Disclaimer: Do not own... duh.
"Fire and Ice"
A Labyrinth fanfiction by Kiska King
It was like ice-cold water running through her veins, if it were mixed with flaming gasoline. Like someone had simultaneously ignited all the nerve endings in her body. She felt, at once, light-headed and poignantly focused. It made no sense, that she wanted his lips on hers. She wanted to bite him, scratch him, make him bleed, make him scream, make him moan, make him cry. She wanted to scream his name over and over again as they rocked to their own steady music, filling the night with emotion. The thought made her sigh with satisfaction.
"Sarah?" a gentle voice interrupted her visions. "Where are you at, honey? You seem a million miles away." Daniel, her boyfriend, her lover. Not the one she wanted, though.
"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave." She shook her head, trying to get rid of the image of his mismatched eyes and feral smile. To get rid of the feel of his warmth backing her into a wall. To get rid of his silken voice mocking her.
Sarah sighed again, this time with disappointment. "I'm sorry, babe," she admonished. "I'm just a little tired, is all." She managed a weak smile.
"Aw, that's too bad," he frowned at her. "Don't you have that thing for your book today?"
"No. The reading at the library is next month." She was looking forward to it. She still enjoyed seeing the places she could take people with her words, with the sole power of her imagination. She couldn't tell the whole story, not to children. Adults wouldn't appreciate the Labyrinth, though, so she watered it down and spoon-fed it to six-year-olds so that they could visit its twisting corridors and its filthy oubliettes. They loved Hoggle and Ludo. They fawned over the adorable Sir Didymus. But, for some reason, they all hated Jareth.
To them he was evil and twisted, with no sign of remorse or hope of redemption. Sarah just couldn't write him the way that he was supposed to be, no matter how hard she tried. It was as though no one else could see that he was tortured. He didn't want to be king of a people he despised. He didn't want to only do evil. It was just all that he knew.
"Sarah?" Daniel was talking again, and she had missed everything, lost in her daydreams.
"Hmm?"
"I asked if you wanted some coffee, dear." Daniel was nice. He was polite. Daniel was simple. He didn't have those dark, twisted corridors in his mind. He was safe in every aspect: the perfectly placed monikers; the polite way he poured her coffee; the gentle way he held her at night, as if she was too fragile to withstand any pain. He was a good guy, but she knew, deep down that she didn't want to be with him anymore.
"Daniel, we need to talk."
I love children.
She always had the same thought after a reading. Children weren't kinder than adults, but they were so much more honest. When they were scared and enthralled, they let it show on their faces. When they were happy, they cheered wholeheartedly. They weren't simple, they just didn't hide things as much as adults.
Sarah was signing books after the reading of Labyrinth. Children were beaming at her while all their parents, it seemed, tried to shake her hands at the same time. One boy shoved his way to the front of the queue, holding out his book for her to sign.
"Who's this for, sweetie?" she asked, smile still plastered to her face, even though she was looking down at the book.
"Jareth, ma'am!" he told her. It shocked her to the core. Her head snapped up.
"C… come again?" she faltered. The boy wasn't beautiful, but he was striking. His short hair was dark as midnight, and his eyes were unnaturally blue. The color of neon lights. He smiled and she saw that his teeth were crooked and sharp.
"Jarrod," he repeated.
I'm just flustered is all. She hoped that was it. She signed the book and gave it back to the boy.
"Here you go, sweetie."
"Thank you!" he beamed. A pause. "I bet Jareth misses her."
"Why do you say that?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice steady. "Most people your age hate Jareth."
"He loved her, he didn't want her to go, but she did, anyways," he chirped. He smiled at her again, flashing those jagged teeth, then spun on his heel and fled.
Sarah stood, trying to see his mother. Her ran around the corner, headed to the exit.
A glimpsed flash of something shiny, then a wisp of smoke and the faintest smell of something not of this world.
"Wait!" she ran, ignoring the yells of her agent, demanding that she stay and finish signing books.
She knew she was being foolish. The boy might not belong to Jareth. He could be running out to meet his mother in the car right now. But she had to know if he was one of them. She had to know if he was Jareth's. She had to know if Jareth still existed, and that he wasn't just a figment of her crazed, emotional teenaged imagination.
She burst through the wooden doors of the exit-
-and into a dim, chilly room. It was empty of decorations and, as she watched, the door melted into the surrounding gray brick, leaving no exit except a small, high window that let in a little light. She couldn't get back to her world.
"What the hell?" she exclaimed.
A malicious, infinitely pleased and infinitely bored laugh echoed around her.
"Jareth!" she screamed the word like an expletive.
"Yes, Sarah?" his voice asked from behind her. She whipped around, only to be confronted by a bare wall.
"Show yourself, you sick, twisted son of a-"
"Now, now, Sarah," he interrupted her. "Don't say anything you'll regret." She turned, once again. This time, no empty wall faced her. He seemed to be glowing with power coiled inside his skin. He wore no elegant black cape for this meeting and no feathery, ethereal mantle. He wore simple riding pants, boots and a loose white shirt. He took her breath away.
Jareth smirked at her, unnerving her. She felt as though she was an insect beneath his eyes, open for his inspection.
"You let me out of here, right now!" She said as soon as she caught her breath.
He tapped a long finger against his lips, apparently thinking it over. "No."
"No? No! You think you can just kidnap me and keep me in some God damned dungeon just because you feel like it?" She advanced on him, jabbing her finger at his chest.
