George had stolen one of his brother's comics, and was reading it in their room, trying to block out the sound of the twins' squabbling. He didn't think much of it when the lights flickered – the wiring was old, and Shel liked to mess with it, even when he'd been told not to. Somewhere, there was yelling, the sound of something, several somethings, falling over. He waited a moment, wondering if he'd have to go put out another fire, then put the comic down with a curse when the lights went out.

He dug around for the flashlight he kept for this sort of thing, and set off grimly to slap his brother round the ear. He made it halfway down the hallway before a small warm body crashed into him.

It took him a few minutes, and a bit of shaking, before he could get his baby sister to make any sense.

"...an' I jest said it, I wished the goblins would come an' take him away, an' they did."

A rush of wings, and there was a man standing there. Taller than Pa, and hair that looked like that time Shel stuck a butterknife in the wall socket, just to see.

"When somebody wishes away a child, I take them." He held up long pale hands as George hefted his fists, his little face flushed. "And if nobody comes to rescue them, they become my goblins."

"Like 'Peter Pan'? Missy likes that Disney crap," he added hastily.

"Indeed. But the brave, the cunning... they may take the child back, if they run the labyrinth for them."

George sighed, and hitched up his jeans. Then he took his little sister by the hand, and said, "We'd best go get him back, then, afore Momma comes home and yells at us for losin' him."

00000000

Sheldon was miserable. He was dirty and cold and hungry. The place was filthy, and full of shrieking ...creatures. And chickens. He really hated chickens. Nothing made sense. Especially the stairs. He was certain that gravity didn't work like that. He was surprised to realise that the sobbing wasn't him.

"Hello?" he asked, cautiously.

The little face that popped up out of the mismatched cushions and sacking was dirty as a goblin, but certainly human. Under the dirt and tears, Sheldon thought it...she (there were two small lopsided blonde pigtails) was maybe three or four.

"Who're you?"

"My name is Sheldon Lee Cooper. I was trying to run an experiment to test my homemade Faraday cage, but my sister was being very uncooperative. And then she wished me away." He looked around him. "This isn't what I expected another dimension to look like at all."

"Teeny was bein' a p'incess, an' I wanted to play too, an' she shouted at me an' then the ugly little fings come and took me an' that one pinched me." (The creature concerned still had its paws clamped over its nose, squinting and whining.) One tiny foot stamped, and the big green eyes filled with tears again. "An' that nasty fing took my cro-ow-owwn..."

Sheldon got an armful of crying toddler. He froze. He'd drop his sister in a heap without thought if she wept on him, but his mother would wallop him good if he hurt a little kid.

The 'nasty fing' stuck out a blobby lip and rearranged the glittery plastic on its muddy brown hair. It was a squat, lumpen creature, and unattractive, even by goblin standards.

Sheldon glared at it.

"Give that back."

"Shan't." Beady little eyes blinked at him, and then a long tongue flicked out, sudden calculation. Horribly, it simpered. "Unless you kiss me."

Sheldon shuddered.

00000000

The Bog of Eternal Stench was no worse than the swamps down near where their cousins lived, and the junkyard was near as damn it like their own neighbourhood back home, the wrecker's yard where Shel scrounged up tools for his crazy projects. And as for them weird critters as took themselves to bits, well, George reckoned he might try out for football, the kick he managed on the one head.

He'd always wanted a dog, and now they had two along. One of 'em could talk, which was about right for this screwy place. The grumpy little dwarf guy had tried giving Missy a peach, until George had threatened to black his eye, and Missy had kicked him. Now he was takin' them along a way he said would get 'em right in, but George was prepared for trouble. Nobody did nothing for free.

So he was entirely unsurprised when a bunch of armoured things came scuttling round the corner at them.

00000000

There was a triumphant shriek from the pit in the throne room floor.

"I gotta BOYFRIEND!" The ugly little goblin capered wildly. "I licked him, so he's mine."

Sheldon compulsively wiped his mouth with his hand, and screamed internally. He'd never feel clean again, not if he washed and washed and washed.

Jareth sighed. He'd learned his lesson about stalking, manipulation and emotional blackmail. The goblins were much slower on the uptake. He twisted his wrist and conjured up a crystal. Time to see how the boy's siblings were doing.

He lifted an eyebrow. The two children had made considerable progress. He flicked gloved fingers, and the hour hand on the great clock-face twitched, slid - back.

He was the Goblin King, he could do as he wished, tralala.

(And he did keep an eye on every pathway in and out of his palace, no matter how stealthy certain grumpy gardeners might think they were.)

