Sarah sniffed but didn't bother wiping away her heavy tears. They rolled down her cheeks in that silent-cry way, her unblinking eyes fixed on the TV. Jareth materialized in front of it, jarring her from her numb stare.
After years of keeping her head on an anxious swivel for fear he'd creep up on her—a fear that was not unfounded, as creeping was a talent of his—Jareth had agreed always to make himself known within her line of sight. Sarah wasn't easily frightened, but a heart could only take so many jump scares. He'd also stopped bothering with the general fanfare of it all; no more glittery pops and cracks to signal his arrivals and departures. The special effects had been for her benefit all along, a thing she may have never learned had he not simply forgotten to do it one day.
"Good morning," he trilled brightly, immediately fussing with her curtains and letting light into the living room. "Sarah, if you want to live in a dungeon, arrangements can be made."
Jareth turned to find her not on the couch, where she typically would be, but in the armchair.
The Chair. The one she'd rescued from behind the dorms at the end of her sophomore year. The comfy, ugly, does-not-match-my-adult-decor-so-it-always-has-a-decorative-throw-or-tapestry-over-it chair. The place Sarah would plant herself and let sad roots grow down, down, down, until she was Sad Chair Sarah, and Sad Chair Sarah only.
"There was room for him," she told Jareth, not for the first time. "Plenty."
Jareth frowned and looked around the silent living room for context. He noticed the movie playing and sighed, turning it off with a decisive finger flick.
"There was," he agreed, meaning it. He sat on the far end of the sofa and studied her. "Why are you watching this emotionally devastating film with no sound first thing in the morning? Is this something you do that I should know about?"
"I mute it before the music starts," Sarah explained. The selective reply left her feeling more hollowed out than she already was.
He nodded, understanding. "Does it help?"
"No," she said, blowing a stray strand of DIY fringe out of her eyes. "I still hear it in my head, right on cue. It's not the kind of song you unhear, I guess."
"It isn't," Jareth agreed.
They had seen the film on New Year's Eve several years before. It was nearly one in the morning when the movie finally ended. Midnight forgotten, they sat there with wet faces, pathetic party hats, and flat champagne. "These allergies," Jareth had said dismissively as the credits rolled. Sarah, openly weeping at the time, knew neither of them was crying because of allergies. She'd been validated on his next visit when he'd slyly perused her Celine Deon CDs and suggested they 'watch a film with that talented Decapitated fellow.'
Sarah watched him watching her. Looking and seeing for longer than necessary since her E.T. face in a blanket hood was the only thing visible. She noticed him glance at her new bangs and struggle momentarily to keep his thoughts to himself.
Instead of commenting, he asked quietly, "Have you been to bed?"
"No."
Jareth nodded once—an I thought as much nod. He gave her another once-over, then patted the seat next to him on the sofa. A request and an offer.
Pat, pat.
She uprooted herself and shuffled over, plopping heavily beside him.
"Sarah," Jareth said. "What is this really about?"
"Pete and I broke up."
"Who is—the podiatrist?" Jareth asked, surprised.
"Yeah."
"The boring one? The one you noticed because he was eating a toasted bagel with no butter or marmalade or cream? Dry, toasty, bagel man?"
"Yep."
"You were in a relationship?"
"Briefly."
"With Pete, the podiatrist."
Sarah sighed. "Yes, with Pete, the podiatrist of Pete's Feet Podiatry." She wanted to giggle at the name. She always did.
Jareth was quiet for a long time. "The nerve of him," he finally said.
She shook her head. "He didn't do anything wrong. I broke up with him."
"I meant the bagel," Jareth said with distaste. "It's a mouthfeel I didn't want to imagine. But yet, I am. Thanks to Feet's Pete."
"Pete's Feet," Sarah corrected, then cursed. "No, I mean, just Pete."
"Did you date Just Pete to uncover whether someone who could do that to their own mouth has a soul?"
