"Are ye gonna take these, or am I gonna hafta send some goblins through the mirror again?"
Sarah's eyes widened. "Fine, fine, I'll take them, just—"
Hoggle pushed a massive armful of zucchini through the mirror, where they fell unceremoniously onto Sarah's desk, several vegetables falling to the floor, before she could finish her sentence. She sighed, knowing that her limited repertoire of zucchini recipes had long since been exhausted, and that Miguel and Lori also probably wouldn't take any more of them off her hands.
Maybe I should start a co-op, she thought. I could just tell everyone the vegetables come from upstate. Not, you know, from another dimension.
She cleared away some of the zucchini from her desk so that she could see Hoggle's face. "Maybe encourage the goblins to take up a different hobby for a while? Like, I dunno, egg farming? You've got plenty of chickens."
Hoggle shook his head, the latest version of his vegetable crown (which now had more permanent bits of leather woven in) wobbling slightly. "I ain't doin' nothin' to upset this peace. Gardenin' keeps the goblins calmer than anything else I've tried. Sometimes they even leave me alone long enough to let me sneak back to my own house instead o' makin' me stay in that damn bedroom." He shuddered. "That place ain't mine, never will be."
Sarah forced her face to remain neutral, remembering more than a few things that had gone on in Jareth's bedroom that Hoggle was definitely better off not knowing about. "How go things in the rest of the kingdom, your Highness?"
Hoggle rolled his eyes. "Told ye not t' call me that. Mostly peaceful, 'cept for these." He held up two oblong-shaped black objects that Sarah didn't recognize. "They been poppin' up in the Firey Forest, one after the other."
Sarah squinted and realized that Hoggle was holding… "Remote controls? Television remote controls?"
"Some Aboveground magic, huh? Well, I guess this is where they all end up now. They're quieter'n babies, at least."
They must have decided against individual socks, Sarah realized. "Funny. Our remote's been missing for a while now."
Hoggle put his hands on his hips. "What, ye want me t' go traipsin' around the forest and look for it? Like I don't have enough other royal stuff t' do?"
"No, no, we'll be fine. Jareth says television is infantile, he'll be happy if we're watching it less."
A goblin rushed into the mirror frame, its body half covered in soil. "Fairies!" it shouted, sounding genuinely panicked. "Fairies in the turnip patch!"
Hoggle groaned. "Not like I haven't taught 'em a million times how t' spray the fairies…"
Sarah started gathering the zucchini in her arms. "I'll let you get back to work."
Hoggle grunted. "Enjoy your zucchini, there'll be more next week."
Sarah sighed, awkwardly carrying the stack of vegetables into the living room, where a large bowl on her kitchen window countertop was already overflowing with turnips, radishes, and sweet potatoes. She glanced around for more storage space and noticed, yet again, that her Tony award for directing was back in the center of the bookshelf, even though she knew she'd moved it into the closet the day before.
As she set the vegetables down on the coffee table, she also realized that she could still hear the sound of the hairdryer.
She shook her head, glancing at the clock as she opened the bathroom door. Jareth ignored her, his eyes fixated on the mirror, one hand holding a comb and the other the hairdryer. His movements and his gaze had the intensity of someone performing microsurgery.
"It's never gonna look the same," she shouted over the din.
"I beg to differ," he shouted back. He turned off the hairdryer and grabbed one of a half-dozen bottles of creams and gels from the overcrowded sink. "Mortal medicine may be barbaric, but mortal hair science is quite remarkable."
He brushed, sprayed, slicked, and combed his now slightly-shorter hair with practiced efficiency, glancing at himself in the mirror from several angles and finally sighing. "But yes, it will never look quite the same as it did on the other side of the mirror," he said.
"Because it's not magic anymore, as I've said practically every day for the last nine months, you prima donna," she teased, kissing his cheek and being very careful not to touch his hair. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror, she noted that her own hair was past her shoulders again, which she told herself was just a matter of laziness about going to the salon and not connected to the fact that he preferred it that way. She hadn't changed clothes yet—she was wearing a black camisole and a pair of jeans, though given Jareth's tendency to never dress down, she had a feeling she'd be rooting through her closet for something sparkly in a moment. Her prosthesis made a faint whirring sound as she ran her left hand through her hair.
