A/N: The latest chapter of Tithe is murdifying me. I've sent what could pass for a draft off to the wonderful syntheticaesthetic, in hopes that her fresh brain can do what my worn out one can't. And then there this was on my laptop… This is unbeta-ed. It is TOO SILLY for a beta.

This story is 100% crack. It really wasn't my intention to write anything else about drug use. But then Asmallcateatingasmallmilk over at AO3 commented on the first chapter of Tithe, saying that they'd like to see Sarah go with the Goblin King because she couldn't find her friends and was too high to know any better. I didn't particularly connect with that idea from a dramatic point of view, but as parody… Thus the birth of Stoner!Sarah. I'm not sure whether writing a fic for the (possibly non-existent) Labyrinth/stoner comedy crossover demographic is the best or worst idea of my life.

To be clear, I'm pretty sure this wasn't what Asmallcateatingasmallmilk meant or wanted, so while all credit goes to them for the original idea and inspiring this fic, all blame for its execution should go to me.

Sarah's friends are named in honour my neighbours across the hall freshman year, the sweetest guys ever to receive multiple citations for recreational drug use on a notoriously permissive college campus. I've been fortunate enough to call many a stoner friend (or family) in my life, but I've never been more than an occasional smoker myself, so I apologise for any inaccuracies. Her roommate is based very very loosely off my freshman year roommate, who also disapproved of my sex, drugs, and rock n' roll lifestyle (well, to be perfectly accurate, it was more like sex, cheap booze, and Lady Gaga) but was far nicer about it.

Also, listened exclusively to the Talking Heads while writing this. So blame David Byrne.

This story will be updated as frequently as I need breaks from all the drama in Tithe. Fun fact: writing romance is a lot easier when Sarah is too stoned to care about how much of a dick Jareth can be.

PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Chapter 1: In which Sarah gets high and meets an old acquaintance, and the Goblin King experiences cultural difficulties

Sarah wrestled her jeans back over her hips. It had not been without good reason, given the severity of the campus-wide crackdown and all the pointed and vaguely threatening comments her roommate had taken to making recently, that Davy had insisted they go so far into Seward's Woods to light up. And of course, any experienced smoker knew it was always a good idea to stay hydrated when smoking, and Sarah was nothing if not experienced. But, as it turned out, Seward's Woods suffered from a serious lack of bathroom facilities, and the payoff was squatting on unsteady legs, bare-assed in the middle of a forest. It was all very well for Davy and Maurice, who could just unzip their jeans wherever they wanted to, while Ros, as she had informed Sarah with what Sarah considered quite disproportionate pride, had a bladder of steel.

Sarah, having finally succeeded in fumbling the button of her fly shut, picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder, squinting around at all the trees in an effort to determine which way she'd come from. The pleasant vista of grey trunks and green leaves which met her eyes from every direction was … unhelpfully generic.

"Hey, you guys ready for another bowl?" she called.

There was no response, which was strange. Davy Berkowitz in particular was famed in certain circles for the highly selective acuteness of his hearing ability: he could pick up on the sound of someone offering to smoke him out anywhere within a half mile radius.

"You guys?" she called again.

No answer except the vague rustlings and twitterings of the deep woods.

She shrugged, turned towards a slightly less unfamiliar looking clump of trees, and set off.

"Hey, where are you guys?" she called as she stumbled through the undergrowth. "Davy? Ros? Maurice?"

Somewhere behind her and to her left, she heard a strange shrieking noise, what sounded like muffled shouting, and some crashing noises. Wheeling about, she began jogging towards the noise, but before long, the crunching noise of her progress and her labored breathing had obscured any other sounds.

She came to a halt, propping herself against a nearby tree to catch her breath: three years of daily smoking hadn't done her lung capacity any favors. Once she could breathe properly again, she looked around her.

"Guys?" she called out again, staring intently through the trees. Twilight was settling in fast, and long shadows stretched between the trunks.

Still no answer.

