The Labyrinth: Reversed Perspective

Savagekitty

A/N: This one shot came about after finding some awesome arts from a deviant artist who goes by Saniika. Here is one of my favorite pieces (remove the spaces) saniika. deviantart. com/ art/ Jareth- 84313755

It was from a contest for the Labyrinth Club on Deviant Art. It was asked, what if Jareth and Sarah switched places?

This story was not apart of that contest. All person mentioned in this story are mentioned or worked on Labyrinth the Movie. I own none of these people, their names, or anything else I could maybe be sued for.

Jareth stared at his typewriter willing it, with almost an obsessed quality, to write something. He needed an idea, any idea for his next book and it was almost driving him to the point of madness. Or was he already mad? He couldn't tell anymore. He kicked at the little balled up wads of paper that seemed to cluster around him like chicks to the mother hen. They had varying ranges of stories on them, but they never seemed to be the right story. He leaned back in his rolling chair, sighing and looked over his bookcases. He had seven of them crammed full of fantasy stories only. Some held little figures from his stories or from his favorite books. One shelf held awards for his writing. One shelf of the bookcase closest to him held only two books and three manuscripts for movie adaptations. He sighed again and put a hand over his eyes, his leg crossing the other and he leaned back in this fassion, tapping his leg with his free hand.

He was a 26 year old man, and in reality, had accomplished more in his life then most of his peers. He had been the youngest fantasy author in Britain to win several major awards before he was 18. The books that seemed to leer at him from their shelf, paid for his college degree (with honors) AND his sister's beauty school. His books, which were still in print after ten years, and their movies had: given him an nice allowance, his flat in London, his parent's house in Kent, and a respected reputation. He could live without the reputation. He had yet to write a new book since the last one came out eight years ago. It seemed as if his creative juices had dried up, leaving him a dry and empty shell of a man.

Jareth Williams looked at his typewriter and then pulled the sheet out of it, balling it up, and tossing it behind him. He liked using this simple machine to write because it made him feel like a real writer. He had to work to type and correct his mistakes. His laptop was used to check email from his publishers, that was about it. Jareth stood and went to what was his kitchen and made himself another cup of tea. He was waiting for the kettle when he heard the elevator start up. A new tenant to the flat upstairs?

His flat was in a popular part of London, where a lot of artists lived. He lived on the second floor of an old office building, the first floor was rented by two lesbians that were into organic art, they had a whole garden in the back lot with 'living sculptures'. The third floor was vacant. The only two ways up to his flat were the stairs, which no one used, and the service elevator. Jareth looked at it as his twin sister, Irene, rolled up the door awkwardly with one hand, her other arm around her son on her hip. She gave Jareth a look and came marching into his flat. He knew that look. He had forgotten to do something, or at least she thought he had forgotten something.

"Hello, Ire." He said as he poured himself a cup of tea, "Have a cuppa?"

"No, I will not have a cuppa, I'm late!" she said tartly, putting Toby in the crib that Jareth kept set up for his nephew. She dumped his diaper bag next to the mesh box and turned to stare daggers at her twin, "You were suppose to pick him up an hour ago!"

Jareth stirred cream into his tea calmly. She did this almost every time. She would promise to ask Jareth to watch Toby, she never would, and would come marching in to his flat or call him up, mad, "I wasn't. You never told me I was suppose to watch Toby tonight. No message, no text message, nothing." He was used to it by now, no matter how much it irked him.

She glared at him and then threw up her hands, "For the love of Pete!"

