Hey all! This story contains some dark themes, as well as some sexual content. Hope you enjoy!
You caught some small death
When you were sleepwalking
Only Skin, Joanna Newsom
.
And the legendary curtains are drawn 'round Baby Bankrupt
Who sucks you while you're sleeping
We Are The Dead, David Bowie
Her head is heavy. Her eyelids, too. What wakes her is the creaking of the floorboards. An eeeeh-ah under the weight of something, cutting off sharply. She is slow to react, limbs limp around her and not quite feeling her own body. Her eyes slide open and the room is fuzzy-colored. Grainy and blurred in the darkness and the sleep she's still half in. Vaguely, her eyes track over her room, the curtains that blow in the breeze. The open window.
Did she leave it open before bed?
She shifts to her back, throwing the blanket down round her waist. It's warm in the room and her eyes fall shut. Her breathing stays deep. It's like floating on clouds, the half-asleepness. Aware but not, alive but not.
When her eyes open again, it takes her a second. By the window there's a dark figure, barely seen.
There's a seizing in her chest and she flings herself up to sit, scrambling sideways, reaching for the lamp.
She clicks it on.
The lamp is weak, a puttering old light bulb that she really ought to change. It hardly lit the room. It was just enough to see, but not enough to be safe.
She pushes herself as far back against the headboard as she can go, knees protectively bent in front of her body, hands clutching into the sheets. All as she stares wide-eyed at he who watches back.
It is not the first time.
At first, she thought it was all dreams... Those vague sorts of images and sounds that flashed in the dark only when the eyes blurrily blinked open, still heavy and paralyzed and wanting to stay shut. The rustling of feathers, the opened window that was always locked before bed, the scraping of a boot, the breathing of someone else… All of it, easy to dismiss. Only dreams, she knew. What more could they be, she told herself.
But, now…. Now she understands. Seeing his face in her room that first night. He's real, he's there. She's awake.
She licks her lips nervously. There are beads of sweat pooling in her collarbone, her armpits, dotting her upper lip. She's burning hot all of the sudden, but she drags her blanket up past her nose.
The lamp light is so dim that he's still mostly in darkness. Just sitting there, perched on the sill of the open window. One leg bent and the other stretched out to the floor. He is tall enough that his boot touches the ground. He does nothing with his hands except to clasp them over his belly. The only part of his face she can really see is the gleam of his eyes. They never leave her.
Just like she had every other night like this, she tries her words. "You have no power over me," she says, voice wavering.
And just like he had every other night she'd said this, he does not react. Eyes just there, sticking. She can't quite make out his expression. She wonders whether he is angry.
Sarah swallows, the sound filling the silence between them. "Are you deaf?" she says, a tremble tugging at her words. "I said- I said you have no power over me."
He ignores her. But she thinks she sees a gleam of teeth. A smile.
She lowers her blanket down to her neck so slowly as if the sight of her face would provoke him to attack.
"What do you want?" she tries, not for the first time.
He doesn't answer. But she knows already.
There is something in her that knows, it just knows. That it is her that he wants.
.
When he will show up, there is no way of knowing. It sets her on edge at night. Her jaw clenches tight, she checks the window lock two, wait five, no seven times. Each time she checks it, it's locked. There was a foolish moment one night where she almost left her bedroom door wide open, so that maybe her daddy would hear anything strange in the night. But then she thought: what happens if he does hear something and he comes and he sees this… creature in her room and he gets mad and he gets hurt and he dies because who knows what the creature would do to him because the creature wants Sarah Williams, that much she knows.
It makes her dread going to sleep, to wake up to that panic in the night, not knowing what he would do.
And yet… he never does anything, except sit there. His position changes sometimes. He'll lean against the sill, legs crossed at the ankles. Or he'll sit straight, one leg slung over the other like a woman. Or he'll come further in the room and he'll sit in her desk chair.
She tries her words every time, no matter what. They never work. He never leaves. He always comes back.
The first time she hears his voice, it's because she asks something new: "Are you going to hurt me?" she says, laying on her side, blanket tucked up around her chin. She doesn't expect him to respond. Her eyes could barely stay open.
