AN: Thanks for the feedback (keep it coming)! Its good to see
some old Labyrinth faces and a lot of new people. Let me know
if there's anything you're dying to see, or anything that would
kill you to see in this story. Cross-overs are tricky and I'd
love to get some suggestions- though its a writer's right to
ignore the suggestions she disagrees with ;). Also, are there
any Buffy/Laby cross-overs already written, just out of
curiosity? I'd like to read them.
Oh yes, and the names. Jareth's use of names will be clarified
later on so yeah, that's about it.
Now go thank Irene for editing this chapter and fixing the
majority dumb Kei related errors. After you leave feedback.
"So, you've been seeing a guy, but you don't know what he looks
like. Okay, this is a puzzle. No, wait, I'm good at these. Does
it involve a midget and a block of ice?" Buffy
Jareth regarded the two before him with amused indulgence that
barely masked the deadly will beneath. He glanced around and
laughed, momentarily delighted by their surroundings. "A
graveyard, how very quaint and Laurel K. Hamilton. Were you
doing a sacrifice, or just a performing a spell?"
The woman shivered as his laughter broke over her like the
swelling waves of a dark sea. "Who are you?" she demanded
again, voice imperious but more brittle as she stepped still
closer to the man by her side. Jareth's gaze turned professional
and lingered on the grave by their feet long enough to note the
freshly turned earth, and the name on the tombstone.
"Ahh," he murmured as his crop slapped the side of one boot.
He drifted closer to the grave and lifted one brow as the duo
moved away from him in kind, leaving a generous amount of distance
between them.
All three knew on some level that distance didn't matter, not to
this stranger in lace and leather with too worldly eyes.
The Goblin King lingered at the grave for a moment, pleased. "So
grief drove the wish. That's so much more interesting than mere
vanity or hatred. So much more complex." His tongue paused over
the last word, considering it, and its implications, before he
looked up and met the woman's startled, red-rimmed gaze.
"Wish? What wish? Wishes end in bad things like me trying to
seduce Xander and..."
The man in black placed a gentling hand on one slim shoulder.
"Who are you?" the blonde whispered hoarsely.
Jareth smiled lazily, showing pronounced canines artfully as he
held her stare. "Tell her who I am, Angelus."
"You can't have her," the Vampire threatened roughly, but the
warning came out half-heartedly, despite its attempted heat.
Angelus would give much to keep the woman from Jareth's machinations,
that was not the issue. The issue rested in the fact that the
Vampire, for all his power, had none over Jareth himself.
Aboveground and Underground were two different worlds and only the
Goblin King was master of his.
"Woah, having? Who said anything about having?"
The hand on the woman's shoulder tightened but she didn't so much
as flinch. "Buffy," Angelus whispered softly, "calm down."
Buffy wrenched herself away from the Vampire with surprising ease
and turned so that she could face them both. "Okay, I have had a
VERY bad day," the strong voice wavered a bit on the last word but
she shook herself and continued on doggedly, "and I want to know
what the HELL is going on and I want to know NOW and I do not WANT
to bloody calm down!"
"You've been hanging around Spike much too long," Angelus muttered
to her with obvious annoyance.
The woman, Buffy, turned an interesting shade of purple as Jareth
tilted his head and considered their words. "Spike, William the
Bloody?"
Buffy blinked as Angelus winced, visibly. Jareth grinned broadly
as he relished the beginning of what looked to be a very
interesting game. "He is a very... creative demon. Most
enthusiastic about his work. You are acquainted with him?"
The woman snarled, "Not by choice!"
Jareth ignored her and turned to the Vampire. "You have lived
long enough to know the rules of my world. The wisher will have
thirteen hours to win back the wished if she so desires. Otherwise
this... Buffy will become part of my dominion, my world."
Angelus paled. "Who would wish her away? Her Mother is dead..."
"And her sister is grieving with all the rage and self-pity she
can muster. It was sufficient to give Dawn the will to attempt
to wish her problems away. Or problem, singular, as the case may
be."
