a/n: When I watched Labyrinth the other day, something about Jareth scrabbling to get through the window bothered me...

"13 Hours of Drunk"

In his keenest moments of denial, Jareth could convince himself that the whole Sarah Running the Labyrinth Ordeal had been merely a fantastic delirium.

Honestly… he, the King of the Goblins, boogieing with a baby in the middle of his throne room?

But the phantom sensation of the babe in his arms haunted longer than the remnants of any natural dream. A shudder would sometimes skim his neck at the sound of a goblin botching familiar, ambiguous lyrics, resulting in said goblin's instant transport to an oubliette and he himself wondering what the hell he had been drinking (it was now explicitly forbidden to speak the words "magic" and "dance" in the same sentence).

Besides, he could never be so cruel as to send a fifteen-year-old girl through his labyrinthine death trap.

But nights like this - when a certain very good wine simmered pleasantly in his blood, and he was stumbling about his Escher Tower after leaving a particularly rambunctious goblin dance party - Jareth was more disposed to admit that he, in reality, had done those things.

He winced.

Because seven years ago, during Sarah's Thirteen Hour Ordeal, the King of the Goblins had been completely and utterly drunk.

It was all Sarah's fault.

Now, it might seem ignoble to blame the girl, but if she hadn't made such a beguiling spectacle while practicing her little play that evening, then he never would have been caught in the Aboveground rain. Soaked and bad-tempered, he had flown his shivering owl self back to the Underground, wrapped himself in his most dramatic cape, and guzzled down the spiciest wine he could conjure. It was vitally important to point out this hadn't been just any wine. This had been the very good wine, and it had also been very strong. He was downing his fourth cup when Sarah said her right words.

There were rules about these situations. Decades of refinement on proper first impressions and so forth.

One summons? All gone to pot.

That first hour was a dark blot in his memory with occasional flashes of Sarah's terrified face… something about a snake...

Oh, yes, and that blasted window. Damned thing wouldn't open.

By some habit of rhetoric, he must have said his own right words, because he did remember standing on the hill overlooking the labyrinth, thus beginning the Thirteen Hour Musical of him prancing about in jodhpurs. Life as a single male amongst goblins didn't exactly keep him practicing the decency normally afforded to modest, young females. And if anything good had come from the ordeal, it was the time spent with that adorable peppermint stick called Toby. That boy had shown more promise of intelligence than any full-grown goblin. Maybe it hadn't been so far-fetched to desire to raise him as his son. Jareth still privately agreed with his bolder goblins when they whispered about how much they missed the boy.

It was usually at this point in its reminiscence that Jareth's mind skipped ahead, as the flashes of memory were unfortunately clearer. The Goblin King didn't care to admit that he had sent Cleaners after Sarah, the loveliest creature to grace his kingdom in decades, after a particular cheeky comment on her part. Not to mention he had also tried sending said loveliest creature directly into the Bog of Eternal Stench. He had no desire to imagine how that ballroom dance would have played out had he been successful!

Because no, admitting to those actions would be akin to admitting to jealousy of a certain dwarf.

Ha. It was laughable!

It was the wine.

Fortunately, he had learned a new trick that day: intoxication was apparently the secret to reordering time (or at the least flashily rotating clock arms; he still hadn't figured out which it was).

Ceasing his roaming of the Escher Tower Stairs, Jareth in real-time sank to the cold stone, his fingers automatically materializing a crystal to spin while he mused over those final hours. Ah... He could never seem to forget that delightful conjuring of a party where his heart once sniveled, no matter how often - with stoic frequency - he had subjected himself to Ludo's abysmal rock-summoning music. In truth, he had been a goner even before Sarah had bitten the peach, because the little alcohol left in his blood had already begun crooning the glum strains of the lonely song. Lingering in precious Sarah's dream world wouldn't have been unfavorable. Her looking stunningly "adult" in her gown. Her staring at him like he was the epitome of mystique. You'd be surprised at how swiftly time can pass you by in one those magic crystals. If they had danced long enough, perhaps now he wouldn't be feeling so depraved for attempting to serenade a teenager.

Well... now it mattered not. His little party-crasher had smashed her own dream world into dazzling shards of rejection. All of his hard work! A shocking disappointment. He thought he might have shed a crystal.

The veneer of glitz and mischief had cracked. The effects of the alcohol had rapidly faded from his system. And suddenly, he had been faced with the ugly reality that Sarah was winning.

This crisis fell directly under a code ten violation of Things Which Must NEVER HAPPEN.

Fortunately, like all properly formidable villains, he had plunged into the last and final hour with a beastly hangover.

He supposed he had to give himself some grace for the way things deteriorated from then on; it was difficult to troubleshoot one of the most pride-devastating scenarios to come to you and your kingdom when your head felt like it was stuffed full of belligerent fairies. The disorganized goblin army had been a desperate attempt to slow her down. She never should have gotten that far. Maybe if it hadn't been for her bosom companions, she wouldn't have. But he had been a sentimental, drunken idiot who, in the middle of crooning his lonely song, had wondered why the precious thing should have to be lonely, too.

In the end, he was at her mercy.

The Escher Tower stand-off had metamorphosed into a tragic blunder. He had quickly given up on the whole dramatic chasing ploy in favor of a leaning pitifully on a wall (vertigo made hangovers living purgatory)...

…watching Sarah scurry after Toby...

…and counting down the minutes until this fiasco ended and he could collapse on a bed in a very dark, quiet room.

Then, at last, they had stood before one another. Obviously, throwing around those crystals willy-nilly had backfired. Shiny baubles had rapidly lost Sarah's interest in the cresting moments of victory. He had lost all power over her.

Tra. La. La.

To this day, he was still embarrassed by his last ditch efforts to keep her there. Promises of fear and love and eternal slavery had glided off his lips. He had once heard such words were pleasing to the ears of all females. Well, he had heard wrong. Apparently, they only appealed to older, lonesome women who thrived on dime novels. "Quite literally" was the way to describe how his world next fell apart. The final hour had ended with the babe and the girl sent straight back to the Aboveground.

He himself had tumbled down in a swathe of gauzy linens. For one euphoric moment, he imagined his bed was going to appear beneath him. Instead, to his capping disappointment, he had appeared back in the Aboveground as an exhausted, lonely, dry, garden-variety owl.

Sarah, cheeky thing, had immediately hosted some sort of underage goblin party, and for a while, he had simply watched. He had briefly considering crashing the celebration just to spite her, but then decided there was no way he was subjecting himself to that kind of noise with this headache.

And although nothing else had gone right during those thirteen hours, at the end of the night, his bed had remained his ever stolid, non-judgmental, sleeping companion.

Seven years had passed since he had touched that very good wine.

Until tonight.

Stretched out across the dusky stones in his Stair Tower, Jareth stared down at the swaying, glittering sky.

He had overcome his fear. He would enjoy this drink and the memories it stirred, and nothing would interfere with the perfection that was this quiet, bachelor night.

...

Then a faraway voice cried,

"I wish the goblins would take me away right now!"

He froze.

He sputtered.

And he cursed that voice's oh-so familiarity.

"You can't do this, Sarah Williams!" he yelled, cracked and slurring. "No re-runs!"

-fin-