Disclaimer: wouldn't you know it; I don't own the labyrinth, only my perverted mind and my black heart, pity.
Would you look at this?! I'm updating! I'm waiting for the collective gasp but I have an inkling it isn't going to come so here's the update, plz enjoy it.
"Hey, Sarah!" Sarah turned to see Tessa kitted up in tight jeans and midriff top.
"Hey Tess, sounds like a good party."
Twins from Sarah's History classes had their large house all to themselves as their parents had gone overseas. The party had been planned for months with promises of good music and good company, Sarah decided she would take this time to relax and deal with the problems Jareth had created later, she really needed a time out.
"Yeah, don't you look good!"Sarah smiled and looked down. She'd pulled on a gold Japanese style top modelled off a kimono and had a pair of plain hipster black pants on complete with black strapped sandal-heels.
"Well there was a big hype to this party so I went all out and specifically bought the clothes for it."
Well it was a half truth; she'd bought the top for the party everything else just matched.
"Come on, let's get in there." Tessa said grabbing her friends arm pulling Sarah into the house and through a crowd of people to the kitchen.
"Ah yes, before dancing we must have the first toast of the evening." Sarah voiced smiling as her friend handed her a glass of white wine, her friend did have strange party trends but it was what she loved about her.
"To wine, love and long lost love!" Her red-headed friend announced to Sarah and they both took a sip of the wine. "And that was..."
"A hint about that ex you've been telling me about."
Sarah visibly shuddered; she was here to forget about Jareth, even for a little while. "Let's just dance."
She dragged Tessa out to the middle of a room which had been cleared to make room for the uni student who were dancing, slowly the modern techno beat of the song finished and an old dance track picked up. Sarah laughed and shook her body and twirled her hips and body to the timeless beat and words of 'U can't touch this'. She found some of the lyrics very appropriate, especially since there was a certain towering blonde in a dark corner that watched her movements with dark promising looks in his eyes.
Sarah smiled at Tessa and mouthed the words before moving her body down towards the ground and with one jerk of her body she was back up with hungry looks on the faces of the men around her.
"You seem to be enjoying yourself, Sarah." Shit, she'd just gone to grab a refill of her wine and he just had to be here.
"On the very rare occasion, Jareth, the ice around my heart does melt a little." Sarah turned to see him in loose jeans and a button up shirt with an exposed throat as always.
"Why are you here?"
"A student in your English class invited me at the last minute. And to think I thought you'd be pleased."
"As punch." Sarah said her voice bland and level.
"I didn't realise how much you enjoyed dancing." He commented smiling at her and her clothes.
"I'm sure you remember just how much I enjoy dancing, this is merely another type. It isn't all masks, peaches and mirrors."
Her voice was bordering on neutral to thinly veiled anger; she didn't have a good grip on her emotions tonight.
"I was rather hoping we could re-enact it, at least in part sometime tonight, Sarah, my love." Jareth cooed moving closer to her as propriety would allow as she still stood at the drinks table in the kitchen.
"Hope as much as you want, Jareth, darling, 'coz it ain't gonna happen." She reverted back to the rough teenage slang to make her point irrefutably clear. He didn't seem to notice and as she put her now filled glass up to her lips he grabbed her wrist stopping the movement in its tracks. His eyes were openly dilated for anyone who took notice. For the untrained eyes they would think drugs, Sarah knew it couldn't be. After all the Fae were very sexual creatures, masters at the art of seduction, however she's come prepared.
"If you think you are going to try any sort of glamour on me, any peach dreams, crystal balls that turned into snakes, anything, it isn't going to happen. I've done my research and I'm ready for you."
Jareth let out a deep laugh, so low in his throat it came out a sensual chuckle. "Are you ready for me Sarah?"
He'd manipulated her words, and the moment he'd repeated them she cursed herself, in her pocket she could feel the cool touch of her flick blade, a gift from an old boyfriend afraid of Sarah walking alone at night, she'd kept the knife and lost the man. The blade had high iron content, she also could feet the handle of the knife rub against the salt packets she had taken from the closest MacDonald's. Salt, not too many people knew, if thrown at the Fae could disrupt their glamour.
Slowly, Sarah loved her other hand down and she pulled one salt packet out of her pocket along with the flick blade and dropped them on the table as if the items were a cross to a vampire, secretly she wished he would shield his eyes and hiss making him look more like a monster she thought of him, not the stunning seducer his current appearance made her perceive him as.
