The Enticement
by Scattered Logic
Disclaimer: Jareth and Sarah
belong to Jim Henson. Everyone else is mine.
Author's Note: Thanks to
my beta, Cormak, for her thoughts and suggestions. Thanks also to Lady Jamie
and The Hooded Crow for their support and encouragement.
Additional Author's Note:
I had intended to end this story with this chapter, but there was simply too
much going on to fit it all into one chapter. Therefore, there's one last chapter
following this one.
This chapter refers to "The Monkey's Paw," by W. W. Jacobs. It is considered
by many to be one of the great horror stories of the 20th century. If you are
curious, a link to the story may be found under this chapter of The Enticement
on my website.
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Jareth's euphoria and his relieved laughter over Sarah's recovery were short lived. In moments, exhaustion began to set in. Reordering time was taxing and even with the Labyrinth's huge reserves of power at his disposal, it had taken a great deal out of him. Unfortunately, along with the draining weariness, acute awareness of all the inhabitants of the Labyrinth once again rushed in on him. He had to find a way to raise the barrier that the Labyrinth usually kept between them. Without that separation, he feared being driven mad. There were too many voices, too many thoughts, too many others in his mind. But he wanted to raise the barrier in such a way that he retained command of it. Never again would the Labyrinth have sole control of its power.
Turning his attention back
to Sarah, he compelled himself to focus completely on her. He tried to ignore
the myriad voices that were threatening to overwhelm his mind, and the weariness
seeping into his body.
"Do you remember what happened?"
Jareth asked quietly.
She frowned slightly. "I
remember getting out of the car and then something shoved me--twice--and I lost
my balance and fell." Her frown deepened. "I know I hit my head because it hurt."
She raised a hand and rubbed the back of her head gingerly. Surprised, she glanced
at Jareth and sat up. "I don't have a bump on my head. It's not even sore."
He nodded slightly. "I would
ask a courtesy of you. There are many things we need to discuss but we are both
tired. Go back to your room and sleep. We will talk further in the morning."
"But something pushed me,"
she said, plainly confused. "What the hell shoved me? Do you know? I don't remember
seeing anything."
"I promise that we will
talk in the morning," he said, tension becoming evident in his voice.
She looked at him closely
for the first time since she awoke in the cabin. "Are you okay? You look awfully
pale."
"I am fine," he said through
gritted teeth. "But I am very tired."
She swallowed hard at his
tone and then stood, nodding uncertainly. "I left the car running. I'll go turn
off the engine and get my keys."
Jareth shook his head. "That
is unnecessary." He concentrated and, outside, the car suddenly stopped running.
He reached into his coat pocket and closed his hand around empty air. When he
pulled out his hand, her keys dangled between his fingers. Silently, he held
them out to her.
"Oh, you turned it off,"
she said, surprised. She gave him a curious glance and took the keys from him.
"I didn't think you'd know how. Thanks."
He nodded and watched as
she walked toward her bedroom. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sketch
Sarah had given him lying on the floor, the glass shattered within the frame.
She hadn't noticed it yet. In an instant, the sketch disappeared from the floor
and reappeared, whole and undamaged, lying beside the lamp next to his bed.
The fatigue he was feeling increased incrementally.
Sarah stopped at her bedroom
door and turned back to him.
"Jareth, I'm really sorry
about..." she began softly.
"Please, Sarah," he said,
his voice suddenly sharply. "No more tonight."
She flinched and then looked
away from him. "Okay," she said, nodding. Her voice was strained. "We'll talk
in the morning."
She went into her bedroom
without looking at him and closed the door.
Jareth sank down on the
bed and dropped his head into his hands. He had not meant to snap at her, but
the voices in his mind were becoming louder and more encompassing and his lack
of energy was more persistent.
Dealing with this type of
magic was unfamiliar territory and Jareth tried a number of blocking spells
to no avail. Finally, a variation of a spell designed to shield the wielder
from psychic attack was strong enough to protect him from the brunt of the Labyrinth's
power.
He could feel the apologetic
presence of the Labyrinth itself hovering anxiously at the edges of his consciousness
but he pointedly ignored it. He would deal with it when he returned to the Underground.
As he spoke the last words
of the spell, the presence of the Labyrinth inhabitants faded to an indistinct
murmur. They were still there, but were easily ignored. Just as important, they
were also easily called back to the front of his mind. The Labyrinth's power
still surged within him, but it was now a muted hum rather than the roaring
energy of before.
