Thy Bog Overfloweth

Chapter Four

By the time she'd finished laughing, Jareth had several remarks ready to mock her choice of nightwear, but he was thrown off kilter by the pillow she tossed casually at him. He caught it, but the blanket that followed it wrapped itself around his head because Sarah's aim was off (or so she claimed later) and his hands were full of pillow.

"Sweet dreams, Goblin King!" Sarah chirped, and grinned when Jareth finally managed to detangle himself enough to glare at her.

She wasn't able to quite smother the giggle that was trying to force its way out, but she managed to muffle it by burrowing under her blankets.

It was sheer desperation that had Jareth contemplating what he was about to do.

He'd woken and found himself ravenous, but couldn't sneak downstairs for food because Sarah's parents were in the kitchen, and Sarah threatened disembowelment if he used magic on them.

Which was why he was getting ready to poke the sleeping bear...

...Sarah, honestly, had no idea what it was that was aggravating her enough to wake her up, but it was going to die. Immediately after she summoned the energy to kill it. For now, she just swatted at it irritably, missing the first time but connecting the second, her hand closing around... a clothes hanger? Clearly something wasn't right. She cracked an eye open to verify that it was, indeed, a clothes hanger in her clenched fist, and noticed there was an oddly sheepish look on the instigator's face. Said instigator noticed she was awake and the weirdest look of hopeful wariness took the place of the sheepish scowl.

"I'm hungry. You need to go foraging."

Sarah growled up at Jareth. "Go forage yourself. I'm sleeping."

Jareth growled right back at her, and Sarah's sleep-clouded mind took the time to note, idly, that his growl was much deeper than hers and sounded like an animal's growling. Like a wolf or a puma or something. Certainly not an owl. Although she supposed it would be rather easier for an owl to hold a clothes hanger than a wolf or a puma, what with the 'talons vs. claws thing'...

"Your parents are downstairs. Go find food." This time he nudged her, and she slid a couple of inches closer to the side of the bed. "Now." Another, stronger push. "Before I starve to death or decide to just enchant your parents." The final shove brought her right to the far edge of the bed, and Sarah rolled over and off in a clumsy, but decidedly well-practiced manner.

"Fine. You could ask nicely, though. In fact, I don't think I'm going anywhere until you ask nicely."

Jareth bared his teeth in irritation at this, but complied immediately. "Sarah, will you please supply food for me before I implode? I beseech you!"

Sarah smirked, and if it seemed a little like the smirks he used so frequently, Jareth didn't notice. "Better." Then she turned and stumbled out the door in an entirely dignified manner, yawning only when she was sure he couldn't see her.

Of course, snitching food out from under the watchful eyes of her parents was not an easy task, but Sarah- now keyed up on coffee- was the girl for the job. When Karen yawned and blinked blearily at the window, Sarah slipped an orange into her pocket. When her father rustled the newspaper noisily, Sarah used the sound to muffle the noise made by the theft of dry cereal. And when she lazily stood and poured herself another coffee, her parents didn't think anything of it, for Sarah often took coffee upstairs with her.

Jareth practically pounced on her to get the food, and Sarah watched the Goblin King scarf down the cereal, following it up by downing half of the coffee- and scalding himself in the process- before eating the orange much more slowly, as if the bite of the hunger had gone and the food could now be enjoyed.

"Jeez. What brought that on?" Sarah had to wait for Jareth to finish his orange before he answered, and even then, it wasn't particularly helpful.

"Haven't the foggiest."

"So, what's the plan for Toby's birthday party?" Jareth called through the door as Sarah occupied the bathroom.

"His friends are meeting here, and Dad's driving us to a laser-tag arena, and then we come back here for cake n' ice cream n' such."

"Us and we?"

"That," Sarah announced with a grin as she opened the bathroom door with a flourish, "Is completely grammatically incorrect. But yes, 'us and we'. Since I agreed to play baby sitter to the Goblin King, I can't just leave you home with Karen, now can I? I asked Dad yesterday if I could bring a friend, and said it was fine, so 'you' are coming along, too."

"You're not my baby sitter! ... And what's laser tag?"

"You'll see, you'll see." Sarah grinned at him. "However, your regular attire will not be at all appropriate. Can you make yourself look about my age and poof up some normal clothes?"

If he hadn't been a King, Jareth would have voiced the thoughts that ran through his head just then- namely, derhh-de-der-der-der- but as it was, he just laughed.