"Come on." Her heart was beginning to pound unpleasantly in her chest. She scrubbed her hands furiously over her face, took a deep breath, and was glancing around for a likely looking path when—

"Hello, precious," came a soft, silky voice.

Sarah froze.

The Goblin King stepped out of the shadows, resplendent in black lacquered armor and a dark velvet cloak that rippled appealingly despite the lack of wind, not to mention the surplus of trees, branches, and shrubs which really ought to have impeded its movement.

"I've been—"

He stopped. Sarah was bent over, gasping, hand clutched to her heart.

"Holy shit," she yelped, and then broke off to do a bit more gasping and clutching. "Holy shit, don't do that, man!"

"Do…?" Jareth was at a loss. There were many things that Sarah could conceivably yell at him for doing, but he hadn't actually done any of them yet. He was feeling, frankly, a bit cheated.

"Don't sneak up on people like that! I thought you were campus security! Christ, you almost gave me a heart attack."

"I'm … sorry?" Jareth ventured. "I hadn't intended to startle you." Truth be told, he had, a little. Just not that much. He wasn't entirely sure what a heart attack was, but from the sound of it, it wasn't anything good.

"It's cool," Sarah said, flapping a hand at him. She straightened at last, made to lean her back against the nearest tree, missed, and landed on the ground with a thump.

Jareth started forward. Sarah was making some strange noises, not unlike an animal in pain, but as he drew closer, he realized she was laughing. Well, to be perfectly accurate, snorting.

"Pretty smooth," she chuckled, waving away his proffered hand and clambering to her feet. With exaggerated care, she placed her feet at stable locations between the roots and lowered herself against the trunk of the tree.

Jareth was frowning. Something was wrong here. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but things were not going according to script. He pressed on anyway.

"Sarah Williams, I have been waiting for this moment for five long years," he began.

"Really? Five years? That's like, super patient of you," said Sarah, sounding impressed. "I can barely wait for dinner. Hey, is that armor? Are you wearing armor?"

The next thing he knew, she had launched herself from the tree and was stooping before him, eyes level with his chest, one hand on his shoulder to steady herself.

Jareth froze in place, hardly daring to breathe. To have her so close—after so long— He wasn't sure they'd ever been this close before, except perhaps in dreams. Surreptitiously, he inhaled, breathing in the scent of her. It was a strange smell, nothing like what he'd expected, though far from unpleasant: musty and sweet and smoky and herbal.

"It is armor," Sarah breathed. "Sweet. Can I touch it?"

Without waiting for permission, she prodded him gently in the chest. He sucked in a breath as she flattened her hand against his breast plate.

"Weird. I thought it would be colder," she said, and then rapped lightly against his breastplate with her knuckle, and giggled.

"Sarah," said the Goblin King, his voice coming out somewhat strangled.

She looked up, staring for the first time fully into his face. Luminous green eyes (faintly tinged with red around the rims) widened in recognition. "Hey," she said, drawing the word out. "Heeyyy. I know you. You're the Goblin King!"

The next thing Jareth knew, she had thrown her arms clumsily around his shoulders, patted him several times on the back, and then released him.

"Dude," she said, "it's been ages."

"Five years," he said, a bit dazedly.

"Oh, yeah, right, you already said that. Sorry, I'm a bit stoned right now." She snorted and smiled and tapped her head in self-reproach.

Jareth's face darkened instantly. He raked his gaze over her, searching for bruising or any other signs of injury. "Who did it?" he asked her, voice low and intense.

She gave him a quizzical look. "Did what?"

"You say you have been stoned. Tell me who did this and I swear to you they will pay."

She furrowed her brow. "Dude, it's just Mary Jane."

"Where can I find this 'Mary Jane'?"

"Oh, I've got some on me!" She began to fish eagerly around in her messenger bag, shortly producing a pressed metal tin which, upon being opened, proved to contain a clear plastic sack. "You want a bowl?"

