"Hey, stay with me. Look at me!" she snapped her fingers.
Jareth opened his eyes and looked into her face. He was sitting on the floor in Sarah's tiny bathroom, leaning against the wall. His face was white as chalk, spattered with dried blood.
It had taken forever to get him up the stairs to her fourth floor studio apartment. Unsurprisingly the cab driver had been no help at all. She had cursed NY walkups and the extortionate prices of elevator apartments and apartments in general.
"I'm going to clean you up a bit. It might hurt," she told Jareth while dipping a washcloth into lukewarm water.
He nodded and winced immediately.
"Where do you hurt? Do you think anything is broken?" she asked while cleaning his face carefully.
"It's mostly my head that hurts like hell. Nothing seems to be broken but I don't know for sure," he replied.
"Can you take painkillers?"
"I think so. We are similar enough to humans," he replied.
Humans. Although she knew they were not the same species, him acknowledging it and referring to her people as humans sounded strange.
"Ok, I'll be right back."
Sarah returned a minute later with a glass of water and three Advils. Jareth was bent over the open toilet, dry-heaving.
She sat next to him and stroked his back trying to comfort him. When he finished she wordlessly handed him the water and pills.
"Are you feeling a bit better?"
"No," he replied and swallowed the pills together with the water. "I have a splitting headache and am really dizzy and nauseous."
"You probably have a concussion. I'll clean your head and have a look at the wound. Ok?"
His hair, especially at the back of his head, was caked with blood and stuck closely to his head. As she began cleaning it with the washcloth she noticed his ears for the first time.
They were the size of normal human ears but pointed at the tips instead of being round. He had kept them hidden under his hair all this time. She tried not to stare but knew that he had noticed her seeing them when she had stopped cleaning the wound.
"Those would have gone down well with your human doctors at the hospital," he joked sarcastically.
Sarah ignored his comment although she really wanted to ask him what he was and where he came from but held her tongue. Now wasn't the time. Knowing what he was wouldn't change anything anyway and she quietly continued cleaning the blood off his head.
"Thank you for helping me," he said so softly she hardly heard him.
"You're welcome."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why are you helping me?"
"Because you are hurt."
"But you hate me." It wasn't a question.
She stopped cleaning and looked at him. "I don't hate you."
He regarded her cynically.
"I didn't mean what I said. I don't know what I feel." She paused. "It scares me."
She turned towards the sink and busied herself washing the cloth in the running water.
"You are not supposed to kiss the villain who kidnapped your little brother."
"But," Jareth started.
"I know, I know," Sarah interrupted. "I asked you to take him. See what I mean? I don't know what to feel."
"What I'm allowed to feel," she added nearly inaudibly.
He did hear her and looked up at her, astonished.
"I'll put some anti-septic on your head wound. It'll probably burn a bit, ok?", she broke the silence.
Jareth only winced for a second while she finished patching him up. He still looked pasty but somehow a bit better. Moreover he looked beyond exhausted.
"You should lie down and get some rest. Do you want to brush your teeth since you threw up a bit? I have a spare tooth brush. Do you brush your teeth where you are from?"
He gave her an incredulous stare. "Our worlds are different but we are not savages. We take baths and brush our teeth."
"Ok, ok, sorry, it's just that your castle looked rundown with all these filthy goblins running around."
"I'm not a goblin and I don't live where the goblins scamper around."
He looked slightly insulted at her insinuation.
Sarah suppressed a giggle at his somewhat outraged expression and left the bathroom giving him privacy.
He emerged soon after limping and swaying. Sarah rushed towards him and helped him towards her bed. He had taken his gloves off and Sarah partially expected his hands to be different from human hands since he had been hiding them but they looked absolutely
normal.
In fact they were beautiful. She never thought she would describe hands as beautiful but his were. His fingers were long and elegant, the skin flawless.
"Why do you wear gloves?" she blurted out.
He hesitated. "The energy, the magic as you would call it, is not part of me. It is a force of nature and it can singe my hands when I use it."
Not knowing how to respond she changed the subject.
"You can sleep on the bed but I don't have any clothes that would fit you so I guess you have to sleep in what you're wearing."
He nodded, took off his boots, scooted over to the far side of the bed and lay down on top of the blanket.
There was only one blanket and no sofa in her tiny apartment. They would have to share. She looked out of the window. The wind was howling and it had begun to snow. She remembered reading about an early Nor'easter coming to New York City.
"You can sleep underneath the blanket," she sighed.
He looked at her as if asking if she was sure but then his exhaustion won over and he slipped underneath the blanket and rested his aching head on the pillow.
Sarah grabbed her pink Victoria's Secret lounge pants as well as a grey tank top and disappeared into the bathroom.
He was staring at the ceiling when she returned. She slipped underneath the covers and switched off the light.
"Jareth?"
He turned his head towards her. The yellow-orange streetlight cast an otherworldly hue over his features and brought out his sharp cheekbones. The tips of his ears were peeking out from underneath his hair. She longed to touch them. He looked utterly alien and achingly beautiful at the same time.
"Goodnight," she whispered and leaned forward kissing him softly on the mouth.
His face was only a few inches from hers after she moved away and opened her eyes. He stared at her with a look of utter shock and astonishment on his face.
For a few moments, they just looked into each other's eyes, unsure of what to do. The tension was palpable in the air.
Jareth was the first to react and tenderly pressed his mouth to hers. The feeling of his lips sent a current of electricity running through her body. She wrapped her free arm around him and returned his kiss fervently.
His breath mingled with hers and when she finally gave into the kiss nothing else in the world mattered for a few precious stolen moments but Jareth.