"Piece of cake," he smirked.

"No, we have cake after laser tag, remember?" Sarah grinned. "They do say memory is the first thing to go."

"So, this is the friend you were telling me about? The one from school?" Mr. Williams looked at Jareth Shee, as Sarah had introduced him. Jareth had snickered internally.

'Shee' indeed. Jareth the Sidhe, Jareth the Fae, Jareth the Goblin King, she couldn't have made it any more obvious, could she? Hiding in plain sight, and all that jazz, as she says. It could be worse... she told me earlier she thought briefly I might be an elf... That would have been a horrible title. Jareth the Elf. Ha!

She'd made him fly out the window, walk down the street, and knock on the door. He'd had a moment of startling deja vu, standing at the door and arguing about the intelligence of knocking. Sarah had come thundering down the stairs- he'd heard this through the door so he could only imagine how loud it actually was, and ran into the door with a muffled thump when her inertia kept her moving forward instead of stopping as she meant to. He'd smirked at her when she did manage to open the door, raising an eyebrow as he did so, but it quickly turned into a grin as she stuck her tongue out at him. He'd just given in to the oh-so-mature impulse to make a face right when Mr. Williams walked over to greet the newcomer.

His first kingly instinct was to deny having done what he just did, but as a ruler of Goblins and a (relatively) young man, his first reaction was an unabashed grin.

"Yes, sir, I am."

"Sarah's told me a little about you, actually." Mr. Williams didn't see the frantic go-along-with-whatever-he-says look that his daughter shot Jareth from behind Mr. Williams' back.

"Hm. I suppose the customary response is, all good things, I hope, but I'm sure if you've only heard good things about me, you've been told about a different person."

"She did warn me you were arrogant and somewhat stubborn," Mr. Williams confessed. "But she said you have a good sense of humor, and-"

"Da-ad! You're embarrassing me in front of my friend!" Sarah whined over-dramatically.

"Of course I am! It's why I'm a dad, to embarrass you and Toby!"

"Oh jeez, she gets it from you, doesn't she?" Jareth groaned. The two Williams looked at him mischievously.

"Naturally." They chorused.

"Let me get this straight. We run around a dark room, tripping over obstacles, with fake guns and shoot light at each other- for fun?" Sarah grinned as Toby and his friends protested.

"It's actually rather fun. You just have to give it a try, Jareth." She leaned over to whisper in his ear, "And if you cheat using magic, the consequences shall be severe... Like no cake, AND only 'Dracula' to read for the next week at work."

"I'm trembling. But I will go into this with an open mind, and won't use my magic crystals to cheat." The sarcasm was easily detected, and Sarah's only response was to roll her eyes.

"We're here!" Mr. Williams announced "I made sure to get us here half an hour early, so you lot could play in the arcade before we get started."

As they all unloaded, Sarah asked her dad, "Are you going to be playing laser-tag with us?"

"Darn right I am!" Mr. Williams laughed. "Payback for all those times you and Toby didn't clean your rooms, or sulked about doing your homework... Revenge, my dear, for I'll get you, and your little dog, too! Mwahahahaha!"

Jareth, who heard the whole thing, drawled, "You better be implying that Toby's her little dog." At that, all three laughed.

Inside, Jareth peered curiously at all of the moving-picture boxes, and similar boxes without screens that had, none-the-less, as many flashing lights as the others. Sarah disappeared for a moment, and he was startled when she reappeared as suddenly as she had gone.

"Here, put these in your pocket. The machines only accept a certain type of coin, so make sure you don't lose them." She grabbed his hand in one of hers and tipped her own cupped hand so the coins spilled on to his gloved hand.

"We should probably play a shooting game- it'll be good practice for laser-tag, and goodness knows what a crippling blow to your ego it would be if you lost to a gaggle of seven year olds. And a nineteen year old, and a forty six year old," She added after a slight pause. "But first, I think you'll like this game..."

Ten minutes later found Sarah watching Jareth play DDR. He'd taken to it immediately, and Sarah soon found that she couldn't keep up with him, he had uncanny reflexes and dominated the match once he understood what he was supposed to do. She shook her head as Jareth pulled off a particularly difficult, particularly fast combination.

"C'mon! I want to play something else!" Sarah said. "There's a competitive driving game. I challenge you to it!"

"Why would I want to drive a fake car? Real cars are bad enough!"