"Well, yeah. Who wouldn't be curious? But mostly because he's a sweet guy." She regretted it as soon as she'd said it.
Jareth held out his hands as if to bracket a name in lights. "Sweet Pete's Feet. Oh, that's perfect. I should have gone into marketing."
"It would be perfect if it didn't sound like a nightmarish candy store with stages of unfolding horror. The kind you walk into thinking you're just going to take a quick peek, only to realize all the candies are feet shaped because they are feet. No one ever leaves a place named Sweet Pete's Feet alive. At least not without sweet feet."
Jareth's expression of shock morphed into one of villainous excitement. "You can be so deliciously macabre." He tapped his chin, considering. "You're right. Marketing," he scoffed the word like it was the silliest of ideas. "No, I need to open a confectionery shop."
"It's disturbing how easy it is for me to conjure that image of you."
"Not a boring image, though, is it?"
Sarah shot him a side-long glare with no bite. "This again. Leave him alone. He's fine, really. Nice."
Jareth pulled a face. "'Nice.'" He spat the word like he couldn't rid it from his mouth quickly enough. "Ew."
She couldn't help but laugh. Earlier that year, they had been enjoying lunch at a cafe when a patron began snapping their fingers to get the attention of a tray-laden server. Sarah had impulsively turned around in her seat and blurted, "Ew. Stop that." Jareth was delighted at her comment and asked her to explain its meaning. It became a favorite word of his, one he made his own. She didn't tell him that it had been a resurfaced habit from her teenage years that had slipped out in a moment of pure disgust. Some bubbles were better left unburst.
"What? Nice is important. It's…good."
Jareth blew an undignified raspberry before saying, "Treating you well is the bare minimum, Sarah. My concern is that 'nice' was the only word you could think of to describe a lover. Aside from the formerly mentioned 'boring.'"
Sarah rolled her eyes. "You don't have to tell me that. That's why I broke up with him. Well, that, and…"
"And?"
Her gaze cut to his, and she found him watching her intently. She let a moment of suspense build, her face as serious as she could force it. "He liked my toes more than he liked me."
Jareth stared at her until her face broke into a grin. His laugh was a bark, one of her favorite laughs. Head tipped back, Adam's apple bobbing in his long, exposed throat.
His eyes were sparkling when they found hers again. "They are good toes. I can see how they would be difficult to compete with."
Sarah huffed exaggeratedly and snuggled back into his side. "I compete with no one."
Jareth crossed his outside leg over the other, angling himself towards her so she could move in closer. She did.
A comfortable silence settled. She could feel him studying her while her remaining tears dried. Her smile had faded, she knew, and she was left with an ache she didn't know how to articulate to him. He wanted to ask. She could feel questions bubbling within him that he was holding himself back from asking. He gave her an encouraging little shoulder nudge instead.
"I never missed him," Sarah said, her voice almost a whisper. She didn't know why it hurt so much to admit it or why she was telling Jareth. It felt unfair in a way that was indefinable and yet absolute.
His slow breathing halted for a moment, just long enough for her to feel it. "Not until this morning, you mean?"
"No." This truth was heavy, and Sarah shifted uncomfortably beneath the weight of it. "I don't miss him. And I didn't while we were dating, either."
Jareth didn't respond right away. They both watched his long fingers picking absentmindedly at the blanket near her elbow. He took a breath as if to reply but paused when he met her gaze. Something in his eyes shifted at whatever he saw there. After a moment, he asked, "Why does that hurt you?"
"It bothers me because I should miss the person I am seeing." She felt the evasion pull behind her navel.
"I understand," Jareth said in a steady tone. "But why does that hurt?"
A familiar warmth began to fizz at the edges of Sarah's sadness, his pointed words reminding her just how clearly he saw her. It was a relief she wasn't sure she deserved.
Her hand snaked out of her blankets, and she started pulling at the loose thread Jareth had worsened. She was dimly aware of her lip rolling between her teeth and how intently Jareth was watching her.
