Leaping Year
By WhiteInfinity21
Disclaimer: I don't own the Labyrinth
Revenge is soooo sweet, Sarah smugly thought as she watched the bane of her existence slowly go insane.
When Jareth had shown up on her windowsill a week after she had beaten his Labyrinth Sarah had been less than impressed. He was wearing an arrogant smirk, a pair of midnight blue loose silk pants that left nothing to the imagination and nothing else.
"Well fancy meeting you here," Jareth drawled.
"This is my room," Sarah deadpanned, the tone of her voice implying the obvious "duh".
"Mmmmm, so it is," Jareth noted.
"Why are you here?" Sarah demanded.
"Is it a crime for me to want to get to know my future queen?" he innocently replied.
"What? Queen? You have got to be joking!" Sarah sputtered.
"No joke Sarah dear," Jareth smoothly replied, his voice like liquid silk, "now while you did not understood what I asked you last time we met, I am going to make my intentions towards you perfectly clear."
Sarah rolled her eyes.
"I am a very stubborn and persistent man Sarah, when there is something I want, I will stop at nothing to make it mine," Jareth explained, "and what I want is you as my queen.
"Yeah right," Sarah scoffed, "get real Goblin King. I have no desire to be your queen and I want you out of my room as of yesterday."
"Were you always this sarcastic?" Jareth inquired.
"Only with thick-headed idiots who can't get a clue," Sarah snapped.
"Sarah you wound me," Jareth pouted.
Damn that bottom lip, Sarah thought as she felt some of her resolve crumble. The Goblin King was just too adorable with that pouty expression.
Woah, there will be no going there girl, Sarah chided herself, remember,evil Goblin King here. He would be more likely to kick cute puppies than want to play nice. Getting involved with this man is definitely not a good idea.
"Last chance Goblin King," Sarah warned, "get out of my house before I forcibly remove you."
"Just what kind of force are we talking about here?" Jareth suggestively asked, "I myself certainly wouldn't mind you forcing me up against a wall and letting you ravish me."
Sarah let out a screech, darted over and pushed an astonished Jareth out the window. He landed in Karen's prize-winning rose-bushed below with a loud "oof" and Sarah slammed her window shut.
"Now that certainly wasn't very nice," Jareth muttered as he gingerly extracted himself from the thorny embrace of the foliage he landed on.
The light in Sarah's room went out and he heard her door slam.
"Probably best I try my luck tomorrow," he told himself as he teleported back to his castle.
And so he did. The next day the Goblin King appeared right next to her as she was waiting for the school bus to come pick her up. Luckily she was alone at the moment or else she would have had to do some fast talking to explain away Jareth's sudden appearance.
"Get lost," Sarah hissed as she put ten feet between herself and the Goblin King.
"But I just found you," Jareth teased, drawing closer, "come on Sarah, give me the chance to properly woo you."
"Woo? Who the hell uses the term woo anymore?" Sarah snorted as she took a step back for every step the Goblin King took forward.
"Please Sarah?" Jareth pleaded.
"I have a brick in my purse," Sarah threatened.
Jareth vanished.
"I thought so," Sarah smugly gloated.
Apparently threats of bodily harm didn't deter a determine Goblin King for very long.
When she got to school and opened her locker, Sarah found a bracelet with a feather and a crystal charm hanging off of the sterling silver chain. The teen ignored the piece of jewelry, grabbed her notebook and went to her first class.
After first period she returned to her locker to exchange her notebook for her French textbook and read the note written in what appeared to come from a red grease pencil on the mirror on the door of her locker.
Doesn't my gift please you? The elegant handwriting read.
Sarah grabbed a tissue from her purse and vigorously wiped the message off the mirror before slamming the locker door shut. During the next passing period when Sarah went back to put her backpack in the locker before she headed off to PE, she found another message from the persistent Goblin King.
Wear the charm bracelet or I am going to show up at your house for dinner, the writing read.
Sarah let out a huff of exasperation. She had no doubts about Jareth going through with his threat. The last thing she wanted was for her parents to meet the Goblin King.
"Fine," she lowly muttered, "I'll wear your blasted trinket, but not until after lunch. No point in getting injuring myself by getting it snagged on something while I'm in PE."
The tiny crystal charm seemed to glow at her reluctant agreement.