He was still perhaps a trifle startled when the doors kicked open, and a determined little ten year old in scruffy denim pointed an elderly blunderbuss nearly as tall as he was at him.

"Meemaw told all of us stories from the Old Country growing up. I loaded this thing with nails, so you gimme my little brother back, or I'm fixin' to fill you full of cold iron."

The Coopers all had a mix of stubborn and temper, and they'd grown up fighting each other, their cousins and damn near everyone else in the neighbourhood. Some ugly little critters in tinplate weren't nothing. And once that junkyard had started coming out with stuff from their childhoods, well...George Junior was a proud son of Texas. They'd had ancestors at every battle fought in the State.

Jareth looked at the muzzle pointed at him, and went very still.

"I could give you your dreams," he offered, without much conviction.

George spared one longing glance at the glittering picture, a smiling happy family, playing ball with a dog, then set his jaw.

"Dreams don't fill a man's belly, Pa says. Shel ain't all there in the head sometimes, but he's my brother, so give him back."

Missy was already hauling Sheldon out of the grubby little nest, the clinging goblin still trying to plaster sticky kisses on him.

"Fowlwart, let him go," Jareth commanded. Missy got a handful of stringy brown hair and pulled, making it shriek and flail, and Sheldon fought himself free, ran to hide behind George, blue eyes wide with fear and disgust. The goblin burst into snotty sobs, sitting down hard.

Missy flung herself at her brother, hugged him hard.

"I'm sorry I wished you away, I won't do it no more."

Sheldon flapped his arms awkwardly, then patted at his sister. Turned a worried gaze to his brother.

"Gig...what about the Princess?"

There was another child there. A small scrappy blonde thing, pigtails sticking out from under a ball cap, grubby face and torn dungarees, tiny fists bunched, lower lip sticking out. She'd obviously punched a couple of the goblins, who were clutching eyes and noses. But there was one cringing one that kept petting at her, an avid hopefulness in the twitching face.

"You can stay with Nerdle. Share my nest, yes. Pretty thing for Nerdle."

George booted it sharply across the floor, then knelt down, without taking his eyes off the man.

"Ain't leavin' you to be turned into a goblin, honey. You just climb on."

"Really?" Jareth drawled, looming. Sheldon stuck his head around his brother's shoulder.

"George and Missy both came to rescue me. So that makes one of them for each of us."

"You would bargain with a Fae?"

"There are rules." Sheldon inhaled, sure of his ground, prepared to talk the hindleg off a mule.

The tall man nodded, and despite the stern face, George reckoned that he was laughing inside, the way those weird mismatched eyes glittered.

"Well, then, take your prizes and begone."

So, with Sheldon gripping his belt, and Missy gripping Sheldon, and a tiny, warm body heavy on his back and wrapping sticky little arms round his neck, George backed towards the door...and into a wall of orange fur.

A muffled voice could be heard cussing about smelly rugs, and a disheveled blonde teen was dropped in a heap of tatty satin and frills.

The little wriggler shrieked "Teeny!" right in George's ear, and launched herself at the girl.

Jareth lounged back in his throne, and laughed.

And the world came apart in mirror shards and owl feathers.

00000000

The Coopers thumped down on the floor of the trailer, in a sprawl of limbs. They fought free, and sat up, looked at each other.

"We can't never tell anyone about this," George said. "'Member that head doctor Momma took you to, Shel? Be like that, only worse."

So, they never really talked about it again, tucked the memory away until it seemed nothing more than a half-remembered dream. But none of them were ever that keen on peaches.

00000000

"I've...never really liked peaches." Penny frowned at the fruit.

"Me, neither." Sheldon twitched. The first words they had exchanged for over a week. He fiddled with the tv remote, uncertain.

The channel flipped over. A nature show. A magnificent owl plunged across the screen.

Penny stopped frowning, gave a small gasp. Sheldon straightened up abruptly. They stared at each other, sudden startled recognition.

"Of course. I had a traumatic formative event around stunted, ugly creatures with repulsive personal habits. I suppose I just felt comfortable recreating the scenario."

"And I've started waiting to be rescued, instead of punching people on the nose." Penny tilted her head, smiled up at him, a tiny spark of her old spirit. "Do you ever sometimes wish that the goblins would come and take us away right now?"

Sheldon's eyes widened.

"Penny..."

And when the lights came back on, there was nothing but a cracked crystal paperweight, and a single white feather...

(sometimes, if the light hit the glass just right, it looked almost as if there were two figures dancing -a tall man, a laughing woman, waltzing amidst the stars...)