So, new fandom for me here... just incase any of my watchery types were expecting more Doctor Who - don't worry, more of that next week ^^"

Um, yeah, i'm kinda nervous about writing something for Labyrinth, not just because its so goddam epic, but just because its so established with its fans - and I put an unhealthy amount of thought to reader opinion...

Longer note at the end, so for now I shall say, Laybyrinth Belongs to Jim Henson (rest his trippy soul) and Jareth I believe belongs entirly to Bowie. Robert, on the other hand, is all mine )

This fic is for Vicky - fey-of-the-forest round these parts.

Night had fallen over the Labyrinth; the night after the day the Labyrinth fell.

But the Castle was full of light.

The King kept on setting fire to things. Not real fire, illusions had always been Jareth's forte, but the flames burnt just as bright as they licked against the walls, and just as hot.

Scudder had never seen the King like this; he was imbalanced, and his magic was reflecting it. The SoLabyrinth was reflecting it, and no one knew where to go. The Goblins, the animals, the fairies and the monsters, were lost – caught between a maze that was tying itself into knots and a King who seemed set on destroying whatever stepped in front of him.

So Scudder was hanging onto Jareth's coattails, hoping that the King wouldn't set himself alight as well.

'Your majesty,' he whined, flinching as the roof began to buckle and groan under the effects of the heat, the gap between the floor and ceiling becoming smaller and smaller with each passing second, 'Your Majesty!' He practically screamed this, as the red hot stone started to run and drip towards them both. But the King's mismatched eyes stayed staring forwards, still looking somewhere else entirely, not at the flames as he stalked from the Escher hall into the open air of the throne room. The goblin official gulped in some of the extra air greedily, before starting to plead again.

'Oh silence yourself Scuba!' Scudder suddenly found himself hitting the opposite wall, Jareth's eyes finally on him; they were demented, more demented than usual.

'It's Scudder majesty,' he squeaked, desperately trying to smother the fires which had sprung up on his clothes. Jareth glare narrowed even further, and the fires on Scudder's jacket faded away, though the Goblin noted that the ones spread around the rest of the room only appeared to be getting brighter.

'Well?' the King demanded, his voice a hiss, and Scudder gulped – he'd preferred being where Jareth couldn't see him.

'You're destroying the castle sir,' he stammered, waving his small arms around to demonstrate his point, before pointing out of the window, 'and the Labyrinth is tearing itself apart!' Jareth's eyes became little more than slits, and Scudder shrank back and the King strode over to him, kicking him in the face with a heeled boot.

'That is the point!' he spat into Scudder's terrified face, resting his foot on the goblin's chest, pinning him to the baking hot floor, 'It is useless! Pointless! Unneeded! Unheeded! UNWANTED!' The room shook with the force of that last word; the whole world shook as the goblin King screamed the horrible truth into the face of a single one of his subjects.

He'd lost something. He'd lost someone. He'd lost to someone.

'This will not stand!' he finished, and every living creature in the Labyrinth held their breath as the sky turned dark and heavy, as though it could just fall down on their heads and crush them into oblivion…

But then it stopped.

'Enough,' he said, though Scudder could tell he wasn't talking to him, the weight on his chest lessening suddenly as Jareth span on his heel before collapsing into his thrown, a wave of his hand removing the fire damage from the seat as quickly as it had made it. Scudder just stayed where he was for a moment, breathing in deeply, his eyes on the flames that were slowly receding, flowing back into the small crystals that were rolling around the King's feet. The goblin picked slowly picked himself up, and nervously walked towards the throne.

'Your majesty?' he asked tentatively, but Jareth ignored him, instead concentrating on a crystal he leant forward to scoop up. 'King Jareth sir?' he asked again, and Jareth frowned, one of his eyes – the darker – swivelling to stare coldly at Scudder.

'What?' he asked, but the anger had gone, the monarch now just sounding tired, sounding old.

Scudder realised he didn't actually know what he wanted to ask.

'Are you alright your Majesty?' he asked lamely, after a moments awkward pause. Jareth shut his eyes, a frown creasing his brow.

'Do I look alright Scubert?' he asked, his voice a sigh as the crystal in his hand faded back to wherever it was he produced them from.

'Scudder sir,' Scudder corrected him again, Jareth looked at him blankly, 'I run the castle staff.' He finished hopefully, not that the King could ever remember who any of his subjects were.

'Do you now?' Jareth asked rhetorically, once again concentrating on rolling a crystal in between his fingers; the orb had reappeared when Scudder wasn't looking. 'Well I'm not alright,' he said, 'in case you hadn't noticed, someone broke into my castle and stole away my baby.'

'You did steal the baby first sire.' Scudder said, trying to be reasonable, but all he earned was a look that could kill, with magic or no.

'Are you implying that I may be at fault here?' the King asked coldly, the implication in each word very clear. Scudder quickly backwheeled.

'Of course not sir!' he stammered, his palms raised defensively, though he knew that wouldn't do him any good if Jareth started throwing fire again. 'We're goblins! Stealing babies is what we do!' he added, forcing himself to smile in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. Jareth rolled his eyes.

