Disclaimer: The following is an old Labyrinth fan fiction I wrote for a Labyrinth fan fiction group years. Labyrinth belongs to Henson. Most, if not all, of the Labyrinth fan fiction I am going to post here is at least ten years old, if not older. You will see the original dates they were written placed into these documents. These fan fictions predate the canon of Return to Labyrinth.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Glitter: The worst visitation: (Part 1 of 2)
From:
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 19:55:46 EST
Glitter: The worst visitation:
The year 1971:
The barn owl swooped down low in the clear, starry night sky
once he saw the building.
He only chose to pay this particular little visitation because
he was curious. Jareth, The Goblin King, had heard the rumours that a mortal
had been born and lived with the same exact physical features as himself.
Being a narcissist by nature, how could he possibly resist seeing
this creature for himself?
Jareth appeared before the young man in a burst of glittering
light. As the sparkles and sparklets settled around him he stared in wonder
at the young man. He was yet in his early to mid twenties, nearly ten years
younger, it seemed, then Jareth but other then his youth, which would surely
fade in time, the lad did in fact look a great deal like Jareth.
David Bowie stared at The Goblin King in baffled wonder. Was this an
effect of the drugs? Who or what was this thing? Well, who or whatever it
was, he was a handsome bloke, he would give him that much credit. David
fancied that he would rather enjoy bedding this older man. His narcissistic
lusts pulled him.
David's hair was shoulder length, an odd strawberry blond, and
very curly as it hung over his shoulders. His eyes were rather like Jareth's
in that they were slightly mismatched, the left pupil being larger then the
right, his eyes a beautiful shade of blue, exactly like Jareth's eyes. His
features were somewhat androgynous but not at all unattractive. There was a
strangely sexless sexuality to him, something beautiful which was neither
feminine or masculine. His features were delicate, and rather cat-like, much
like Jareth's features. He stood about five foot, ten inches tall, which
was Jareth's height as well though with Jareth's healed, leather boots he
seemed a bit taller then the young man. And of course with Jareth's thick,
shoulder length, feathered and spiked blond hair, this also added to his
illusion of seemingly being taller then the young musician.
David Bowie was painfully thin, perhaps a little more then
ninety pounds, maybe. Jareth out weighed him by about fourty pounds, though
they both were quite slender, nevertheless.
David Bowie stood in his brightly coloured, hippiesque clothes.
On the bed behind him a woman with blond hair lay soundly sleeping.
Jareth might have found this woman attractive on a
self-loving, narcissistic level, for the woman looked rather like himself,
only female, but strangely he did not find her attractive. There was
something disturbing about her, the way she smelt of alcohol and stale
cigarette smoke, the way she looked more like a boy then the boy, and the way
her features seemed to mock his own expression of smug, self-satisfaction.
"Hello, David." Jareth said with a Cheshire cat-like grin.
David took a cautious step backward. "What in the world?
Who.... Who are you?"
Jareth folded his arms and for a split moment looked hurt, and
offended. "Don't you know?"
The young man shook his head.
Jareth bowed slightly. "I am Jareth, The Goblin King."
David felt an urge to return the bow for some reason and as
he did he saw clearly the glittering sparkles and sparklets on the floor that
had settled around Jareth's feet upon his sudden appearance there before him.
If he were not high, David Bowie might have been frightened by
Jareth, The Goblin King's appearance there, and would have given a more
fitting, stunned and confused reaction. But the drugs in his system made him
more fascinated and curious then he could possibly be afraid.
"What's that?" David asked curiously as he pointed down at the
glittering dust-like substance on the ground around Jareth's feet.
Jareth had not expected such a question. His expression went blank
and he looked down at the glittering sparkles and sparklets of magical dust
around his feet, the substance that always proceeded his appearing before a
mortal on Earth.
"Oh, that." Jareth chuckled slightly. "Just think of it as
nothing more then mere stardust."
"Stardust?" David Bowie repeated it under his breath.
"Stardust...." He mused. He seemed to like that word very much for some
reason or another.
