Disclaimer: Jareth and Sarah and anything/one else you recognize is not mine
Summary: Why is there so much Paperwork in the Goblin Kingdom? Jareth and Sarah ruminate on this matter, as well as doing other things
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Jareth sighed and regarded the stacks of parchment paper, thick and heavy, that walled him in. His lip curled in disgust and he idly wondered if setting fire to the mounds of work counted as dealing with it.
"Deal with it!" He'd been told by his aide, a rather efficient man, but somehow Jareth knew that dumping a basket of ashes over the efficient man's head would not cut it. No, unfortunately it would not.
A quill twirled elegantly in his hand. And why couldn't he use magic to complete the tedious task?
A good question with an utterly stupid answer.
Sarah.
Granted she wasn't stupid, in fact she was rather clever and witty, but it was the dilemma she brought with her that was stupid and annoying and pointless. Jareth snarled again.
"Why the happy look?" Her voice came gleefully from the wide entrance to the dimly lit study, cozy and dark. Sarah walked in calmly and relaxed easily in front of his desk.
"You know, if you had to do this, I doubt you'd be sitting there so…" he waved a hand expansively at her rather comfortable position and resumed his snarling at the paperwork.
"Well that's the real crux of the matter now isn't it." She smirked at him.
"You and your little comments are not helping."
"I know." She laughed and leaned forward, green eyes mischievous, and provided Jareth with a good view down…err right. "But you must admit, it is one of the only ways to get us together and talking."
"I'm tiring of you." He turned back to his papers and frowned. Then he turned back to Sarah, she was still leaning forward.
"You know, I'd really appreciate it if you looked me in the eyes."
"I'd really appreciate you leaving right now. Can't always get what we want now can we?"
Sarah frowned briefly. "But back to what I was saying about your paperwork."
"Oh yes…do continue. I love listening to you talk about my paperwork." His droll tone did not deter her.
"See, there's not really any reason for it really. I mean, besides the cataloguing of when you re-order time and recording a new acquisition – "
"I cannot believe you just called the children acquisitions. You!" his face displayed his gleeful shock and was that? Yes, smugness.
Sarah had the good grace to blush "Let me finish before you gloat."
He waved a gloved hand and arched his brows in amusement.
She shot a glance at him and with narrowed eyes continued. " So besides those two types of paperwork, I can't really see why you have this much parchment stacked on your desk. I mean, it's not like a poor child, and please note the emphasis on child Jareth, is wished away every day." She shrugged and finished.
"You're right." He turned his eyes to a paper (contents unknown keep in mind) and refused to expand.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "You're such a child sometimes."
He levelled a glance at her. "I've got several centuries on you, so keep your pretty little mouth shut."
"But really Jareth, what is all this paper work for?" She ignored his jibe and persisted doggedly. She snatched a curled piece of heavy paper and darted away from him.
"Sarah!" Jareth seemed a little distraught and distressed at her sudden appropriation of the paper. "Sarah, give it back." He moved liquidly, languidly from his chair with grace of a cat and suddenly he was beside her.
She turned away from him and started to unroll the paper. "I don't see why it's such a fuss, since by all accounts – Hey!" She made a grab at the parchment that was now in Jareth's hands.
"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah." He tisked as he held the paper away from her.
"Please don't say my name like that. You know I can't stand the clichéd-ness of it." She pouted slightly as he guided her back to a seat on a small leather couch.
"My most sincere apologies my Lady."
"Now I know you're teasing. I can hear that mocking tone." She turned to him as he sat down beside her and stretched a long arm behind her on the couch.
"Caught a fish that big eh?" She muttered softly as she leant into him.
"What was that?"
She grinned. "Nothing. Now suppose you tell why you have so much paperwork."
"You're not going to drop this are you?"
"Well, I suppose I could, but with forever stretching out in front of us, I need something to keep my mind occupied." She shot him a cheeky grin, sure of its endearing qualities.
"Hmm." He sighed evasively. If that was even possible.
"Now spill." She demanded.
Jareth sighed and glanced at the dark head resting in the crook of his shoulder, her green eyes glinting at him softly. "You know Evans, my aide – "
"He's remarkably efficient." She interjected.
"Yes, well. He gives the paperwork to me. Before you came, and this is where it's important Sarah, I had it simply because there was no one here with me."