I'm really beginning to hate him, Sarah darkly thought as she headed off to PE.
It wasn't until later that Sarah discovered that once put on, the bracelet really didn't like being taken off. She only managed to wrestle the thing off as she was getting ready for bed with the promise to put it on the moment she got up the next morning. And only then she was able to get the damn piece of jewelry off with the threat of taking her dad's hacksaw to it unless the bracelet let her remove it. Apparently the Goblin King's gifts were quite like the man himself, arrogant, obnoxious and bull-headed.
When Sarah woke up the next morning she wasn't surprised in the least bit to find that the bracelet was already on her left wrist again. It seemed to be quite comfy there. The brunette glared at it darkly and decided that there was nothing she could really do about it at the moment. But if the piece of jewelry kept up this clingy behavior, Sarah vowed that she would take her frustration out of the Goblin King's hide the next time she saw him.
For the next few months the Goblin King took it upon himself to grace Sarah with his presence as much as he possibly could. For the life of him he couldn't understand why she always seemed to be in a bad mood whenever he visited her. The stubborn girl certainly didn't seem to understand just how much time he was taking out of his busy schedule to regularly (as in multiple times a day) visit her. Between collecting wished away children, keeping the goblins from tearing the castle down, preventing the fireys from starting forest fires, tossing his more troublesome subjects into the Bog of Eternal Stench, and lounging in artful repose on his throne Jareth was one very busy monarch.
He always was at his most charming when he went to her and showered her with compliments and gifts. But even after all the effort he was making she still was not receptive to his attentions.
It only made him want her more.
Often she asked why he was constantly bugging her about becoming his queen. There was a reason of course, but Sarah didn't know about it yet. Besides, it was quite fun catching her unawares with some romantic gesture and watching the blush cross her face before she turned on the fireworks (he had heard about these fireworks from Sarah when she was reminiscing about a day she called the Fourth of July, Jareth had been fascinated and could not wait until the next time this Fourth of July came around so he could see these fireworks for himself).
Jareth supposed that he would have to tell her sometime that because she had beaten the Labyrinth and had declared herself the Goblin King's equal that she would have no choice but to become the Goblin Queen. Come her eighteenth birthday, willing or not, Sarah and Jareth would be wed, uniting the power of the two monarchs so that they could rule the Goblin Kingdom side by side. The Labyrinth itself would make sure of it, but Jareth figured that it would be safer to try and soften up his betrothed during the next two and a half years rather than dropping in unannounced on her eighteenth birthday and informing her of their coming nuptials that very day.
It could be worse, Jareth thought reflecting upon his lovely but fiery and defiant bride-to-be, I could be stuck having to marry the Harpy Princess of the Northern Mountain Kingdom.
Jareth shuddered at the prospect.
Yes, much better indeed, at least I already love Sarah, despite how she insists in wallowing in her denial, Jareth mused, how hard could it be to get her to fall in love with me before our big day anyway?
Very hard as it turned out. Four months had already gone by and Sarah was still showing no signs of growing feelings for the increasingly petulant Goblin King. Sure, her threats of doing bodily harm had dropped to about once daily and she now longer was pushing him out of windows or throwing things at him (much), but over the time Sarah had become an adept at extracting herself from Jareth's attempts to court her.
It was quite frustrating really.
The chase was a lot harder than he had expected, but Jareth had gained a healthy sense of respect for Sarah's quick mind and stubbornness. He really didn't even have to try to win her affection, all he had to do was to sit back for two more years and she would be his either way. But Jareth was anything but a quitter and besides, he really was enjoying slowly breaking down the barriers that Sarah had put up between the two of them. He freely admitted it: Jareth the Goblin King was addicted to his feisty bride-to-be. In fact he probably enjoyed being verbally lashed by the girl every all too much.
Goddess how he loved her.
In fact he was so in love with her that he missed all the warning signs that had been going on for the past two weeks. Sarah oftentimes getting lost in thought, a wicked smile gracing her face. The way she looked at him as if she were plotting something nasty. The quickly broken off conversations with her three traitorous friends. How she could be heard cackling softly when she thought he wasn't about. Any one of these should have raised alarm bells in the Goblin King's mind, but alas he often was too caught up in her presence or studying her profile that he somehow had managed to miss these obvious signs.
