Disclaimer:

Standard disclaimers apply.

The Labyrinth is the property of Jim Henson, George Lucas, Brian Froud and its script writers, including but not limited to Dennis Lee, Terry Jones, Elaine May, and A.C.H. Smith. Characters and concept are used without permission and not for profit.

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Chapter 5

Wanting

"God, I'm so tired, someone kill me now," Patrick moaned from where he lay face flat on the stage. He'd collapsed in a flurry of silk and brocade and glitter the minute Luke had yelled cut, a puppet whose strings had been snipped. The dress rehearsal had taken its toll on him. The final transformation scene alone had taken seven runs through to sort out the technical details, never mind performance. "We have to do this six nights a week, plus matinees?"

"That's what understudies are for," Kyle joked, passing him a water bottle. "They do the work, you get the glory. Think about it, opening night, your name in lights, and the limelight!"

It was Monday, three days before opening night, and Luke had insisted they start rehearsing in costumes already. While the costumes were beautiful, inspired by late seventeenth century Western European fashion and heavily trimmed with lace and brocade, they were stifling and difficult to move in. Girls who'd never worn corsets before suddenly discovered the importance of breathing, and the men learned appreciation for the ability to walk in heels.

"If we even get there," Luke said. "We've less than three days until opening night, and we're still having problems. I want you to be fresh and ready tomorrow, no more blunders like today."

Amelia raised her hand. "So we can go home now?" she asked hopefully.

The rest of the cast laughed as the director frowned. "Don't sound so happy to be out of here," he admonished. "Yes, you can go home now."

He caught Sarah before she left the stage, grabbing her sleeve almost shyly and possessively. It had been torture, playing the part of the professional director, seeing her dressed as beautifully as any princess in a fairy story, watching her smile and play at romance with Patrick when all he could think about was the kiss she had given him only a few nights ago. She was so beautiful in her peacock blue dress, shining with golden and green and cerulean hues under the stage light, bright against the darkness of her black hair. A distant part of him wished he'd thought to dress up, instead of simple jeans and a button up shirt. "Luke?"

"Shhh," he hushed, glancing behind her furtively. They were alone. He wet his lips. "I can't stop thinking about that kiss."

Comprehension dawned in her eyes. Looking backwards for eavesdroppers or lingering cast members, she shook his hand from her sleeve. "Don't be silly, Luke," she said. "Right now you're the director and I'm the actress. Now is not the time."

He caught her again. "Do you think about it?" he pressed her. "About the kiss? About what I said?"

"It was only a kiss," she told him definitively. "It doesn't mean anything. As for the other thing, no, I haven't really thought about it. You can't rush these things, Luke. Either they happen or they don't. I told you I'd give you a chance, and I will, but I can't just say yes to you right now."

"There isn't anyone else, is there? Someone you're holding out for?" He knew he sounded desperate. His words were pathetic even to his own ears.

"God, why do men always assume there's someone else?" Her tone was half exasperated, half amused. "There isn't. I told you, I don't know you well enough to know yet. You can take me out on a date sometime, and we'll find out. So I suppose for now, the answer is maybe."

It wasn't a promise, but it was something, and Luke at least knew when to concede. "How about on opening night? After the show, we'll go out."

Sarah shook her head. "I can't. My stepfather is throwing me a party. You're welcome to come if you'd like. It'll probably be mostly theatre people anyways," she told him.

"I'll go, if I can go as your date. How about that? You'll give me an answer on opening night, after the show," he proposed eagerly, catching both her hands in his. "It'll be perfect. If you say yes, we'll go to your party together."

What could she say? At the very least, it gave her some time to ponder the strange predicament she found herself in. Sarah nodded, feeling that she had stumbled into an opera, and that they performed to an unseen audience.

He drew her into the shadows of the stage wings, where the sets and props hid them from view in case someone blundered onto the stage. Sarah looked at him suspiciously, skeptically. "What are you doing?" she demanded as he maneuvered her behind the backdrop of the Beast's castle.

