A/N: This is based off Pika-la-Cynique's picture of the same title which can be found at her account on deviantART.
Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Sarah who loved magic and the world of Faerie. She particularly loved acting out plays involving the dangerous and powerful Goblin King. It wasn't long before the girl fell in love with the mysterious character from her stories. He was everything she wanted and needed. There was only one problem: he wasn't real.
Well, at least that's what she told herself as she got older and started looking at the boys around her with interest. They weren't boys anymore - they were becoming grown men. And they would have to do. Too bad she couldn't convince her heart.
--
Once upon a time there was a Faerie king named Jareth who loved watching the world of Man. It was his job to take the unwanted and give them homes in his kingdom - a job that he fulfilled with a vigor. Despite all this, though, he found it wasn't enough. More and more he found a growing emptiness in his heart. An emptiness that called to be filled with a woman's touch and warm embrace. Too bad all the Fae women who came to his kingdom to try to turn his heart left him cold.
When he found himself called to the mortal realm at the behest of a young girl child he was intrigued. What was it about this child that allowed his long cold heart to beat again? He found himself watching her movements, even going so far as to send a book into her hands that told her of his life and his kingdom. All he had to do was wait.
But when the time came, and she wished her baby brother away to his hands, she misunderstood his intent and left him. Just like everyone else had left him. He knew that time would come and she would return to his arms. All he had to do was wait.
--
Sarah growled in agitation as she fell onto her couch. She was exhausted and libidinous and her boyfriend, Mike, couldn't do a damn thing about it. Now he was her ex-boyfriend.
Stupid men she dated couldn't even get the simplest thing right! What the hell was so hard about giving her a kiss goodnight? She tossed a throw pillow across the room in agitation. She knew exactly what was wrong: she'd had the dream of her Goblin King too often to be satisfied with the mortal men she tried to satisfy her needs with.
Exhaustion soon took over and Sarah fell into a deep sleep, unaware of the figure that stood in the shadows.
--
The dream started the same way it had every single night for the past four years. Her outfit was always the same, although her body changed as she got older and matured. She always wore a plain tee-shirt and a pair of jeans that hugged her curves.
He was behind her, she couldn't see him, but she could feel his breath on her neck.
"Has he ever held you like this, Sarah? Has he ever made your heart pound within moments of bursting?" His body was pressed against hers in an intimate manner that frightened as well as aroused her. It always felt so real, this time wasn't any different.
She couldn't respond beyond a moan.
His grin was feral as his hand dipped lower from where it had rested on her collar bone. "Face it, pretty one. You belong to me."
She moaned again, "But you're not real." Her eyes fluttered closed, uncaring of the fact that she was reacting more to a dream than any man she'd ever dated.
His chuckle was deep and sent shivers to her toes, turning her around to face him. As his head came down, she stood up higher on her tiptoes. When their lips were a hair's breath away he whispered, "Then kiss me. Kiss me, Sarah."
--
Her eyes flew open, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Her mind was in a fog, heady from the kiss that she could still taste on her lips. Her hand came up to touch her lips, wet with a man's taste that was spice and woodlands. Masculine.
Her eyes traveled across her living room, coming to rest on the figure that always seemed to evade her gaze in the past. His back was turned toward her as he gazed into the shadows.
Slowly, as if afraid he'd disappear, she rose from the sofa, her eyes wide with wonder. He was real? A part of her felt vindicated at this fact - she only ever felt whole when she dreamt of him. She stopped a few inches behind him, one of her hands coming up to touch his shoulder but stopping just short of making contact with his jacket.
His head turned slightly to gaze at her. "Do you believe I'm real now, my Sarah?" There was no mistaking the pain and loneliness that surrounded his words. If she wasn't mistaken, however, there was also a hint of hope mixed in.
She took a few steps around him so that they were facing each other: him in his otherworldly king's garments that looked constructed of midnight satin and the finest kid leather in any world; her in a red dress that hugged her body while maintaining her modesty in a second-rate material. Could she be the queen to his king? Rule his kingdom alongside him? Right then, in that moment, as her heart began to beat faster as she came face to face with what she had almost lost, did it even matter?
Instead of verbally answering him right then, Sarah stood up a little taller in her three-inch black pumps that made her legs seem to go on forever. She tilted her face upward while simultaneously tugging his down until their lips met in what could be described a number of different ways.
In later years, long past when the Goblin King Jareth and his human bride Queen Sarah reigned, many fables were told about them and their love for each other. Long after their bones were turned to dust and their souls continued along the Eternal Journey, it remained unclear as to whether their first kiss outside the dream realm was wild and passionate or subdued and tender.
One thing, however, has never been doubted about the pair: they were made for each other. It sounds rather crass to say it like that, and it's too cliché to call them soul mates … but that's what they are. Two halves of the same soul placed in different bodies, separated by the Great Barrier.
And after that kiss, no matter if she slapped him after their lips parted or if they didn't come up for breath until dawn, there is no doubting what happened next. He took her home with him and made her his queen.
To use the adage used by so many before me (not to mention entirely false when one takes into account all the things that happen in daily life to disrupt it - especially in a goblin kingdom):
They lived happily ever after. … Or, well, at least they lived.
A/N: Now go off to Pika-la-Cynique's bio to get the link to her deviant account so you can see the AWESOME picture.