A/N: I own absolutely nothing of the Labyrinth (except the DVD)
This was a whimsical little one-shot that my tired, hormone-laden brain decided was a good idea to write. I guess it's up to you guys and gals to tell me if it was actually a good idea or not...I am definitely on the fence about my sanity at this point.
Sarah had experienced weird dreams in her short lifetime.
Like the one where her dog chased a skeletal cat around a tree, never quite catching the ugly monstrosity. Or the one where her two cousins were in a jungle, riding horses and playing banjos while the monkeys chattered and stole their bananas. Or the one where Karen suddenly became the fairy godmother and granted her every wish, telling her that she shouldn't have to date boys at her age, and Toby could get another babysitter/slave.
That last one definitely made her not want to wake up.
Her favorite one however, was the one where she raced through a Labyrinth to save her brother, meeting strange creatures, learning that nothing was ever as it seemed, life was not fair, and Goblin Kings were the stuff of seductive nightmares that a fifteen year-old girl should definitely not be dreaming about.
As she experienced the ballroom portion – like a dream within a dream – she nearly lost her head over the adult world that she had stumbled carelessly into on a peach-drugged high. It occurred to her later that she had seen many things in that decadent ballroom that she had never once experienced in her rather naïve and somewhat sheltered life. How it got into her dreams was beyond her. At the time she imagined that her subconscious must have been aware of those unmentionable activities either through the limited media she experienced or through a conversation or magazine article she might have partaken of at one point in time.
The dream recurred throughout her high school years and into her second year in college before it started to affect her favorite little man as well.
When Toby started dreaming about goblins and filthy pillow pits and a strangely built throne in which a pale-haired man held him, she began to wonder how much was actually a dream.
On a whim, she called to her friends from the dream, nearly falling out of her vanity seat in shock as the crusty, old dwarf, the valiant fox and his noble canine steed, and a rather large, orange yeti appeared in her room.
After reviving the poor girl using a bottle filled with the Essence of Stench – courtesy of Hoggle – the previously-thought-imaginary friends kindly explained why the whole experience had to be relegated to her dream sense after her run. She was extremely miffed at the fact that contrary to her exclamation at the end of the dream, the Goblin King seemed to have a troubling amount of power over her mind.
Irate, Sarah called upon him – much to the chagrin of her newly rediscovered friends – and she was a little less surprised when Jareth actually answered.
Not as surprised as he was to feel the resounding – and painful – crack of her palm against his face followed quickly by the loss of his breath due to her rather abrupt kiss.
Once Didymus had successfully revived the poor, shocked Hoggle and Jareth had semi-recovered from his two surprises, Sarah vehemently declared that since the Goblin King technically had no power over her, that meant he could not meddle with her dreams/reality – or her brother's for that matter. If she wanted to believe in a fairy world and continue her correspondence with its citizens, then by the heavens she would. And no pompous, tight-pants wearing, sexy, Fae/god, chauvinistic, magical male was going to stop her.
She would have continued except that her lips were rather preoccupied suddenly by the Goblin King's lips.
Hoggle had to be revived again, but in the end – and with much grumbling about rats and peaches and weird dreams in which the whole world turned upside down on him – he accepted the fact that Sarah and Jareth were somehow destined to be together.
Sarah insisted that Jareth allow her family to realize the truth of the matter instead of relegating her to their dreams as he was wont to do. Although the mixing of two different realities was going to cost him a headache in paperwork and explanations to the court of advisors – for he had been promoted to High King of the Underground in her absence – Jareth was reluctantly willing to give Sarah pretty much whatever she wanted.
After all, he had already reordered time for her once and he had definitely moved the stars among other rather impossible feats – like dream-walking for instance.
And if he finally got the privilege of accessing his own dreams through the acquisition of his stubborn, beautiful, impossible love…well, it was definitely worth the hassle.