Title: "The Goblin Throne"

Author: Veritas Found

Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen

Characters/Pairings: Hoggle, Jareth the Goblin King, Sarah Williams; Jareth x Sarah

Summary: It was just a throne, after all. Perfectly expected in the throne room. What wasn't quite as expected, however, was how it was employed.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Notes/Warnings: Written for Word 152 over at 15 Minute Fics (though the inspiration is rather obscure, I admit). Every ship has its kinks, and this is a JxS kink of mine; and for all his bluster, I think his Great Glittering Grumpiness actually likes it, too. (Finished with thirty-eight seconds to spare!)

"The Goblin Throne"

None of the other Fae understood it. To be sure, they knew of their fellow royal's…eccentricities, but that still didn't explain this…rather odd decision of his. So when they would come for business, or summons, or whatever, they would stand there dutifully and – as courteously as they could – ignore the strange (if not endearing) sight before them.

As for the goblins, they…well, they were used to it. They adored their lady, if for no other reason than Her Majesty made His Majesty a lot more…agreeable. They weren't bogged nearly half as often since she'd made her final crossing through the mirror, and while they had loved her long before that it never hurt her favor in their eyes. So while frolicking about the throne room, they never paid the fact a mind.

As for the King, he didn't see what the big deal was. After so long spent fighting – for her affections, against her in vengeance, and finally for the heart he was determined would be his as much as his had always been hers – he found he liked having her so close. He enjoyed knowing she was there, that she had finally stopped fighting him, and that she had no plans to change the arrangement any time in the near future. If his fellow royals thought him odd for it…well, he – quite frankly – couldn't give half a rat's soggy stinking arse.

The Queen, on the other hand, considered it a very big deal. To her, it made them equals in a way. So many years after she had initially run his Labyrinth, and only now does she see the lie in her bluff: he has always had power over her, but only as much as she has over him. It's a give and take, a push and pull – it's them, and that he so openly acknowledges it for all the Underground to see warms her heart in ways her fifteen-year-old self had never thought him capable of.

So when someone walks into the throne room of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City to find them both sitting in the King's throne (and a noticeable lack of a matching throne for the Queen), some find it odd (but fitting, given the royals in question). Some find it commonplace. Some see it as a concession. Some find it a balance of power, a declaration.

But Hoggle, creeping away from the room in question before he could be caught and bogged for the interruption, sees his ratty King sitting with his friend Queen straddling his lap, gazing up at her as if the answer to life itself lay in her shining eyes. He sees his friend Queen brushing her fingers through that electrified bird's nest the ratty King dares call hair, whispering something to him too low and too private for Hoggle to bother eavesdropping on. He sees intimacy on a level he's never known and can only hope for. But mostly, above all…

He sees his best friend and the man that loved her enough to move the stars, reorder time, and turn the world upside down.

Quite simply, Hoggle sees love.