A/N: I don't really have much explanation for this. It's been years since I wrote in this fandom, and even then it was a Phantom of the Opera crossover. And I haven't seen this movie in months. But all of a sudden I got a hankering to write a little Sarah/Jareth. This is placed five years on from the movie.
Thirteen Hours, By The Clock
This is really what she wanted all along.
Jareth stands with head unbowed, eyeing her delicately as though the weight of his gaze could well prove to be too much for her. He probably believes it, too. Even after all this, even after she won, even after she grew up and stopped wishing, he still thinks he's lord and master. King and conqueror. Prince and thief and reigning hand.
Well.
"Your turn," she says, folding her arms.
"Someone's been telling you stories, Sarah," Jareth tells her, his face still turned slightly away as he eyes her askance. His voice is the same as it was five years ago, full of curiously stressed syllables, as though the words are widely-spaced stepping stones across the stream of conversation and, long-legged as he is, he has to leap. Someone's been telling you stories, Sarah.
"No," she says, frankly. "I told them myself. I'm not wrong about this kind of thing. Not anymore."
He veils his eyes briefly with hovering lashes, and she sees his teeth.
"I see," he says, "that your confidence has grown since last we met. All out of proportion to actual ability, I might add."
Sarah shrugs.
"Doesn't matter, does it? This is just a dream. You're not really here."
His eyebrows arch. "Oh?"
"Five years to the day since I won," she says, gleefully rubbing it in. "Victory, as they say, was mine. I'm better now than I was then, too. Sixteen years old, and even then you couldn't control me. No power. To your great surprise, I even realized it. Well, I didn't ask for you this time, Jareth. Therefore, you're not really here. Therefore, this is a dream."
"You can ask in ways other than words, Sarah," says Jareth, and though she's expecting him to be downright peevish about this, he looks sad rather than angry. But she shakes her head at him.
"No. Not this time. It's a dream, that's all. It's a dream, and I'm still the one with the power. Which is why we've changed places, Jareth. You're standing there empty handed, and I—"
She was wearing black gloves, like an executioner, keeping her hands from getting dirty. She looks down at them for a moment, then back up at him, somewhat staggered but trying to keep it from showing. He's eagle-eyed, though. He sees.
"Are you certain this is what you want, Sarah?"
She doesn't answer, but rubs the black gloves together lightly, feeling the roughness between her palms.
"Because," Jareth continues, not wheedling but speaking loftily, as though he's bestowing a favor on her, "we could quite easily go back to the way things were."
At this she drops her hands and directs her attention back to him. "No," she says, fiercely. "It won't be like that again. Things are different now, Jareth. The Labyrinth is before you, and I'll be waiting in the castle at the center, with something you want."
"We haven't much time," he says softly, and he sounds pained.
She points, and in the air the clock hands hover, the numbers appear, the seconds tick by. "Thirteen hours, by the clock."
He puts his hands on his hips, throws his shoulders back, lifts his head. "And suppose I just surrender."
She thinks about his, and manages a smile. A slight, tentative curve of her lips, more of a secret than anything. "I didn't offer you the option. Did I?"
"Vengeance, then, Sarah? Is that what this is?"
"Go on," she says, softly, and waves a hand towards the mossy walls, the bricks of sullen gold. "Amuse me. Try."
"You already won. You said so yourself."
"Not enough," and she shakes her head. Folds her arms again and stares at him defiantly. The black leather on her hands is soft and definite, unyielding. Molds her into something she's never been before.
Jareth turns toward the Labyrinth, which presents a face forbidding and ancient to him. As though he means nothing to it. As though he's never been the King after all. "You precious thing," he says, and it's unclear whether he's talking to Sarah or the great maze itself. "You starve and near exhaust me. Are you quite sure this is a dream, Sarah?"
She checks to see that the clock is ticking.
"Oh, yes," she says. "It is. I know. Go on."
"And will you be waiting for me, in the castle at the center of the Labyrinth?"
"I already said I would be, didn't I?"
He turns his glowing gaze on her. He's angry with her, he misses his power abjectly, he resents her rulership. She's the Goblin King, now. He's nothing but a traveler.
But his words surprise her.
"Something I want," he says. Then moves towards the blank wall of the maze, reaches for the lever that will set the doors to rumbling open. Everything here is precise, balanced. He will have to tread carefully, through dangers untold, through hardships unnumbered.
She knows every one of them.
Jareth pauses, before he enters.
"Don't watch," he says.
You can ask in other ways than words, Sarah. And maybe she did. And maybe this isn't a dream. She'll wake up from it, all the same.
She hefts the weight of the scrying glass in her black-covered hand. She'll watch if she wants. She'll wait if she wants. She has the power.
This is really what she wanted, all along.