"Can I kiss you again?" he whispered, careful to keep his voice low in case someone might overhear them.

She stared at him for a moment before she started chuckling, muffling her laughter with one hand. Regaining control of herself, she nodded, lifting her face. "You don't have to ask, you know," she said.

As he bent his head towards her and as his lips came into contact against her lips, he thought how she managed to make him feel like a schoolboy, nervous and awkward in the first discovering of women. This kiss was nothing like the kiss in her apartment, which had been soft and thoughtful and sweet. This kiss was hesitant and stiff, an impersonal touching of lips. It was the kiss children on the cusp of adolescence gave each as they who played games with bottles and closets too mature for their youth and inexperience.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I appear to have stumbled upon something I shouldn't have," a voice observed coolly, slicing through them as neatly as a scalpel.

Luke released Sarah and jumped back nervously, and she turned her face away so that her long hair was a curtain that masked her. But it wasn't anyone from the cast. The same handsome and blond stranger from last week had returned, leaning against a convenient stage prop as he watched the tableau before him with an expression of mischievous mirth. His eyes were hard. "Shall I come back later?"

Sarah slipped out from his embrace, slipping past the stranger as she headed for the dressing rooms. The blond man followed her with his eyes, and did Luke imagine that she paused slightly under that gaze, drawn by the gravitation of his good looks and powerful aura? But Sarah dived into the shadows of the wings, and he could no longer see the gleaming threads of her gown anymore. He turned his attention back to the stranger.

"Was that your leading lady?" the blond man asked.

"Yes..." Luke said warily. He wondered how long the blond man had been watching them, if he'd witnessed more than the awkward kiss. He turned and began to move back towards the stage. "Yes, that was Sarah. She's the leading lady."

"Sarah?" The question was asked right beside him, startling him. He hadn't heard the blond stranger move.

"Yeah, Sarah Robertson, she calls herself. I happen to know she's the daughter of Linda Williams," Luke replied. Lost in the shadows of the stage wings, he didn't see the handsome man's lips tighten or the tiny line that appeared between the eyebrows. "She's got her mother's talent, and she's beautiful too. As beautiful as a fairy tale princess, which is exactly why I cast her as Beauty, and this feeling about her, like if you just stay next to her and wait, something exciting is going to happen. You ever get that feeling?"

"Yes," the stranger said gently. "I know what you mean."

His mistrust dispelled, Luke grinned at the other man. "You know, I don't even know your name. You probably already know mine, but it's Luke."

"Jareth."

"God, that's a bit old-fashioned, isn't it?" Luke couldn't stop himself from exclaiming. He checked himself. "I mean, I haven't met very many people named Jareth."

The stranger -- Jareth -- shrugged. "It's just a name. 'That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,'" he quoted, pacing the span of the stage as he admired the set design. "'The perfume and the prick's the same.'* So tell me, Luke, how are you enjoying my present?"

Somewhere in the back of his head, Luke wondered at how long the cast had taken to change back into casual clothes. But reality seemed to have suspended itself. In some way, Jareth seemed to defy reality, with his ethereal appearance, his aristocratic air, and his ability to somehow understand exactly what Luke meant when he described Sarah. Even with his wild golden hair in his designer suit, he fitted perfectly into the period backdrop of the stage. Men like Jareth shouldn't exist. "That crystal ball?" he asked, descending the stage steps to the audience level. "I've got it in my jacket pocket, on the seat."

"No, it's not," Jareth said in a curious tone of voice. "It's right here, on the stage." To prove it, he held out the little sphere to the amazed director, his black gloves contrasting darkly with its pale iridescence.

"Okay, maybe not. How did it get there? I must have taken it out and forgotten about it," Luke laughed as he came back up onto the stage for a better look. There was no denying that the bauble in Jareth's gloved hands was the same crystal ball he'd been given last week. "But it's just a crystal ball, isn't? Nothing special."

