Disclaimer: Yeah...

A/N: Something a little darker, because, hey, why not?

Title: A Goblin Babe
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance / Horror
Summary: (Not really horror, just a bit dark) Jareth observes his Queen, and wonders about their kingdom of unwanted children. ONESHOT. SxJ

It was almost like a game now.

Mismatched eyes watched her closely, following the curves of her petite arms hidden in an armored cape up to the child she held out in outstretched hands. Her face was impassive, just like when she had said her right words to return her and her brother home all those years ago. Impassive but meaningful—searching and yet knowing.

Exhaustion finally hit the Goblin King, and he sighed before turning away from his Queen to make his way to their throne. There was still only one throne. She had insisted that she didn't need a throne of her own – she had laughed at the thought of calling it a proper throne – saying that she was his equal in every way. She opted to instead sit on his lap or whatever other antic she was up to at the time.

"It's a fine child," were her slow and carefully chosen words.

He plopped down on the chair and returned to his normal exhausted, lounging position.

How cruel his queen could be, he thought as his tired gaze fell back on her. She stood in the middle of the empty room, arms holding the child as far away from her as possible.

The baby didn't utter a sound, too afraid perhaps. The not-yet toddler boy had fallen in love with the goblins who had kept him company during his life-changing thirteen hours. The goblins had tried their hardest, as they always did, to keep the baby smiling, but this woman who held him now... Jareth knew the anxieties of being under that same calculating gaze.

It was a cruel game indeed.

"Is he to your liking, precious?" his voice lulled out, silken even now in its exhaustion.

She noticed.

"This runner wore you out, did he?" she responded instead, still not looking away from the babe. It was on the verge of crying now.

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to let her know that it was her unhappiness – her madness – that was taking a toll on him. They shared the labyrinth's power, and while she walked the ever-changing landscape with her knee-high boots and uneven-layered dress with that hopeless yearning, he had to fight against her unease as well as the runners.

He had to fight her insanity, and it was a game that had yet to end.

"The father didn't have his whole heart in the task; he was powerless against me," the proud king said instead, his eyes still watching her with the same intensity she gave the babe.

"How old was the father?" she asked suddenly, and his eyes widened only a bit at the first sign of care she had shown in years to the one's who wished away their loved ones.

"A few years older than you had been, nothing more," he replied smoothly.

She nodded, "So young…"

He smirked at his young queen, his gaze catching on the detail of owl feathers interlaced so carefully in her long, black hair.

"He's taken his gifts for granted," he smiled to her, and she laughed.

Sarah finally turned around to face him, bringing the babe close to her body, and her emerald eyes sparked with something new.

"He doesn't know what he's given up," she said to him, and he picked up on all the hidden things she said within her casual statement. The poor boy would never remember he had sired a son, would go around into the world with his ability to create more, and they, the lost king and queen, would at last – at last – find joy in the forgotten.

"He has your hair, Jareth," she smiled at him, her eyes dancing with mirth and madness.

He didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise: to tell her that the child's hair was brunette, that his eyes would never look like hers, and that the child was not of their blood.

"He has your nose," the king cooed out to his wife, lying as easily as she believed it. He wondered how long it would take for her to remember that the child wasn't hers and change it into a goblin as she had done before, or whether this lie would last long enough for him to believe it too.

The baby within her arms settled down at her warmth, sensing the maternity that suddenly spilt forth from the once-stoic queen, and Sarah walked towards her beloved.

She kneeled in front of the throne so that she was eye level to him, and Jareth leaned forward to kiss the same nose he lied about. Sarah giggled and handed him their new child.

"I've brought you a gift."

He laughed, genuine and loving.

"You give me your dream, Sarah?"

"Our dream," she corrected as she lifted herself onto the seat to lay on his chest.

His smirk never fell, even though he thought otherwise. He had wanted a child once, yes, but it was not his dream. He wanted her, only his Sarah, and when she had come to him again, a woman of twenty nine years, he had never been happier. Even when they had become rulers of the labyrinth, he could see no greater future than the one they had. It was she who had grown sick once she realized she could never have a family of her own, realized that she could never truly go back; it had been her who had fallen into insanity.

But even so, Jareth had never been happier, and he let her take him by the hand and drag him down into lunacy.

A cruel game indeed, but one that he had grown so fond of. He didn't care for the children she turned into goblins if they didn't have the right blue eyes, if they didn't have a certain laugh, if they didn't didn't didn't didn't…

And he didn't dare tell her that he stole Toby's children and grandchildren occasionally, hoping that she could see through it. Hoping she would either come to or fall deeper. He didn't dare tell her that she herself had turned Toby's descendants – her great nephews and nieces – into goblins.

It was a game they played, and now, with this new child, they could finish the game and fall peacefully into the oubliette of their own making.

Jareth kissed her so that his lips would not defy him and ruin her illusion, their lie, and say to her that he loved her unconditionally, even this insanity that she was blind to.

He feared her and loved her for it, and he was her slave in every way, and he would happily eat all the poisoned peaches she gave to him filled with her twisted dreams of a fallen world.

He only wondered when the poison would finally kill them all, but laughed beneath her venomous kiss.