She is almost asleep when he responds. "Do you think I'll hurt you?"
And she breathes in sharply. The lamp light is out. She is almost used to him now. In the darkness, she frowns. She wishes she could see his face. "I- I don't know," she whispers, "... I think you could."
He hums.
.
She watches him more curiously after that. She gets a better light bulb. Now, she can see him. The features that make up his face, his clothes, him. When she blinks it on for the first time, she realizes it means he can see her better too. And she blushes, feeling his eyes on her skin, over her nightgown, the teddy bear clutched still in her hand.
One night, even, she dares to get out of her bed. Swinging her legs over the edge, tucking her feet into her slippers, standing up. She takes one step toward him, his curious eyes following her every move. She pauses, heart thundering. It is like the approach of an animal, the one that will tear off your face if you make one wrong move. That is how she feels.
She changes her mind, turning on her heel and skittering off to the bathroom, a rustling of pajama pants around her. Locking the door behind her, she half-collapses on the sink counter. She looks at herself, catches her own eye. She stays there long enough that she begins to look alien, a creature thing. Is this what a human is?
It brings about a flush to her face, to her chest. She notices her breasts, the curve of them in the thin, pale tank top. She can see her nipples through the shirt, the dark pink splotch of them just barely. She steps back. She turns this way and that. She admires herself. Her waist, her wrists, her collarbone. The long, thick braid down her back. Her finger comes up to touch her lips.
She shakes herself out of it and she brushes her teeth for the second time that night for there is a strange taste in her mouth. Then she goes to pee.
Walking back into her room is frightening. Her steps are inching. She is embarrassed but she is not really sure why. There's just this heat building up inside her. She thinks she's scared of his eyes, of their knowledge.
But when she creaks open the door, the window is shut, the curtains are still. He is gone.
A shiver in her spine, she curls back up into bed. She finds that a pout has crept onto her lips.
.
He's in her dreams and he's out of them. Everywhere, and yet… nowhere. Just out of reach.
In the dreams, he speaks to her. He whispers in her ear, he tells her things. Though she can never remember what when she wakes again. But her body always recalls the way he touches her in the dreams, all over and unending. Kisses and teases and licks and hits.
She wakes up from more and more of them as the time passes. And he is there more and more, there to see her. To catch her in the shameful act. She is consumed by him in a way that she never was before, not even when he was her figment come to life. Larger than life and real, real, real for the first time ever.
She wakes up one night so hot, hotter than ever before. It was a choppy dream, the one that made her this way. The details are already bleeding from her mind, escaping through the ears and the nostrils and the mouth. It was the ballroom, empty. Filled up with no one. Just her. She ran, searching. Where was he, where was he? Then, he was there and so was everyone else. A single blink and it was all different. She stared up at him and then she was outside of her body, seeing him and her. An observer of her own body. There was clamoring around them, naked grunting. Masked creatures twisted and lurched. Dancing? No. There was a smell in the air.
She grew scared, stepping forward into him, clutching at his arm. He smiled down at her. It comforted. And then they were on the ground. Her dress hiked up. She couldn't see anything, but she felt it. She was inside her own body now, and so was he. It was so wet, she reached down to touch where they joined and it was like a river, flowing all around them. He thrust and he thrust and the river began to drown her, pooling. It soaked her dress, it went higher than her elbows, it bathed at her neck. All she could see was him, his eyes, his teeth. It didn't matter that she couldn't breathe.
Her own moan wakes her up. It is loud and drawn out and completely involuntary. There is a spasming feeling between her legs. Her knees shake and her hips jolt, chasing, chasing, wanting.
The ache is back. And so is he. She lays, dumbstruck, on her back. Knocked out flat, gasping for breath. She places her hand on her heaving chest, her head turned just enough to see him.
She throws the covers off of her, too hot and still laying, she fumbles under her nightgown. Lifting her knees up in the air, she grabs the waistband of her panties and she pulls them down her legs. They are too wet to wear.
She lets them dangle from one finger before throwing them to the floor. And she drops her feet back to the bed, knees splaying wide at just the right angle that there's nothing for him to see. The early morning breeze against her pulsing flesh does nothing to cool her down. It teases her with touches that she gets from no one else. If she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine that it's him blowing air against her, breathing so close, about to…
Her eyes peel open. She sighs.