Jareth shook his head. "It does exactly as I told you," he said. "It will show you your dreams.

"I haven't seen anything," Luke said, maybe a little petulantly.

"Then perhaps your dreams aren't strong enough," Jareth replied. "Ask yourself, what do you really want?"

His tone was inviting. Hypnotherapists should take lessons from this man, Luke though as he found himself staring at the crystal in Jareth's gloved hands. The swirls and glints upon its surface seemed to be rearranging themselves into patterns, vague and fleeting, ever changing. A white dress swirled within its depths. A woman leaned against the ornate metalwork railing of the balcony. When he tapped her on the shoulder, Sarah turned around and smiled.

"Your leading lady, then?"

Luke hadn't realized he'd spoken out loud. He looked up from the crystals into Jareth's eyes. He'd been mistaken. The eyes were not dark, but light blue, almost like shards of glass set in an already ethereally pale face. Yet they were deep with secrets, like a clear pool of water with no bottom, and despite their paleness, they arrested the onlooker with their strange fire and their unevenly sized pupils. It was unnerving to see. Jareth flipped the crystal into the air lightly and caught it again one-handedly. The image disappeared. "So you do have dreams," he remarked. "You should cherish them."

Jareth held out the crystal again. Unable to look away from the other man's pale eyes, Luke accepted the gift numbly. "Dreams are important," Jareth continued. "They tell us who we truly are. Without dreams, we find ourselves at the mercy of other people's dreams."

"What are Sarah's dreams?" Luke asked, then paused. He hadn't meant to ask. How would a stranger like Jareth know? Yet the question had risen, unbidden, compelled by the secrets he'd seen in Jareth's eyes.

As if Jareth might know.

"I doubt she'd appreciate my telling you," Jareth said quietly. "Dreams, after all, are very personal, and I have already intrude one time too many."

"Do you know her then?"

Jareth flashed him a smile. It showed his teeth. "Very well," he replied. "Much better than she'd like to admit."

Luke felt like an idiot to have spoken so possessively and intimately about her to someone who possibly -- not possibly, definitely -- knew her better than he did. How Jareth must have laughed inside. "Oh. Why didn't you stop me blathering on about her then," he protested. A memory reared in his mind. "Hold on. Was she the one you came searching for the last time you were here? You were looking for Sarah. What do you want with her?" God, I sound like the protective boyfriend.

Jareth's smile didn't falter. "That's not the question you should be asking," he said. "It's not a question of what I want with her, but what what I want from her."

Luke found he couldn't move as the handsome, graceful blond man approached him, slow stalking steps like a panther bent on its prey. "And the answer, Luke?" Jareth continued, his tone conversationally, friendly, amused. It didn't matter that Luke made no answer. He bent down so he could whisper in the smaller man's ear.

"Everything."

The word echoed in the silence of Luke's mind, swallowed suddenly by approaching chatter. Jareth straightened, his face a careful mask as he smiled pleasantly at the actors who'd changed out of their costumes. Several girls -- dressers and make up artists -- returned his smile with looks of interest. They lingered pointedly as everyone else filed out the doors, flirting with body language as they flipped their hair and reapplied lipstick. But their efforts were wasted.

"Think about what I said, about staying true to your dreams," Jareth said amiably, stepping away from the immobile director. "I'll be seeing you."

He slipped back into the shadows of the wings, his suit blending into the darkness until it engulfed even the golden halo of his hair. His exit seemed to lift the spell that held Luke in place, and he let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding. The enthralled girls swarmed around him. "Who was that?" one asked excitedly.

What should he say? He didn't quite know the answer himself. "A fan of the leading lady, apparently," he replied with a weak smile.

"Well, if she doesn't want him, I do!" The sentiment was warmly echoed by the other giggling girls. Luke did not want to know if Sarah shared the sentiment.

