Labyrinth: Fear Not the Flame
PG-13
Romance (Jareth/Sarah)/Drama
Disclaimer: Have no clue as to who the cast of Labyrinth belongs to, but I can say honestly, yet with reluctance, that it's not me *sniff, sniff; tear, tear*. (But a movie deal would be good…) As for the lyrics displayed in here in italics, they are from the Evanescence song "Give Unto Me" which can be found on the Whisper EP. Also some songs here credited to David Bowie from the Labyrinth movie/soundtrack.
A/N: This is my first attempt at a Labyrinth fanfic, and most likely my last, but you never know. I like reviews, but I will track down and set fire to anyone who dares to flame me—constructive criticism is accepted though… and I will try my best to read and review a story of anyone who reviews! I had to do so much research to get some of these details and stuff as I've only seen the movie a grand total of four times in the last two years, so anything I messed up on please let me know… Anyways, enjoy!
Code Run-through:
"Words" = singing, whether by Jareth or a radio will be specified
'Words' = thoughts, should be obvious who's thinking them—Sarah or Jareth
/ "Words", Words/ = dream sequence, stuff in "quotes" is not necessarily singing unless pointed out
~~*~~
"I've been watching you from a distance The distance sees through your disguise
All I want from you is your hurting
I want to heal you
I want to save you from the dark…"
~~*~~
Night fell down in folds, creating eerie shadows across the cracked stonewalls of a hidden well deep within the labyrinth. Only one being in all the lands knew where it was… knew it existed, and he sat there now, positioned in a crevice in the walls large enough to seat several of his own.
One leg stretched out before him on the wall, the other dangling off somewhere near his side, close to the ground but far away enough to leave a gab between the marble tiles and his foot booted in a fine black leather; his arms were positioned in front of him, his hands skillfully twirling around glass balls that he pointedly focused his gaze on to escape the rest of the world.
There was no point in sleeping anymore, for why else would he be here in the midst of night? His dreams were haunting referrals of her rejection of him… even though he'd convinced himself he didn't like her, that he could never have loved a human, that she was only roaming to be deceived and not out of his pity.
But even his charges, the goblins, knew those to be a lie.
Unable to keep his thoughts focused on the glass before him, the Goblin King tilted his head backwards, resting it on the cold stone of the wall behind him. A few wisps of blonde, nearly white, hair draped across his face exaggerating his cheekbones slightly more then his eyelashes instigated his unusually shaped eyebrows.
The world was worthless to him now, if the girl could recognize even his avian form for what it was. He knew she had yet to leave any windows of her house open since the night just a little more then two years ago when she'd called out for his help… since the night he drew her in and tried to dispose of the girl who had steadily grown cockier with each step she took into the maze that had claimed the sanity of so many.
Seeing now as the girl wouldn't leave his mind, he climbed to his feet, bent on ending the nightmares himself. No matter what it took, or whose life the actions stole.
Within the swift movement of cloth, a white owl emerged, spreading its wings in order to gain the lift it needed as it hastily fluttered out of the well and the labyrinth after, before soaring into the starry night sky…
~~*~~
He knew by the day and time that Sarah would be alone, if not with a now three-year-old Toby somewhere in the house, and from this Jareth knew better then to count on any of the windows being open. She'd been too careful of this lately…
As his flight took him in a vulture-like circle around the two-floored white house, he didn't dare believe at first when he saw the window of her parent's room open wide, the silk curtains adrift on the breeze that hustled throughout the room. He swooped downwards, willing his strong wings to hold him steady before the window; just to make certain that his eyes weren't deceiving him.
They weren't.
Allowing a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding escape his dry throat, the owl reluctantly fluttered its way into the room only to find a slight obstacle already awaiting to greet him. The door to the hallway was shut, which in itself was no big horror, but he had been planning on flying swiftly and silently to her room.
Redonning his other form, the Goblin King crept towards the door making sure no floorboards squeaked beneath the thick heels of his boots. Spinning the brass knob, he stepped silently into the hallway and made his way to the room he knew to be Sarah's.
The door swung open readily before him at his light shove, revealing how much the place had changed between the inhabitant's experience in the labyrinth and the time in which he stood there now.
Most of her stuffed animals had been sacrificed to Toby, and the only ones that remained were sitting on the top shelf of a bookcase crammed full of fairy tales and a collection of other assorted books and novels. Beside the bookcase stood a wooden desk, a stack of papers to one side of it and a computer to the other. Near the computer, a radio was admitting a haunting song into the room that Jareth currently did not care to familiarize himself with.
