Disclaimer: I don't own Jareth or Sarah or anything to do with Labyrinth. Don't sue, pretty please?
The Owl At The WindowHe watches her. Sometimes he watches her from far away, but
sometimes he just has to be close to her. He knows he'll never be able to break
down the double-glazed barrier between them, but he watches her just the same.
He loves her. It's an obsessive love and he knows it. He's fairly sure it's not
healthy and he knows he risks detection every time he sits on the windowsill. So
far he's been able to turn away when she dresses or undresses, but he wonders
how long that deeply ingrained chivalry inside him will hold out. He watches
her sleep mostly. She's beautiful when she sleeps. He can watch her for hours
and hours and not notice time go by. She's not the little girl who once looked
at him with undisguised hatred. She's not a little girl anymore, full stop.
Puppy fat has given way to womanly curves and he's watched the transformation
every step of the way. He likes to think he helped her on the road from
innocence and childhood to adulthood but even now he's not entirely sure if he
should be glad about that.
He loves her. She is still the same person he challenged so long ago, but she
is grown up. She has lost some of that teenage angst and that infuriating
determination to question everything. This sometimes gives him hope that
one day she'll look at him with something more like love, but he knows it's
nothing but a dim hope. She doesn't love him- she hates him. He still watches
her just the same. He sometimes thinks that he shouldn't watch her like he
does, but he tells himself that it's all right because he never watches
anything... inappropriate. The night her boyfriend stayed over for the first
time he was so angry he could barely tear himself away, but he did so just the
same. He supposes that he doesn't want her to hate him any more than she
already does, so he stays away when he feels he should. Sometimes he tries to
stay away completely, but he never manages to stay away for more than a few
days. He managed a week once but was going out of his mind by the seventh day.
He loves her and can't bear to tear himself away.
He loves her. He respects her, in his own odd way. She challenges him, she
dares him and she makes him think. She infuriates him and she makes his blood
boil. She makes him smile. She is the only one to ever beat him. He knows he
should be angry at her for that, or even hate her, but he doesn't. He watches
her from the window. He prays to everyone and everything he can that one day
the glass will be gone, but he won't hold his breath about it.
He loves her. He's always gone by the time she wakes up, because he knows that
she'd hate to find him there. He leaves when the sun rises and always returns
when it sets. He plans his entire life around the sun. He is full of elation
when it sets and full of sadness when it rises, which he supposes, is how it
should be for a man who isn't a man at all. When the sun rises, he returns to
the world he is cursed to inhabit. Cursed by himself to inhabit without her.
When the sun rises, she wakes with it. She always wakes up at sunrise, no
matter what the time is. She wakes up from whatever dream it is she was having.
She always looks to the window. She's never been sure what she's looking for,
but she has a good idea what or who that might be. In the dark, deep recesses
of her mind, she knows who it is. In the dark, deep recesses of her heart, she
is glad.
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