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Fic: Family Reunion 5/?
Title: Family Reunion 5/?
Author: Erin (erinm_4600)
Characters, Pairing: Sarah and DG (mention of Cain, Jareth, Toby, wicked!stepmother, Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus, Tutor, Az, Ahamo, Agnes (the trash lady), the doorknockers, the 'false alarms' and the door guards)
Rating: PG
Summary: Sarah tells DG about her first visit to the Labyrinth.
Warning: Crack, crack and more crack. Oh, and did I mention the CRACK?! o.O
Disclaimer: The original characters belong to L. Frank Baum and their respective actors. The current characters belong to Sci-Fi, the movie folks and their respective actors. The Labyrinth and Sarah belongs to Jareth, who's borrowing it -and the knockers- from Jim Henson, George Lucas and Terry Gilliam. The OCs are mine. The idea came from buffybot76.
Family Reunion: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | When Is a Door Not a Door? | Two Cains are Crankier Than One
Kans-Az: First Meeting | Azkadellia's First Barbeque | Laundry | Bar Queen
“So, when you say you ‘wished your brother away’-” DG asked with a look as she pulled a chair from the table and sat. Sarah set down her coffee cup before pulling out the opposite chair and sitting as well.
“I wished him away.” DG opened her mouth to respond, but drew a blank and looked from Sarah to her own coffee cup. Sarah took a sip of her coffee and nodded. “Well, I was sixteen. New baby in the house; step-mother,” she offered.
“In my defense, though... I didn’t think it would actually work. I mean, I read it in a book...” DG missed the last part of Sarah’s comment, as she was taking a moment to look around the coffee shop, taking in the fact that she was back on her side. And she’d never been to Connecticut.
“So,” Sarah continued, not realizing DG wasn’t paying attention. “Here comes Jareth, swooping into my parents’ bedroom... lookin’ all menacing and, as you said: Ziggy-” Both girls shared a laugh, though DG didn’t feel like telling Sarah that her knowledge of the eighties wasn’t from personal experience.
“And he says: ‘Hey, I’ll keep the baby. You live your life.’” DG nodded. “And I was sixteen and, well... as I didn’t want to incur the wrath of my step-mother; because, let’s face it: How do you explain that?” DG shook her head and took another sip of her drink.
“Anyway, so I pull the whole ‘I can handle this with one hand tied behind my back’-” Sarah said, rolling her eyes and DG smiled. “And into the Labyrinth I went.” She paused to take another sip and watched a group of teens walk past the window. “You didn’t actually get into the maze, did you?” Sarah asked.
DG shook her head. “There was a hedge maze,” she recalled. “But I took a left and then a right and was back where I started.” Sarah nodded and gave her a relieved sigh.
“Good. The stone part will mess with your head.” She shivered slightly at the memory.
“Okay, now you need to tell me everything,” DG said, sitting up. “Especially about those Margaritaville rejects.” Sarah smiled at DG and nodded to the window.
“Let’s walk.” Both girls stood up, pushed their chairs back and left the café with their drinks.
-*-
The girls reached a small corner park and DG pointed to the swings on the opposite side. “So I come around the corner and: dead end,” Sarah explained. “I turn around and happen to look down,” she motioned to the ground in front of them. “Damned if the arrow’s not pointing in a different direction!” DG gave her a look.
“Turns out, there’s these little creatures livin’ under the blocks who are anti-graffiti,” she said with a shrug. DG laughed as Sarah caught her arm and pulled her toward the swings. “And here’s the twisted part,” she added with a raised finger.
“You know face cards - Jack, Queen, King?” DG nodded and Sarah shook her head. “These guys... well, they were about as helpful as a shrub,” she mused. DG laughed as they reached the swings. “Between the four of ‘em, they’re guarding two doors.” DG moved to the far swing and sat as Sarah continued: “One leads to the castle and one leads to ‘certain death,’” she said with air quotes.
“I have to choose a door, but I can only ask one of them which door goes where.” She dropped into the other swing and kicked off. “One lies and one doesn’t.” DG frowned as she tried to picture the scene. As Sarah certainly wasn’t dead, DG assumed she must’ve guessed correctly.
She was also beginning to see why Cain left.
“So what did you ask?” DG wondered aloud, kicking off from the ground as well.
“I asked one if the other,” Sarah answered, pointing arbitrarily into space. “Would say the first’s door would lead to the castle.” DG nodded, completely confused. “He said yes,” Sarah stated with a nod. “So I took the other door.”
