Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth, I only take Jareth out of his tights and-whoops! But I certainly don't claim anything, and I don't make any money off of it, so please don't sue me. I also don't own USF, thanks be to God.

A/N: Shameless review whore, remember? Virtual milk and cookies to everyone who reviews.

Chapter Two: Sunshine and Shadows

"No wonder you look so pale. You always eat indoors."

Startled, Sarah looked up from her meal and books, finding Professor FitzRoy standing above her. She had gotten to know him sufficiently over the past two weeks to be aware that his scowl was teasing more than anything else. "Then what do you propose, sir?"

"Come with me," he ordered.

"I'm sorry?"

"Come with me." He frowned down at her and waggled his hand impatiently, reminding her of Professor Peables. "Come! Gather your things and come."

Bemused, Sarah nonetheless rose to her feet and smoothed the lid over her salad. He took her books for her, leaving her to carry only her bag and food. She followed him outside, squinting at the bright sunlight. Even after a year of college in the sunshine state, she who had grown up with turning leaves and crisp winds was still rather unused the summer variation on autumn. He led her out to what was generally known as the Green, a broad expanse of well-kept grass split occasionally by sidewalks leading to other sections of the sprawling campus.

"Sit," he commanded, sinking down into the soft grass.

She obeyed with a grin. "Yes, sir."

"Sarah, am I your professor?"

"No, sir."

"Are you in any of my classes?"

"No, sir." Her smile only grew, knowing where this was leading.

"Then will you please call me Jareth?"

"Yes, sir."

"Say it: Jar-eth." He might have continued, but her delighted laughter was ringing out unreservedly, and he found that he really didn't want it to stop. Leaning back on his elbows, he calmly sipped a smoothie while he while he watched her bring herself back together, wiping tears from dancing eyes.

The thing was, he knew she wasn't just being obstinately polite. Though not raised in the south, she'd acquired some of its mannerisms, including the somewhat annoying courtesy of calling everyone 'sir' of 'ma'am'.

"So," he began after a time. "I was re-reading that piece on Hogwart-"

"Hoggle," she corrected with a snicker.

He made a face, but conceded to the point. "Hoggle, then. At any rate, I noticed you referred to 'vicious, nasty faeries'. I thought that was quite an odd view."

"They bite," he replied, rubbing her thumb reminiscently over the tiny white scar on her forefinger "And they can be frightfully stupid."

"Most consider faeries to very beautiful."

"They are, really." She rummaged in her bag for her rather thick binder for her writing materials. She had several dividers in it, with one section keeping its pages in plastic protectors. "Here we are."

He shifted closer to her to better see the pages, his right arm coming across her back as he braced the hand against the ground. She stiffened reflexively, but relaxed when nothing else occurred. Smiling thinly, Jareth ran a finger over the open page in her lap. Captured simply in pencil, delicate faeries stared out from the paper, impish eyes full of mischief and curiosity. Turning the pages, he found a wide variety of the creatures depicted, with wings ranging from thinly veined dragonflies to wide colorful butterflies to delicate long feathers. Their clothing and expression were equally broad ranging, and some few of them had names and histories written in precise script beside their image.

He smiled fondly at one labeled 'Snowfall', an ice faerie clad in diaphanous silk and crystal. It did not so much hide her perfectly formed body as flaunt it, and her face showed both sensual smoldering and resentful petulance. Beneath her name, a few aspects of her personality were written in precise script, along with 'King's Mistress, 3 years', which had been underlined. "How can this be?" he asked. "Your story had the king as more or less a man, yet your faeries seem quite tiny."

Sarah shook her head, brushing her dark brown hair out of her face. "Snowfall had polluted blood, and wasn't pure far. One of her ancestors was a Shifter, and it gave her the ability to change her size. She hated being human-sized, because it made her wings very awkward and rather useless, but she would do it to please the king."

"You speak of her with such authority," he mused, his nail tracing a path along the image's cheek.

"I've written a few stories about her, so I've gotten to know her very well. She was interesting."

"I think if I were not friends with other writers, I should worry about your sanity," he noted lightly. "You speak of them as if they're real people."

"Maybe they are," she shrugged, comfortable enough to skirt the edges of what she thought was honesty. "I don't pretend to know all that goes on in the world; perhaps they truly exist somewhere. I just write my memories."

"Memories?"

"Memories of dreams," she amended, backpedaling at his sharp look. "I've obviously never met Snowfall, but her story weaves through my mind at night. If a person exists only in dreams, don't they still exist?"