Jareth wore perfectly tailored suit trousers and a crisp white shirt with a few buttons undone. His jacket hung neatly on the towel rack behind them. She knew that the suit was secondhand—she'd helped him find it—but everything he wore somehow managed to look expensive.
"Speaking of magic," she said, placing her right hand on her hip, "I don't suppose it was rogue goblins who moved my Tony award from the closet back into the living room for, like, the fifth time?"
Jareth buttoned and then unbuttoned his shirt, turning back and forth and examining his reflection in the mirror. "They are devious little wretches," he said absently.
She sighed. "Can you please just let me be embarrassed and awkward about my successes?"
He turned and took her left hand in his, running his fingers over both her flesh-and-blood fingers and the metal ones that she'd been using to type. "You've often said that I could do with a bit more humility," he said drily, kissing her hand. "Perhaps you could do with a bit more arrogance."
Sarah groaned and gave him a not-so-gentle poke in the cheek with a metal finger. "Careful. I could go Terminator on you with this thing."
"I have no idea what that means," he said huskily, gripping a handful of her hair, "but I must say I like the sound of it."
She felt warmth spread through her body and kissed him quickly to break the spell. "Later. It's already seven a.m., and I need to change."
Jareth groaned and grabbed his jacket from the towel rack. "Why your theatrical community insists on announcing its award nominations at such an ungodly hour is beyond me." His voice followed her as she shimmied out of her jeans and searched through her closet for something colorful. "And why, pray tell, is there a mountain of zucchini on the table?"
Sarah quickly slipped into a bright blue dress that fell just above her knees. "You know why."
"Do I need to send more remote threats of bogging?"
She slipped past him and back into the bathroom, where she ran a brush through her hair and applied a small amount of lipstick. "Happy goblins are less destructive goblins, as far as I'm concerned," she said, removing her metal-and-leather prosthesis and opening the bathroom drawer where she stored a more cosmetic one. "I'll take piles of zucchini over anarchy any day."
When she opened the drawer she saw that her cosmetic hand wasn't in its usual place—instead, there was a rectangular box, wrapped with a red ribbon.
Jareth glanced over her shoulder. "I'd meant this to be a birthday present, but the work took longer than planned," he said.
She looked quizzically at the box. "I told you not to get me anything."
"I'm still working on obedience, precious, you know it's not in my nature," he smirked.
She undid the ribbon and opened the box, expecting to see jewelry or perhaps something lacy. Instead, the open box revealed her usual cosmetic prosthesis, but the fingers had been delicately painted with…
"Glitter," she whispered, holding the box up to the light. "It's glittery."
"Temporary," he said, "but I thought it appropriate for festive occasions."
She fastened it onto her left hand, waving her fingers around in the air, smiling at the starry effect.
He cleared his throat. "I hope to one day be able to shower you with jewels and gold, but for now…"
She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, her lips lingering on his. "Fuck jewels and gold," she whispered, just as the front door buzzer rang. "This is much better."
She felt his body relax against hers and kissed him for just a second more before rushing into the living room to buzz in her guests. Lori came through the door first, Jaye cradled in one arm and a sheaf of papers clutched in the other. "You," she said, her eyes laser-focused on Jareth.
His eyes widened slightly, and as usual Sarah tried not to laugh. "Yes?" he said, his voice decidedly less confident than usual.
She shook the papers at him. "You wanna explain to me why you put the exploding cauldron back in act two scene four?" Jaye reached automatically for Jareth, and Lori handed him over.
Jareth absently stroked Jaye's head as the child gripped his shirt. "It seemed to me…that is, upon further reflection—"
"Workshopping a play has a purpose. When you go back and rewrite things you negate all of that."