'Yes, we Goblins steal away the human children,' he said distastefully, 'It's all very cliché.' Scudder forced himself not to comment on Jareth referring to himself as a Goblin – the subject of what their King actually was was a very hot topic in the castle, the sort of hot topic that saw you being force-fed water from the Bog of Eternal Stench.

'But a long and honourable tradition majesty,' Scudder said, nodding his agreement, wondering what 'cliché' meant.

'But what is the point?' Jareth demanded, his eyes turning dark again, 'Why do we bother? You know what happens: they escape, they get themselves killed, fairies trick them into oubliettes, PEOPLE COME AND FETCH THEM BACK!' The King's voice reached painful levels again, the floor shaking and flames licking around his boots. Scudder fell over backwards at the outburst and quickly pushed himself away. The King was staring into the distance again, his eyes unfocused, and the temperature was on the rise again. Scudder's mind raced, trying to think of something to say in return. Finally, something occurred to him.

'What about the boy in the west tower?' he screeched, as the fire reached his feet, and the flames stopped as Jareth looked at him incredulously.

'What boy in the west tower?' he demanded.

x-x-x

Scudder fidgeted nervously as the King walked up to the door at the foot of the castle's west tower, the heavy wood strangely untouched by the flames that had scarred the rest of the corridor not twenty minutes beforehand. Jareth hadn't said a word as he'd stalked down here, the goblin following behind dutifully, his thoughts busy wondering if the King would ever remember his name if he couldn't even remember the fact that there had been a human living in the castle for nearly thirteen years now.

'Open it,' Jareth said coldly. But Scudder didn't move and the King turned to glare at him once more. 'Well?' he said, 'Open it.' Scudder shook his head reluctantly.

'I can't sir,' you locked it yourself. Jareth's eyes narrowed again, and as he reached out his fingers brushing against the woodwork, only to have the heavy frame buckle and then fall apart as his magics attacked it, ripping it to pieces as though it had never even been there. Scudder peered around Jareth from his position level with the King's knees.

This is what he saw.

A fairly large, circular room, completely filled with the most unbelievable collection of clutter the Goblin had ever laid his eyes on; odd, human things that Scudder didn't understand – boxes with pictures on them, with shining coloured strings hanging between them – each of these whirring devices connected to a large white box at the side of the room, which in turn was covered in flashing lights.

And there were cats everywhere; Scudder's skin crawled to just look at them – goblins hated cats, a hatred that was only matched by what the cats felt for them. A large tabby that had been sleeping near to the door jumped from one of the lit boxes and tried to swipe at the Goblin, only to be hit with a hard, precise blow from Jareth's boot. The feline retreated to the opposite side of the room, hissing ferociously.

There was a bed there against the rooms opposite wall, and a person lying on it – Scudder's leathery nose wrinkled at the smell, just as unpleasant as that of the cats, human...

Jareth strode over to the bed, scattering cats and human gadgets as he went, before coming to a stop and looming over the boy stretched out on the bed. The human's eyes were closed, though he wasn't asleep; his head was nodding up and down rhythmically, in time with some sort of quiet, tinny music that Scudder could barely hear sounding out of some contraption that was wrapped around the boys head – covering both of his ears.

Jareth snatched the musical hat from the boy's head, and green eyes snapped open, confused and furious.

'What the bloody hell!' The boy looked up, and the words fell short, his eyes quickly transitioning from anger to terror. 'Your Majesty,' he squeaked, bowing his head and quickly rearranging his gangly form so that he was kneeling rather than reclining.

'Bobbit,' Jareth said evenly.

'Robert, majesty,' the human boy corrected, before wincing, as though he expected a blow. But Jareth smiled, though it seemed to Scudder even more threatening than any of the flames that the King had sent his way.

'Yes, Robert – of course,' Jareth said dismissively, and the boy raised his head a fraction, frowning as he saw the King's out of place smile, 'how long has it been since I last checked on you Robert?' Jareth enquired this in a polite fashion, and the boy looked down again.

'Five years sir,' he said, and Jareth blinked.

'Far too long,' he announced, and the boy, Robert, looked up disbelievingly.

'Majesty?' he asked, the confusion clear in his voice and expression, and Jareth smiled again, and although it seemed less forced this time, it also seemed colder.

'It's been far too long dear boy,' Jareth said, in a sickeningly friendly manner, 'now come along; I have need of you.'

Um, I want to make clear, right now, that Robert (poor little oc that he is) is NOT a main character in this fic, words cannot express how wary I am of oc-centric fics and this is no exception. However, Rob is an important character in how this story progresses, and needed to be introduced early on. This does not make the fic any less about Jareth, Sarah and Toby.

This fic arose out of reading the 'Return to Labyrinth' manga recently, which I loved, however I prefer something with more Jareth on Sarah flirting and general interaction, and a chance of them actually getting together... So i'm going to be disregarding it and writing purely from the film.

Also, I have never read any Labyrinth fanfiction myself - never seem to get the time - and will apologise tearfully if I encroach on ideas others have already done, but here's hoping I don't ^^"

Hope someone is at least interested, and pretty please review - this is at least partially a silly fic, so I am totally open to exchange fanservice for reviews :P