Jareth stared from her to the sack, which upon closer examination appeared to contain a significant amount of something dried, green, and altogether aesthetically displeasing. He felt he had missed some rather important connection.

"I haven't even tried this stuff yet. S'called "Pulp Fiction." I got it off this new guy of Maurice's. He's a townie, so buying from him is a little sketch and the markup is ridiculous, but apparently it's some pretty dank shit." As she chattered, she removed another tin, this one small and circular, from her bag, and opened it up to reveal several rows of metal teeth. "Can you hold this for a sec?" She handed the toothed tin to Jareth, who stared at it in bemusement where it sat on his palm. "Maurice got it for $35, but he says you have to blow the guy to get those kinds of prices and ew." She wrinkled her nose as she pulled a small green clump out of its sack and placed it in the toothed container.

"Speaking of Maurice," she continued, taking the tin from Jareth's hand, plopping the lid on and turning it several times, "we should probably wait for him and Davy and Ros before we light up. Hey, you haven't seen them around have you?"

Jareth smiled a private smile. "These are the three somewhat … excitable mortals lurking in a nearby copse?"

Sarah giggled again. "They are, they're such excitable mortals." She emptied the contents of the tin into her hand and exchanged it for a long, peculiar and vaguely obscene looking glass contraption.

"I'm rather afraid an … owl may have frightened them away."

Sarah paused for a second to push the hair out of her face, the better to roll her eyes. "An owl? God, what a bunch of dumbasses. Well, more for us, I guess." She began carefully lowering pinches of ground green flakes into a cavity in the glass contraption. Then she stopped again, narrowing her eyes at him. "Wait, what was that? An owl?"

Jareth only smiled, plaiting his gloved fingers in anticipation. Now she was finally getting it.

Sarah made a strange whining noise which quickly evolved into more snorting laughter. "An owl!" she chortled. "Excitable mortals. An owl!" She snorted again. "Christ." Shaking her head vigorously, she resumed work.

Jareth watched her at her labor, frowning even harder. It was, he supposed, possible, if not entirely pleasing, that she may have forgotten over the years that he was capable of transforming into an owl. But for her to discover she was lost in the woods with only the Goblin King, her former adversary, for company, and to react with such unconcern? It wasn't exactly flattering.

"All packed," announced Sarah with satisfaction. "You got a light?"

Ah, now he was on familiar ground. With an elegant turn of the wrist, he summoned a round crystal and filled it with a gentle, pearly luminescence. He held it out to her, raising it slightly to ensure the light illuminated his face—this particular light, he knew from long experience, had a quality as eerie as it was flattering.

But Sarah wasn't looking. Instead, she seemed quite absorbed turning out the pockets of her jeans.

The Goblin King cleared his throat.

No response.

He cleared his throat rather more loudly, and, again receiving no response, said her name. "Sarah." He winced. Even to his own ears, the tone was rather more aggrieved than dignity made allowances for.

"Huh?" Sarah looked up, and blinked at the crystal in his hand. "Oh," she said. "Cool glow ball, man." Her face lit up with sudden triumph, and she pulled a shiny, brightly colored rectangle from her back pocket. A flick of her finger, and the rectangle was on fire.

Jareth started back, the glowing crystal vanishing with a pop, but Sarah, quite unconcerned, had raised the glass contraption to her mouth, touched its cavity with the flaming rectangle, and then restored the rectangle, suddenly and miraculously no longer aflame, to her pocket. She sucked in a breath, her lovely eyes going slightly cross-eyed from the effort. The end of the glass contraption flared cherry red.

She pulled the glass contraption—apparently some sort of pipe—suddenly away from her lips and handed it to Jareth. He watched the little cherry glow flare and die. Surreptitiously, he raised the pipe to his nose and sniffed it.

Sarah choked suddenly, then doubled over coughing, expelling a great cloud of sweet-smelling smoke from her lungs. Jareth took a step forward, horrified but unsure what to do.

"Water," she croaked.