Miguel and Nick came through the door with Sammy and Mari in tow. "Morning to you too, Lori, can we save the script arguments for after the nominations?"
Lori's smile was dangerously sweet. "No argument here," she said, putting the papers in her bag. "Right?"
Jareth's smile was forced. "None at all."
Sammy and Mari ran to him and grabbed his knees. "Stories!" they begged. "Stories, pleeeease."
Jareth glanced at Miguel and Nick. "Have you done no injury to your parents in the past week?"
Nick shrugged. "No more than the usual hijinks, they can have a story."
Jareth sat on the sofa and the two children sat on either side of him. He spoke in a voice so quiet that only the children could hear him clearly, though Sarah caught a few details about goblin mischief and changeling children.
Miguel looked slightly haggard. "Have you got your computer hooked up to the feed? I brought mine just in case, you never know—"
"All ready to go," she said, exchanging a smile with Nick as she hugged Miguel and kissed him on the cheek. "Just remember, nom or no nom, you're still brilliant and we all still love you."
"Easy for you to say, you and Lori are old hat at this," he said, glancing toward her prominently displayed Tony award.
Sarah blushed. "One award hardly equals old hat."
"And I've only gotten Obies," Lori said, squeezing Miguel's shoulder, "so we're in the same boat." She glanced at Jareth and the children on the sofa. "It's eerie how good he is at that."
Sarah chuckled. "You could say he's had a lot of practice."
"Got another potential client for him, by the way." Miguel handed her a fancy-looking business card. "Word's getting around, apparently."
Sarah laughed. "I always imagined that on this side of the mirror he'd be a model, or a rockstar, or maybe an actor," she said. "Definitely didn't consider nanny."
"I'm fine with nannying paying the bills," Lori interjected. "So long as we get his damn play to opening night without me killing him first."
Sarah laughed. "You'll have to give me some pointers on humbling him," she muttered.
Lori raised an eyebrow. "In case you haven't noticed, he lives in the palm of your hand," she said. "Not that he'd ever admit it."
"Two minutes! Two minutes!" Nick was shouting, putting drinks and snacks on the coffee table as everyone positioned themselves around the computer. Sarah's phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket to see Karen's name.
"Hi, listen, the nominations are about to start, I'll call you—"
"I know, dear, please tell Miguel and Lori good luck, Robert and I really enjoyed Gods and Mothers, but I actually wanted to talk to Jareth."
Sarah stifled a laugh and shared a knowing glance with Miguel as she passed the phone to Jareth. "It's for you."
Miguel snickered. "I think she likes him more than she likes you," he whispered.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Or she has a crush on him, like every other woman he comes into contact with."
"Ahem." Lori's eyebrows were decidedly elevated. "Most definitely not my type. Which is a good thing. Makes it a lot easier to eviscerate his work."
"One minute!"
"…Sunday would be lovely, Karen, I'll discuss it with Sarah, I know it's been a while. Please do tell young Toby that I look forward to besting him at one of his electronic games. Until then." He passed the phone back to Sarah. "We're having dinner with your family on Sunday."
She raised an eyebrow. "I thought you told Karen you were going to discuss it with me."
Jareth shrugged, not really bothering to feign innocence. "Aren't we doing that now?"
"It's starting!"
Mari and Sammy had begun to pout at having their story interrupted. "But we want to know how it ends!" Mari groaned.
"Don't we all, child." Jareth smiled slowly at Sarah, and, unable to help herself, she smiled back, her slightly sparkly left hand running through her hair. "Don't we all."
Jareth often dreams of falling.
It is not the same as the falling that occurred between his immortal life and his mortal one, when pain and uncertainty seemed to stretch on forever. This is a sensation that is both exhilarating and terrifying, switching so quickly from one to the other that he can never be sure how he truly feels.
Sarah might tell him that sometimes there is no separating emotions.
He has lifetimes of experiences that she cannot comprehend, and it is still not in his nature to admit that, in some areas, at least, she might be more knowledgeable than him. But when it comes to mortal emotions, he will cede authority, if grudgingly.