Though demanding by nature, he was patient when it mattered.
Finally, Sarah said, "I don't know how to answer that. It just makes me feel empty."
Jareth reached for her wrist and gently laid her arm across his lap. He paused, his fingers arched above her palm like a white linen spider. Sarah knew he was making it clear what he intended to do and giving her time to stop him.
He'd watched her stroke the inside of her arm dozens of times, wrist to elbow crook. He made no secret of his fascination with the movement. She had initially explained it away as being meaningless but had eventually admitted it was a self-soothing technique that had become an unconscious habit.
It wasn't a deliberate decision for Sarah to accept this offer of tenderness from him. Her tense fingers unfurled and stretched, opening for him before she chose the action.
Jareth's hand slipped into her palm obligingly, each finger sliding along one of hers until they were fingertip to fingertip. Sarah let out a shaky breath, and he paused again, cautious. After a moment, the full press of his palm was gone, replaced with the whisper of two fingers tracing figure eights against her wrist.
Sarah's next exhale was steady as she relaxed into the touch. She thought she could feel Jareth relax a little more, too. An unspoken understanding passed between them; this wasn't Sarah's surrender, not the kind that ordinarily sat so heavily between them. This was about comfort.
His fingertips glided up her forearm to swirl lightly in the dip of her elbow. Sarah noticed his breathing was slow and even and realized it matched her own. It was surprisingly easy to allow this closeness with the pressure of it signifying anything more removed.
"It hurts," Jareth murmured soothingly into the blanket near her ear, "because you care so deeply. About everyone fortunate enough to be in your orbit."
Sarah thought about this as his flattened hand smoothed down her forearm until he was palm-to-palm with her again.
"I didn't love him."
"Not romantic love, maybe, but you cared enough to end the dalliance once you had accepted you couldn't return his feelings. I know you. You love those you deem worth knowing and pour your whole self into them. Love is a visceral, living thing for you, and you drain yourself dry trying to water it."
A silent sob took her by surprise as his honest observations cut through the guilt she hadn't realized she'd been clutching to so tightly. She let Jareth's fingers slide back between hers again and felt the reassuring press of his chin on the top of her head.
Sarah pulsed his hand with hers. Jareth squeezed hers back twice.
They were skin-to-skin now, she realized. No linen barrier between wrists, palms, or fingers. It almost made her shake again in another sob, the intimacy of the embrace was so perfect. Protected in this moment when he would take it no further, and she didn't have to decide.
Finally, Sarah asked, "Is that bad?"
"No," Jareth said quickly but hesitated before elaborating. His fingers slipped from hers to cluster at the center of her wrist. He let them radiate outward in all directions. He repeated the motion until it was a gentle rhythm. It reminded Sarah of the sun spilling light into her thirsty veins.
"It's one of your most stunning qualities, Sarah. Even bitter old kings can't help but adore you for it."
His saccharine sincerity was almost too much, and despite how they made her stomach flip with nerves, she couldn't help the weak smile from gracing her face. "I feel like there's a 'but' somewhere in there," she observed.
"But," Jareth continued, "I think you get lost in it all. In others. In how you think you are supposed to make others feel."
"You think I forget how to feel?"
"No," he said again. "I think you prioritize others over yourself. When you do consider your feelings, fear can rule your choices over what you truly desire."
Sarah sighed. "I have this nagging feeling you aren't just talking about Pete."
"Oh, I'm not. Pete is only a layer." His tone was sober. Not a hint of teasing.
She looked at him, curious. "Explain."
Jareth settled back into the couch, biding time while he considered his approach in presenting whatever truths he was about to reveal. When he began, it was with a careful openness. "Some of your past partners weren't as lovely as you insist Pete to have been. They took, and you gave. You agonized over being unable to give beyond your limit. Perhaps they loved you in their selfish ways." He sent her an affectionate smile that set his eyes crinkling around the edges. "What isn't to love?"