Jareth removed his coat
and shoes. With a gesture, his sleeping attire was dry and clean, and he stretched
out on the bed. He knew that he should return to his kingdom as soon as possible,
but he also knew that he would be engulfed with important demands on his time
and attention the moment he returned. He and Sarah needed to work out the problems
between them before they went back to the Underground. If he had revealed to
Sarah that his magic had been returned, he would have been forced to explain
exactly why it had been returned. That was something he wanted to contemplate
before talking with her.
His unexpected and forced acknowledgement of his love for Sarah had made things awkward. He did not want her to learn of these feelings until he was completely certain that they were reciprocated. He would not needlessly place himself in a weak position. While it was apparent that Sarah certainly wanted him to love her, her feelings toward him were not as clear. Why was Sarah so convinced that sex with him was what she desired most?
These thoughts whirled around
in Jareth's mind until the exhaustion claimed him and he slept.
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Sarah tossed and turned
but was unable to sleep. Finally, she gave up and lay in her bed thinking about
the earlier events of the evening. She couldn't understand what had caused her
to fall. Something had pushed her. Hadn't it?
Each moment that passed
made her a bit more dubious of what had actually happened. She knew she had
struck her head. She remembered the intense burst of pain vividly but then she
remembered nothing else until she awakened lying on Jareth's bed.
He must have found her and brought her inside. Had he gone out to try to stop her from going? Or was it to ask why it was taking her so long to leave? And if she had injured her head badly enough to lose consciousness, why was there no evidence of that injury now? Was it possible to knock yourself out and not even end up with a headache? Or had Jareth talked the Labyrinth into curing her?
The more she thought about
that last idea, the more sense that it made. While she hadn't been able to convince
the Labyrinth to heal Jareth when he became ill, she didn't have the same type
of relationship with it that he had. He must have asked it to heal her and it
had agreed.
She'd ask Jareth exactly
what had happened. He said that they'd talk in the morning, but he was acting
so strangely. Before she'd gone outside, he'd been furious with her. After she
woke up on his bed, he had immediately began laughing--she had no idea what
that had been about. Then, only a few minutes later, he'd acted annoyed
with her. With his mood swings, how was she ever supposed to figure him out?
She sighed. And obviously,
the Labyrinth was talking to Jareth again. It had certainly ratted on her quickly
enough. If it had only waited a few more hours, she would have told Jareth the
truth herself. While he might not have taken the news any better coming from
her, at least she would have had the opportunity to explain.
A distinct feeling of guilt
swept through her. She was the reason that he was stuck here. She was the reason
that his kingdom was suffering. She was the reason that he had suffered.
No matter now many times she turned it over in her mind, there was only one
sure way to fix this.
Trying to gather her courage,
she lay there until the first rays of the dawning sun began to brighten the
edges of her bedroom window. Finally, she forced herself from the bed and quickly
brushed her hair, all the while avoiding her own eyes in the mirror.
Taking a deep breath, Sarah
opened her door, stepped into the living room and went to Jareth's bedside.
He was lying on his back, the blankets pulled up high on his chest, his breathing
deep and even. He was sleeping so peacefully that she almost turned and fled
but she knew that she didn't have a choice.
This had to be done.
Sarah carefully sat on the
edge of his bed.
"Jareth," she said softly.
"Wake up."
He shifted in the bed slightly,
but otherwise didn't move.
Sarah reached out and lightly
shook his shoulder. "Jareth," she called again. "Wake up."
This time, his eyes opened.
They were hazy with sleep and he blinked a few times to clear them.
"What do you want?" His
normally crisp voice was roughened by fatigue.
Sarah folded her hands together
at her lap and wet her lips nervously. "I know you're mad at me."
Jareth opened his mouth
and Sarah shook her head quickly. "Please don't interrupt, let me finish. This
is going to be hard enough to say as it is."
Before he could speak, she
continued rapidly, her eyes fixed on her fingers, which were twisting together
nervously. "I'd hoped that you knowing the truth about the bargain I made with
the Labyrinth would be enough to..." her voice faltered for a moment and then
strengthened, "to complete it. Obviously, that didn't work.
"The only way that I can
see that we can settle this bargain is if you and I have sex." Her cheeks burned
and her words came out in a tumbling rush. "It's obviously not something that
you want to do, but I think we should go ahead and get it over with." Sarah
stole a glance at Jareth and saw that his eyebrows had shot up in surprise.