His gaze was focused on the bed across the room, on which a figure lay sprawled out across the top, apparently having fallen asleep while in the middle of her homework—Math to be more specific, as was made obvious by the book she was using as a pillow.
Jareth quietly approached her, careful not to wake the girl as he seated himself beside her. It was obvious who this girl was… Unable to prevent himself, nor willing to, he gently caressed her cheek before lightly pulling his fingers through her long brunette hair.
She mumbled something inaudible and turned her head away from his touch, leaving Jareth to stare, filled once more with the regret that even if he could love her, she'd never love him back.
Choking back comforting words and screams of angst, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a crystal ball that quickly shifted into a dagger within his hand.
"…Give unto me your troubles; I'll endure your suffering. Place onto me your burden; I'll drink your deadly poison," the music playing drifted to his ears, halting the blade even before he'd used it. "Fear not the flame of my love's candle; let it be the sun in your world of darkness. Give unto me all that frightens you. I'll have your nightmares for you, if you sleep soundly…"
He allowed the knife to roll off his pale fingers and drop to the floor, where it returned to its harmless state of a crystal. He couldn't bring himself to kill her, not now.
Making no move to retrieve it, Jareth gently pulled the hardcover book from beneath Sarah's head and replaced it with a softer pillow, before draping the woolen blanket that had been resting on the floor beside her bed across her form.
Casting her one last longing glance he morphed to his owl version and flew off into the night, silently swearing to all above him that he'd be back again.
"…Fear not the flame of my love's candle; let it be the sun in your world of darkness."
~~*~~
Sarah blinked, her mind still slightly fuzzy, as she'd only just arrived back to the conscious world. Sleep slowly unwrapped itself from her mind, allowing her to realize that rare beams of light were flooding into her room and dancing across the floors from a window she was positive had been closed the night before.
'Maybe mom or dad came in last night… or Toby', she reassured herself timidly as she reluctantly crawled out from beneath the comforter only to remember that one thing was wrong in her current situation: "Aw, crap! I never finished my math homework!"
Glaring down at the place where her book had been when she'd fallen asleep, Sarah was less surprised by the fact that it was closed and on the floor then the crystal ball lying innocently beside it, it's glass creating multicolored shadows about the room.
A few shuddering breaths later, she knelt down on the floor before it and hesitantly picked it out of its spot and into her hand as though it were poisonous, a reaction that previous encounters with such objects had led to the belief of.
Vaguely sketched figures danced within the glass, swirling about in beautiful gowns and suits through a richly decorated masquerade. It wasn't safe, this was as much as Sarah knew as she hastily stuffed the glass ball into a drawer of her desk. 'What the heck is that doing in my room?'
~~*~~
Toby grinned, tugging on his sister's hand as they walked away from his preschool that afternoon, in an attempt to drag her to the ice cream stand nearby. Shaking her head, Sarah allowed herself to be pulled there, deciding comfort food might have been nice for her present disturbed state.
The ice cream stand was located across a street known for it's heavy traffic, and constantly changing lights, but this had never once bothered Sarah, or Toby. Sarah reached into her pocket and fished out her wallet with the hand not being clasped by the three-year-old, the siblings crossed the street; but Sarah's attention was diverted by the loud screech of a horn and the sound of rubber scraping across the pavement…
~~*~~
/ "My kingdom as great…"
The words trailed off, as she realized the next line was the one in which she could never remember. But even without it, Jareth found himself the equivalent of immobilized.
Reaching out, his hand paused in midair, fingers curling around something nonexistent… an emotion that seemed incorporeal. He wouldn't allow history to repeat itself, not again if he had all the power to stop it, if not change the outcome. She watched him, quietly contemplating what possible options for the next verse were.
A look of enlightenment crossed her features and she opened her mouth to speak, and action that was quickly silenced as Jareth placed two of his fingers over her lips.
"Sarah," the word came out nearly choked by the waves of angst and longing that layered itself in his voice.
She turned away from him as she had done the night before, her hair tumbling over her shoulders as she did so: "You have no power over me."
He didn't reply; yet didn't allow himself to fall as he had the last times. Finally, he lowered his head and briefly pressed his lips to hers before stepping backwards, not regretting the action in the least. She stared at him, watching him in an awkward silence only she had the power to break.
"You have no power over me," she repeated, the words came out forced and racking, as though she didn't wish to announce them anymore.
"Dammit, Sarah," Jareth snapped at the dream-figure before him, "I want the power over you, but for some obscene reason you have the power… over my heart."