"Speaking of Pete, how is Robert?" Jareth leaned on the counter, sipping from his mug. In many ways, he and his sister were identical. They both had honey colored hair, both stylishly cut. He was her practice head for male haircuts, which he didn't mind at all. They were both tall and thin, though Irene had more curves now, since she had Toby. They both had light blue eyes, though Jareth's left eye looked brown, in grade school he had been in a fight that left it permanently dilated. They both had a good work ethic, were very loving and honest. That was where their similarities ended. Jareth was calm, thoughtful and always had his head in a book. Irene was loud, businesslike, and had the imagination of a rock. If Jareth hadn't suggest she name his nephew Toby, she would have named him Robert Jr. Robert was a little torched that his son was named after a dog, but Jareth, calmly explaining Toby was not a dog's name, but the name of a very famous character from Shakespeare. Knowing his brother-in-law would rather die then look up anything having to do with books, he would never guess his son was named after a comedic drunkard. Jareth had a laugh at this over the first year of his nephew's existence on this earth, but now the joke was over with and Toby was just Toby.

"He's pissed, that's how he is. We had these tickets lined up for months, Jare! You could have phoned to say you weren't picking him up! I waited an hour!"

"Again, dear sister, you never told me I had to watch Toby tonight. By the way, you never DO ask anymore, you just tell me I'm suppose to be watching him. And as MUCH as I love him… I'm busy."

Irene automatically looked over at his typewriter, it's snow covering of paper wads and then back at Jareth, eyebrows raised, "Yah?"

"YES!" Jareth said, a little put out, "I'm writing tonight! I've allotted this time to write and I will write, damn it!"

"DAMN!"

Jareth looked a little startled at Toby, who was standing at the playpen wall and grinning his little toothy grin, "DAMN DAMN!"

"Oh bugger," Irene muttered, "Did I mention Toby started talking?"

"Great." Jareth muttered as Toby loudly started chanting, DAMN! Over and over. His father would just LOOOOVE that.

Irene walked over to the typewriter, ignoring her son, and picked up a paper wad, opening it. She read it over and turned to Jareth, "Goblin Queen?"

Jareth sighed, "It's just an idea. I had a dream last night about a queen and I thought, I haven't written about goblins yet, lets try it."

"Oh great, my brother is writing porn now."

"It wasn't THAT kind of dream, Ire. God, you pervert."

She grinned at him and wiggled her eyebrows, "Look, will you watch Toby for me? I will owe you big-time."

"You already owe me from the last time, but I'll just add it to your tab. Go… have a good time. I'll just give him some children's Tylenol and he will sleep and I can work."

Irene gave him a dirty look, but said nothing. She didn't want to admit she did the same thing time to time in desperation. She waved at him and went back into the elevator.

"You know, you really should repaint the inside of this elevator, its creepy."

"I will not. Brain Froud painted that to look like that M. C. Escher's staircase picture called Relativity. I like it and so do Shari and Shelley. I'm just sorry Brian had to move out. I took some pictures of what he did upstairs before they repainted it to sell it."

She looked around at the black and white walls, "It's creepy." And with that, she slid the door down and went down to her car.

Jareth sighed and looked over at Toby, who was now gnawing on the edge of his playpen. Jareth blinked at Toby, went to his DVD player, popped in one of the few DVDs he bought for Toby, and went back his typewriter as Toby became entranced by 'Charlie and Lola'.

Jareth was jerked out of his writing streak when Toby started screaming. He looked around the room a little dazed. The DVD player had stopped, outside, a storm raged, and the thunder had scared Toby, who had been sleeping at the bottom of the playpen. Jareth went to him and picked him up, "Aw, it's ok, mate. Just a little thunder. Nothing to be scared of."

Toby only seemed to scream louder and louder. Sometimes Jareth had the feeling that Toby didn't really care for him, this being one of those times. Jareth walked Toby around, tried another DVD, changed him, tried to feed him, but nothing would help. Jareth could feel his creative flow draining away with even screaming cry Toby produced. This seemed to engrave Jareth's suspicions Toby didn't like his uncle.

"OK! Time for the Tylenol!"

