Author's Note: The characters of Jareth, Sarah, Toby, Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, etc. belong to the wonderful Jim Henson company, and I claim no rights to them. The goblins are another story, but any resemblance to any real goblins, living or (while improbable) dead, is purely coincidental and unintentional... except for Shove, because he wouldn't leave me alone until I put him in the story.
er... I suppose I should give a content warning for the events that occur at the end of this chapter. Proably, most definitely, Mature. although I was doing my best not to be TOO explicit. I'm a bit fuzzy on the exact limits of what I can and cannot put up here.
The music was starting again, and looking around she saw no sign of the Goblin King, although she could sense a tingle of awareness, letting her know he was nearby. She refused to play his game, however, and made her way off the floor to stand beside some of her mother's friends, who were watching the dancers, and fanning themselves with elaborate feather fans.
The dancers whirled by, and she watched the fae and the mortals dance side by side, and felt the room waver between worlds as the magic of the music pulsed within it.
"No," she heard the woman beside her say, "I'm sure I've seen him before."
"He's gorgeous. I wonder where Karen found him."
She turned to follow their gaze. In the midst of the dancers, she caught a glimpse of her mother's pink gown swaying in time to the music, and as she whirled around, Sarah saw her partner.
It was Jareth. He wore the same blue, gem studded coat as he had worn long ago, when she had been just a girl who had eaten a peach and tasted the future. His hair was wild, and streaked with a shimmering blue glamor that only highlighted the silken paleness of it. His face was aristocratic, but he was smiling slightly at the blonde woman who was doing her best to keep up with his graceful feet and failing abominably. The only reason, Sarah thought, Karen didn't trip over her own feet was that he would not tarnish his dignity by letting her.
The woman beside her said, "It's like something from a dream..." And Sarah looked at her sharply, for she heard truth in the words.
"Do you know him?" she asked, cautiously.
The woman (her name, Sarah remembered, was, laughably, Winnie) looked as if she were half dreaming as she struggled to recall some memory.
"It was an old dream," she said, and Sarah bent closer to hear her breathy whisper, "I dreamed...I had a baby. I suppose it's not so odd, since I'm barren, to dream of having a child, but ... I remember his name was Steven. Stevie. He was so little. I was young, in my dream. Only a girl just married. He kept crying. I was so angry. I wanted to go shopping, with my friends, but with the baby we couldn't afford it, and there was no one to watch him. But he wouldn't stop crying..."
"Go on," Sarah said softly.
"There was a story, an old one, my mother told me once. That if I was bad the Goblins would come and take me away. And he was being so bad, god the crying... so I wished... I wished him away, didn't I? And this man, so beautiful, so handsome. He was there, and the baby wasn't, and he said I could have whatever I wanted, if I just forgot the baby. And I wanted so much... so very much...," she came back from wherever the memory had taken her, and laughed. It was a shallow laugh, as hollow as the woman it came from. "Just a silly dream, of course. But I'll be damned if that man doesn't look just like him." Her face grew sly, and her eyes cold as she watched the Goblin King waltz Karen around the room. "It would be nice to meet the man of my dreams... I wonder if Karen would introduce us."
The woman's friend tutted at her. "What about Harold?" she asked.
"What about him? He's got his yoga instructor," she smirked, and then they both laughed and Sarah had to move away from them, because their laughs felt like shards of glass raining over her.
A movement caught her eye. Scampering across the floor, avoiding the heels of the women and the shoes of the men, was Shove. He quickly scampered past her, until he was crouching just beside Winnie's heeled shoes. He glanced up at Sarah once, with a fierce, and knowing smile, and then reached out and broke the heel off of the woman's shoe as easily as if he were plucking a banana.
Winnie let out a shriek, and toppled backward into a stout man with a full glass of wine, which promptly spilled over her head and down the front of her gown. She shrieked again, and Shove did a joyful little dance, and stuck his tongue out at Winnie, and for a moment she seemed to see him, and shrieked "Stevie!" before falling into a dead faint. Shove laughed and threw the heel so that it bounced off the unconscious woman's forehead.
"I assume you've had your fun, now," said a clipped male voice from just behind her, and Shove gave the Goblin King one last fierce smile, and then popped out of sight.
"Oh, Sarah, there you are!" Karen sounded breathless. "I just borrowed your boyfriend for a turn around the fl—oh my god, what happened to you Winnie?" and then she was off and running as fast as her high heels, cumbersome skirts, and lack of real grace would allow her.
Sarah paid her no mind. Her eyes were elsewhere, locked onto the cold, mismatched eyes of the man who stood before her.