Something that Jareth could only vaguely recognize as music
was playing on a record player in the room and yet it did not appear to
disturb the sleeping woman. Perhaps she was pissed?
"What is that dreadful racket that you are listening to there,
David?" Jareth asked as he made a disgusted face.
"Oh, that's just a few tracks of Iggy Pop. I rather like his
stuff, I think it's cool."
"Would you mind shutting that Ziggy-"
David interrupted him, correcting him. "Iggy."
"Yes, well, whatever. Ziggy sounds better anyway. Would
you shut that off. I wished to speak with you."
David blinked his eyes at him, as if he had only heard part
of what he had said. Then he shook his head, coming out of his little
self-induced trance and moved the arm of the record player. There was a small
noise as the music abruptly stopped. As he moved the arm of the record player
to his left there was a clicking noise as the turntable stopped spinning and
the long play, vinyl record came to a halt.
David looked down at it sadly. He did not like taking orders,
especially about music. And he did not like the sudden silence. He had
liked the background noise. And he thought that Iggy Pop was cool and the
music had been groovy in adding atmosphere to the room. But in his mind he
repeated the name Ziggy to himself. And the more he did so, the more it
really did sound better to him.
The woman in the bed moaned gently and turned in her sleep. As
she did, Jareth realized that there was another woman in the bed beside her,
a smaller creature, whom had been hidden by the blond haired woman's body.
On the side of the bed, a rather hairy and masculine looking leg was sticking
out and Jareth blinked his eyes, realizing that the woman, David Bowie's
wife, was in bed with another woman and there was an unconscious man on the
floor, on the other side of the bed.
The more often, it seemed, that he, Jareth, The Goblin King, came
to Earth, the stranger, and more liberal the modern, human sense of
sensuality seemed to become to Jareth. But for all it's strangeness, the
sense of sexual liberation and restriction-less love there, and the lack of
social conformity appealed to Jareth somehow.
David Bowie looked back at the cloaked figure of The Goblin King.
He had almost thought that this strange being would disappear but he had not
disappeared.
"Where exactly did you come from, man? How did you get in
here?" David asked.
Jareth turned just slightly and pointed behind himself, out
the opened window, towards the starry night sky. "I flew."
David looked enthralled. "Ya mean you came from the
stars?"
Jareth did not feel like explaining in detail of his magick
and of The Underground to this half-out-of-it, hippie. "You could say that,
more or less. Yes."
"Woah! That is like so, way, wicked cool! You're like a
real Starman!"
"David?" Jareth asked with an exasperated sigh.
"Yeah, dad?"
"What are you going to do with yourself?"
David looked boggled. "What do ya mean, what am I gonna
do with myself? I'm a rock musician, an artist and-"
"I mean, this life style of yours may all be well and good for now but what
are you going to do with yourself in say.... Oh, I don't know. Five years
when all this comes to an end?"
"In five years? Well, that's easy." David smiled. "I'm gonna
start a revolution. My revolution's gonna be a sexual one, ya know. It'll
be big! You'll see! I just gotta figure out how I'm gonna stand out, ya
know. It has ta be something different if I wanna sustain myself as a pop
idol. I can't live on Space oddity's success forever, man. I ain't no one
hit wonder. You'll see. I'm gonna rule the world! It'll be groovy!"
Jareth smiled at him patronizingly. "We'll see about that,
David. We'll see." He gestured towards the woman in the bed whom, in her
sleep had embraced the other woman, her hand resting upon the other woman's
small chest. "Is that your wife over there I see, David?" Jareth raised an
eyebrow. "Your wife shags other women?"
"An' boys. Course I do too. Sometimes we take a lover an' take
turns. I'm bisexual. I like boys and I like girls. And since my wife feels
fairly much the same about such things I think we've made a fairly decent go
of married life so far, wouldn't ya say?"
"And what of faithfulness?"
"What of it?" David shrugged. "I believe in free love and so
does Angie."
"Yes, but if you were truly in love with her and she with you,
you wouldn't need or fancy shagging any of these others."