"More than you know, Jareth." Jareth stared at the salt and back at her. "I want you as my wife and bed partner, Sarah. I have no designs to kill you."
He moved quickly and before she could protest he wrapped his arms around her and moulded himself to her back and let out a low hushing sound as if he was trying to calm a child. Interesting analogy, her mind commented blandly almost cynically to her.
"Sarah? Sarah are you coming back to dance or are you... oh, I'm sorry." Tessa, Sarah could feel herself relax, happy that her friend had interrupted the moment. Jareth stepped back his arms falling to his sides and Sarah quickly grabbing the knife that still sat on the bench moved to Tessa's side and motioned quickly for the sliding door to the house's garden.
"Tess, I need to talk to you, NOW!"
Tessa nodded her amazed eyes still on the 'man', who she knew as Mr. King, Sarah touched her arm,
"Now, Tess, ignore him." Her red headed friend shook herself and walked out the glass doors.
"I didn't use glamour, Sarah, if that's what you think." She made a snort thinking he was lying, even though from what she'd read the Fae couldn't outwardly lie.
"Contrary to what you think, Sarah, my sweet, some people do find me attractive with no magic at all." Jareth looked into Sarah green eyes and he could see there was something behind them, well caged and hidden, something he could use.
"Oh, I never said you weren't attractive, Jareth, just not that much." With those final words she walked out of the sliding door and went to one of the back corners of the houses large gardens to face Tessa.
"You couldn't tell me that it was Mr. King that was you ex?" Her friend practically exploded as Sarah met up with her sitting on a stone bench by a fake stream.
"Let's, just say I didn't want it shouted to the world that our Lecturer is my ex boy- well he never was my boyfriend or anything resembling that but we have history." Sarah explained to her friend's unbelieving face. "Never anything resembling a relationship? It looked pretty cosy when I came in."
"Look, he's giving me trouble and I don't want it or him. He just can't get the message."
Her red-headed friend looked at her. "So that's why you faked the sickie for his first lecture?"
Sarah wordlessly nodded.
"Do you want him, Sarah?" She looked at Tessa, the question was simple enough. Did she want Jareth? Her mind had pondered that question for so long. Did she want his body? Sarah knew the answer and it was a huge resounding 'YES', she wanted all that the body and his breeches offered but she also wanted several musicians and actors in the same way so it was nothing to say she wanted his body. But did she want Jareth? The Goblin King? The whole package? Her enemy?
"I don't know Tessa, god!" She let out a frustrated growl and fell back into her thoughts. Was Jareth really her enemy now? An ex-enemy, true enough, but what had he offered her in danger this time around. A little slap and tickle with his display of strength back at her apartment, his 'hug' in the kitchen and that was about it.
"Sarah?" The voice was not Tessa, it was Jareth. Speak of the devil, she thought vaguely amused.
"What do you want?" It wasn't her question it was Tessa's, she was defending her, Sarah smiled a bit at the situation.
"Let him come through Tess. I should probably talk this through for once without one of us leaving."
The hint was for Jareth. There was no way he was going to do the 'smoke and mirror' trick and disappear on her, she wanted this conversation now. Her mind and, dare she even admit it, her heart, were so muddled up at the moment.
"You'll be alright Sarah?" Sarah looked up and sat that her friend stood in front of the Goblin King, she barred his way to the small part of the garden where she sat on the bench. "I'll be fine Tess, I have precautions should anything go wrong."
Tessa didn't need anymore persuasion; she walked back to the house to dancing, drinking and ignorance of how real the Fae were.
Sarah took a deep labouring breath and looked up at him; he still stood there in modern regal beauty. Never could you call him handsome, she thought, without adding beautiful along with it. "Why did you do that back there?"
She looked into his dual coloured eyes, searching from some truth behind the mask he wore. She didn't know how but she knew it was a mask. Not one of solid objects or one composed of glamour but a mask like she herself would don on occasion.
"Do what, Sarah my heart?" She gave him an annoyed look. "You can stop with the pet names Goblin King. I'll not have you mocking me. Why did you grab me like that in the kitchen?"
He looked at her, gods this woman was more luscious than he remembered. Her manner and turn of phrase would suit the Fae courts and her beauty was eye catching with no glamour at all. "We are to be married, dear heart. Affection and pet names usually come with the institution."
