Unexpected

On a starry night in early March, as the wind blew something much too cold to be rain onto every surface of her tiny college town, Sarah emerged from O'Reilly's Pub. She clutched at the wrought-iron railing and tread carefully behind three of her girlfriends, laughing that the first had tripped on the bar's cracked step. It was a running joke among regulars that if you left without tripping, you weren't drunk enough yet and should go right back in for another round. Sarah knew there was no reason for any of them to go back inside.

The fused sounds of the juke box, the hockey game, and the patron's conversation were sealed off by the closing of the pub's heavy outer door. Sarah raised her eyes from the sidewalk to the street as she came away, and saw a strangely familiar figure not three feet from where she stood.

Sarah recognized the man almost immediately and nearly drew away, as he leaned casually against the streetlight in front of her. She wished desperately that she had forgotten her debit card at the bar, or her purse in the bathroom, or her cell phone in the toilet; anything to prevent the Goblin King from reentering her life a this particular point in time. But there was nothing to be done, no way out now.

Their eyes had not yet met; she wanted to see all of him before she looked into those mismatched eyes once more. Jareth's platinum hair was slicked back into a ponytail. He was dressed in nondescript dark clothing. He did not seem to be bothered by the temperature or the icy precipitation, as he wore only a black knee-length rain slicker against the cold. The costume emphasized the length of his limbs and the paleness of his skin and hair. He glowed with an otherworldly light, a brighter one than the yellow wash under which he was standing.

Sarah let herself look into his eyes and decided to get rid of her friends. She didn't know what he was there for, but she didn't want to get trapped in metaphors or veiled references to the past. She needed to be alone with him.

It went against every rule they all had been told at campus safety seminars. But they were drunk and she assured them he was in one of her classes. The girls believed her and went past, smiling appreciatively at his lean build and cocky secretive smile. Sarah was not smiling, in fact she felt more ill than anything. She'd known that last shot of tequila had been a terrible idea even before it sloshed into her vodka and cranberry filled stomach.

"Oh God," the words came out of her mouth before she decided to play it cool and see what he wanted.

"Surprised to see me?" he asked. His eyes were twinkling merrily, following her as she shifted from one foot to the other. There was no way she could pass herself off as anywhere near sober.

"Ah…" as the syllable lingered on her breath, she couldn't think of a thing to say. When he did not receive the disbelieving gasp or willful insult he was expecting, Sarah saw his expression waiver and she paused in her struggle to think. Realizing she'd just ruined his plan for the conversation, and having added the vodka in to the mix, she could not help but giggle. His look of mild annoyance only prolonged her laughter.

"Is there something on my face?" he said, visibly displeased.

It took a moment for Sarah to get herself under control, but finally she answered breathlessly, "S-sorry. I…um…haha...I seem to have lost the power of speech."

"And you think that's funny?"

"In an ironic sort of way…yeah." After mostly succeeding at stifling her amusement, Sarah decided to take control of the conversation. Stepping a little closer to him, she surprised herself at her own rudeness, "Why are you here? No one called you."

"Why do you think that I may only come when I am called?"
She frowned at his evasive answer, "Lack of experience, I suppose. Why come now if you can whenever you please?"

"Oh, it's just that it's been a while, my dear," he said, smiling pleasantly. "I wanted to get a good look at you."

Jareth looked her up and down, tilting his head to emphasize the action. She suddenly felt completely exposed in her usual evening outfit, a pair of tight jeans and a spangly tank top. Her winter jacket had been hanging open because of the heat of the bar and the alcohol's flush.

Sarah automatically closed her coat tightly around herself. She'd been looked at like that before, but somehow she had expected more from him. She knew he was only trying to catch her off guard, but that didn't excuse it. She had remembered him better than he was, despite his being her enemy once. She wasn't sure how that made her feel.

But Sarah didn't want to examine that anything too closely, nor did she want to be disappointed at all; she wanted to play the game again. And she thought, who said it had to be on his terms? She let her coat hang open, "Like what you see?"

His eyes met hers in response, mismatched and unreadable, though they seemed to say, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

He stepped back toward the edge of the shadows, but Sarah came forward, keeping him in view. Jareth cast her a questioning glance and she pointed in the direction her friends had gone. Sarah idly wondered if what she was doing was a good idea, even as her body moved and her mouth spoke, "We're going dancing. Do...you want to come?"

His answering smile was slow to develop and strange; full of amusement and something else Sarah could not read. "You want to dance with me?"

"Er," her brain was not responding well to direct questioning. Was there a reason she shouldn't?

"The last time we danced, Sarah, you threw a chair against a wall."

"That was a dream," she countered warily, not sure she was remembering it right.

"Then how did you fall into the junkyard, my dear? Irreparable damage was done to my mirror wall. And," he continued, stepping back into the yellow light, "it certainly displayed a lack of enthusiasm for your partner."

Sarah couldn't think of anything to say to that, so she simply turned in the direction her friends had stumbled, "Do you want to come, or not?"

That strange expression had not yet left his face, "Of course I want to come."

They walked down the sidewalk, close but not touching, even though Sarah knew she could have used the support, passing closed hair salons, antique shops, and cafes in turn. A wintry mix had made the pavement slick, and it glistened with icy moisture. The streetlights reflected off the sidewalk, the blacktop and every parked car, casting highlights into the dark night, like stars fallen to earth.