His mental vision of Sarah smirked cruelly, "I know." And she faded away… /
Jareth awoke, gasping for breath as beads of sweat slid down his face. A few goblins that had been crossing through the throne room gave him odd glances, but knew better than to say anything.
He'd fallen asleep in his throne again, after lack of it the night before. And once again she haunted his dreams… It wasn't fair, and yet those words she uttered so many times before seemed to fit his situation perfectly.
'Damn you, Sarah, damn you.'
It was obvious he wasn't likely to achieve anymore sleep, and the Goblin King knew this well enough not to try. Tossing the random goblins withering glares, he shifted to an owl and flew off to return to the place he'd been before.
~~*~~
The hospital's silence was eerie, as various doctors trudged through the halls towards their assigned patients. A code red hadn't been announced in ages, and such an urgent disaster hadn't taken place in years.
A total of ten people had been delivered to the emergency room that day from the same car wreck. One of the cars, a red minivan containing a newly wed couple who could not have been more then twenty-three, had been run off the road and into a ditch, hitting one bystander in the process—a seventeen-year-old male with a broken leg. Another of the cars had merely held an ignorant lady in her late fifties, and she had been the start of the accident, but not on purpose, by having a heart attack in her car. The last of the vehicles had been the most destructive, holding three kids just heading to a birthday party, and their father who had been driving them there. He'd been run off by the lady and in an attempt to stay on the road had hit a pair of siblings—one just turning eighteen and the other a three-year-old.
All of them were currently in life support, and the cars were most likely never to be used again as they were either caved in, had an ignited engine, or in various other ways dented and totaled.
Jareth had heard of this on the news in Sarah's oddly quiet household, and the pictures shown on the television screen were enough to convince him that there was a reason for the hush.
Now he stood outside the window of the hospital room he knew to be hers, or rather sat on a branch outside of it. Doctors had been walking in and out for the past three hours, and Jareth waited patiently for the hustle to cease so he could inspect the damage for himself.
That time came around one in the morning, when one of the doctors threw up his hands and stated loudly: "There's nothing more we can do for her now, especially with unfocused eyes and unsteady hands. Go to bed, she'll live through the night, it's the morning we have to worry about."
Shaking his head at the obvious human ignorance, the Goblin King waited for a half hour longer before prying the window open and inviting himself inside the room. It was a pitiful sight to say the least, she laid beneath a white sheet with assorted tubes and needles sticking out of her arms, some connected to machines, and others to odd, gray stands supporting plastic bags of liquid.
He pulled up a chair and seated himself by her side, grasping her hand—a gesture that had become very familiar in his dreams that he didn't stop to ponder over what her reaction could be. He sat there for a long while, tenderly stroking the skin of the back of her hand, awaiting any sign of life other then the shuddering breaths that came few and far between.
With nothing else to do as he stared at the girl he sang softly, "No one can blame you for walking away. Too much rejection, no love injection. Life can be easy; it's not always swell. Don't tell me the truth hurts little girl, 'cause it hurts like hell. But down in the underground, you'll find someone true. Down in the underground; a land serene, a crystal moon. It's only forever, not long at all…"
His voice chased itself away as he noticed her hand had twitched slightly within his own. Though his expression expertly didn't change as a tidal wave of emotions flew through him at once, he couldn't help but to squeeze her hand before continuing a different song, "How you turned my world, you precious thing. You starve and near exhaust me. Everything I've done, I've done for you. I move the stars for no one. You've run so long, you've run so far. Your eyes can be so cruel; just as I can be so cruel. Though I do believe in you, yes I do. Live without the sunlight; love without your heartbeat. I, I can't live within you; I can't live within you." He sighed before finishing off the short song. "I, I can't live within you."
Her eyes fluttered slightly, though still remained closed, and a quick glance at the various machines lining the room told him all he needed to know: mortal doctors couldn't heal her. Nearly positive he'd regret this action later in some way or another, he lifted the girl from the bed on which she was residing and in a wave of the air, returned to the Underground.
~~*~~
"…But I'll be there for you, as the world falls down…"
These lyrics sung by an unnervingly familiar voice were what greeted Sarah back to the waking world. Though at first she wasn't at all convinced that she'd escaped the dreams of her unconscious state.
That much was obvious with one glance at her expression as she stirred, allowing Jareth to finally notice what had been bugging him about his plan for her survival; she wouldn't believe it when she awoke.