Sarah furrowed her brows. "That makes the least sense of anything I've ever heard." She thought about it. "Well maybe not the least, but still."
"All right, think of it this way. I ruled the Goblin Kingdom by myself. A rather easy job. All I do is take the kids, make sure the goblins don't burn the city down or anything equally as drastic and let people run amuck in my Labyrinth."
Sarah nodded. It was rather easy, a slacker job if you thought about it that way. And he got the royal treatment to boot. "It's not really fair if you ask me, there millions of people working their asses off to get somewhere – "
"Well no one did ask you Sarah, so shut up and let me continue." He grinned as she gritted her teeth. "So there I am, remarkably easy job, boring as hell, then a girl beats my Labyrinth. She's fascinating really. It's not really fair that she's mortal, but I figure I can deal with it. Watch her from afar and such."
"Pervert."
"Hush, you liked it and you know it." He pulled her closer. "So then I start to wondering how I can get her to come here, willingly mind you. And Evans, efficient man that he is, quickly devised a plan."
Sarah quirked her eyebrows. "I don't think I've heard this part of the story before."
"And you won't if you keep talking. Which you do decidedly too much." He shot another glance at her. "So, his plan is to swamp me with work. So he gives me paperwork. Stacks of it. Enough to build a city out of paper-mache."
"How do you know about paper-mache?" She queried with curiosity.
"Flour and water darling, it's not something ingenious unless you're six. Now stop interrupting. So now that I'm swamped with work, the kingdom begins to unravel. Now I need some help. And you know the goblins, as endearing as they are, they're not exactly capable of being helpful."
Sarah acquiesced and murmured her assent.
"So I needed you. A Goblin Queen."
"Ugh. You know I hate that title; it sounds so…icky."
"And I suppose Goblin King sounds refined." He said acerbically.
"I think it sounds sexy." She pushed a bit and suddenly she was lying on top of Jareth on the couch.
"I'll be sure to tell the next Goblin King that it'll help him get the ladies then."
Sarah simply 'hmmed' and they spent the next few minutes exploring the far recesses of each other's mouths with their tongues in a true movie kiss. Except for Disney movies. It's much harder to portray tonsil-hockey in a children's cartoon than in a romantic comedy.
Sarah came up for air and found she was now pinned underneath Jareth's lean form. "So Jareth?"
"Mmm?" He was busy getting acquainted with that spot beneath her earlobe and as such found it hard to respond.
"Are you saying the only reason you have paperwork now is because you needed an excuse to get me here? And if that's the case, why is it still here, and why did I never help with it?"
Jareth stopped and lifted his head, mis-matched eyes dark as he looked at her. "Well when you put it that way, yes to the first question. And the paperwork is still here because Evans likes to have something to be efficient about, to the second question. And you never helped with it because you're better at other…" he pretended to leer at her "things."
Sarah thought. "So you lured me here under fall-pretenses?"
"Oh. No. Well. Maybe."
"That wasn't very fair."
Jareth rolled his eyes. "For someone who professes to be all grown up, you certainly do fall back on that line an awful lot. And besides," he began to become acquainted with her collarbone, "Fair doesn't have mean anything to me."
"It should." Sarah really couldn't protest hard, her neck was rather enjoying getting to know Jareth.
"Except you're forgetting one thing," he grinned devilishly and Sarah, for all her comfort around this Immortal creature couldn't help but feel a flutter of fear in her stomach, "I'm the Goblin King, and I'm the villain." His breath whispered into her ear and she shivered delightfully.
"Yes. Yes I suppose you are." She looked at him archly, her fear gone and replaced by need. "In that case, remind me to thank Evans for all the…paper-work."
Jareth chuckled into her neck and Sarah didn't utter a single word for a good long while.
Meanwhile the stacks of blank parchment marked urgent waited on Jareth's desk.
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AN: I wrote this in one sitting while I was supposed to be typing up my long Labyrinth tale that is mostly in hard-copy *sighs*, and which is yet to be posted. This came from one to many readings of fanfics where Jareth is always doing paperwork. Always. A convenient way to get Sarah there, hmm?? Anyways, I had fun with this, hope you did too! Review and tell me what you thought, any typing errors that you noticed.