She snorted in response and raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "We are not going to be married. You show up after all these years and don't even propose you simply announce that we're getting married and that you're going to drag me back to the Underground so you can complete your little 'keep the portal open' ceremony and undoubtedly discard me like so many others after you've got what you wanted."
Her chest was heaving a little with the amount of emotion she'd put into her words. The whole situation was ludicrous, not to mention the fact he only saw her as a target, once achieved he would move on and if her heart was involved there she'd be. Married to a womanising Goblin King watching him cavort with other Fae women of the courts as she sat back huddled in a room of his Castle nursing the pieces of her broken heart all the while plotting her revenge.
Jareth stepped forward his eyes almost soft towards her, "When did I claim that I would merely use you? I understand that at times humans don't pay attention to their marriage vows but the Fae do, for me to throw you aside and begin entertaining other woman would be..."
He paused and thought on the matter as if finding a way to say it properly, almost as if explaining the Fae people was like speaking a second language. "Putting it bluntly, Sarah, it just isn't done."
She raised an eyebrow at his response. "Uh-huh, you really expect me to believe such a flimsy response? I know seven year olds that are more convincing than you."
His expression was almost stony for a few seconds then it moulded into allure, his familiar mischievous glint was back in his eyes. "Would you like me to convince you?"
Stepping forward Sarah stepped pulling out the small knife and holding it down low.
"Now," she began trying to keep a steady voice, but was it from being scared? No, her mind admonished, she wasn't scared of him, she'd defeated him. So you're attracted to him, it surmised, Sarah shook her head to herself, the only choices her mind could come up with was being afraid or being attracted, it wasn't either she just didn't trust him. "We both know your nasty reaction to iron, being that I am holding a steel knife in my hand that could quite easily be plunged either into your heart or crotch. I suggest you lay off the sleazy lines while I'm armed."
"Ah Sarah, my heart," He almost cooed to her smiling widely, "a time will come where you, as my wife, will submit to me. Soon there will be no more argument, no more threats, just you, me and marriage vows."
Sarah laughed and stepped back. "In your dreams, Goblin King."
"Oh no my dear Sarah, in yours."
And he vanished again, not that his announcements weren't getting Sarah slightly annoyed, though pissed off would be closer to the truth, but his continual disappearing and appearing tricks was something he had to stop, she was beginning to dread the time where he would how up in her bathroom while she was showering, though knowing him, he'd probably smile and ask if she needed help washing her back.
Hope you all enjoyed it. I realised when I updated last that I'd said nothing to the people who I continually ask to review this, and of course to the people who read it and don't review. (I still love y'all!)
But if you wish to skip this I'm just having a shout out to all who have reviewed, especially to those who I read myself and was shocked to find out that they'd reviewed me.
Lady Bevier: ta for the review and to say this mildly, you rock! But I'm sure you already know that
Thehoodedbanana: referring to your review, revenge, who knows not me I'm just writing where the story's taking me. Apologies about the kiwi comment, New Zealander's are great people it's just become a national past time for aussies and kiwi's to pay each other out. Ta darls.
Isis 33: yet again another one who I read a lot of, all your peter pan stuff is great, though I can't wait for your Laby fic to be updated again, I wait with baited breath, thanks for the review.
Tinalesca: ta darls and as you can see I am continuing with it.
LadyIconDraco: Like all other I am much appreciated you actually reviewed and big hugs for the conversation comment, it's nice to know what I'm writing isn't complete drivel.
Ann-marie: thankies, thankies, thankies!
Kraized Author: much appreciated was your review. (is that yoda speech?) ta for the criticism, I'd just been formatting it that was because of the old uploading system in relation to my comp shall try to rectify it immediately.
Draegon-fire: very good question. Who knows? Me? Well I guess that's true but I'm keeping it to myself till I make sure what I know is in fact... true. (yes I do know I'm strange thank you)
LabyLvrPhx: do all laby fans enjoy a good dark Jareth? I know I do, all I'm hoping is that the Jareth I've represented is a good dark Jareth.
The Angel of Destruction: jumps around and giggles along with her thanks if my writing gives that response who am I to go o.0?
Sailoranadya: cliffie? Not what I thought I was doing but thanx all the same. I just wanted to end the chappie nicely not have a mild cliff-hanger. But thankies anyways.
Yes, I'm done. Hopefully I can do this with all updates.