Sarah felt a tightening in her chest at his warm crinkly eyes and the question—a confession that wasn't. The promise of one during a different time, another conversation.
His index finger painted broad strokes across each vein in her wrist as he resumed, "They never care for you in the ways you need. Or deserve. And somehow, you end up apologizing for it."
Jareth waited for her to tell him to stop. Maybe he saw the sting of his words reflected on her face. She shook it away. "I'm fine. Go on."
He took a deep breath, searching her face and finding her resolve. "The guilt clouding around you this morning was palpable. Again, over what you couldn't provide for another. You allow yourself to accept these misplaced emotions of remorse over lovers while managing to ignore how any of it makes you feel. What it makes you want instead."
Jareth let that hang, suspended between them, until he saw it sink in. Fingertips danced across the quickening pulse in her wrist. His voice was low and gentle when he spoke again. "For as hard as you love people, Sarah, and hold them so close until you can't hold them any longer, I don't believe you've let romantic love touch you yet."
Sarah sucked in a sharp breath. Whether it was due to the new tickling of his finger tracing her heartline—or his truth that sliced straight to the quick—she wasn't sure.
Jareth gave her a long look, perhaps offering her a last chance to stop him. When she didn't, he said, "Since you seem open to receiving my honesty right now, I'm going to be blunt. I suspect that is why you truly feel sorrow, Sarah. It's against your nature to be selfish, and it's against your nature to take risks. What has that left you with?"
Sarah flung her head back to rest on the back of the couch. The weight of it was crushing. Her watery eyes sought patterns in the popcorn of her ceiling that matched those Jareth drew on the inside of her elbow.
It wasn't a rhetorical question, but she knew he didn't expect an answer. She gave him one anyway. "Meaningless hookups or shallow relationships that never fulfill me romantically."
His fingers left her skin, and before she could mourn the loss, the pads were catching her building tears before they had a chance to fall. He made a soothing sound that somehow managed not to be a shush. "Yes. That in and of itself is fine, of course. But if it's causing you pain, it's worth paying attention to."
Sarah's hand trailed his instinctively and pressed his palm to her cheek. A broken laugh slipped from her throat, and she asked, "When did you become so…" She searched for the right word before settling on "sagely?" Another laugh followed.
Jareth looked initially pleased and then feigned offense at her laughter. "I'll have you know, I have always been wise. You are simply selective about what you share with me. I am proportionately cautious about what advice I offer."
Sarah's sad smile faded, his words hitting her in a way she hadn't expected. More guilt replaced the guilt she had just allowed herself to let go of.
A thumb brushed new tears, and he tipped her face to encourage her to look at him. She met his gaze reluctantly, afraid that she would be unable to stop the sobs that threatened to break. When their eyes locked, she felt calmed by the concern in his expression. "Those guilty eyes again."
"It doesn't feel fair to talk with you about these things," Sarah said, knowing she was being vague. She just wanted to gain momentum so she could begin to unravel the tangle of her emotions. She tried again. "Jareth, I know we haven't really talked about—" She paused when she felt his thumbs still, then the rest of her words spilled out in a panicked rush. "I mean, not directly. We're experts at talking around it, but…"
Sarah gestured with her arm helplessly as if to illustrate the point she was trying to make without words. She could feel the pleading in her eyes.
"Sarah," Jareth said, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. His fingers threaded with hers again, and he let their hands fall back into his lap. Grounding her. "I can handle it."
She slumped slightly with the relief of not needing to explain herself further around this topic. She was grateful for the strokes of his thumb across her knuckles.
Jareth held Sarah's gaze, ensuring she knew he meant it. She felt a barrier around her heart crumble as she accepted his words, knowing they were true. He must have seen it in her face because he let the hint of a smile stretch into a real one that reached his eyes. "Is that why you avoid me while you have lovers?"
"Yes."
"Because you've deemed it to be unfair otherwise?"
"Yes."
"To whom?"