"Because if you crash in a game, no one dies. Are you really going to refuse a challenge? I didn't realize you're a chicken, I always thought you were an owl."

"You realize that I know what you're trying to do, right?" Jareth smirked, but internally, that part of him that related to the Labyrinth the most, that was always looking forward to the next challenge, was jumping up and down and saying Yay! Fight, fight, fight! Accept the challenge, the gauntlet has been thrown, gird yer loins and go ta battle, you nut! Are you really going to let an insult like that pass? The rest of him just thought, dammit, this is really annoying, and she'll be laughing at me because it works.

"Just because you know doesn't make it any less effective."

Jareth sighed long-sufferingly, and replied, "Let me finish this song first."

Sarah would have made him play the game without explaining how, but Jareth demanded she tell him how to operate this damn thing; first she had to show him how to adjust the seat, though. She wished (mentally, of course, she'd have to be mental to say it out loud with that silly owl around) that she had a camera to better remember the way he'd looked, crowded into the fake car seat and scowling at the screen. Whoever it was who played this before had to have been extremely short, and Jareth, even with his human glamour, was taller than the average twenty-year-old guy that he seemed to be. Even with jeans and a black tee-shirt, she didn't think Jareth quite pulled off being human, but that might just be because she knew he wasn't. That, Sarah mused, or the owl feather he braided into his hair. Jareth had explained earlier that it helped him keep the glamour solid, instead of just illusionary. It had been a wonder that her father had accepted him so quickly.

Dad must've thought he was someone from the drama department or something, Sarah toyed with that idea as the race began. The last play her college had done was Alice in Wonderland. Jareth, she decided, would have made a wonderfully whimsical Cheshire Cat, and he was kooky enough to be the Mad Hatter... Sarah's car nearly drove off the course at the thought of Jareth dressed up as the Queen, or even worse, as Alice. I am SO not going to be able to look at him the same way, ever again... She couldn't help the snicker the picture she'd imagined, and when Jareth looked over to see what was so funny, his car drove into a tree and exploded, startling him so badly that Sarah laughed all the harder.

Jareth was the one that challenged Sarah to the shooting game, having lost- very badly- at the driving game. They were happily shooting away at any moving target when Mr. Williams informed them that the laser-tag arena was being cleared of its previous party and that the Williams group were amassing by the entrance.

Jareth hadn't been surprised when he started pulling ahead by the thousands in the shooting game- his reflexes were much faster than a human's, and his trigger finger reacted upon seeing animated motion, but only after determining whether the target was an enemy or not. Sarah, on the other hand, shot at absolutely anything and kept losing points for hitting civilians. After watching for a few seconds, Mr. Williams snickered, "Sarah, do me a favor and never become a cop. Move it, you two!"

When the employee asked how the teams should be formed, the first suggestion was boys vs. girls. This was unsurprising, but also unfair with or without a basis for comparison, because the only girls present were Sarah and the shy little six-year-old Natalie, who had practically disappeared beneath her gun vest.

The next suggestion was kids vs. adults, but that was shot down just as quickly, when all three adults started talking about which other adult they wanted to shoot- Sarah wanted to shoot Jareth and her dad; Jareth wanted to shoot Sarah and possibly her dad for good measure; and Mr. Williams wanted to shoot Sarah and possibly the new boy she'd introduced him to, because he'd always think of Sarah as his little girl and the new guy was an intruder that wasn't giving off the 'just friends' vibe.

It was finally decided that they would all line up and get a number, odds versus evens. Jareth laughed when Sarah started punning about how she couldn't possibly be odd, she was such an even-tempered person. Jareth and Toby were both evens, Mr. Williams and Sarah were odd (in more than just the crazy way, in the actual numerical value). The rest of the little kids- Toby had about ten of his friends at the party, not including family and Jareth- fell into the teams.

"Alright, soldiers, line up!" The employee was having entirely too much fun with this, Sarah thought. "Green Team, check your guns and be sure that there are numbers flashing at the top. The number on the top is your score, the number beneath it is how many times you've been hit, the last number is the timer. Red Team! Same thing. I'll lead you all inside to your bases. You must return to the bases to reload every twenty shots, whether they hit the target or not. Understood?" Everyone nodded, and he continued. "You have thirty minutes. Follow me!"