DG’s feet dug into the sand and she halted to a stop. In fact, she was sure she felt her brain slosh. “Of course that door led to an oubliette by way of a severe invasion of my personal bubble.”
Sarah stopped herself in a similar fashion and stared off across the park. “Which reminds me: I owe Jareth a slap for that one.” She sighed and looked at DG, who’s brain was currently on par with a ‘we’re Nurture Units’-level of comprehension.
“If he says...” she pointed into the air. “That door-” she pointed to another bit of air and shook her head. “It’s no wonder you got the wrong door,” DG said with a snort. Sarah turned to face DG and held up both hands.
“If he says yes, the answer is no.”
“But he could be telling the truth.”
“Then the other one is lying.”
DG was wrong: her brain wasn’t sloshing. It was melting.
-*-
“So, Hoggle and I get out into this hall of talking rocks-” Sarah waved as DG began to respond. “And,” she snapped her fingers. “There’s Jareth again. He gives the ‘Give up now’ speech and I give the ‘Eh, Bite me’ speech and-” Sarah sighed. “Then there was running and screaming.” DG bit back a laugh - not sure if Sarah had intended the quote - while trying to picture a T-Rex loose inside Finaqua.
“Then we got to the hedge maze and found Ludo...” Sarah continued as they reached the end of her street. “And then Hoggle took off and Ludo and I got to the knockers. And then the Fireys.” Sarah didn’t bother with the details, as DG had been along the same path. “Hoggle showed up just in time to get me away from the damn things, and then we got to the Bog and found Ludo.”
“Found?” DG asked. Sarah looked at her for a moment before nodding.
“Yeah, the Labyrinth likes to steal people and drop them off somewhere else. Always seem to find ‘em just after you’re out of danger,” she stated with a smirk and DG smiled again. “And then we met up with Sir Didymus. Fumes got to that one a long time ago,” she added, giving her hand a twirl near her ear.
“Loyal as all Hell, though.” Sarah stopped and cocked her head. “You must’ve been past the Bog if you saw the Fireys.” DG didn’t remember seeing any sign, so she shook her head. “Bog of Eternal Stench. You’d remember,” Sarah said with a matter-of-fact nod.
'Oh, that right: when Cain cried.' Nodding, DG shrugged. “Kansas.”
Sarah nodded as well and continued walking. “Once we got past the Bog, it got weird.” DG fought the urge to ask when it had been sane. “By the way,” Sarah turned to DG. “If you ever find yourself in a wacky, alternate dimensiony-thing... Don’t eat the fruit.” DG could only nod.
“At this point, things get a little fuzzy.” Sarah laughed slightly, catching her own joke. “There was a ballroom, and a masquerade and-” Pointing to her hair, Sarah shrugged. “Who knew this could go beyond eighties-big hair, but-” She nodded and made a motion that DG laughed at.
“And the dress. Oh my God, the dress!” Sarah’s eyes lit up. “I’m a jeans girl, but that dress... and the party was weird. And I’m not talkin’ Labyrinth-weird. I’m talkin’ weird.” DG nodded, assuming she meant the level of weird DG felt when Glitch introduced her to his brain.
Or DeMilo’s truck-weird.
“And then, out of the crowd comes Jareth.” DG smiled as she watched Sarah remember the moment. Throwing her hand up, Sarah shook her head. “Much as I didn’t want to admit it... that was the moment.” She shrugged as they reached the door to her building. “What was yours?”
“Huh?” DG asked with a blank look.
“Your moment. When you... y’know,” Sarah waved slightly as she pushed the door open.
“Oh, no. No. No,” DG flustered, which made Sarah smile. “We’re not...” DG shook her head again. Sarah nodded and decided to let the girl live in her delusion for a while longer. DG slapped Sarah’s shoulder lightly as they moved down the hallway. “So what happened after the Prom?”
Sarah laughed. “You ever see Fraggle Rock?” DG shook her head. “Well, there’s this character: the Trash Heap. She’s a trash heap, go figure. Anyway, always gave me the creeps. The Labyrinth has a dump. And a trash lady. And I’d take Trash Heap any day,” Sarah said with a sharp nod as she unlocked her door.
-*-
“So, we get to the castle and I go looking for Jareth and Toby... And walk into the Escher painting from Hell. We’re talkin’: Toby’s on the ceiling, I’m on that wall and the window’s... there,” Sarah said, pointing around her room as DG entered the closet.