With a frantic wave of his hand, he conjured a leather water skin and handed it to her. She snatched it from him and guzzled it down.

"Thanks," she said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. "You good?" she added.

Jareth frowned. It was, to be honest, a question he had never had much cause to consider, and he was quite surprised that it had occurred to Sarah. She had always cast him in the role of unrepentant villain, but now that she asked— Was he good? He was, he supposed, generous, and fair to his subjects—

"Are you good?" Sarah repeated, gesturing to the pipe. "Or do you want another hit?"

"Thank you, no," he said hurriedly, pushing the pipe into her hands. The question of his goodness quite aside, he did not feel himself equal to being hit just now. He felt he'd suffered rather too many blows this evening as it was.

Sarah relit the pipe and raised it her lips again, repeating the same process as before as Jareth watched in mild horror. This time, when she handed him the pipe, he turned away from her, dropping a tiny crystal into the hollow. There was a brief, self-contained inferno which he shielded from her sight with his spare hand—not, he noted grumpily, that she was looking at him—and the contents of the pipe were reduced to ash.

"I think it's finished," he announced, attempting a look of innocence.

Sarah took the pipe from him, squinting disappointedly into the hollow. She lit the pipe again and raised it to her lips, but lowered it almost immediately, pulling a face, and emptied the ash onto the forest floor. "Yeah, it's cashed," she said. "Sorry, thought I packed more than that."

"You have my forgiveness," he said, because even if he wasn't good, he was generous. Where certain green-eyed mortals were concerned, in any case.

Sarah giggled. "Man," she said, shaking her head. "Who would've thought that I'd be out here, sharing a bowl with the Goblin King." She giggled again. "Ros is going to think I'm on crack."

She tipped her head back at what looked to be a very uncomfortable angle, gazing up at the canopy overhead. There was a long period of silence. Then—

"I like trees," she remarked, inanely. "I'm a fan of trees. A tree fan."

Jareth wasn't sure how to reply to that, so it was just as well that she jerked her head back down and fixed him with what might have been a business-like stare if it wasn't so vague.

"Well, Goblin King," she said, a strange slowness to her words, as if she were not speaking but blowing bubbles made out of molasses. "It's been fun, but I think I'd better head back to my dorm, and you'd better—"

She began to giggle.

"You'd better go and—"

Here she actually bent over, snorting and shaking with laughter.

"Steeal some more babieees," she shrieked, grabbing chunks of hair in both hands and pulling them into her face as she continued to laugh.

By this time, Jareth was well aware that there was not much he could do other than wait these fits out. But this one showed no signs of abating as she rocked and laughed, rubbing her hair about her face until it was a mess of tangles.

"Gob—gob—" she hiccoughed, and then, on a high-pitched whine, "Jareeeeeeettth."

"What is it, precious?" he asked, coming forward and grasping her lightly by the arms.

"I—I think that was a lot stronger than I expected!" she squeaked around her continuing laughter.

She pitched forward. Jareth let out an oof of surprise as 120 pounds of intoxicated female collapsed into his chest, but managed to stay upright. He wrapped one arm around her lower back, keeping her in place. Hesitantly, he stroked her arm with his spare hand as she shook with hysterical laughter.

She raised her face to look at him, and he saw that it was red and dotted with tears. "I really really wish," she hiccoughed. "That I hadn't smoked that second bowl!"

Jareth sighed with relief. "Granted," he said, reaching out a hand and tugging at the strings of time.

Her convulsions ceased.

"Oof," she said, pushing the tangles of hair back from her face. "Thanks, man. That was… intense."

She made to straighten up. Reluctantly, he released her.

"Seriously," she continued. "I owe you a solid. Man, moral of the fuckin' story: never buy ganja named after Quentin Tarantino films."

Jareth knew what almost none of those words meant, but he nevertheless felt fairly certain that it was not a warning he needed.