"Dance with me," he said, and then, after a moment in which she neither spoke nor moved, but merely studied him, waiting, he added, "please."
She put her hand into his black gloved one, and then there was no room, no dancers, nothing else in the world but the music lifting them up, and his arms around her, and the feel of him holding her tightly, as if he would never let go. Every nerve in her body woke up, every inch of her flesh begged to be pressed against him. Every female instinct she had was madly urging her to push her hips against his, to press her breasts against the hard wall of his chest, to part her lips and invite his kisses. It was only with a severe inner struggle that she squashed her urges into a corner, and kept her face as impassive as possible.
As with his kisses, she knew this was no dream. She was aware of the brush of his coat against the front of her gown, of the way his breath fanned over her skin, of the warmth of his body, and the way the hand on her waist felt so intimate as he spun her, holding her up with his strength alone, for her knees had gone weak ages ago.
She tried to pull herself into check again, but his grip on her hand tightened perceptibly.
"Still, you resist me," he said, bending his head so that his lips brushed against the shell of her ear. "A strange reaction from someone who offered me her heart mere hours ago. I suppose you're going to tell me you didn't mean it."
"I meant it, every word," she said, praying that he wouldn't feel the trembling the proximity of him caused in her.
"Every word, hmmm?" he purred and she felt his laugh when she couldn't control the trembling anymore. "Are you cold, Sarah?"
"No," she said, from between clenched teeth. And he laughed again, that same cold, brittle laugh. She didn't realize it until she felt the wall behind her that he'd swept them into a dark, isolated corner of the room. The wall pulsed as the tension between them grew, and she felt it fade from Faerie to her world and back again, and she realized it was doing so in time with her heartbeat. Without thinking, she slid a hand up to touch his chest, pushing aside the blue coat to lay her hand over his heart.
With a growl he forced her up against the wall, and pressed his lips to hers hard enough to bruise them and she knew then that she was forever his. She wanted him, wanted to taste the darkness in him and give him her light. She wanted him to love her as fiercely as he wanted her, and she knew her heart would not know a moment's peace until he did. He wanted her badly, she found that truth with her whole body as he pressed her against the length of him. She whimpered against his mouth, and he drew back, a ragged breath caught in his throat.
"Do you know what you've given me, Sarah?" he said roughly. "For I do, and know this, little girl, I have no intention of giving it back." She reached up, with both hands, and brushed her fingertips over his flawless cheekbones, before drawing him back down and parting her lips beneath his. He groaned against her, the sound drawn from deep in his chest. "No more interruptions," he said against her lips, and then the wall was gone, and she was falling a fraction of an inch into the softness of her own bed.
The room was dark, but she could tell it too pulsed with her heart, merging with the magic and drawing back again, more quickly, as his hands found the lacing at the back of her gown. He tore at them, and she gasped as his mouth possessively claimed hers and the gown came open. With an oath, he slid it down over her shoulders, trapping her arms, and baring her corseted breasts. She felt him do something, in his frustration, and then the dress was off of her, discarded in a heap on the floor, and she was never sure, afterwards, whether he'd torn it from her body or whether it was magic. But it didn't matter, because then he was undoing the laces of the corset, and pulling it away from her, and she was pushing at his clothing until his coat and vest were off, and his shirt was open and she was pressing her skin to his. He trailed his mouth over her throat, his hands working frantically to get rid of her stockings and underwear, until she was completely bare to him.
He pulled away, staring down at the length of her stretched out beneath him, and she felt his hesitation.
"Look," she said. "Look at what I'm offering you." And she held out her arms to draw him back down against her. Still, he held himself above her. "Your dreams," she whispered. "Fear me, love me," she begged, pressing kisses against the corner of his mouth. "Love me," she pleaded. "Do as I say and I will be your slave."
There was a hint of dark amusement in his eyes as he stared down at her, smirking a little. Then, his voice rich with sarcasm, he said "It's not fair." He brushed her hair away from her face, gently, and then brushed his lips over hers. "My love," he said, and in that moment, she felt him part her legs, and press his hips down against hers until she cried out with the pain and the pleasure of it, and he claimed her as his.
Their hearts pounded, matched by the merging of their worlds, until they shared a single rhythm, and when the world exploded, they went over the edge of it together, and she felt a great surge of joy and loss, and then a flare of something wild and uncontrolled as it roiled around her, and then within her. She felt as if he were pouring himself into her, and she could not contain it all, it was pulling her apart. But she bit down on his sweaty shoulder, and clenched around him, holding him and letting him hold her, until the feeling subsided, and the world grew quiet and still once more.
AN: Wait for it...