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As Sarah brushed past the man who'd interrupted, curiosity made her glance at him. The glimpse arrested her, a moment of gravitation that pulled her in towards him involuntarily. It wasn't that he was handsome -- he was exceedingly handsome -- or that he held himself as tall and proud as any king, but because it had struck a chord inside her somewhere. In that moment, she'd felt sure that they knew each other, that he would understand all the thoughts she couldn't tell anyone else, and that he knew those thoughts already. Looking at him, she felt the stirring of something she hadn't felt in a long time, something for which she had no name.

She felt all this within the span of one rapid heartbeat. Then he smiled at her, the barest curve of his narrow lips. It was a knowing and inviting smile, as if he knew the thoughts that had passed through her mind. That smile, above everything else, frightened her, and she dropped her eyes from his as she hurried away.

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She couldn't help being envious of Merlin on days like these.

Watching him snuffle along the streets and submit himself to the affection ministrations of children, Sarah had to conclude that he had a truly wonderful life. He had a mistress who pampered him, children loved him, and he never had to worry about the feelings of other people.

The feelings of other people....

She'd told Luke that she give him an answer on Thursday night, after the final curtain call. She had three days to decide if she liked him enough to out with him. It was decidedly an old-fashioned ritual, and while once upon a time, she might have been flattered with his formal courtship, she had outgrown her girlish fantasies of princes and knights in shining armor upon white horses. It had seemed sweet and cute last week. Now she found his reverent adoration stifling.

And if she really thought about it, she should not have kissed him. But she had been caught in the moment -- the scent of the mysterious roses, the kneeling man at her feet -- and moved by his pretty words. I would be your slave, he'd told her, and so she'd kissed him.

But their second kiss, stolen in the shadows of the theatre wings, had been less than romantic. "I can't believe he asked for permission to kiss me," she complained to Merlin. "Who does that anymore? I suppose some people would think it's sweet, but it was really just awkward. I'd much rather he grab me and kiss me passionately. Rhett Butler never asked Scarlet for permission to kiss her."

Merlin just covered her face with slobbering kisses.

"See, you don't ask for permission either," Sarah reprimanded laughingly, fighting him down. "I guess it's time for dinner, huh? I know that look on your face! You think you're so cute! Well, guess what? Maybe you are."

She met with a surprise on the front steps of her building. He sat -- no, lounged -- on the porch steps in anticipation, his long limbs arranged with effortless grace while his chin rested on black gloved hands. He was a mysterious and suave figure in all black, from his overcoat that flowed to his knees to the well cut suit underneath and down to his black shoes. His clothes might as well have been cut from the night sky itself. His blond hair stood out starkly in contrast, as pale as moonlight. In the eerie twilight, he seemed like a figure out of folk tales and legends. He raised his head at the sound of her approach, her shoes tapping on the concrete pavement. "Hello," he greeted her calmly.

She stopped. Beside her, Merlin let out a low whine and pawed at the ground uneasily.

Up close, he was even more handsome than the glimpse she'd caught earlier. She'd never seen such beauty in a man before. His skin seemed to shimmer with a faint glow, as pale as winter snow. The evening shadows accentuated his bony and sophisticated face, carving out the hollows of his defined cheekbones and softening his hard features with complexities and depth. Yet it was his eyes that caught her. Pale colored yet dark in the gloom, she was transfixed by their eerie uneven pupils. Compelling in their strangeness, they looked at her as if he, of all people, truly saw her.

"Aren't you at least going to say 'hello' back?" he asked in a deep, cultured voice, when minutes went by and she still only stared at him. There was a trace of an accent, betraying foreign origins. He stood up, unfolding his height as he brushed dust from his clothes.

"Hello," she said, a little faintly.

He frowned, despite the fact that she had done exactly as he'd suggested. Cocking his head to one side, he regarded her intently. He took in her heightened color, already flushed from jogging Merlin around the blond, took in the dark black hair pulled back in a messy bun, and the red scarf draped around her neck. His eyes swept over her close-fitted black sweater, her jeans, and her knee-length boots. Lastly, he gazed at the wary expression on her face. "Don't you know me?" he asked kindly, and perhaps a little sadly too.