"Anyway," she said, "It's been cool seeing you and all. Like, weird and trippy as hell, but cool. But I really should get back to the dorm now." Before he had a chance to protest, she had leaned forward and pressed her lips clumsily to his cheek.

The Goblin King stood frozen, one gloved hand raised halfway to his cheek as Sarah turned and headed out of the clearing.

Started to head out of the clearing, at least.

"Oof," he heard, followed by a thump. Sharpening his vision, he saw Sarah sitting on the floor, blinking up at nothing.

"Um," came her voice, "I think you left your … invisible … wall? here?"

With a savage surge of triumph, Jareth remembered what had brought him to the clearing in the first place.

"Could you maybe … move it? Or something? I need to get home."

"Oh, you will, precious thing, you will."

There was another pause.

"Hey, like, no offense, but do you mind not saying things in such an … ominous tone? It's kind of creeping me out."

Jareth smiled. "I think there's some confusion here, Sarah. You will be going home, but it will not be to the home to which you are used. I'm afraid you've found your way into a fairy ring, which means you are bound to this place until released by the spirit of this place."

"…okay, well, can you point me to this spirit dude? 'Cause I have an essay for Anthro due on Wednesday."

Jareth waited.

And waited some more.

Finally, just as he was about to speak and to hell with dramatic tension, the truth dawned.

"Oh shit, it's you, isn't it."

His smile widened. "As you have surmised, it is."

Sarah scratched her head. "And you're not going to let me go, right?"

"I'm more than happy to let you go," Jareth purred, "as long as where you're going is my Labyrinth."

Sarah sat back. "Bummer." There was another pause. "Could I maybe stop by my room first? Get my stuff?"

"Oh, I don't think so, precious thing."

"Only I've got like, most of a brick in my sock drawer and I'd hate for it to go to waste, you know?"

Jareth decided he could afford to be magnanimous in victory. "I can always send the goblins to fetch it once we return to Goblin City."

Sarah snorted. "Yeah, for my clothes and shit, maybe, but believe me, you really don't want them breaking into my stash." She twisted around to look at him. "You know me just now? Well, imagine every goblin in Goblin City—"

"Yes, I take your point," Jareth said hastily, wincing. He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on his collar bone. Well, it wasn't like she could leave the fairy ring. Not without his express permission. "Very well," he said. "Direct me to the items you need and I will fetch them for you."

Sarah looked at him dubiously. "Yeah, I guess that would work. But I'm warning you now, Carlie is really mean."

Sarah's dormitory proved to be a mere ten minutes away as the owl flies, but once there, the Goblin King immediately found himself in difficulty. Sarah had given him the key to her bedroom, as well a flat rectangle of a shiny, flexible material which, she had explained, he would need to get into the building.

The problem was that she hadn't explained just how to accomplish this.

He stood in front of the peculiar, boxlike glass door and gestured with the rectangle. "I have been given dispensation by Sarah Williams to enter this building," he announced grandly. Then, he reached out and tugged on the handle.

The door refused to give.

"Behold, my credentials." He brandished the rectangle again. "I hold the right to free passage. Now grant me entry."

The door appeared unimpressed.

Jareth squinted at the door a moment, then attempted to wedge the rectangle in the narrow gap between the door and the frame, but the rectangle wouldn't fit.

He looked the door squarely in its eye—or at least, in the small box with a red blinking light that he presumed was its eye. It was certainly a poor representation, but from what he understood of contemporary mortal art, standards had rather fallen off. He thought back to his last visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art—it must have been the better part of an Aboveground century ago—and an exhibition featuring the work of some Spanish deviant by the name of Picasso, and shuddered.

He turned his attention back to the door. Narrowing his eyes, he infused his voice with warning. "Don't seek to defy me."

The door remained obstinate.

Jareth sighed. "I didn't wish to use force, but you leave me no alternative."

He stepped back several paces, conjuring a crystal and winding back his arm in preparation to throw—

Two humans of around Sarah's age rounded the corner of the building. Jareth hesitated. A king had to be willing to risk some collateral damage in gaining his goal, but he had a feeling Sarah might be less understanding.

