smaller goblins tried to encourage their Bellysnorts to race with the disastrous consequence of upturned tables and other furniture. And a fine vantage point Jareth had too, sprawled across his chair, head resting in his palm as he tried vainly to spot the redeeming feature of this thing called “Christmas”

He knew the chaos would only thicken, when later, as usual, the goblins would go on a drunken baby raid, snatching every infant in sight in an attempt to provide each other with gifts come morning. It always resulted in him running damage control, getting up once the last wrinkled mass of flesh had passed out from under the weight of drink and false bravado, unwrapping the poor little kiddies, who had been illegally snatched, and returning them to their beds before anyone noticed their absence. He knew that when children woke thinking they had dreamt of sugarplums dancing that it was really drunken goblins cavorting.

At first he had attempted to maintain order, but that just resorted in a bunch of goblins skinny dipping in the Bog of Eternal Stench, which might have just solved the mystery of exactly where the stench came from. He had never really thought about it, but it was at its least fragrant just before the annual Christmas party. It made sense I suppose. After the first few threats of being dunked in the bog, the liquored up muppets had just thrown off their rags and hurtled in. Even now those self same goblins could not be persuaded to re-don their clothing, and were dripping noxious smelling ooze, that Jareth hoped originated from the bog anyway, all over the place.

One goblin succeeded in catching a chicken, flying it straight into Jareth’s carefully arranged hair, sending him over the precipice of his deceptively calm state.
“That’s it!” He growled, disappearing in a puff of entirely heterosexual sparkles, but not soon enough to avoid the tureen of gravy that was poured over his head amidst the evil giggles.
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Sarah had had an exhausting evening. Her office party had been held in a dark little room, where the sexist broom handles she worked with constantly making off colour jokes and looking down her cleavage. If one more person had tried it on with mistletoe she was gonna…
A loud thunder crash startled her out of her violent thoughts. Which was particularly odd considering there were no clouds of any description, anywhere in sight. Casting a curious glance into her living room, she was taken aback to see a rather disheveled Jareth, clothes mussed up, feathers in his hair (not the good kind) and what appeared to be gravy dripping from his ears.
“Jareth? What are you doing here? I did not wish anyone way, you have no right!” His eyes were two burning coals as he glared across the room at her through the memory of the perfect hair do.
“Ah…You have no power over me?” She tried one more time to get him to say or do anything.
He sighed wearily. “Crashing on your couch.” His clipped tones made the words almost unintelligible
To say Sarah was startled would perhaps be an understatement, but judging from the fast congealing gravy he wasn’t having a good night. Tired of waiting for a reaction Jareth turned and stalked into the lounge area.

Sarah, torn with nothing to say, blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Would you like a shower first?”

Meanwhile back in the throne room, the sweet little goblins were tucked in their beds, with sugarplum fancies all a dance in their heads.