Looking at the scene in front of him now, he wished that he would have paid better attention to what Sarah had been up to.
Jareth it seemed had decided to make himself a permanent fixture in her life Sarah mused. No matter what she did to deter him (throwing sharp objects at him, threatening castration, trying to give him food poisoning by making him eat her bad cooking), he always kept on coming back for more. The man had some seriously disturbing masochistic tendencies.
Eventually Sarah grew tired of constantly threatening, screaming and throwing things at him and resigned herself to having to endure his antics. Truth be told, she actually had gotten used to his presence and had a funny feeling that she would (god forbid) miss him if he ever stopped his frequent visits. So while she had come to tolerate him Sarah was by no means developing feelings for the obnoxious, amorous, sexy and persistent Goblin King.
Wait? Did I just say that Jar- I mean the Goblin King was sexy? Not good, Sarah thought, must purge my mind of such thoughts for my sanity. The Goblin King and the word sexy does not bode well for my mental health.
Damn that annoying, hunky man for existing.
Great, I just called Jareth hunky didn't? Sarah mentally sighed, fine, I give up. The Goblin King is a good-looking man. That doesn't mean that anything is going to come of it.
Yeah, sure, her inner moppet scoffed.
Shut it, Sarah growled to her moppet.
Deny it all you want, but someone is in lurve... her moppet sang.
Sarah mentally strangled her moppet before shoving it into a soundproof closet and locking it in there.
Much better, Sarah thought, now that the moppet is taken care of, it is time to start planning my revenge on one tights-wearing, poofy-haired Goblin King.
Nothing came to her.
Sarah growled in exasperation.
She glanced over to her calender.
It was the 15th of February, the day after Valentine's Day.
Thankfully Jareth had no idea what the date signified for humans Aboveground or else she was sure that her room and locker would have been overflowing with flowers, cards, stuffed animals, chocolate and other miscellaneous Valentine's Day paraphernalia.
It was also a leap year.
An idea suddenly spawned in Sarah's fertile mind.
Leap year comes once every four years right? Sarah gleefully thought, it would be such a shame not to teach the Goblin King and his subjects about this special holiday.
And so the planning began in earnest. The first thing Sarah did was to contact her friends in the Labyrinth and to fill them into her idea. After hearing the idea Hoggle cackled, Ludo rumbled in confusion and Sir Didymous expressed his concerns on the idea on the grounds that it could be dangerous. Sarah waved off his concerns, assuring him that no one would be hurt (at least physically) by her plan and soon the four of them were brainstorming about what they would need and how they would pull the idea off.
Time flew by as the 29th rapidly approached and their preparations were going ahead of schedule. Pulling this plan off would be a piece of cake. In fact, it involved cake, lots of it. And the best part was that Jareth didn't seem to have a clue what was happening right under his nose.
"So everything is ready?" Sarah eagerly asked on February 28th.
"Quit worrying missy, everything is in place, all you need to do is to convince the royal rat to take you Underground," Hoggle reassured Sarah, excitement bleeding into his voice.
"Oh this is going to be sooooo satisfying," Sarah announced, "he has had this coming for quite sometime."
"I won't argue with you there," Hoggle agreed.
Sarah felt the atmosphere become heavy with potential, signaling the Goblin King's imminent arrival. Hoogle seemed to sense this as well as he quickly disappeared form her mirror.
"Show time," Sarah smirked.
Convincing Jareth to take her on a tour of his kingdom was all too easy. The affection-starved king practically leapt at the suggestion, immediately planning for the next day. Before Jareth got too carried away Sarah offhandedly mentioned something about wanting to spend some time visiting his goblins and Jareth hurriedly agreed to the idea, assuring her that he would make sure that his subjects would be on their best behavior tomorrow.
Less than an hour later, Jareth returned to the Labyrinth and Sarah called her friends back the moment all traces of the Goblin King vanished from her bedroom.
"He fell for it, hook, line and sinker," Sarah announced.
Hoggle laughed darkly and rubbed his hands together in anticipation, Ludo wore his normal happily bemused expression and Sir Didymus fidgeted worriedly.