One of the students reached into his pocket and withdraw a rectangle much like the one Jareth had given Sarah. He pressed it directly against the door's eye. There was a small click and the door opened.

Jareth felt slightly ashamed. It was not a comfortable feeling, nor one to which he was much accustomed. Clearly, the door was near-sighted, and had been unable to see his credentials from such a distance. What a blustering fool he must have seemed, waving them about like that.

Clearing his throat, he approached the door.

"I beg your pardon," he said, and pressed the card against the eye. "The fault was mine."

The door clicked and opened.

He inclined his head and then, feeling he ought to make a rather larger gesture to make up for his earlier gaucheness, summoned a trickle of crystal dust and blew it directly into the door's eye. "A reward for your steadfastness." Now the door would have distance vision an eagle might envy.

With another nod, he passed inside.

Sarah's room was numbered, a piece of common sense that had frankly never occurred to the Goblin King, and which he was seriously considering adopting in his own castle. Just let his goblin servants claim they'd gotten lost on the way to clean his bedchamber then. Her door, entirely mundane, opened easily with a key in the lock.

Opening it and walking inside, Jareth was greeted by a female voice.

"Knock, why don't you?"

He looked around the room. One half was covered in posters and brightly colored tapestries. The desk was strewn with books and papers, with an incense burner hanging precariously over the edge, and the unmade bed was heaped with clothes. The other half was far more simply decorated—the bedspread was a simple gingham check, as opposed to the elaborate patchwork of flowers and scrolls which adorned its opposite number, and the desk was neat and orderly. Sitting cross-legged on the bed reading was a girl with pencil straight hair of a non-descript brown and a face that seemed made for scowling with. As she looked up from her book and took him in, her eyes widened momentarily and her mouth dropped open a little. Then she snapped her jaw shut, scowl more pronounced than ever.

"My apologies," said Jareth graciously. "I won't disturb you for long. I've simply come to gather some of Sarah's possessions."

"Oh god, not another of her stoner friends," the girl said nastily.

"No?" Jareth couldn't think what she meant by "stoner," unless she was referring to that pre-verbal red monster with the curious affinity for rocks that Sarah had, in irritatingly typical fashion, befriended. "Definitely not," he added, more confidently.

The girl sniffed in evident disbelief.

"If you would be so good as to direct me to Sarah's sock drawer…"

The girl jerked a thumb over at a wardrobe.

It took a good deal of rummaging. Jareth was briefly but profoundly distracted by the discovery of a cache of lacy and implausibly miniscule garments—he passed several happy minutes contemplating how such articles might be worn and under what circumstances Sarah might be persuaded to model them for him. Surely she would want to bring them Underground with her… Just to have the option of wearing them, at least.

He imagined presenting Sarah with his current fistful of bright scraps of lace. Then he imagined her face. He winced. Perhaps it would be somewhat… precipitate of him to bring Sarah's lingerie collection unbidden. After all, he told himself, brightening somewhat, he could always send the goblins to Aboveground to fetch them later. Or—reflecting with an even greater wince on the domestic virtues (or lack thereof) of his goblin subjects—he could go himself. Yes, best to go himself.

Putting the lingerie reluctantly aside, he opened the drawer below, which proved to be overflowing with hosiery. Unfortunately, there were no bricks in sight, nor any other kinds of building materials. Unless… There was, in a large, transparent bag, a solid mass of pungent smelling plant matter that was approximately shaped like a brick.

"I beg your pardon," he said.

"Yeah?" the girl said, ungraciously.

This mortal was beginning to rub his feathers the wrong way, but she might still have useful information. He would try diplomacy first, then.

He smiled disarmingly at her. "Carlie, isn't it?"

The girl flushed a little, but seemed otherwise unmoved. "That's right. Did you want something?"