When she wakes up the next morning, the panties are gone. A peach sits juicily on her nightstand table.
.
She's laying on her bed, over the covers. Hands are at her knees. They frog them down to either side of her. Her legs make a diamond, heels pointing toward the deep ache at the center of her. There he is, above her. He's watching her, eyes all over. He looks between her legs, she feels his warm palms skate over her naked thighs. Oh, she's not wearing any clothes? She looks down at herself. She isn't. Her breasts fall sideways like her knees. The cool air of the room caresses damp skin.
She looks back up at him, at his bared teeth of a smile. He leans in and there's a scrape of cloth against her belly. His tongue peeks out, it dabs against her lips. He draws a line there. He pulls back. He looks at her, watches her. He touches her.
Sarah wakes up, gasping panting breaths. Her mind races. She peeks across the room, mortified.
By the window, there he is. Perched lazily against the sill. He watches her.
She stopped saying the words some time ago. There was no use. Now, she just watches him back. The creature in her room, her visitor in the night.
Her skin is damp with sweat, her whole body is flushed with feeling. She presses her thighs close together, her hips spasm involuntarily at the feeling.
Her face burns hot but she doesn't look away. She huddles up closer under her blankets, she curls onto her side, fully awake, watching. There's a deep ache within her, it begs to be seen to. Her heart beats fast in her chest, a thrumming rhythm.
Under the covers, she can't help herself. The shaking of her fingers doesn't stop her. It's an awkward, sticky slide. Her hand finds its way down the front of her panties. The heat builds and builds. She is on fire, the sweat of her pressed-together legs and the drip of her desire soak up her fingers. Her face is overhot, her eyes fixed. It is a furious pace. And she rubs and she rubs and she trembles, shameless.
Her eyes never leave him. The moonlight colored chest, the curve of the leg, the leather glove tap tapping away at his knee, the bright shine of his hair. The gleam of his eyes.
They see her, they watch.
When she comes, her mouth falls wide open in a wide, silent gasp. She sees his teeth.
.
The nights she tries to stay awake until he comes are the nights he never does. He knows. She stops trying to wait for him because it means she won't see him. He is all-consuming. She is lacking sleep and reason. And it is all because of him.
Burning hot one night from a dream, she whispers across the room to him, "I'm cold."
All he does is laugh. This high, chiming noise. It mixes with the wind. Her attempts are silly, foolish, girlish, and useless. He doesn't come to warm her up.
.
"Sarah," Karen tuts, "Aren't you getting any sleep? You look like death. You better not be staying up late reading, young lady!"
.
Her skin is slick with sweat, her breath coming short. Her head is turned on her pillow even as her chest heaves. She keeps the lamp light off but she sits up. The ache inside her is so much. It kills.
The moonlight shines on his hair. On her. She gets up from her bed, walks to the closet. With her back turned to him, she grabs the hem of her shirt and she pulls it up. The cool night air hits her bare skin. She takes another shirt and puts it on. Her heart thumps throughout, fast and hard and daring.
When she turns back around he is smirking at her. And she flushes. But still, she wonders, did he like what he saw?
.
He has her on her knees. A hand on her shoulder and a hand round the back of her neck. Something heavy rests on her tongue. She looks up at him, but his face is dark. They are in her room. He is in her mouth. He thrusts.
She wakes up and her fingers fly to her lips. She slides two of them into her mouth. The pads of them press against her tongue. She pretends it's him. She gets them wet and she watches that she doesn't scrape them with her teeth. She sucks. She pushes them far enough that it makes her want to gag.
When she pulls her fingers away, they glint in the moonlight. Saliva and desire and desperation. She looks to the window; she traces wet fingers over her lips.
"Jareth," she tries, whispering. Nothing happens. Frustrated, she huffs, "What do you want?"
He tilts his head.
"Please," she says, desperate. Foolish. "Don't you want me?"
Her fingers dive down into her shorts. And this time she doesn't hide beneath the covers. Her eyes clench shut but her legs fall wide open. She can hear her wetness and she can feel it. She cries out, "Jareth, Jareth, Jareth…"
He smiles.