On this night the vividness of the dream awakens him and he carefully slips out of bed, ghost-like, to avoid disturbing Sarah. It is one of a small number of vaguely inhuman skills that he still seems to possess.
He sleeps through the night now, mostly, though some traces of his old life linger in his body, among them a limited need for sleep. And a mind that flits from idea to idea, making the little sleep that he does require sometimes elusive.
Writing has helped with that. Before the ideas simply buzzed endlessly, like fairies in his brain. Now, finally, they have a permanent resting place, and perhaps even one day a means of being absorbed into other minds. It is taking longer than he thought it might, but he enjoys the sense of urgency that mortality brings. Before, he might simply never have felt the impetus to create anything, because time stretched out in front of him like an endless road. But now there is an end, and that changes everything, as he once told Sarah.
He wanders into the washroom and looks at his face in the mirror, as usual relieved that it appears much the same as it always has, not significantly older or more care-worn. He still enjoys the sight of himself in mirrors, though making himself beautiful is no longer as effortless as it once was. Women on this side of the mirror (and more than a few men) notice him, and he enjoys being noticed. Without magic, he takes pleasure in the power that comes from holding their eyes a bit longer than normal, raising a hand to his mouth for a kiss when he meets someone at a party that Sarah takes him to. She rolls her eyes at what she calls his "twenty-four hour seduction face," but he has never taken any flirtation far enough to warrant genuine jealousy from her.
This change, too, is odd. He comes from a world where exclusive pair-bonding is looked at askance. It is not that he feels no desire or interest—some of the beings he encounters here are pleasing enough—only that she pulls at him like a magnet and they do not.
She would laugh at him if she knew how much he dreads the impending arrival of his first grey hairs, or the lines that will surely sharpen around his mouth and the corners of his eyes. He knows that he has always been beautiful, but it was never something that required work. Luckily the mortal world is eternally obsessed with maintaining an aesthetically pleasing physique, and thus the basics of that work have not been difficult for him to learn.
He wonders if Sarah has noticed that she isn't aging the same way that her friends are. She is not immortal—much time spent in the Underground would not grant her that—but it has changed her, in ways that she perhaps doesn't fully understand yet.
He stares out the small bathroom window at the strange geometric shapes that pass for towers and turrets in this world, the endless artificial light, the faint sounds from the streets below that never completely fade. He tells Sarah that there is nothing that he misses about the Underground, but in truth he misses silence, at least sometimes.
He wanders into the living room, where she has thankfully not removed her award. He remembers the sight of her embracing Miguel earlier in the day, both of them crying when he'd received his nomination, and then later clasping hands with Lori, who'd of course tried not to show any emotion but had clearly been moved at her own recognition. They'd all hugged him as well, so overcome were they, and he'd let them, though that sort of emotional touch from adults was still alien to him, and not always wanted. Children were easier—they had always clung to him, it was familiar.
This, perhaps, is the greatest change, though it began long before his mortal life—the idea of love without a desire for possession or control. He does not fully understand the love that Sarah feels for her friends, or they for her, but he is beginning to. He does not, could not love them in the same way, but it is a strange comfort in knowing that they love something that he also loves, and that loves him back. And though Sarah is forever linked with the word mine in his mind, he begins to see how she belongs to others, and to herself.
He imagines her death often. He can't help himself. He hopes that his comes first, but then he imagines her pain, and he hopes that hers comes first. And then remembers that in many ways she is stronger than him, and knows that she would survive.
This feeling, he realizes, this is also falling endlessly, with no knowledge of what lies below, certain only in the fact that at some point, something will break the fall. It terrifies him, but of course it also excites him.
He wonders how she would have moved on if the forces behind the labyrinth had exiled him somewhere far beyond her reach. A part of him knows that she would have moved on, in time. A part of him hopes that she wouldn't have.