“We get to the big showdown and he gives me the whole ‘You win. All you have to do is declare me the winner and everybody’s happy-” Sarah said, rolling her eyes. “And, of course, I have to break him, because that’s the way it has to be done. Next thing I know, I’m back home, Toby’s in his crib and-” She shrugged and pushed the door open into her room in the castle.
“And talk about timing, because my parents came home about five minutes later. All that in thirteen hours and we’d been gone less than two.” Shrugging, she continued: “Then Hoggle and Ludo and everyone showed up in my mirror. Then they were in my room. Still don’t know how my parents didn’t hear that ruckus.”
As the girls moved into the corridor, Sarah decided to prompt DG once more. “So, there’s no moment where you looked at him and thought: ‘Well, hot damn!’?” DG looked away quickly and tried to keep from blushing. She’d only known Cain for two weeks. He’d just lost his wife again and DG was sure she wasn’t thinking about the man like that.
Even if she had followed him, blindly, to another side.
Okay, maybe she’d thought about him like that. But only once. Maybe twice. But who could blame her? When had Cain gone from ex-Tin Man, out to kill Zero, to - as Sarah put it - ‘Well, hot damn!’? she wondered.
It was definitely before the eclipse. And after he’d gotten out of the suit, obviously. Was it in Milltown? No... Maybe when Cain showed up at the Mystic Man’s door? Quite possibly. Or his being in the tower, and alive? As the image of a hillside popped into DG’s mind, she was suddenly rather aware of that moment Sarah was referring to.
As they turned the corner, DG offered: “I had just gotten out of the family vault. And my sister and her goons were gone,” she said, ignoring the look of incomprehension on Sarah’s face, and remembering the moment. “Up ran Tot-Tutor,” she corrected herself. “And then, there was Cain... tearin’ up the hill on a damn white horse. And everything went into movie slo-mo,” DG said with a wave.
Sarah looked at DG and smiled brightly. “You’re staying for dinner. And you owe me a story.” DG nodded as Sarah’s arm caught hers. “Now, let’s make them think we’re talkin’ about ‘em.” DG grinned and the girls both started laughing as they entered the throne room.
Author: Erin (erinm_4600)
Characters, Pairing: Sarah and DG (mention of Cain, Jareth, Toby, wicked!stepmother, Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus, Tutor, Az, Ahamo, Agnes (the trash lady), the doorknockers, the 'false alarms' and the door guards)
Rating: PG
Summary: Sarah tells DG about her first visit to the Labyrinth.
Warning: Crack, crack and more crack. Oh, and did I mention the CRACK?! o.O
Disclaimer: The original characters belong to L. Frank Baum and their respective actors. The current characters belong to Sci-Fi, the movie folks and their respective actors. The Labyrinth and Sarah belongs to Jareth, who's borrowing it -and the knockers- from Jim Henson, George Lucas and Terry Gilliam. The OCs are mine. The idea came from buffybot76.
Family Reunion: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | When Is a Door Not a Door? | Two Cains are Crankier Than One
Kans-Az: First Meeting | Azkadellia's First Barbeque | Laundry | Bar Queen
“So, when you say you ‘wished your brother away’-” DG asked with a look as she pulled a chair from the table and sat. Sarah set down her coffee cup before pulling out the opposite chair and sitting as well.
“I wished him away.” DG opened her mouth to respond, but drew a blank and looked from Sarah to her own coffee cup. Sarah took a sip of her coffee and nodded. “Well, I was sixteen. New baby in the house; step-mother,” she offered.
“In my defense, though... I didn’t think it would actually work. I mean, I read it in a book...” DG missed the last part of Sarah’s comment, as she was taking a moment to look around the coffee shop, taking in the fact that she was back on her side. And she’d never been to Connecticut.
“So,” Sarah continued, not realizing DG wasn’t paying attention. “Here comes Jareth, swooping into my parents’ bedroom... lookin’ all menacing and, as you said: Ziggy-” Both girls shared a laugh, though DG didn’t feel like telling Sarah that her knowledge of the eighties wasn’t from personal experience.
“And he says: ‘Hey, I’ll keep the baby. You live your life.’” DG nodded. “And I was sixteen and, well... as I didn’t want to incur the wrath of my step-mother; because, let’s face it: How do you explain that?” DG shook her head and took another sip of her drink.