Jareth showed up right at the crack of dawn in Sarah's room as they had agreed upon. Expecting the girl to still be deep in the throes of sleep, Jareth was pleasantly surprised to find Sarah awake and ready, brimming with excitement.
His heart swelled as he watched her.
"Ready to go?" Jareth asked offering her his arm.
Sarah nodded enthusiastically and looped her arm through his. Jareth practically melted at the fact that Sarah was willingly touching him. Progress at last.
With one last glance around her room, the pair vanished.
Sarah deciding that it would be less suspicious allowed Jareth to escort her around for the first half of the mourning before she started mentioning wanting to visit the Goblin King's subjects. Jareth willing to do anything to make Sarah happy immediately complied and teleported away to gather his goblins.
About fifteen minutes later he returned and took Sarah to the town square where a good chunk of the goblin population had gathered.
"Now remember what I told you, be good for Sarah and do exactly what she tells you to do or else it is the bog for the lot of you," Jareth warned.
They all nodded.
Jareth turned back to Sarah, "I'll be back in an hour and a half to take you to lunch."
And with that he vanished, leaving Sarah with a plaza full of nervous goblins.
This turned out even better than I thought it would, Sarah thought, perfect.
And then she began.
As promised, Jareth returned at 11:30 to take Sarah to the picnic that he had prepared in the most lovely spot in the entire Labyrinth. They spent the hour slowly consuming the contents of the picnic basket, chatting about inconsequential things and enjoying the lovely day. Unbeknown to Jareth, during this time, Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus were moving thirty, three by one and a half feet, gaily colored, chocolate cakes into the mess hall for the servants that lived in the castle.
At noon, sharp, the goblins started filing into the large, messy (many a food fight had taken place in these hallowed grounds), mess hall as they had been instructed by the Lady-who-ate-the-peach-and-forgot-everything-and-then-beat-the-king-in-chase-the-chicken (the goblins still had no idea what had really happened in the Room of Funny Stairs, so they made up a story of What Really Happened, currently there were exactly twenty seven versions of What Really Happened).
Then, at 12:45 when the Goblin King and the Lady were scheduled to return to to begin the tour of the castle, the goblins poured into the throne room, the copious amounts of chocolate cake that they had wolfed down for the first Leaping Year Day giving them all an incredible sugar-high.
Sure enough as the minute hand moved to the 9 o'clock position, Jareth and Sarah appeared in the throne room in a burst of glitter and wind. Apparently the pair had been involved in a heated discussion as they spent several more moments passionately defending their stances on the topic. The moment Jareth noticed the crowd of goblins surrounding him, he scowled.
"What are you miserable lot doing in h-" Jareth began.
The goblins erupted into action before the king was even able to finish his sentence. Before he knew it, goblins were flying through the air, jumping and bouncing off the walls in a manner that defied gravity. The noise they were making was tremendous and Jareth's jaw dropped open.
"STOP RIGHT NOW!!!!!!" he bellowed.
The goblins only sped up their furious leaping and aerial acrobatics.
"YOU MISERABLE BUGGERS! DESIST OR ELSE!" Jareth yelled losing his patience.
The area surrounding the Goblin King and his guest grew so thick with flying goblins that they couldn't see more than five inches beyond their noses.
Jareth was so preoccupied with trying to get his sugar-high minions to stop that he didn't notice Sarah doubled over in laughter. His voice was starting to go hoarse and tears were streaming down Sarah's face. Her plan was reaped results beyond her wildest expectations. Jareth was starting to pull his hair out and the grinding of his teeth was so loud that Sarah could hear it over the din that the celebrating goblins were producing.
Finally Jareth realized that the situation was hopeless and turned to Sarah to apologize for his goblins' unexpected behavior. He was shocked at what he saw. There was Sarah, the love of his life, sitting amongst the dirt and trash on the floor, clutching her stomach as her body heaved with her laughter, big, fat tears running down her face.
It didn't take the Goblin King long to put two and two together. He knelt down and grabbed Sarah's arm before teleporting them to the periphery of the goblin hurricane that was still going on in the throne room. Patiently he waited until he laughing fit went away and she regained her breath.
"Why Sarah? Why did you do this? Do you really hate me this much?" Jareth asked mournfully.