"Well, love is careless in it's choosing. Sweeping over,
cross some baby. Love descends on those defenseless. Idiot love would spark
the fusion. Inspirations have I none, just a touch of the flaming dove..."
David was not even really looking at Jareth any longer. His eyes had glazed
over, and looked like things made of glass, like marbles in his eye sockets.
"David, try and lay off the drugs." Jareth said, slightly
irritated. "You're rambling." Jareth felt humiliated that the two of them
looked so similar and this boy was so... so... peculiar. Of course Jareth
himself was an eccentric but this David Bowie seemed to him a perfect idiot.
David snapped out of it. "Woah... Sorry 'bout that, mate. I don't
know what came over me like that."
"David, I asked, are you in love with your wife?"
"All I have is my love of love, a love that's not loving."
"I'll take that as a no, then."
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Glitter: The worst visitation: (Part 2 of 2)
From:
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 19:56:23 EST
David stepped up to Jareth and reached out, touching his
clothes. "Am I dreaming this?"
Jareth shook his head. "With all the drugs that you are on and
your eccentricities, I imagine that you are often freaking out in a moonage
daydream of rocket ships, alien beings, distopian, George Orwell style,
futures but no. You are not dreaming this, David."
David was staring off in to space again.
"Damn it, David! I knew I should not have paid you this
visitation after you were up all night partying. Try and stay focussed!"
Jareth roughly grabbed his bony shoulders had shook David
hard. His curly blond hair fell in to his face.
"I'm tryin' man, but it ain't easy." David said as he pulled
himself away from Jareth.
"I'm surprised no one stares at that make up on yer face there,
Jarrry." David said. "But it ain't bad. I sorta like it. I think it's
kinda cool seein' a fella like yerself, all tarted up. Ya know, yous could
be a rock star ifin you is willin' a give it a go, that is."
"No, thank you." Jareth said in a condescending tone. "I
haven't the need to take to the stage."
David shrugged his shoulders. "Well, all right then. But it's
a shame really. Ya have the look for it, ya know. Ya could really be a super
star. And I just love yer taste in clothes and make-up. It's so way Cool.
The glitter's a far out touch!" He frowned. "I wish I'd a thought of it."
"Well, why not?"
David's eyes widened and became bright and cheerful. "Ya
mean I can use it? I can take yer glamourous style and make it me own?"
Jareth chuckled. "I don't see why not."
"I can make a transformation as a rock 'n roll star. It's so inviting. It's
so inciting to play the part! I can make a wild mutation as a rock 'n roll
star!" David raised his arms high in the air and turned on the heals of his
shoes, spinning around once. He was clearly excited as he was swept with a
"brilliant" idea.
Jareth groaned and placed a slender gloved hand to his head,
placing his index and middle finger to his temples. The lad might have had
his physical appearance but he most certainly did not possess his mind.
David stopped spinning abruptly and grabbed Jareth's hand,
leading him from the mess of a bedroom and out in to the hall. "Come on! Ya
know we really got a good thin' going!"
Jareth followed him, reluctantly.
Jareth looked around the hall as David shut the bed room door
behind him as he and Jareth now stood alone, away from the sleeping people in
the bed room.
Jareth looked around the clutter of the hall, boxes filled with science
fiction novels, comic books, papers with half finished song lyrics, an
acoustic guitar, and clothing lay strewn about.
"Not much for house keeping are you, David?" Jareth asked.
Then Jareth looked at the wall. "Ugh!"
An unusually large, hairy spider was building it's web. "Even
your infestations aren't normal! That thing doesn't even look as if it's
from this planet!" Jareth said as he pointed towards the spider.
"Whata ya think it is, a spider from Mars or somethin'?"
"As I am growing to know you, David, I would not be surprised."
Again strange inspirations were provoked within David's
demented young mind.
Then David's happy mood fled, once he realized that he had
been insulted by this "Goblin King". "Don't be unkind. Go away!"