"Only a moment of your time. I wondered if you might help clarify a small matter for me. Sarah desired me to fetch her a 'brick' from among her personal effects. Might this—" he hefted the bag containing the loaf of green substance "—be the brick of which she spoke?"

At the sight of the bag, Carlie's eyes grew wide as saucers. "Is that weed?" she breathed, hopping down off the bed. She took a cautious, almost reverent step forward, sniffing the air. "Oh my god, it is." Her face cracked suddenly in a vicious smile. It looked unsettlingly right on her, even more so than any of the scowls.

"Finally," she crowed. "There's no way they won't expel her for this. This much weed, she must be planning to sell. God—" She looked up at Jareth, eyes misty with anticipation. "Who do I call first? The dorm manager? Security? No." She shook her head. "Best go straight to the big guns—I'll call the cops. Let's see her father try and lawyer his way out of this one!"

She snatched up something black and rectangular, jabbed it several times with fingers which positively trembled with excitement, then raised it to her ear and began speaking into it. "Hi, yes, can you put me through to the Riverview City Police? You—" lowering the phone and directly addressing Jareth, her eyes narrowed, "stay where you are."

Jareth, who had been edging towards the door, paused. "I regret to take leave of you in such haste," he said, voice dripping with hauteur, "but Sarah is awaiting my return."

"I'll just bet she is," Carlie sneered. Then, with dizzying speed, she dropped the rectangle, ducked around Jareth, and flung herself in front of the door, barricading it with her body. "She'll be waiting a while though. You and that weed are staying right here until the police arrive."

Jareth matched her sneer with one of his own. "I think not. Now move aside."

Carlie bared her teeth in a mocking grin. "No."

He looked at her, assessing the greed in her eyes, the poorly suppressed jealousy and the longing for revenge. Here was a mortal ripe for temptation. He had no doubt that, with a little persuasion on his part, she could be persuaded to accept a dream crystal and move aside. That was the neatest option, and the one of which Sarah was likeliest to approve.

On the other hand…

"You bogged her? You bogged Carlie?"

They stood at the entrance to the Labyrinth. Sarah had stopped in her tracks and was gazing up at him, the sack containing the loaf of dried plant matter (which, she had confirmed, was indeed known as a 'brick') clutched in her arms.

Jareth said, rather stiffly, "I did as I had to."

He was, after all, a king, and kings could not be seen to tolerate discourtesy. The fact that what he had to do coincided perfectly with what he wanted to do was irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Sarah goggled at him for a moment. Then she burst into laughter.

"God. Serve her right. I wouldn't mind her being such a bitch if she wasn't a fucking narc too. Bogged her. Fucking epic." She hit him lightly on the shoulder, grinning up at him. "You know, for a kidnapper with a glitter fetish, you're pretty cool."

Jareth preened at her smile and the tone of her voice, although his cockiness diminished somewhat as he processed her actual words. Kidnapper? Glitter fetish?

But Sarah was clutching at his arms, eyes wide in sudden alarm.

"Jareth," she said urgently. "Jareth!"

"What is it?" He curved one arm around her shoulders, drawing her to him and partially shielding her with his body as he scanned for signs of danger. "What's wrong?"

"It's just—you didn't leave her there, did you?"

"What?" Jareth frowned. What on earth did it matter? Sarah clearly disliked the girl and had showed every sign of pleasure at her discomfiture. "I may have done. The matter does not concern me overmuch."

Sarah blanched. "You mean—you mean she's still here? Carlie's in the Labyrinth?"

A/N: If you were wondering what the moral of this story is, my friends, Sarah already told you: never buy drugs named after Quentin Tarentino films. Not that that ever happened to me or anyone I know. Noooope.

So yeah. That was a thing that happened. I wrote it. But you read it, all the way down to this second author's note. I did warn you not to. So tell me: which of us is the more to blame?

I'm going to go ahead and assume no one got this far, so in the unlikely event that you did and enjoyed it and want more, shoot me a review and let me know!