“Anyway, so I pull the whole ‘I can handle this with one hand tied behind my back’-” Sarah said, rolling her eyes and DG smiled. “And into the Labyrinth I went.” She paused to take another sip and watched a group of teens walk past the window. “You didn’t actually get into the maze, did you?” Sarah asked.
DG shook her head. “There was a hedge maze,” she recalled. “But I took a left and then a right and was back where I started.” Sarah nodded and gave her a relieved sigh.
“Good. The stone part will mess with your head.” She shivered slightly at the memory.
“Okay, now you need to tell me everything,” DG said, sitting up. “Especially about those Margaritaville rejects.” Sarah smiled at DG and nodded to the window.
“Let’s walk.” Both girls stood up, pushed their chairs back and left the café with their drinks.
-*-
The girls reached a small corner park and DG pointed to the swings on the opposite side. “So I come around the corner and: dead end,” Sarah explained. “I turn around and happen to look down,” she motioned to the ground in front of them. “Damned if the arrow’s not pointing in a different direction!” DG gave her a look.
“Turns out, there’s these little creatures livin’ under the blocks who are anti-graffiti,” she said with a shrug. DG laughed as Sarah caught her arm and pulled her toward the swings. “And here’s the twisted part,” she added with a raised finger.
“You know face cards - Jack, Queen, King?” DG nodded and Sarah shook her head. “These guys... well, they were about as helpful as a shrub,” she mused. DG laughed as they reached the swings. “Between the four of ‘em, they’re guarding two doors.” DG moved to the far swing and sat as Sarah continued: “One leads to the castle and one leads to ‘certain death,’” she said with air quotes.
“I have to choose a door, but I can only ask one of them which door goes where.” She dropped into the other swing and kicked off. “One lies and one doesn’t.” DG frowned as she tried to picture the scene. As Sarah certainly wasn’t dead, DG assumed she must’ve guessed correctly.
She was also beginning to see why Cain left.
“So what did you ask?” DG wondered aloud, kicking off from the ground as well.
“I asked one if the other,” Sarah answered, pointing arbitrarily into space. “Would say the first’s door would lead to the castle.” DG nodded, completely confused. “He said yes,” Sarah stated with a nod. “So I took the other door.”
DG’s feet dug into the sand and she halted to a stop. In fact, she was sure she felt her brain slosh. “Of course that door led to an oubliette by way of a severe invasion of my personal bubble.”
Sarah stopped herself in a similar fashion and stared off across the park. “Which reminds me: I owe Jareth a slap for that one.” She sighed and looked at DG, who’s brain was currently on par with a ‘we’re Nurture Units’-level of comprehension.
“If he says...” she pointed into the air. “That door-” she pointed to another bit of air and shook her head. “It’s no wonder you got the wrong door,” DG said with a snort. Sarah turned to face DG and held up both hands.
“If he says yes, the answer is no.”
“But he could be telling the truth.”
“Then the other one is lying.”
DG was wrong: her brain wasn’t sloshing. It was melting.
-*-
“So, Hoggle and I get out into this hall of talking rocks-” Sarah waved as DG began to respond. “And,” she snapped her fingers. “There’s Jareth again. He gives the ‘Give up now’ speech and I give the ‘Eh, Bite me’ speech and-” Sarah sighed. “Then there was running and screaming.” DG bit back a laugh - not sure if Sarah had intended the quote - while trying to picture a T-Rex loose inside Finaqua.
“Then we got to the hedge maze and found Ludo...” Sarah continued as they reached the end of her street. “And then Hoggle took off and Ludo and I got to the knockers. And then the Fireys.” Sarah didn’t bother with the details, as DG had been along the same path. “Hoggle showed up just in time to get me away from the damn things, and then we got to the Bog and found Ludo.”
“Found?” DG asked. Sarah looked at her for a moment before nodding.
“Yeah, the Labyrinth likes to steal people and drop them off somewhere else. Always seem to find ‘em just after you’re out of danger,” she stated with a smirk and DG smiled again. “And then we met up with Sir Didymus. Fumes got to that one a long time ago,” she added, giving her hand a twirl near her ear.
“Loyal as all Hell, though.” Sarah stopped and cocked her head. “You must’ve been past the Bog if you saw the Fireys.” DG didn’t remember seeing any sign, so she shook her head. “Bog of Eternal Stench. You’d remember,” Sarah said with a matter-of-fact nod.