"Not just yet, David." Jareth said as he looked around the
cluttered hallway. He kneeled down and picked up an LP, cardboard sleeve.
On the front of the record sleeve was a picture of David Bowie wearing a
dress.
"Just what the bloody Hell is this?" Jareth asked as he handed
it over to David
"Oh, that's the new record I've just cut. Ain't it cool?
Angie picked the dress."
"David, your own mother's probably not even sure if you're a
boy or a girl!"
David laughed. "Well, I ain't never seen no need for sexual
standards of gender placement anyway. This is a suffragette time, ya know."
He placed the record on to the surface of a narrow table top..
"David, try not to talk, the more you speak the less sense you
make. You're unnatural, that's what you are. What are you? Everything
negative that was forgotten in my creation dropped down on to Earth?"
"You're religiously unkind! You're too unfair!" David argued.
"And what the Hell is that supposed to mean, you senseless
wonder?!"
Forgetting what Jareth was saying David stared at Jareth,
finding himself physically attracted to him. Could he possibly be blamed?
The man looked so much like himself that it was uncanny. And God, he was
beautiful!
"Ya know," David said "let's let by gones be by gones. I'm
sorry 'bout upsettin' ya. I didn't mean ta. It's just I ain't never met no
one as pretty as you before."
Jareth smirked. Perhaps he had misjudged the lad.
David stepped up to him, he reached up to Jareth's cheek.
Jareth shut his eyes as David's fingernails scraped against his
cheek. "Oh, you pretty thing, let's spend the night together, darlin'. Come
on, I ain't gonna hurt ya, none. Touch me. I'll be a rock 'n roll bitch for
ya. I'll be your king volcano for you again and again. Ya look like you'd
fancy a good rogerin'."
Abruptly Jareth grabbed his hand and pulled it away from his
cheek. "Well, though you're an absolute imbecile you are a handsome young
man, David. And though your offer might appeal to me I'd rather not."
"Why not?' David pouted. "Ya know I could give you sweet head."
Jareth shook his head. "No. It would be far too much like making
love to myself. And there is already talk of my narcissistic nature, ego and
arrogance."
"Well, why not make love with your ego?"
Jareth chuckled. "Why not, in deed. I'm sorry, David but my
answer is still no."
David turned away from him dejected. "Oh, bugger off!"
"Oh, Davey, don't be that way. Come now, turn around, and
let's talk about this." Jareth was not one to leave anyone disappointed who
was sexually attracted to him."
"Why, so I can turn myself to face 'me'?"
"I am NOT you!"
"But I'm gonna look like ya eventually, ain't I, Jay?" David
turned around. "Ain't I? Time may change me but you can't trace time.
Strange fascinations are fascinating me. Changes are taking the phase I'm
going through."
"Yes, yes, David. Time shall change you, and eventually, in fifteen
years or so you shall look like me, I imagine. But I shall be this age
forever, where as you shall grow old and eventually die and that is what
divides you and I so. Pretty soon now you're going to get older."
David looked angered and a secret fear of growing old began to build
within him. He was envious of Jareth suddenly. Jareth had such fantastic,
and beautifully eccentric tastes in fashion, clothing, and style. Jareth had
magical abilities. He was a king. He really did rule a world. And he was
immortal.
And in this envy, discontentment and finally bitter hatred began
to grow within David at the realization of it all. He felt like a second
rate shadow imitation of this powerful being that would eventually fade away.
"I hate you!" He cried. Tears were welling in his eyes. "I hate you! I
hate you! Damn you, Jareth! F-k you! Damn you to Hell!"
David lunged at Jareth, trying to claw at him with his
fingernails. Jareth grabbed his wrists, stopping him before he could reach
him. Feeling helpless, David began to weep.
"I hate you." Jareth said simply. David looked up at him with
the tears still streaming down his pale cheeks.