"I think I do," she replied hesitantly. It was hard to concentrate when he looked at her like that. "You look very familiar, but I can't place the memory."

He smiled a little wistfully at her. "I wish I could forget you as easily."

"So we have met before?" she asked. The wind carried his scent to her, mysterious and wild and intoxicating. It was no cologne she recognized. She didn't think it was cologne at all. The same wind whipped the ends of her scarf into her face, snatching it from her neck. She reached for it with a cry, tripping over Merlin.

He caught it easily, plucking it from the air with one black gloved hand. The red wool was bright against the darkness of his garments like a splash of blood. It flowed from his outstretched hand, a solemn pledge that he offered her. "Yes. Although it was probably not a meeting you would care to remember," he answered ruefully as he handed back the scarf.

"Thanks," she said slowly, accepting it. There was something about his expression, his beauty, his voice, and his scent that enthralled her, and she wondered how she could ever have forgotten someone like him. She opened her mouth ask how they met, but Merlin butted her from behind, whining piteously. "Oh, right, Merlin," she soothed. She turned back to her mysterious visitor. "Would you like to come upstairs? I have to feed this poor excuse for a pet here."

"Do you usually invite strange men up to your apartment?" he asked, half in amusement and half in consternation, as he followed her up the steps.

Sarah shrugged as she unlocked the door. "You said we've met already," she countered flippantly. Then in a more serious tone, "I do feel as if I know you, even if I don't remember your name."

"It's Jareth."

They paused outside the door of her unit, as if the speaking of his name were a spell he had cast. It was both familiar and alien to her. The sound of it seemed to chime in the air, its echoing trickling into the corners of her awareness and tinging everything with a sense of magic and enchantments. As if the world held its breath expectantly. Slowly, she turned around and faced him. He was looking at her as if he was waiting for something, some reaction, some outburst that did not happen. "Well, it's certainly very different. But then again, you seem very different. It suits you," she said, unlocking the door. "Well, this is it."

Once inside, the sheepdog dragged Sarah into the kitchen, leaving Jareth alone in the hallway. He could hear the dog banging against the kitchen cabinets in his eagerness as he removed his overcoat, draping it carefully on the little table just inside the door. There was a vase of roses on the table, deep red and fragrant. He smiled to see them.

The roses were everywhere in the living too. Vases of red flowers stood upon any available surface -- the coffee table, the book shelves, on top of the television. Their heaving nodding blooms wept tears of blood, rose petals that released a deep and powerful perfume. And the walls were decorated with Polaroids and photographs of Sarah with her friends, Sarah posing for the camera, Sarah unaware that she was being watched. Her green eyes gazed back at him soulfully, from under her tousled hair as she smiled at the camera, her naked body hidden tantalizingly by white bed sheets. He didn't want to know who'd taken the picture. A book lay face down on the floor. He picked it up.

"Sorry about Merlin," Sarah said, coming into the living room. She'd taken off her scarf. The V-neck of her sweater bared her throat and collarbones. "He's an absolute pig and has no manners. All he wants to do is play." Jareth gestured at the pictures on the wall. "I like your life," he said. She leaned against the wall, raising an eyebrow at him. "Well, it's mine, and you can't have it," she said with feigned childish selfishness.

He smiled, almost painfully, at her response and changed the subject. "The Phantom of the Opera?" he asked, showing her the book.

"Dark sexy men living underground with an edge of danger," she laughed. "What's not to love? And he can sing. Definitely a rock star persona, wouldn't you say?"

"I see," he said. "Even though he's essentially the villain of the story and murdered innocent bystanders without any remorse?"

"Probably because he's the villain. And who says he was remorseless?" she countered, fiddling with the stereo. The soft strains of Andrew Lloyd Webber's score filled the room. "He wasn't directly responsible for any of the deaths, and he was contrite in the end. All he wanted was a normal life with Christine, no more hiding, no more masks, no more lies; and he let her go in the end."