'Oh, that right: when Cain cried.' Nodding, DG shrugged. “Kansas.”
Sarah nodded as well and continued walking. “Once we got past the Bog, it got weird.” DG fought the urge to ask when it had been sane. “By the way,” Sarah turned to DG. “If you ever find yourself in a wacky, alternate dimensiony-thing... Don’t eat the fruit.” DG could only nod.
“At this point, things get a little fuzzy.” Sarah laughed slightly, catching her own joke. “There was a ballroom, and a masquerade and-” Pointing to her hair, Sarah shrugged. “Who knew this could go beyond eighties-big hair, but-” She nodded and made a motion that DG laughed at.
“And the dress. Oh my God, the dress!” Sarah’s eyes lit up. “I’m a jeans girl, but that dress... and the party was weird. And I’m not talkin’ Labyrinth-weird. I’m talkin’ weird.” DG nodded, assuming she meant the level of weird DG felt when Glitch introduced her to his brain.
Or DeMilo’s truck-weird.
“And then, out of the crowd comes Jareth.” DG smiled as she watched Sarah remember the moment. Throwing her hand up, Sarah shook her head. “Much as I didn’t want to admit it... that was the moment.” She shrugged as they reached the door to her building. “What was yours?”
“Huh?” DG asked with a blank look.
“Your moment. When you... y’know,” Sarah waved slightly as she pushed the door open.
“Oh, no. No. No,” DG flustered, which made Sarah smile. “We’re not...” DG shook her head again. Sarah nodded and decided to let the girl live in her delusion for a while longer. DG slapped Sarah’s shoulder lightly as they moved down the hallway. “So what happened after the Prom?”
Sarah laughed. “You ever see Fraggle Rock?” DG shook her head. “Well, there’s this character: the Trash Heap. She’s a trash heap, go figure. Anyway, always gave me the creeps. The Labyrinth has a dump. And a trash lady. And I’d take Trash Heap any day,” Sarah said with a sharp nod as she unlocked her door.
-*-
“So, we get to the castle and I go looking for Jareth and Toby... And walk into the Escher painting from Hell. We’re talkin’: Toby’s on the ceiling, I’m on that wall and the window’s... there,” Sarah said, pointing around her room as DG entered the closet.
“We get to the big showdown and he gives me the whole ‘You win. All you have to do is declare me the winner and everybody’s happy-” Sarah said, rolling her eyes. “And, of course, I have to break him, because that’s the way it has to be done. Next thing I know, I’m back home, Toby’s in his crib and-” She shrugged and pushed the door open into her room in the castle.
“And talk about timing, because my parents came home about five minutes later. All that in thirteen hours and we’d been gone less than two.” Shrugging, she continued: “Then Hoggle and Ludo and everyone showed up in my mirror. Then they were in my room. Still don’t know how my parents didn’t hear that ruckus.”
As the girls moved into the corridor, Sarah decided to prompt DG once more. “So, there’s no moment where you looked at him and thought: ‘Well, hot damn!’?” DG looked away quickly and tried to keep from blushing. She’d only known Cain for two weeks. He’d just lost his wife again and DG was sure she wasn’t thinking about the man like that.
Even if she had followed him, blindly, to another side.
Okay, maybe she’d thought about him like that. But only once. Maybe twice. But who could blame her? When had Cain gone from ex-Tin Man, out to kill Zero, to - as Sarah put it - ‘Well, hot damn!’? she wondered.
It was definitely before the eclipse. And after he’d gotten out of the suit, obviously. Was it in Milltown? No... Maybe when Cain showed up at the Mystic Man’s door? Quite possibly. Or his being in the tower, and alive? As the image of a hillside popped into DG’s mind, she was suddenly rather aware of that moment Sarah was referring to.
As they turned the corner, DG offered: “I had just gotten out of the family vault. And my sister and her goons were gone,” she said, ignoring the look of incomprehension on Sarah’s face, and remembering the moment. “Up ran Tot-Tutor,” she corrected herself. “And then, there was Cain... tearin’ up the hill on a damn white horse. And everything went into movie slo-mo,” DG said with a wave.
Sarah looked at DG and smiled brightly. “You’re staying for dinner. And you owe me a story.” DG nodded as Sarah’s arm caught hers. “Now, let’s make them think we’re talkin’ about ‘em.” DG grinned and the girls both started laughing as they entered the throne room.