She glanced unsurely around, her eyes resting on him. He could feel her gaze boring into him, practically through his eyes and to his core. He would've thought this, had he not known she was a human and therefore incapable of such an action… or so Jareth hoped, anyways.
"This is a dream," Sarah stated, propping herself up on her arms, and attempting to draw in smooth breaths—ones that came out ragged and worn.
Jareth shook his head, a thin smile forming across his lips partly from the relief that she was alive and partially from her denial. "Here everything seems possible… but nothing is what it seems."
"That's extremely helpful," Sarah responded sarcastically, attempting to shake her head yet finding that the action caused a mind-splitting headache instead. She allowed herself to collapse back down to the bed, her head hitting the soft pillow, only accompanied by the noise of wrinkling fabric and her own hoarse voice as she murmured, "This isn't a dream, is it?"
He glided to her side, seating himself beside her and grabbed one of her hands in his own just to add to the fact that it was indeed reality, "Unless lucid dreams of myself are a problem of yours, then I dare say no."
"I don't dream of you," she snarled in response, only realizing too late that this was a bit harsh due to the hurt expression he knew had crossed his features.
"But you do," Jareth whispered back in his oddly enough, British accent; taking his other hand and stroking the side of her cheek—he could feel her tense beneath his touch, and drew back his hand before looking away. "The glass in your room is only proof of that."
An eerily awkward silence filled the large room of the Underground's goblin palace—a building that was hardly hidden from the public at all.
Sarah took in another breath, this one as crooked as the others, and grabbed Jareth's shoulder for support as she once again pulled herself to a sitting position, and only too quickly pulled her own hand away. "Nightmares, Jareth, not dreams."
"Fear not the flame of my love's candle, let it be the sun in your world of darkness," He sang after a moment, quoting the song he'd heard in her room a few nights before.
Her eyes widened in response, and she barely managed to choke words from her throat as she stuttered, "H-how long have you be-been watching?"
Jareth brought his gaze back to her face- she had become much more beautiful then the childish girl she'd been two years earlier. Sighing, he climbed from the bed and knelt down beside it, so they were at eye level with each other. "It's late, Sarah, and you need real sleep, not one caused by human disasters. We'll discuss this in the morning."
With those words, he leaned forwards and gently kissed her cheek, before turning on his heel and walking out the door, shutting and locking it behind him.
Sarah sat there a moment longer, one hand pressed against the skin of the cheek (which she knew was most likely flushed in countless shades of red) his lips had contacted moments before, the other tightly clenching the blankets nearby. She knew the answer to her own question as well as she knew that she wouldn't be able to leave the rather grand room she resided in without the Goblin King's permission: "Forever…"
~~*~~
Jareth sighed as a vague dawn once again revealed itself to the Underground. The goblins had never seen it, as its colors blended with brown hue the skies always were, but Jareth had known ever since he was a child the age Toby had been when he'd first experienced the labyrinth, that the sun had always been there in a simple course of rising and setting.
And he wished things in his life were so simple.
Had his father still been alive, he'd have had a heart attack from knowing that his only son had fallen for a human. This Jareth knew to well, and was ashamed at himself for the entire ordeal; especially as the human in question seemed to want nothing to do with him.
A quick glance at the clock nearby informed him that eleven hours had past since his previous visit, more then enough time for a human's required amount of sleep. Climbing to his feet he set off down the halls towards her room, silently wishing things would have turned out differently.
Maybe five minutes had past by the time he had thrown open the medieval dungeon door to her room, but there was no one currently passing trough the labyrinth so he really didn't care.
She didn't say anything as he entered, merely continued to stare out the open window of her room—which was located in one of the higher towers of the castle. But the way her posture stiffed slightly as he approached hinted that she was all too aware of his presence.
"It gets rather boring if you stare at it too long," Jareth commented on the landscape as he stood beside her.
She shook her head, turning to face him. Her hazel eyes were swelled and red, the fair skin of her cheeks tear-stained, and her brunette locks slightly matted.
He immediately bit back any comments he had and demanded lamely for lack of better words, "What's wrong?"
"Toby." Her gaze hit him straight in the eyes as she said the one word with so much pain lacing itself around the edges. Hazel collided with blue, and for the first time Jareth was the first to turn away.
"He was there too, but you didn't bother to help him, did you?" She continued, the pain overtaken by remorse. "You left him there, a three-year-old child all alone in the hospital, and his sister missing."
Jareth allowed a pressing silence to pass for a moment before giving her his answer, "He's not alone… and no longer confined to the hospital. You saved him, took the majority of the hit from that damn vehicle. See for yourself."