Sarah was totally caught off guard by the pain that Jareth was clearly expressing in his voice. Immediately Sarah was consumed by guilt, she had not meant this to happen, she didn't mean to hurt his feelings, only to make him feel the frustration that he had been causing her for the past four months.
"I'm sorry," Sarah apologized, her voice full of remorse and guilt, "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
"It's a little late for that," Jareth grit out.
"I only wanted to make you realize how frustrated you have been making me these past months," Sarah sadly explained, "it was only a meant to be a good natured prank, I swear."
Jareth remained silent, his stung pride and hurt feelings preventing him fro forgiving her yet.
"I'm so sorry," Sarah repeated, "it's just that you were coming on so strongly, I couldn't stand it. You were driving me to distraction."
Jareth silently acknowledged that he might have been pressing his suit towards Sarah a tad too strongly, but that still didn't excuse what she did. She had deliberately lead him along, giving him the impression that she was finally starting to warm up to him only to go behind his back and ruin the carefully prepared day he had planned on sharing with her.
"Jareth?" Sarah spoke, "please talk to me, I don't care if you forgive me, but you're starting to worry me."
The use of his name instead of his title for the first time brought a reluctant smile to his lips. He still wasn't ready to forgive her yet, but he figured that she had punished herself enough for the moment.
"Sarah, quit looking at the floor, it isn't all that interesting," Jareth sighed.
Sarah looked up at his face with tears in the corners of her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she sniffed, "I really didn't mean to hurt you."
"Out of curiosity, exactly did you do?" Jareth inquired.
"I told them about Leap Year," Sarah answered, glad for the change of topic, "normally the second month of the year has only twenty-eight days, but the Aboveground calendar is actually a few hours short of the actual time that it takes for the earth to make a fully rotation around the sun, so every fourth year, they put an extra day in February, making it a leap year. Or as the goblins called it, Leaping Year."
"That still doesn't explain what happened in the throne room," Jareth pointed out.
"Hoggle told me what happens when the goblins eat a lot of sugar so I provided them with thirty huge, chocolate cakes," Sarah explained, "and I told them that the goblin who could keep leaping for the longest after we returned to the castle would get a big prize."
Jareth groaned. Thanks to Sarah, his goblins had been fed enough sugar to keep them hyper for quite sometime. He was not looking forward to the next few days.
"The next three days will be absolutely intolerable thanks to you," Jareth growled, "until the sugar-high wears off, the entire city will be an absolute nightmare."
Sarah had the decency to look abashed.
"Of course since you were the one to pull off this little stunt, I think you should be responsible for doing something about it," Jareth stated, grinning inside as an idea was growing.
This whole sordid affair might just turn out very nicely if I play my cards right, Jareth mused.
Sarah looked dismayed with Jareth's declaration, "I don't think there is much I can do the stop this."
"Hmmm, I think there is," Jareth murmured, "it would take a miracle to get the goblins to stop now that they have got this riled up, the best thing to do is to beat a tactful retreat until everything settles down."
"Huh?" Sarah asked.
"I am in need of alternate housing for the next few days, " Jareth explained, "I think that you can easily provide."
Sarah groaned, she had walked right into that one.
"Fine," Sarah grumbled.
"What was that? I didn't hear you," Jareth sang.
"I said fine, you can stay with me for the next few days," Sarah bit out, displeased at being manipulated by the Goblin King so easily, "but I want you to keep out of sight of my parents, I don't want them finding you."
Jareth smiled in delight at winning so easily. Staying away from Sarah's father and step-mother would be no trouble at all since he intended to follow her around everywhere, invisible to all but her, for the entirely of his stay at Casa Williams.
"Shall we go M'Lady?" Jareth asked offering his arm.
Sarah sighed and took it, mentally preparing herself for the next few days in the constant presence of the Goblin King.
When they reappeared in Sarah's room Aboveground Jareth made himself comfortable on her bed. Sarah had to restrain herself form pushing him off.
"Happy Leaping Year Sarah," Jareth spoke in amusement at the annoyance his actions had caused Sarah.
Sarah groaned.
The end.
Well, I promised to put out the next chappie of the Moon Mad King, but I hope that this will do instead. The creativity juice has been in short supply for that story for the last few weeks. No idea really when I will finally get it out. And before anyone asks, there will be no sequel to this story.
Hope you liked it. Leave a review and tell me what you think.