Sarah was standing in complete darkness. She put out her hands gingerly and felt cool, rough stone against her fingertips. She could see nothing at all. Sarah wasn't normally afraid of the dark, or claustrophobic, but she felt anxious, not knowing how she had found herself in this situation.

She began slowly walking in the darkness, feeling her way along, as she tried to figure out where she was. She felt along the stone, hoping for an opening, a light source or something.

Finally she perceived a faint light in the distance, and followed it. As she approached, the pale white light began to illuminate her surroundings. She was in some sort of cave or tunnel, and the stone seemed to be embedded with glitter. Her heart began to beat faster, not wanting to believe where she was. Finally she turned a corner, and entered a larger, better lit tunnel.

"TURN BACK!" A voice boomed beside her.

Sarah almost jumped out of her skin.

"YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!" another voice bellowed.

"BEWARE!" a third chimed in.

Sarah looked up at the huge stone faces of the False Alarms and half smiled, as she tried to calm her thumping heartbeat.

"Thanks for the warnings guys! But since I don't even know if I'm really here, or where I'm supposed to be going, the direction doesn't really matter, right?'

"Suit yourself!" one of them mumbled.

Sarah continued to walk along the corridor, hand lightly trailing along the stone.

There was something on the floor of the tunnel ahead of her. Curious, she knelt to inspect it. A blue cloak, a feathered hat and a beaked mask were piled haphazardly on top of each other.

She stood up and looked around nervously, was he nearby? She passed the abandoned disguise, resisting the temptation to pick it up and try it on.

"Hello Sarah." The voice was like silk, and it made her shiver.

Sarah turned and saw something move in the shadows. A hint of pale hair. A glint of metal. The sheen of leather.

Sarah's breath hitched.

The Goblin King emerged from the shadows of an adjacent tunnel, so close she could see the swirly designs on the center of his pendant. Which was resting against his open-shirted chest. Sarah blushed and looked up at his face.

Damn he's beautiful! her inner voice swooned.

He smirked as he leaned in closer to her, his arm resting against the stone wall, his voice was low. "How are you enjoying my Labyrinth?"

Sarah was having trouble breathing from the proximity of him, but something niggled at the back of her mind.

Jareth's hair tickled her cheek. Sarah was distracted by the slight sheen of glitter on his lips, the urge to close the gap between them and taste those lips was almost painful. They stayed suspended in the moment before a kiss, each waiting for the other to make a move.

Sarah wanted nothing more than to kiss him, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.

She looked into his eyes. They were so beautiful, they made her heart flutter.

But there was something missing.

Suddenly she realized what it was. This really was only a dream. It wasn't Jareth in front of her; it was only a figment of her subconscious desires. A construct.

She sighed, and pushed against his chest, trying to gain some space to think, though the touch of his leather jacket was distracting.

No! her inner voice cried, What are you doing! You know you've wanted to kiss him since forever!

Sarah gazed up at the King, he was unmoving, as if suspended in time.

"You're not him" she said sadly.

That leather sure feels real! her inner voice interjected, peevishly. I'm sure those lips would too!

"I can't continue, knowing that it's not real" she told the voice firmly, looking into the strange, beautiful, but now vacant eyes in front of her.

Seeing that only confirmed her decision. She pushed harder, giving herself a few feet of space between her and the not-Jareth.

Her inner voice pouted. It's not fair!

"I want to wake up" she said loudly, looking around, her voice echoing along the tunnel.

She refused to wish - that would only open a whole new can of worms.

Yeah, imagine the Goblin King arriving to find you almost canoodling with his doppelganger? her inner voice teased.

Sarah blushed at the thought.

"Please, I want to wake up!" She banged the flat of her hand against the sparkly stone walls.

The darkness began seeping in, taking over. Just as the shape of the Goblin King disappeared into the shadows, she thought she saw him move.

...

Sarah opened her eyes, only to see Errol Flynn swashbuckling on a pirateship. She blinked and realized that she was on the couch, the TV was still on, playing late night classic movies. She looked at the wall clock, 2:13 am.

Sarah rubbed her eyes and got up, headed to the kitchen to make some tea.

A few minutes later she lounged on her couch in her Eeyore pajamas with her mug of chamomile tea. Tiger came and joined her, purring loudly. She had found him as a kitten, tangled in a neighbor's hockey net. She freed him and he adopted her, following her everywhere. She had put up a few posters to try and find his original owners, but no one called to claim him. Toby had named him Tiger because of his orange tabby markings, but more than once Sarah had thought that the now huge, goofy orange furball reminded her of Ludo.

She sipped her tea and scratched Tiger under his chin, and reflecting on her latest dream.

If she was really honest with herself, it wasn't surprising that she had dreamed of the tunnels, or the leather outfit. That event had definitely marked her subconscious. That outfit was entirely the reason why she had briefly dated a biķer when she was 19. And the reason why she had bought a reddish brown leather trench coat that she had found in a thrift store.

What was surprising was that she had been conscious of the fact that she had been dreaming. Everything had felt so real. And how had she detected that it wasn't really Jareth who was leaning in to kiss her?

The Jareth in this dream had been a decent facsimile, but it was as if he was on autopilot, simply repeating their previous encounter. There was a spark missing. That spark had been evident in her ballroom dream last night.

But tonight, it had felt almost as if she was about to kiss a wax figure, or a doll... it didn't feel right.

Still, she had to admit to herself she had wanted very much to kiss him. The real him. A lot.

How would that even work? He was a fairytale king, she doubted very much that he was human, or even mortal. Would a relationship between them even be possible? Not to forget that he was also a villain.

All of this brought Sarah back to the last moments of her time in the Labyrinth. Jareth had begged her to stay, had asked for her to love him, but also to fear him. What did he mean by that? He had promised her anything if she would stay. Promised to be her slave.

Had he meant it? Or was it just a ruse to trick her into losing?

In the ballroom, he had been like a Prince-or rather King Charming. Sweeping her off her feet, almost making her forget her brother. The look of pain on his face as she had pulled away from him had almost made her hesitate, but she had to save Toby. Had that expression been true? Or had it been a trick, to lull her into returning to his arms?

He was a trickster by nature, wasn't he? Could she trust him at all?

Sarah thought of the last seconds of this dream, the not-Jareth had seemed to move just as he disappeared. What had happened? Was it just a trick of the shadows?

This was all too much to think about. She got up and dumped the rest of her cold tea in the sink, and went to bed. Silently hoping for a dreamless sleep.

...

Author's note

I don't own Jareth, the Labyrinth, Eeyore or Errol Flynn. I do own a secondhand brownish-red leather trench.

Thank you to Guest 2019 for the faithful reviews, and to those who have faved and followed.

Thanks again to my beta