Jareth continued. "I hate that you are so free to love and do
what you will. I hate that you shall effect the mortal world and they shall
never forget you where time and time again I am nearly all but entirely
forgotten. And who can bear to be forgotten? I may live forever, David, but
never to really be known or remembered by this world but in a few obscure
fantasies and repressed dreams. You on the other hand, I hate you. If you
succeed in your little game of fame and fashion with your exploitations of
sound and vision, you shall be immortal in that you'll live on in a future
legend and their minds and hearts forever." Jareth's expression was of
exquisite anger and frustration.
"I'm going to look back on this in anger for the rest of my life!"
Jareth shoved him backward.
David stumbled as he was shoved and nearly lost his footing, he
had to reach out and grab the wall to keep from falling.
He stared at Jareth for a long moment. "I can tell right
now." He said solemnly. "With your long blond hair and your eyes of blue,
the only thing I'm ever going to get from this encounter with you is sorrow."
"You and I both!" Jareth growled through his nearly fang-like
teeth. "This was my greatest mistake, coming here!"
Jareth turned.
"Wait!" David cried. He ran up behind him and grabbed the back
of Jareth's cape. "Where are you going, back to the stars?"
Jareth smiled slightly. There was such a strange innocence to
David that kept shining through at the oddest of moments and though he envied
him and hated him, how could he not love him? "You could say that."
"Do you forgive me?" David asked. "I'm sorry. Really. I
just... I...."
Jareth placed a finger to David's lip. "Shhh.... I'm
sorry that I made you think of your death. You're mortal and you are afraid
of such things and that was cruel of me. And I can be cruel. But don't
think about the passing of time, David. Don't let it haunt you now in your
youth. It'll catch up with you soon enough as it is."
David nodded as Jareth retracted his hand..
"It is usually about this time as I depart that I offer the mortal
that I have visited their dreams, but I have a feeling that you shall find
those dreams well enough on your own, David."
Jareth held out his hand and a crystal orb appeared, a perfect,
transparent sphere in his hands. He handed this over to David.
David did not even really seem to notice as Jareth vanished from
sight for he was too distracted. As he gazed in to the crystal orb he saw
his strange fantasizes. There was a city in chaos. There were strange dogs
rampaging through the streets. And there was a man, a strange, glittery,
androgynous man, an alien from Mars, with fiery red hair, wearing clothing as
strange and as flamboyant as that of The Goblin King. And there was music
and glitter....
David's eyes shifted from the images within the crystal orb. On
the ground lay a pile of glittering dust. Placing down the crystal ball on
to a shelf David kneeled down before the pile of glittering dust, and
carefully scooped some of it in to his slender pale hands, which were
trembling slightly, though he did not really fully understand why this was
so. It as almost as if, as he looked down at that glitter, he could feel
that something big was about to begin...
-------------
About eight months later:
The slender man with the fiery red hair swayed his hips as he
took the microphone in hand. His trousers were wide bell-bottoms that were
tight at the crotch, with a built-in enhancement to make a certain masculine
endowment seem larger. At the edges of his eyes and upon his cheeks one
could easily see the glittering sparkles. He wore a bit of blue eye shadow
and rouge on his pale cheeks.
Around his neck he wore a black kerchief with white polka dots.
His shirt had a wide, triangular collar which exposed part of his hairless
chest The shirt was glittery and the sleeves were tight and cut a bit too
small, ending just past his bony elbows. He wore bright red platformed
shoes. And his trousers were a pastel blue. His hair was thick, somewhat
short, and a very unnatural shade of red.
David Bowie smiled to his audience. As he sang the final verse to
Hang on to yourself.
" Come on, come on,
You really got a good thing going
Come on, come on,
If you think we're gonna make it
You better hang on to yourself
Come on, come on,
Come on, come on,
Come on, come on,
Come on, come on,
Come on...."
As the crowd cheered, their screams filling the entire
theatre David Bowie raised his arms up high.
"I am Ziggy Stardust, and this is my band, The Spiders from Mars!"
The loud shrieks and cheers seemed to increase.
"Ziggy played guitar,
Jammin' good were weird and gilly,
The Spiders from Mars..."
And Jareth never forgave himself for what
he had accidentally started that night.
The End.