Jareth had stripped off his jacket, laying it on the sofa. Underneath the jacket, he wore a black vest, unbuttoned, over his white shirt. It gave him a rakish look. She could see now that he was broad shouldered naturally even without the jacket, despite his thinness. Yet he retained his gloves. "This Erik is a fool," he declared, even as he set the book down carefully on the coffee table next to its vase of roses. "Why should he give up the woman he loves, when she has come to him willingly?"

"Because he loves her," Sarah replied. "Because he sees that she is unhappy in the darkness. Because she loves Raoul."

"Do you really believe that?" he asked. "Or perhaps, Raoul is the safe choice? Even Raoul points out in the story that Christine's fear of the phantom may be the most exquisite kind of love, the kind that she refuses to admit even to herself." He sat down in the perpendicular seat of the ottoman, leaning over the armrest towards her. "Admit it, you think Raoul's a bore, and you secretly wish Christine had chosen Erik."

"Yes, but I'm not Christine," Sarah confessed. "My opinion doesn't really matter, does it?"

"But you are a woman. You've admitted you're attracted to the wild and dangerous villain," Jareth pointed out with a sly grin.

Sarah had to laugh at his expression of smug victory. "No, perhaps you're right. Perhaps she doesn't love Raoul," she said at last, leaning back in her seat. "But I think she is afraid of Erik, even as she is drawn to him, and I think that even love cannot teach her to live underground in the dark."

Jareth moved, slipping out of his seat so that he could lean over her. His hands on the armrests of the chair trapped her in place. He leaned in closer to her, until he was looking down into her green eyes. So close that he could put his arms around her. So close that she could see herself distinctly in his enlarged pupil. "I thought stories said that love could conquer anything," he said softly.

And in his eyes, all the sadness of the world...

Those pleading eyes that both threaten and adore.....

"Only if you let it," she whispered back, her heart pounding.

"I see," he said simply. He stepped back and away from her. The violins rose to a swell, the introduction to Christine and Raoul's love duet, until they were silenced abruptly, severed by Jareth's finger on the stop button of the stereo. "I've always found that song rather disgustingly sentimental."

The stillness weighed heavily upon the two figures, a tangible barrier between them that could not be penetrated by any words that Sarah could think of. There were ghosts in the silence, the ghost of a masked man whose heart and face were broken, of a man who had been forgotten and relegated to the realm of nightmares and shadows, and ghosts that she could not recognize, not anymore, and one of the ghosts was the man in her living room, his wild silver hair swaying in the evening breeze, and she did not want to forget him again.

She was not conscious of stumbling to her feet, nor of clumsily falling forward across the small distance between them. She was only conscious of throwing her arms around him, his soft hair tickled her nose. She did not notice how he stiffed under her embrace, his thin frame trembling with barely controlled passion. "Don't go, don't go," she repeated desperately.

Slowly, very slowly, he turned in her embrace, lifting her face with gloved fingers. "Sarah, what is wrong?" he asked gently, very gently.

"I don't know," she blurted out, releasing him hastily. She covered her red cheeks. Her voice was half a sob, and she could not understand the urge to cry. "I don't know, I'm sorry. I was suddenly frightened."

"That I would leave?" He pulled her to him again, wrapping his arms around her. One gloved hand smoothed her hair.

"Yes."

This close to him, the strange wild and magical scent of him pervaded her sense. She could feel the rumble of his chest as he spoke. His voice was very quiet, his tone strange. "Do you not want me to?"

"I don't know," she replied in an equally small voice, addressing his chest. "No. I don't."

Her face buried his chest, she heard rather than saw him smile. "Then I shall stay."

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She fell asleep, listening to him read aloud from her book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales in his deep velvety voice. When she woke up, the sun was a glimmer on the grey horizon. Jareth was gone.

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* "Bring On the Men," from Frank Wildhorn's Jekyll and Hyde. Youtube it performed by Linda Eder.