.
She is brave one night, crawling out of her bed, crossing the room to him. She is slow, hesitant, for his eyes remain on her like a predator observing prey. She must not turn her back, she must not show her teeth, she must not make any sudden movements.
When she is only two feet away, she pauses, wavering. He has not moved an inch. She swallows; her hand reaches out. A trembling thing.
It is impossible to breathe but she is courageous enough. She closes the distance. Her eyes are wide in her face as her fingers skate over his. The leather of his glove under her fingertips is cool.
Her eyes find his and it is the closest she's been to him since he danced with her. Close enough to smell him, to hear his faint breathing. To see the lines of his face and the pupils of his eyes. Almost absently, her fingers dance over his hand, down his wrist. They follow the line of his arm, his shoulder.
When she runs her fingers over her chest, his hand flashes out. He catches her wrist. She jumps, her lips part. She wets them. She has no idea what he's thinking. His eyes are so strange. Creature things.
"What do you wish for?" he says, and his voice makes her toes curl. Makes her mouth drop open. His hand is an iron cuff round her wrist.
Swallowing again, her voice is dy sounding. "I-I don't know."
He looks at her, skin around the eyes crinkling. Lips curving. "You do."
She stares at him, flush on her chest and her ears and the back of her neck and between her legs. "N-no-"
He releases her wrist. And she snaps it back to her chest, clutching it tight into the safety of her.
He grins at her. "If you say so."
She takes a half step back. He scares her. But more than that, he intrigues her.
.
It is not long before it becomes too much. Waking soaking wet and writhing and panting and crying. She reaches her breaking point. Her legs trembling from nothing, her heart fluttering from nothing, her pussy clenching round nothing.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. She wanted something, already.
It is on a night that he isn't there that she admits to herself what she wishes for.
"Goblin King," she whispers out, for once alone in her own room. "Goblin King. I wish you would have me."
The room is silent the rest of the night, even as she fights her eyes from closing. Tears prick her eyes as she falls back into her sleep.
.
The next night she wakes, she is overhot and confused. She gasps, twisting quickly around on her side but she is stilled. A body is curled up around hers. Hot and burning. Firm hands hold her. Something hard is pressed against her bottom.
Sarah's mouth gapes open, she flushes bright red. She squirms.
"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah…" he tuts, mouth right by her ear. She shivers, stilling. "I heard your wish," he says. His voice is delighted. She can't see his grin, but she can feel it. She knows of it.
"Oh?" her voice trembles.
"Oh," he says, voice exaggeratedly disappointed, "Don't tell me you didn't mean it."
His hand draws patterns on her belly. Her insides jolt. She's never been this close to a man. To anyone. It's unlike anything; he burns against her.
"I- I did mean it."
He's playful. "I know you did," he sings. His fingers piano over her belly once, twice. He presses his mouth to the side of her neck. Her eyes go wide, her spine goes ram-rod straight.
He laughs against her. "Don't tell me you're afraid now." His hand flattens over her stomach, he fans his fingers wide. "After you've invited me in your bed and everything."
"N-no-"
His hand trails down, down. Sarah holds her breath. The tips of his fingers brush against the hem of her pajama shorts. The ache inside her is aware of him. It feels him nearby, just there. It is an unconscious action, the way her hips shift. Angling just so. She imagines there are no layers between them.
He exhales sharply in her ear and he laughs. "Not afraid. That's my Champion." He sounds pleased. He rocks his hips back into her. Sarah gasps, her hands clenching uselessly into the sheets.
Two of his fingers pluck at the hem of her shorts. Pulling it away and letting it snap back. She flinches. Then, without a word, his hand grips the hem of her shorts and yanks them down past her bottom. Sarah gasps, jerking away, but he stills her. The shorts bind her legs together just above her knees.
He caresses over the cotton cloth of her hip. Of her bottom. When his hand goes skating over the hem of the panties, dipping just in between the juts of her hip bones, her belly sucks in, caving, overwhelmed. It's only now that she notices his hands are bare. In the moonlight, she sees the slenderness of his fingers, the largeness of them against her body.