"You will have to ask the School of Philosophy for that," he answered with a laugh. "You are an unusual person, Sarah Williams, that sees faeries as vicious."

"They are what they are. Humans can claim nothing greater, after all."

Lying back on the grass, Jareth reached into his lunch sack and tossed a piece of fruit to her. "Here, have a peach."

She dropped it quickly, glancing at him apologetically. "Um, thank you, but no. I'm not fond of peaches."

"No?"

"I had a bad experience with one," she replied blandly. She picked it up gingerly and cradled the fuzzy sphere in the palm of her hands. "Haven't eaten one since."

He took the peach back from her and bit into it, grimacing. He spat it back into the bag, glowering at the dark spot of corruption within the flesh. "Things aren't always as they seem," he sighed, feeling her flinch beside him. "That was a beautiful fruit."

She stared at him with wide eyes, her hands trembling finely.

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Prince of the Land of Stench

Sarah Williams

He didn't have any friends.

He used to-how did it go? Once upon a time? He thought that was a rather silly phrase; after all, some things have been known to happen more than once. But, be that as it may, there had been a time spanning many years wherein he had had friends, and that time was no longer.

It hadn't even been one by one that he'd lost them. No, he got in one little accident, and suddenly everyone was fighting to be the furthest from him. Shifting resignedly on his rocky perch, he reflected yet again that he really couldn't blame them. In fact, he would have done the same thing himself.

You see, Eetchy Stickyfingers of the Dark Morning clan had made on misstep so grave, so life-altering, that no sensible person would now associate with him. It was such a small thing, really; the thin sole of a leather sandal he'd been meaning to replace had slipped on a damp rock and sent him reeling back, arms grasping wildly at the air but unable to break his fall.

Right into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

Now, Eetchy Stickfingers, who had once made a very good living at sneaking into people's homes and stealing their valuables, was cursed with an endless, titanic reek that could never be washed away or masked. It was an interesting thing, to his mind, that owning the stench in your own body in no way accustomed one to the odor all around. He had been almost a dozen years in the Bog, and yet he was every minute repulsed by the foul, disgusting smell that assaulted his delicate nostrils.

Eetchy was a crossbreed, as so many denizens of the Goblin Court were. His mother had been a will o' the wisp, raped by a Dark Morning goblin in one of the interminable goblin wars against the Seelie Court. He'd had a lot of time alone to think on things he ordinarily would never have pondered, and he had come to the conclusion that when goblins were allowed to war against the neighbors, they were less likely to cause trouble to their sidhe monarchs, thus the hereditary rulers encouraged the wars as frequently as possible. As soon as he was born, his mother's relatives banished him to his father's, but he'd been marked for a unique fate due to a more graceful crossing of blood than most were afforded. He'd inherited his father's size, perfectly respectable for a goblin, but his mother's fineness of face and form. He was far too beautiful for a goblin, but it lent him grace in the Seelie Court, from which he delighted in selecting his victims.

He had been an excellent thief. He had claim to little enough modesty to prevent his acknowledgement of his own skill. He'd even once managed the steal the High King's Cauldron, though the Goblin King had forced him to return it. Tiny wars that were little more than skirmishes were of little to no import, but a full fledged war led by the entire Seelie Court would be disastrous. And he had returned it, with only one attempt at subterfuge. He did have principles, after all.

Sitting on a rock at the highest point, Eetchy watched the sun rise over the murky, bubbling green of the bog, the stench boiling up and breaking the surface in flatulent bursts. As much as he hated it, it was necessarily his home. The former thief regarded the unexpected beauty of the light. It might have been entirely beautiful if he'd had a cold. If he'd been unable to smell, it would have been a truly great morning.

Fin

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Sarah walked out of her final class on Friday, grateful that she had a light workload over the weekend. She had another creative writing assignment, and a history test to study for, but those wouldn't take all that much time. Her cell phone rang in her pocket and she pulled it out, seeing HOME emblazoned across the tiny screen. She hesitated, uncertain if she wanted to risk the well-being of a good mood. Sighing, she gave in to the inevitable and answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Sarah?"

"Toby!" she cried, with genuine delight. She wasn't sure why her six year old brother was the first one on the phone, but she'd take the small blessings. "How are you?"

"I had a dream last night," he lisped, through a gap where a front tooth had recently been.

"A dream? What kind of dream?"

"I was walking on upside down staircases," he told her proudly. "And there was a man who turned into an owl."

"Oh, God," she whispered, closing her eyes. She opened them just in time to avoid colliding with a bust of Martin Luther King Junior and resolved to keep them open. "Toby, please tell me you didn't tell your mother."