"Kidnap?" he smirked at her again, pushing away her finger with a gloved hand. "I think not. You came here of your own free will, Sarah, just like before. Do you not remember the boy you were chasing after? It is not my fault that you choose to chase infants so recklessly."
"I didn't think I was chasing him here."
"I don't suppose you often do think. Just look at this mockery you've made of my Labyrinth," he snarled, holding up a hand to her, containing the boy's signed copy of her book. "This filth! This rubbish! You dare to take something as pure and awe inspiring as my kingdom and reduce it to fodder for sniveling human children. You should feel graced if I decide to live out your days in one of my dungeons and not in the Bog of Eternal Stench."
During his diatribe, he slowly advanced on her, backing her into a wall. Sarah felt dizzy at the similarity between this moment and the one in her memory. Jareth opened the book to one of the last pages.
"'He looked longingly into her eyes, like a man lost in a desert upon finding water, as she said the words that she knew would defeat him and return her brother.'" He snapped the book shut.
"I have not then, nor ever, looked into anyone's eyes longingly," he spat.
Sarah laughed into his down turned face.
"Like you're doing now?" she taunted.
"Be silent, woman!" he yelled, and made the book to disappear.
She raised her arms to throw him off of her. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the wall.
She tried to yell at him again, but his name came out as a whisper. He did not answer. He stared at her, not pinning her like a bug this time. This time, he seemed to see inside of her. She shivered, afraid that he could see her feelings. Afraid that he could see the memories replaying in her mind, as they had, day in and day out, for the past 10 years.
"Sarah…" his voice was gentle. He seemed to not know what to say.
Several minutes passed with Sarah's arms pinned above her by his hands. Jareth finally lowered his gaze from hers. He hung his head as he dropped his arms.
"Why did you follow the boy?" he asked, his voice husky.
"I… I didn't know that you-" she whispered into his hair.
"You did know, Sarah. You always know. My tricks don't fool you. My glamours, my spells they all fail under your eyes. Your cruel, cruel eyes. You knew that I sent the boy to taunt you and you followed him. Why?"
Sarah searched for her right words.
"I miss… everything. I miss Hoggle and Ludo and Sir Didymus and the Fireies and the Labyrinth and even the stupid fairies," she told him, feeling tears well in her eyes.
"Is that all?" she almost missed his question, he was so quiet.
"Of course not," she told him firmly.
"Then what?"
"Jareth, please don't make me."
"Sarah, I will not be trifled with."
"But, Jareth-"
"Say it!" he commanded, raising his gaze to meet hers once more. She was surprised at the wetness she saw there.
Sarah clenched her fists and tightened her muscles.
"You," she whispered. He smirked at her again.
Slowly, hesitatingly, he lowered his lips to hers. His lips were soft and warm. His hard hands reached up to embrace her. She slid her hands into his tangled hair.
She did not know how long passed before they broke apart.
"My offer still stands," he told her earnestly.
"Jareth… I do not fear you," she informed him.
"A negotiable term of the contract." He brushed a single finger along her cheek.
"You still have no power over me." He laughed and cupped her cheek.
"Sarah, you may be capable of fooling yourself, but not me. I know that I have as much power over you as you do me."
She sighed and stared at him for a moment before ducking her head. His hand moved to her chin and forced her head up once again.
"I will not allow you to leave here while I am unanswered."
"Jareth, I can't just leave my life! I have a family! My mother, my father, Toby… my boyfriend."
"It's not as though you couldn't visit! And I know you broke his heart a month ago, darling."
"You've been spying on me?" She was outraged at his invasion of her privacy.
He raised a hand and, level with her eyes, he held a crystal. Inside she saw herself at the table in her kitchen. She was wearing the same clothes as that morning, a month ago. She was staring dreamily into space. Jareth smiled at her.
"And if you turn it this way," he whispered, turning the orb. The scene rushed past the Sarah in the crystal. She saw herself pushed against the wall in the tunnel of the Labyrinth with Jareth looming over her and mocking her with his devilish smile. Then the scene changed. Sarah closed her eyes speechlessly, hoping that the crystal would not show what she knew it was going to.
She opened her eyes and groaned. Blood-red silk sheets, dim lighting and herself writhing in pleasure underneath Jareth's naked body.
Sarah's heart sped. The same icy fire as always sped through her veins, magnified by the actual man before her. She felt a flush of heat spread up from her neck. She could not speak. Jareth leered at her.
"You cannot lie to me, Sarah," he told her, watching her as she watched the scene in the crystal. "I can make your dreams come true."
Sarah finally broke the spell that the crystal had over her and looked into his eyes. She was afraid, not of him, but of being with him. She still could not speak.
So, she kissed him again, passionately and lustily. Jareth moved away from her.
"Sarah, you must answer me!" He yelled, frustrated at her silence.
"Yes," she said, so quiet that he almost missed it.
He kissed her fiercely. The world seemed to melt away as Sarah relinquished herself to him. The hard floor beneath her feet seemed to become softer. The temperature in the dank room rose several degrees. She felt something soft brush her arm. Her eyes flew open.
They were no longer in the dungeon. They had been transported to a dimly lit, plush bedroom, with blood-red silk sheets peeking from underneath piles of furs and blankets.
"You're mine now," Jareth informed her, hands flying over her body, tugging at her clothes. "You're mine forever."
I am seriously considering adding another, more graphic chapter, which would up the rating from the somewhat mature rating it is now to definitely mature. Let me know if it is wanted, or if I should end it here.