She has no time to react. He drags her panties down past her hips. A shocked squeal escapes her lips. Her thighs press tight together, protecting, staving away…
His fingers trace over the triangle where her legs meet, not quite touching, but not quite not. Sarah swallows and her legs lock together as tight as can be. Now there are two less layers between them.
"I'm going to have you now," he sings. Sarah is flushed all over. Her heart beats faster than ever before. "Are you going to have me back, Sarah Williams?"
She's panting, staring wide and blank eyed at the wall opposite. She can't see him but she can feel him. All over.
He pianos his fingers once again. On the triangle crease of her legs. She jolts, gasping out a breath. "Well?" he says, mouth at her neck again. He licks there, a hot, wet stripe on her burning, desiring skin.
Her back arches. And she cries, "Yes! Yes!"
That high, chiming laugh.
It is a rush as he flips her over, rips her shorts and panties down over her feet, wedges a hand between her locked legs and drags them apart, and settles himself between them as sure as can be.
When he is still again, Sarah is laid out upon her back, staring up at him, stunned. His weight is as real as anything and she sees his face for the first time that night, that grin. And he lowers himself closer so that their noses are almost touching and he rocks against her and she realizes that now there are no layers between them for his very strange, very bare, very burning hot, very male body is poised just against her pulsing, aching cunt. Her hands fly up to clutch at his shoulders.
She can't breathe, her breath gone paralyzed in her chest. Her knees tighten around his hips and is it to push him away or to drag him closer? She can feel her heartbeat in her throat and her chest begins to heave as he just stares down upon her. Watching, observing like he always has done.
He leans down far enough. He kisses the tip of her nose. He pulls back; grins with so much teeth. "You're mine, now." he says matter-of-factly, and he reaches between them. He slides so slickly against her making her shake.
And, and…
Sarah's back bows with the feeling of it all. As he drives right into her. It hurts, it aches, it burns and it feels so good. So right. Finally, finally. She gasps out, moaning, crying, scrabbling at his shoulders to hold on. Her eyes snap shut, she surrenders. He uses her, he has her.
"I have you," he sings in between wet, open-mouthed kisses placed upon her lips. In between rocks of the hips and sucks on the tongue. Sarah is present but she is not for all her mind is on is the feeling between her legs, the shiver of her whole body. "I have you!"
.
When she wakes up next it is not to her own room. It is somewhere else. Unfamiliar but not. It is not a dream, that much she knows. She looks around her. At the large ornate bed, the tapestries, and the stone walls.
She is naked and she is so sore and she is sticky and she is satisfied. But she is scared. And she is dreading. A hand is tracing patterns over her side and she knows what has happened even before she turns to see the Goblin King laying beside her.
She flings herself to sit up and his hand falls away from her so casually. He just watches her. Eyes fixed, curious, knowing. Amused and pleased.
Horrified, she searches for her words, "You- you-" have no power over me! But she can't find them. They are gone. Unable to be said.
"What did you do?" she cries, scrambling to kneel. She is nude but she can't find it in herself to care. "What have you done?"
"What do you mean, what have I done?" he says, smiling. "You know exactly what I've done."
Sarah stares, wide-eyed. She falls back onto her bottom. She sees between her legs. The sticky mess and sore blushing flesh.
Her stomach rolls. Her voice is distant to her own ears. "You have me…"
He is delighted. He rolls over to her, grabs her by the knees. He kisses her there, just on the knobby cap of it. "I have you," he hums, he gloats, "And you gave yourself so freely to me. It took such little effort."
He pushes her onto her back, he kisses up the inside of her thigh. "I should thank you Sarah Williams." He smiles up at her, too much teeth. "For meaning it."
He frogs out her legs and this time it is not a dream, this much she knows. But her belly jolts all the same and that ache comes back and that shiver courses through her.
He has her.
. . .
Thanks for reading! I do so hope you enjoyed! If you did, please consider leaving a comment if you've got the time. :) Hopefully this little one shot won't be taken down, but if it does, this and my other Labyrinth stories can be found on ao3 at crownjrose (rosesnblueberries). Thanks again!