A short silence dashed her hopes. "I thought it was neat," he said softly. "But she started yelling."

"Toby, does she know you're calling me?"

"She dialed and then went to say hello to Daddy."

She stifled a dirty word only by remembering that it wouldn't make it any easier to deal with Karen. "Sweetie, when you have dreams like this, it would probably be best not to talk about it. Your mom doesn't like hearing about those kinds of dreams."

"Why not?"

"Because she doesn't, Toby, and you'd best not ask her why."

"Toby? Did you get through to her?"

Sarah groaned softly as her stepmother's voice came through the phone from a distance. She heard the static of the phone being passed and braced herself.

"Toby, go say hello to your father. Sarah?"

"Hello, Karen."

"Don't you 'hello, Karen' me," her stepmother snapped. "Sarah, I thought we'd agreed that you wouldn't fill your brother's head with this nonsense!"

"I haven't told him anything," she argued. She irritably waved off a classmate trying to approach her, pointing to the phone at her ear. "I didn't even get to talk to him the last time Dad called me."

"Then where is he getting this from? It's not like it's a coincidence that it's so close to what you used to spew."

"Karen, I promise you, I haven't-"

"You promised me, Sarah! For three years we put up with all of your stories, your flights of fancy. When you finally grew out of it, the only thing we asked was that you not pollute your brother with your attention seeking. That was all we asked and now-"

"And I haven't!" She cried into the phone, holding it between her ear and her shoulder as she wrestled with the lock on her bike chain. "Karen, I haven't told him anyth-"

"Enough! Your father's had a long day and doesn't feel like dealing with this right now. He'll call you later tonight, and you had better pick up. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Karen, I hear you, but I promise you-"

"He'll call you tonight."

Incredulously hearing the dial tone as he stepmother severed the connection, Sarah snapped. She yelled wordlessly, savagely kicking her bike in the rack.

"Now what did that poor bicycle ever do to you?"

She whirled around in surprise, her messenger bag sliding abruptly down her arm. Jareth regarded her with unconcealed amusement, a briefcase held loosely in one hand. She suddenly felt very ashamed and childish, ducking her head and adjusting her bag to cover her blush. "Hello, sir."

"You didn't answer my question, Sarah." His foot tapped against the sidewalk as she undid the chain, coiling it and placing it in her bag."

"I got a call from home," she sighed. "It…frustrated me a little."

"I can see that."

She couldn't help but smile crookedly at his wry tone, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "I suppose kicking it was a bit silly," she admitted, laughter in her gray-green eyes.

"Nonsense," he admonished. "It was perfectly charming." He gave her a considering look, tugging lightly on a feathery forelock. "And," he added, "It's much more reasonable than crying about it not being fair." He didn't miss her flinch, but merely smiled thinly. "Why did the call upset you?" His blue eyes narrowed sharply at her hesitation.

"My baby brother did something to worry his mother," she said finally, carefully. "Karen tends to lash out indiscriminately when she's frantic."

He allowed the silence to grow heavy until she started to fidget with her handlebars. Reaching out, he brushed her chin with slender fingers and gently forced her to look up to meet his eyes. "I wish you'd trust me, Sarah."

"It's…complicated," she whispered, flushing hotly.

"It usually is," he observed dryly. He cocked his head to one side in a strangely birdlike gesture. "What are you doing right now?"

"Um…talking with you?"

"I meant this evening," he corrected with a smirk.

"Probably just going home and waiting for a puzzled call from my father," she answered, groaning.

"Come to dinner with me," he invited, delighted to see her blink with surprise.

"I'm sorry, sir, what?"

"Jareth, and I asked you out to dinner." Seeing her about to protest, he took her hand and pressed a lingering kiss to her knuckles. "Please."

Her cheeks stained a painful red, Sarah nodded helplessly, trying to gather back her voice. "I thank you then."

"Come. We can put your bike in my car."

They walked in silence to one of the staff parking lots, Sarah feeling decidedly anxious and Jareth allowing her to explore that and find comfort in it. The simple fact was that Sarah had never been on a date. She'd been a distinct loner in high school, and while she was slowly making friends within her major, that didn't include dating. The idea that she was about to embark on that particular adventure with a professor, regardless of whether or not he was her professor, was more than a little frightening to her.

"Here we are." He gestured to a slightly battered old station wagon whose trunk was the cleanest she'd ever seen in a vehicle. "Let me get this open." He popped the hatch and helped her muscle the bike into it, finally laying flat the back seat to allow more room. Moving around to the side, he opened the passenger door for her, making sure she was settled before closing it.