With that he tossed her one of his signature crystals, which she caught with only a little trouble. In deed it showed the child sitting in his room, rolling a beach ball covered in orange and blue triangles and squares across the floor.
Upon seeing this, Sarah tilted her head to the side and imposed another question, "How long has it been? S-since I've been here?"
"A week," Jareth answered simply, catching her gaze once again and surprised to see the slight happiness now residing in hers, "but it wasn't supposed to take that long for you to wake."
She nodded, now the one to pull away from his stare and focusing her eyes on the section of labyrinth visible from her window, "Why?"
"Sarah," he began solemnly, his eyes not moving from her, "I asked of you one time to fear, serve, and love me… and that I'd be a slave to you. But for some reason, I already was… and am."
"Then why'd you take Toby and not give him back when I asked it?" Sarah responded bitterly, mentally convincing herself that he was trying to deceive her for something beneficial to him.
"'But the Goblin King had fallen in love with girl, and bestowed upon her certain powers,'" Jareth quoted, before taking the story on in his own way, "So one night, when the girl asked for it, he came and took the child that had caused her enslavement away. But she insisted that she 'hadn't meant it', and out of pity the Goblin King allowed her thirteen hours to conquer his labyrinth and save the child. Finally he offered the girl her dreams… but she'd have rather taken the child and so she took her leave."
Sarah listened to his tale in silence, and only afterwards did she insert her comments, "A life is more important then my dreams."
"Ah, or so you'd think," Jareth responded smoothly, grabbing her wrist and leading her in a dance-like fashion around the room. "But tell me, which did you long for?"
"Right now? To figure out what the hell has gotten into you," Sarah replied quickly, though not pulling away from him this time. "Back then… t-to…"
"To love," Jareth finished the uncomfortable statement for her, as he moved slightly closer to her. Close enough that she could feel his breath on her face as he spoke once more, "Same as I."
How awkward Sarah felt was obvious, but Jareth paid this no heed as he continued, "Sarah, this is most likely as strange for me as it is for you, if not more. I never wanted to inherit the throne, and I could never have dreamed I'd fall for anyone… much less a human, even one as beautiful as yourself. And despite the laws laid down by my father, and his father before him, there's nothing I can do to stop this."
She opened her mouth to interrupt, but just like he had in his dreams, he placed two fingers across her lips to silence her and went back to his little speech, "Just a few days more then a week ago, I went to your room in an attempt to end all of this, even if that had meant killing you. Instead I found myself turned away once more by you in many more ways then one… I swore I'd go back the next night and fix what I'd done wrong, and even that time my plans were delayed by the tele-thing on your first floor, advertising a common wreck. All this time I've had the power to take your life and rid myself of this monstrosity of one-wayed love, and still I can't bring myself to do it. So you see now, Sarah, what has gotten into me?"
Once again though, he refused to allow her time to respond. With one arm around her waist, and one hand on the back of her head, he gently pressed his lips against hers, surprised when she kissed him back and wrapped her arms around his neck. The contact wasn't brief as he'd intended, yet instead was much more passionate with her cooperation. But has he had expected, she was the first to draw back.
Resting her forehead against his, she said in a mourning tone, "Jareth… I can't. M-my place is above, you… your people belong here in the Underground."
"Well, you can hardly call them people," Jareth responded. "And you're eighteen now, which by human standards unless I'm much mistaken is when you're free from being ruled by your parents."
"B-but there's college, and…" She was cut off as Jareth kissed her once again, this time more to stop her as she went on and on about her problems.
This time it was Jareth to pull away first, and catching her eyes he inquired, "Is this your way of telling me 'no'? Fixing my heart and breaking it again? Or do you truly love me?"
"Somehow, Jareth, without ever realizing it, I've always loved you," Sarah answered truthfully after a moment.
Jareth grinned slightly, before stating, "Then, just like in the fairy tales, we'll find a way to make this work."
And once again he silenced any reply she might've had by kissing her once more.
~~*~~
"…Fear not the flame of my love's candle
Let it be the sun in your world of darkness
Give unto me all that
frightens you
I'll have your nightmares for you
If you sleep soundly
Fear not the flame of my love's candle
Let it be the sun in your
world of darkness."
~~*~~
A/N: All right, it's over. Unless you really want more *tosses a quizzical glance to the readers*, and in that case I'd have to question your sanity. But I might write a different story… songfic maybe? Inspiration is a good thing… Please, please review!!