She quickly ducked her head, her hair falling forward to conceal her face.
"Before we do that, I'd
like to ask you a favor. I know that you're very angry, but this will be my
first time to do this. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't deliberately make
it any worse than it has to be."
After she'd finished speaking,
Sarah kept her eyes on her hands and waited for Jareth to reply.
--------------------------------
Jareth was still very tired
and when Sarah awakened him, he felt an initial flash of anger. He had thought
that he'd made it perfectly clear that they would talk in the morning. But then
she made it apparent that she wasn't there to talk.
As he'd listened to her
stammering reason for waking him, his anger had turned to amazement.
"Your first time to do this,"
Jareth repeated slowly.
Sarah nodded her head slightly.
Her eyes were still downcast.
Jareth was stunned. Sarah
was a virgin? It had never occurred to him that Sarah might still remain chaste.
In his world, hedonism tended to be the rule rather than the exception and self-denial
of pleasure was unusual. A fae woman of Sarah's physical maturity would have
already taken several lovers by this point in her life.
"You have never before been intimate with a man?" he clarified cautiously.
She shook her head, the
gesture causing her hair to swing from side to side.
Jareth sat up, wincing slightly
at the weariness that still plagued him.
"Sarah, look at me," he
said quietly.
She hesitated, but finally
brought her eyes up to meet his.
"You have had relationships
with men before," he said. "Why did those relationships never progress to the
point of physical intimacy?"
"What does it matter?" she
asked, frowning. "You want to go home. This is what it's going to take. Like
you said, we could have gotten this over with days ago. I'm trying to correct
my mistake." Her tone had become increasingly brittle.
Jareth sighed. "I apologize,
Sarah. I was angry; I should not have spoken as I did."
She shrugged slightly. "It
was true."
"You still have not answered
the question," Jareth pointed out.
Sarah closed her eyes briefly
and when she opened them, both her eyes and her voice had gone flat. "I waited
for a man that loved me, a man that I loved in return."
At her explanation, everything
became very clear. Jareth had not believed that love existed, but among those
who did, he had heard it said that sex and love were two very different things.
However, they were linked in Sarah's mind, becoming virtually the same. Mix
her current belief with a 15-year-old girl's romanticized memory of a strong
physical attraction and Sarah had made the assumption that a sexual liaison
with him was what she desired most.
But if sex and love were
the same in Sarah's mind, then what, exactly, were her feelings toward him?
Could it be that she loved him but was not willing to admit it, either to him
or to herself?
Jareth looked at her silently
for a long moment and then moved over in the bed, making room for her.
"Lie down," he said softly.
The apprehension that shone
out of her eyes was unmistakable but she lifted the bedcovers and slid under
them to lie beside him.
Jareth turned onto his side
to face her and watched as she tensed slightly. Wordlessly, he urged her onto
her side, facing away from him, and he moved close behind her, slipping his
arm around her waist.
She went rigid.
"Relax," he said softly
into her ear, "and go to sleep."
"But... But aren't we going
to..." she started.
"No, we are not," he murmured.
"Now, go to sleep."
"But," she tried again,
clearly confused.
"Go to sleep," he said firmly.
Jareth closed his eyes and,
after a few moments, when he made no further movement, he felt her slowly relax
against him.
His last conscious thought before once again falling asleep was that he had to be certain of Sarah's feelings toward him. If he allowed anything physical to happen between them before they each knew how the other felt, she might never forgive him.
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When Jareth woke, it was
early afternoon. Sarah still slept and he rose carefully to avoid waking her
and went into the bathroom to shower. The hot water soothed away the last of
his exhaustion and then he was dry and dressed with barely a conscious thought.
He glanced at his reflection in the mirror and grinned. He would have to change.
It would not do to walk out in his customary style of clothing and high boots.
He tilted his head and now he wore the black suit that Sarah had procured for
him. While the fabric and cut of the clothing was excellent, he would be very
happy to return to more familiar garments.
When he went back into the
living room, he found that Sarah was already awake and had dressed and made
up the bed. She was now sitting on the sofa, sipping a cup of tea. She picked
up a second mug from the coffee table and held it out to him.
"You want to explain to
me what happened last night?" she said abruptly. Before he could reply, she
answered her own question. "You talked the Labyrinth into curing me, didn't
you? That's why I didn't even have a bump on my head when I woke up."