He started the car and steered them carefully out of the lot. "Do you like Chinese?" he inquired.

"Yes, very much."

"There's an excellent Chinese place just a block or so away," he told her conversationally. "Their wonton soup is quite the best I've ever had."

"In middle school, my friend and I used to make egg rolls with her mother, who was born in China." She smiled and ran her thumb under the chest strap of the seatbelt. "Xiu-li almost spoiled me for take out, but it's been years since I've seen her."

"So you and your bother not have the same mother?" he asked, bringing her back to the phone call.

"Karen is my stepmother," she replied easily. That wasn't a difficult answer to give. "She and my father have been married a little over seven years."

"And your brother is-"

"Six." She frowned slightly. "My father's not like that."

"His loss," he shrugged.

She scowled, unsure whether he was joking or not.

Was dating always so awkward? Maybe it was only this stilted when the relationship was unconventional to begin with. It still unsettled her how very closely he resembled the Goblin King she tried not to remember.

He parked by the copy store that provided auxiliary readers for those classes whose professors were unsatisfied with sticking to the books. It was a corner of a small shopping plaza, and she followed him to the tiny take out restaurant. He handed her a folded menu and waited patiently for her to peruse it; it seemed he came here often enough to know what he wanted already.

Sarah automatically reached into her bag to grab her wallet, but stopped at a vice-like grip in her wrist.

"Please, Sarah," Jareth said, a pained expression tightening his face. "I invited you. It is my place to pay, and my pleasure."

"Oh." She blushed again, releasing her wallet. "Thank you."

"Are you ready?" At her nod, he stepped up to the counter to order. "Beef and broccoli combination, with a wonton soup, and the lady will have…"

"Sweet and sour chicken combination, white rice instead of fried, and a wonton soup, please."

"Sixteen dollars, please," the woman behind the counter replied, and Jareth pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

Sarah wandered over to one of the four tables for dine-in. Jareth joined her a moment later with soy sauce packets and two sets of chopsticks. "So, Arthur says quite a few of your stories mention this Bog of Eternal Stench," he began, idly picking up a soy sauce packet again and again with chopsticks. "What is that, exactly?"

"Pretty much what it sounds like," she shrugged. She didn't particularly want to talk about the Underground at the moment, not with Toby's dream reawakening the possibility of the whole experience having actually occurred. "It's a swamp that emits and absolutely repulsive odor, and if it touches your skin, you have the reek about you forever."

"What about after death? Does your body still retain it?"

She blinked. "I don't actually know," she answered slowly.

"Never dreamed of a corpse for a story?" he twitted her, and she smiled reluctantly.

Jareth retrieved their food and questioned her playfully as they ate. They touched on stories or novels, on classes, as well as, minutely, family and history. He watched her carefully without seeming to, judging by her reactions when any subject began approaching delicacy and steering the conversation each time to something new.

She might not have consciously known what he was doing, but even as naïve as she was, she was vaguely aware that he was doing something. Even if no more than being entertaining, he made it possible to speak of the Underground as if it truly was as mundane as her papers for Geographical Perspectives, or the self-conscious model for her Life Drawing class. She was grateful for it, even as she didn't understand it, and she made a conscious effort to relax.

When their meal was finished, they walked slowly back outside. Night had scarcely fallen, the stars barely discernible from the lights. "I suppose it's time to get you home," he sighed.

"Actually, sir-" She stopped and grinned at his look. "Jareth. I live just around the corner from her. It's a safe bike ride at night."

"Don't be silly. I'd much prefer to see you home safe."

"Please." She laid her hand gently against his arm, feeling the muscles tense reflexively. "I need the ride to clear my head. I live literally two blocks away, if that. Please."

He read her face, truly open and expressive for the first time, and finally nodded, moving to his car to open the trunk. Jareth pulled her biked out for her. Once she was about to mount it, he cupped her cheeks in his hands. "Dream sweet, Sarah." His lips barely brushed against hers, settling instead right at the corner where it curved into her cheek.

Flushing hotly, she stammered a goodbye and took off, long hair streaming behind her. She rode quickly home, carrying the bike through her tiny apartment to put it on the small balcony. She stood for a time at the rail, staring out into the deepening dark. A hollow hoot pulled her attention to one of the trees cultivated by the complex, and she met the fierce golden eyes of a white owl.

"Go away," she told it crossly. Her phone went off in her pocket and she swore, heading back inside and locking the owl out with all the other living nightmares.