They passed a closed restaurant. Inside the Twelve Point Inn, all the lights were out and all the chairs put up on tables. The place, often called Deerhead by locals, was known for having just that mounted upon the central wall, over-seeing all the patrons consume large plates of home style hunting food. Sarah had never eaten at the establishment, but there was an after-hours bar set up in the basement that its particular brand of patron liked to call Buckshot. It was there that Sarah was leading the Goblin King.

She took them down a narrow alley between the restaurant and the neighboring building. The were drainage pipes above their heads and tiny icicles dripped water down to the puddle-ridden ground under their feet. As Sarah side-stepped a pool of murky water, she glanced back at Jareth to see his head titled upwards, his fingers grazing the side of the brick wall, as if they could tell him something by touch alone. She turned around swiftly, feeling strange about having seen him in a moment of distraction.

They came around the back and passed a few guys leaning against the wall, one smoking, one pissing, and one, on closer inspection, kissing and groping a skinny blonde.
It was not a place Sarah would have liked to advertise that she went on a regular basis, but she led him down the mud and cigarette-caked stairs anyway.

The sounds of a thumping bass and loud conversation were emitted in harsh bursts every time the thin wooden door opened. Turning to him, Sarah thought she caught a glimpse of distaste on Jareth's face, but it passed quickly, or was never there at all, and he looked back at her expectantly. He would not be warned away.

A young couple was on their way out as they entered through the smoky doorway. The girl with a bad dye job had a tattooed guy by the wrist, with more anger than tears in her heavily made-up eyes while he insisted, "it was nothing."

Sarah ignored the typical drama and handed the bouncer her driver's license. When he handed the card back she saw Jareth flash the man only a smile and walk right through after her.

The place was dark, lit only with intermittent dim fluorescent lights and pink and green neon signs above the long bar that extended along one wall. Two women bartenders in thin tank tops and jeans eyed them, waiting for shouted drink orders, but moving quickly onto other customers when Sarah looked away.

The concrete walls and floor seemed to be saturated with the smell of beer and booze. Small tables with two or three chairs each lined the opposite wall, while slightly taller tables, made for patrons to stand near or lean on, took up half the space in between and was packed with people. The other half was a wooden plank dance floor on which three or four couples danced among a few large groups of single girls in clothes that belonged more at a club than a honky-tonk bar in the middle of nowhere.

"Charming," he murmured in her ear.

She responded only with a roll of her eyes, something she had once been told she did a lot when drinking, and began making her way through the crowded basement. As she fought her way through the beer-bellied townies and short-skirted sorority girls, Sarah felt the distance between them widen. So she reached back and caught his hand in hers.

Jareth was not wearing gloves, and his hand was cool in her clammy palm. She told herself she was concentrating so hard on not toppling to the beer-soaked concrete because of her blood alcohol level and not because his strong, slender fingers were interlaced through her own.

"This is the only bar in town with a dance floor. Unless you want to go to a frat," Sarah said as she turned towards him when they reached the dance floor. Their fingers were still intertwined and he pulled her nearer. His other hand came to rest on her waist, slipping underneath the coat she had forgotten to remove.

"To a what?" he showed an expression of mild puzzlement, as if she had just spoken some amusing nonsense word. Sarah was lost for a moment as to what he was asking about; his hand was now steady on her hip, pulling her still closer. She felt light-headed and the room was hot, but she didn't want to change it. She didn't want to take off her coat. She didn't want to get a much-needed cup of water.

Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" was blaring out of the speakers and Jareth was leading her as if dancing to country rock was something he practiced daily. They moved together to the steady guitar rhythm of the song. The bass in the sound system buzzed in Sarah's ears and vibrated under her feet. No, she didn't want to change a thing. She liked where she was.

Jareth was smiling in an annoyingly knowing way by the time she roused herself to answer his question.

"Oh… a fraternity house. They have dance floors…parties on the weekends…" She had spoken to his chest, but now looked up to meet his eyes.

He bent towards her, speaking into her ear, even though she had heard him fine before. His was a voice that went straight through to her, above all the background noise. "And you don't like those parties?"

"The guys are assholes."

"And I'm not?" It was more than a whisper, but in a low tone that made her dizzier than the alcohol had.

Sarah pulled back and looked him straight in the eye again, thinking he was more of a cheerful bastard than an asshole. She didn't say it, but instead replied, "I don't know what you're like." Because she didn't. Not truly.

He twirled her unexpectedly and the surprise must have been evident on her face because he laughed, almost delightedly. "Do you want to know, Sarah?"

She tried to detect any hint of warning or mocking in his question. But there was none. The night had gone in a direction different than either of them had expected. And as she searched, she saw that with that laugh he glowed brighter than anything else in the room.

Sarah smiled back at him, thinking perhaps he wanted to know what she was really like too. But answering only, "Of course."

A/N: This story was written for the Labyfic Summer fic exchange. In response to tallulah99's request to read something about Sarah and Jareth's first meeting after the Labyrinth.

If you're interested in reading more awesome fics by rabid Labyrinth fans head over there and see what other people wrote. :)