He took Toby into his room, the only part of the flat that was enclosed, besides the bathroom. It was small, it only held his bed and a standing lamp, but it had double doors out onto a balcony that overlooked the garden. The storm rattled the doors now and lightening flashed outside. Jareth set Toby on the large double bed and drew the curtains over the doors so the flash of lightening couldn't scare Toby again. He went into the bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet and cussed. He was out of baby Tylenol. He rubbed his forehead, downed a few aspirin for himself to fight the headache the screaming kid had brought on and went back out into the bedroom. Toby was still where Jareth had laid him. He picked him up again and started to walk around, "How about a story for bedtime? Hmmm?"

Toby only cried.

"Ok, well… ok. Once upon a time… um… oh. There was a good boy. This boy was very handsome and a good writer and had many, many successful titles. But the boy had an ungrateful… um…brother. And this brother was always being mean to the boy, making him take care of the brother. What the brother didn't know was that the boy knew the Queen of the Goblins. She had fallen in love with the boy and had granted the boy certain powers. All she had to do was wish and that wish came true!"

Toby cried on.

"One day, after the boy had a very long day of writing and housework, the mean brother made the boy do something the boy hated to do and the boy got fed up! He said, I wiiish! I WISH! I wish the Goblin Queen would come and take you faaaar away! And she did and the boy was happy. The end!"

Toby kept screaming then threw up on Jareth's shirt. Jareth sighed in frustration and took Toby into the bathroom, removing his clothes, gave him a quick wash and put him in his favorite striped pajamas. He took Toby back into the bedroom and laid him down on the bed. Toby was reduced to hiccupping and making little sad moans. Jareth rolled his eyes and changed his own shirt, throwing the barf shirt into his hamper.

"Go ahead, cry yourself to sleep. This is the last time I watch you."

He could have sworn Toby gave him a dirty look. He covered the whimpering kid up with his little fuzzy blanket. Jareth rubbed his forehead, looking down at the little lump, "I knew you didn't like me, you little git. Cry all you want. I really do wish the goblins would take you away. Right now" He crossed to the door, shut off the light and went back into the living room. He was halfway across the room but stopped. Toby had become silent. Jareth turned, worried. Toby never just stop crying like that. Horrible thoughts crossed into his mind, Toby rolling off the bed, hurting his head, breaking his neck, crib death! Jareth rushed back in, his hand hitting the light switch, but it didn't come on. Jareth could see the lump Toby made under his blanket wiggle in the crack of light in the curtains.

"Toby?" He crossed into the room as he heard a giggle. It wasn't Toby's. Jareth had heard his nephew laugh millions of times. This laugh was warped and girlish. "Toby!" He grabbed the blanket and jumped back. Toby was not on the bed. Panic swam through Jareth as he thought he heard another laugh. Something moved behind him and he jerked, turning around. He jerked left, another sound. Another laugh and then another. The storm outside grew fiercer as the patio doors trembled. There was movement by the bed and then by the bathroom door.

"TOBY!" Jareth yelled as the patio doors blew open. The curtains flew back as a giant crow flew in, flying into Jareth's face. Jareth cried out and threw his arms up to protect his eyes. The flapping against his arms stopped and he lowered his arms as a shadow fell over him. His eyes widened as a woman stood in the doorway to his patio, a faint rain of glitter and crow feathers fell around her and blew in through the doorway. The storm outside was no more, thought Jareth couldn't see past the woman.

She was beautifully wild, her skin creamy peach, her dark hair long and tangled with braids and crow feathers. She didn't look any older then 22, but her eyes were endlessly deep, older then time, and piercingly dark. Her clothes were flowing around her, His eyes traveled from her high collared deconstructed cape clasped across her shoulders, a dark poet's shirt under half rotted black armor and what looked like riding pants tucked into dark boots. Around her neck and nestled between her breasts was a pendant that looked like an upside-down crescent moon with some sort of crest on it. Her gloved hands where on her hips and her head was tilted at a jaunty angle. Her body language told him exactly who and what she was. He had dreamed about her. He had written about her. His eyes widened in shock.

"You're her! You're the Goblin Queen!"

A/N 2: This is only a one shot story but if I get enough reviews for it, I could be presueded to write more for it!