Jareth supposed that it was, sort of, cheating to use magic to give himself owl's eyes, but Sarah had only said crystals... And he had only agreed to crystals. Toby and the other little kids were plotting out a strategy, and Jareth heroically volunteered to act as a mercenary. The young ones agreed, and he set off to find a good vantage point.

The dark room was clear as high noon to Jareth, but Sarah kept stumbling in the black lights and fog. Her eyes would adjust just that bit, and then one of the two regular lights would flash right into her eyes. She suspected she was jinxed, but couldn't prove anything. She felt her luck turned around, however, when she caught Jareth prowling around- back to her, targets in clear sight... She fired at him and hit on the first shot, when he whirled to see who had the nerve (and accuracy) to hit the target on the back of his vest, Sarah managed to duck away into a really good hiding spot.

At least, it seemed like a really good hiding spot.

Until Toby and his friends got over their shock and started firing.

Karma is overrated, Sarah thought, peeved. She was running blindly through the arena, and almost all of Toby's crew was chasing her down like hounds hunting hares. In fact, the only one who isn't there is-

The thought was cut off when a hand shot out and pulled her into a little nook she hadn't noticed. She thought it was her father, helping her out, until a gun was shot, point blank, at the target on her shoulder. Jareth kissed her cheek and whispered, "Justice." Then he was off, leaving a disorientated and discombobulated Sarah in the hidey hole.

In hindsight, Jareth realized that he shouldn't have led Sarah to such a strategic location. She found several other in the area and utilized them all to their maximum capacity. And as his card showed, he'd only been hit nine times- once by Mr. Williams, once by Natalie, and seven times by Sarah. Ah, well, he'd shot her more than that, and he'd even got a couple of shots at Mr. Williams, who was sulking the entire car ride home, since he had been hit the most, despite Sarah's journey into the lion's den.

Jareth was currently attempting to balance a paper plate and a carbonated beverage, and while he was succeeding at that, he really, really wanted to eat the cake and couldn't without putting the soda down and having it lost in the sea of plastic cups.

He'd finally wandered away from the living room and into the kitchen to eat, drink, and be merry with Sarah, who had pinned her own score card up on the refrigerator. She'd been very proud of her performance in the laser tag arena, she'd score in the two-hundred-thousands, and had an accuracy rate of 98 percent.

She'd compared the score itself to his, and been disappointed to find she'd lost score-wise by a mere twelve points, but she had lost a lot of points escaping from Toby's den. She'd beaten him in accuracy with a whopping twenty-three percent, mostly because he kept seeing and shooting at Goblins, thinking they were people from the other team.

"So? Was shooting at people with fake guns for fun as stupid as you thought it would be?" Sarah already knew the answer, and he knew it, and the grin she was wearing showed that she knew he knew.

"It was rather fun to shoot you without actually injuring you," Jareth admitted. She made a face and flung an ice cube at him, managing to toss it in just such a way that it slid down the neck of his shirt. She laughed when he yelped and lunged at her, diving behind her father for protection.

"Oh no you don't, girly," Mr. Williams said as he pushed her out into the open. "You threw the ice cube, you suffer the consequences!"

It was Sarah's turn to yelp as Jareth wrestled her into a headlock and slipped the ice into the back of her shirt, using a little magic to help it to linger on the back of her neck and get stuck in that spot on your back that you can never quite reach. It melted there, as she stretched and wiggled, trying to remove it, and she ended up having to go change her shirt. When she started down stairs, however, things did not go at all as planned, for she had only taken two steps down when a hand covered her mouth and an unfamiliar voice whispered, "Stay quiet and I'll explain after we arrive!" Then the world dropped out from under her feet, and all Sarah could think was, Damnit, I didn't get to finish my cake!

Oro: Ah, yes, some semblance of an actual plot begins.
Jareth: You truly are evil, aren't you?
Oro: Naturally, naturally.
Sarah: What's with the sudden stopping!
Oro: Elementary, my dear Watson! It's late, I'm lazy, and Quill is still mumbling the next chapter to me. Don't worry, for once I know exactly where this story is headed.
Jareth: Tell me, then!
Quill: Quiet, you. If you knew the plot, it wouldn't work half as well, and its more amusing to watch you stumble through this like a drunk chicken, anyway.
Oro: Thank you for your kind words, Quill. In this chapter, I don't own Labyrinth, its characters, Dracula, laser tag, or DDR. The Dracula threat, by the bye, is because a sleeping snail moves faster than Bram Stoker's plot line. Until next time!