"Excuse me, what's happening over here?" Buffy demanded with a
raised hand and a slightly panicked look upon her pinched face.
Angelus closed his eyes in pain. "Dawn wished you away to the
Labyrinth, and the Goblin King."
"And the Goblin King would be..."
Jareth raised a single flaxen brow and Buffy's mouth snapped
audibly closed, for all of two seconds.
"So what? I'm just supposed to say, tra-la-la and let you whisk
me away to the place where Nut Cases live because my sister threw
a temper tantrum or something?"
The Goblin King cleared his throat delicately. "You're delightfully
insolent. Have you tried beating it out of her Angelus?" The
Vampire flushed as Jareth turned to deal with his newest acquisition.
"Your will is of no importance. In this game you are no warrior,
merely a pawn." Buffy glared, hands balled and resting on her hips.
"A very loud pawn," he continued smoothly, "but a pawn none the
less."
Jareth took a single step in their direction and was pleased when
the delicate blonde refused to back away. Another three swift steps
let him face her, let him look down upon the mortal prize that was
currently being contested. Behind the red-rimmed eyes was a steely
strength that could perhaps match his own. This Buffy was so much
older than any of the others who had ever been willed to his care,
and not just in years.
"What are you going to do," she demanded roughly, "kidnap me with
magic?"
The Goblin King's answering smile was softly cruel as he nodded
gravely in a helpless Angelus's direction. Jareth's gloved hands
seized Buffy's shoulders as he replied, "That is the plan."
Angel lunged towards the pair but Jareth's power flared abruptly,
leaving empty air and the raw earth of a freshly dug grave in their
place. The Vampire cursed darkly and ran towards the Summers'
house.
He had to find Dawn before the Goblin King did.
Dawn groped blindly for the light switch, muttering unpleasant
words as she tripped over the clothes strewn across Willow's floor
and tried to hold back her rising panic. Its not that she didn't
believe in coincidences, because well, sometimes shit happened,
but the words she had spoken had come out much more grave than she
had intended.
A moment of rage born from grief had been given a weight that Dawn,
as she fumbled in the darkness, didn't REALLY mean.
There was some shuffling, from the corner by the table. In the
moonlight she could see a small, almost furred figure disappear
behind the bookcase. Dawn swallowed as shuffling renewed, this
time from under the crack of the door.
She turned so that her back was pressed against the wall as her
grasping hands seized upon, well, a desk-lamp as a weapon. "This
was so not a good idea," she whispered fiercely. The drawers in
the desk rattled menacingly and whatever managed to climb behind
the bookcase seemed just as determined to wiggle back out again.
"Bad, BAD idea..." Dawn continued. One small, selfish part of her
wanted to see if she could handle whatever was coming her way.
She was a big girl after all. Big enough to have a dead Mother.
But the majority of her was screaming in terror and getting very
ready to call for Willow and Tara's help. The bookcase goblin chose
that moment to squeal and throw itself across the room.
Dawn yelped and started to scream for her very powerful witchy
friends when lightning flashed, blinding her. She threw an arm
across her face and ducked instinctively, lamp clutched to her
breast. A heartbeat later and thunder followed the lightning.
Only, that wasn't all that came. She could sense the power, even
before she opened her eyes, and power was usually not a sign of
happy and fluffy things in Sunnydale.
Dawn slowly cracked open her gaze and swallowed automatically as
she saw what had taken the place of the creepy furry things.
Moonlight dramatically framed the being who seemed to fill the
room they were in, outlining his fantastical silhouette and
hinting at the smirk that curled the lips on his sharply defined
face. Or at least she thought it was a him- with hair like that...
Dawn Summers shook her inner ramblings off and stood, not willing
to be intimidated by some unidentified creature of the, err, night.
Still holding her lamp as a makeshift weapon she asked the only
thing that came directly to mind: "Who the hell are you?"
The being threw back his head and roared with laughter that was
beautiful and terrible in its wild perfection. "And I never would
have guessed you two were related," he deadpanned. "Let's save the
long winded introductions, Dawn. I am the Goblin King, and your
sister, Buffy Summers, is mine."