He wanders back into the bedroom and lets his eyes linger on her sleeping form, her body curled inward, sheets crumpled around her, one bare leg visible, hand splayed across the bed, her hair falling across her face. His eyes trace every piece of visible flesh, recalling vividly the taste, smell, and feel of it.
She's begun playing at being powerless for him again recently, though it's a fraught game for both of them, because they both know he no longer has the kind of power he once had. He takes comfort in the fact that being a "child whisperer," as they call him, is a role for which mortals will offer compensation, and that this compensation allows him to purchase things for her, in the way that he might have done magic for her in the past.
He sits on the edge of the bed and traces the curve of her leg under the bedsheet, letting his hand rest on her stomach, watching her body rise and fall with the rhythm of her breathing. Remembering the look of wide-eyed wonder she sometimes gives him, on her knees, that makes his own knees go weak. The sounds she makes when he pleasures her, not so different from all the women, mortal and non, that he'd pleasured in the past, but entirely different, of course, because the experience is wrapped up in these still-not-entirely-comprehensible feelings of unselfish love.
Her eyelids flutter and she smiles sleepily. "Watching me sleep. Not creepy at all."
He traces a finger over her hair and down her arm. "I could wait a few hours and watch you write, if you prefer."
"Still creepy, just a different sort," she says, pulling him into bed with her and wrapping her arm around his chest. He can feel the odd contours of her left hand with its missing fingers, a sensation that always makes him flinch with both pain and relief, because she could have lost a great deal more.
"I just realized something," she says.
"Yes?"
She idly strokes his chest. "We don't know when your birthday is."
He chuckles at the fact that so often he still has no idea what she is going to say. "I don't believe I have one, given that I was not, as your renowned playwright has said, 'of woman born.'"
"We should choose one for you," she says, as though this is the most natural thing in the world.
"I was under the impression that name-days were bestowed, not chosen. Do they not lose meaning otherwise?"
He feels her shrug behind him. "Special circumstances, special rules. Plus, don't you want presents?"
He recalls his admittedly limited encounters with mortal birthdays—sweet desserts, song, the simultaneous sentiment of surviving another year and also marking the bittersweet fact that one is a year closer to death. He grimaces at the thought of himself in a party hat.
"I am not partial to being serenaded in public," he says, turning over to look at her, "but I suppose receiving gifts would not be unpleasant."
She smiles at him in a way that still makes him ricochet between emotions—an intense desire to pull her closer and ravish her, a warm feeling of protectiveness, and an ache at the sense that what they have, like all things mortal, is fleeting.
"How about the day you arrived back here?" she says. "I know you weren't born then, but, you know, it was kind of the beginning of your mortal existence."
He laughs. "You'll write me an ending and a beginning, will you?"
She raises an eyebrow at him. "You're the one who told me I could do with a bit more arrogance."
He kisses her, loving the way that words dance back and forth between them in moments like this. "I have no doubt you're up to the task," he whispers.
She kisses him back. He feels that sensation of falling again and surrenders himself to it, endlessly and willingly, and if one day pain will surely accompany that level of surrender, he realizes that he doesn't care. There is her, and there is the small world that they have both made, and it is enough.
Author's note: Aaaand we're done! Thank you to everyone who kudo'd and commented, I really appreciate it.
Back when I wrote Mirror Work, my first foray back into the Labyrinth fandom in many years, I remember thinking (and commenting somewhere) that Jareth and Sarah weren't going to end up snuggling on a sofa or having Sunday pancakes together, that this was more of an extended fling with him being a supplement to her life and not the center of it. But…well, here we are. Things just kind of went where they went. This particular version of Jareth & the J/S dynamic probably isn't to everyone's tastes, but it felt real to me, so I went with it.
He'd make a great nanny, you have to admit. Even if he'd have no sense of child-appropriate storytelling.
Thanks again for reading—fanfic brings me laughs, smiles, tears, and tingles in dark times, and I'm glad if this story / series could hopefully do the same for you. And thank you to the LFFL community for keeping me inspired and cracking me up with pictures of deviant hamsters and goofy owls.