Jareth sidestepped her assumption.
"When I found you, you were
already unconscious." He hesitated only a moment. "You were very badly injured."
Sarah blanched. "How badly?"
"You were dying," Jareth
answered evenly.
"Dying?" Sarah shook her
head in stunned disbelief. "You must have been mistaken."
"No," he said softly, shuddering
at the memory of her limp body in his arms. "I was not mistaken."
She looked down into her
tea.
"Something pushed me, something
I couldn't see," she said slowly. She met his eyes. "That was the Labyrinth,
too, wasn't it?"
"Yes," he replied.
"But why?" She stiffened
suddenly, her eyes going cold. "Was it for you? You were so angry. Did you want
it to hurt me?"
"No," Jareth said vehemently.
"It made that decision on its own."
"Then why?" she cried, jumping
to her feet. "Was it because I was leaving? I'd already decided to come
back and talk to you." Sarah shook her head. "It doesn't care about anyone or
anything except itself, does it? It almost let you die, remember? I begged it
to take you back and it wouldn't do it."
Jareth's temper flared and
he rose to face her. "Only because you made a bargain with it that it was bound
to uphold."
Sarah's mouth thinned into
a straight line and she crossed her arms over her chest. "Then let's get that
bargain settled and you can go home. Just don't expect me to tag along with
you."
"You seem to forget, Sarah,
that you have a bargain to keep, as well. If things are "settled," as you put
it, you have agreed to return to the Labyrinth."
She held up her hand to
stop him from speaking.
"I'll do what it takes so
that you can get your magic back and go home, but I'm not going back to the
Underground," she said flatly. "I'm not going to live in a place where a maze
is trying to hurt me."
"It will not harm you again,"
Jareth replied firmly.
"Who's going to stop it?"
Sarah looked incredulous.
"I assure you that the Labyrinth
will no longer have sole control over its power. I will share that power with
it," Jareth said. "You will not to be harmed in any way."
"Is that supposed to make
me feel better? What happens when you and I have another argument? Is it going
to decide to punish me while you're asleep? You can't watch both of us 24--oh,
excuse me, 26 hours a day," Sarah said derisively. "So let's just get this done
and you can go home. Alone."
Jareth ignored her words
and tilted his head, regarding her seriously. Perhaps it was time to bring certain
things out into the open. "Why are you so certain that having sex with me is
what you desire most?"
Sarah's cheeks flamed red
and she looked away from him.
"What else could it be?
It certainly fits this scenario. It's like the story about the monkey's paw.
You end up getting your wish, but when you do, it isn't what you wanted at all."
"What do you mean?" Jareth
demanded.
"I told you--I waited because
I wanted my first time to be special," she said bitterly, "and now it's going
to be with a man who doesn't love me."
She drew herself up and
looked at him, challenge in her eyes. "So, do you want to go home or not?"
Jareth started to speak
and then paused. There was something about what she said... He thought back
over her earlier words.
I waited for a man that
loved me, a man that I loved in return.
But she had not completed
her sentence. She had only stated that he did not love her. She should have
continued, saying that she did not love him either. Or she should have emphasized
that she did not love him. But she did neither.
Perhaps her phrasing meant
nothing. Or perhaps it meant everything.
Jareth remembered the gifts she had given him, her interest in his life and his family, the way she had calmly accepted that they would marry, and most particularly, he remembered that soft emotion flickering in her eyes after their dance.
His eyes narrowed speculatively.
"Sarah, what are your feelings
toward me?" he asked.
He watched her mouth drop
open slightly but, to her credit, she recovered quickly.
"At this particular moment
in time?" she said sarcastically. "Right now, I'm kind of pissed off at you."
He smiled. She truly should
have been fae. Even when angry, she was still quick-witted enough to deflect
a question she did not wish to answer. Unfortunately, he did not intend to give
her a choice.
"I will ask my last question
now," he said, his smile widening. "Or, more accurately, I will ask my first
question now."
"What are you talking..."
Sarah's mouth closed with an audible snap as she remembered that Jareth still
had the first question that he had won, the one without a time limit. He still
had one last question that required her to give a complete and totally honest
answer.
Her eyes suddenly widened
in alarm.
"Ah, good, I see that you
remember." Jareth's voice was silky. "So, tell me, Sarah, do you love me?"
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