"To everyone," Sarah admitted. A confession that was part of a bigger one yet unspoken.
But it seemed enough for Jareth in this bubble-wrapped moment. He only nodded and squeezed her fingers. She felt him detach from the intensity of the conversation, releasing her as well by doing so. When he spoke again, his tone was light.
"So, when did you know it wasn't fate?"
Sarah blinked at him, confused. "What?"
"Pete," Jareth supplied, smoothing over the furrow in her brow with two fingers.
"Oh," she said, rolling her eyes again. "Shut up. I never thought it was fate. We didn't have much time to see each other. When we did, I wasn't excited to plan dates with him. That felt like a pretty big red flag."
"What kind of riveting dates did he propose, I wonder? Sitting around to watch paint dry together?"
Sarah snorted. "You and I have done that very thing."
"True, but that was less of a date than it was recovering from the fatigue of painting every wall in your apartment a different color because your energy"—he paused to make air quotes—"'felt weird.' Also, we did have that divine charcuterie board, and the blanket on the floor made it all rather picnicky."
"It was a tarp on the floor, which would have been fine if we'd opened the windows. We didn't think about the fumes."
"We did not," Jareth conceded. "But you were lucky to have my help on that mission. I shaved off at least ten percent of your overall time spent."
Sarah laughed, a genuine laugh. Jareth hadn't been as efficient a helper as one might expect a magical being in charge of managing an entire kingdom to be. While Sarah completed wall after wall, Jareth was stuck in the minutiae. She'd gone to look for him after noticing she hadn't seen him in a while—a realization that was always accompanied by an 'uh oh.'
As she'd searched, she found secret corners all over her house with intricate paintings of various sizes. A complex labyrinth design over her kitchen window, a crystal that looked like it was rolling along the baseboard in her hallway alongside her as she walked. She'd finally found him crouching on the ceiling of her office, painting an honest to gods staircase to nowhere.
Days later, she'd discovered a tiny peach painted on the bottom of her fruit bowl. She had half-heartedly scolded him for that one—because, well, the peach was a whole thing that required a lot of unpacking she wasn't willing to do. But mainly because the paint wasn't food safe.
She'd put it on the table by her front door, and it became where her keys lived, along with any other item that didn't have a home. That was perfect for Sarah since she existed in a world where everything always had a place, or nothing did. It went from being some old fruit bowl she could care less about to The Bowl. A part of a secret ritual only she knew about. Her fingers sought out the raised paint each time she reached for her keys and let them linger there, tracing the peach-shaped message. Pressing his love into her fingertips.
"So," Jareth's rumbling voice coaxed her back to the present. Blunt nails scratched lazily up and down her arm, demanding the return of her attention. "Not excited for dates. He couldn't keep up with you?"
Sarah hummed. "He was fine." She searched for a generous word. "Knowledgeable enough."
Jareth's fingers stalled their movements suddenly, and she looked over to catch his horrified expression. "I do hope that's true, at least, considering he can't even moisten a bagel."
"I hate you so much," Sarah interrupted, though she was laughing. The punch she aimed at his arm was less effective than she'd hoped, with her punching hand still trapped in her blanket burrito.
He was all unapologetic smugness. "You love me."
Sarah could admit or deny it; it didn't matter. He would know. She leaned her burrito blanket body into him, E.T.-hooded head finding his shoulder. "I do."
She let him curl her in. He held her there in a long squeeze. "Tell me that again on a different day."
"It's not a secret, Jareth."
"Tell me when you know what it means." He booped her nose when she opened her mouth. "And not today."
"What's wrong with today?" Sarah asked, curious, though she had no plans of elaborating.
Jareth motioned around, including the TV, the curtains, The Chair, and a broad gesture in Sarah's general direction.
"Oh," she said. Her head found his shoulder again. "I broke things off a week ago. Things got busy at work, and I went on autopilot. I was fine until yesterday. It was my first day off, and I wasn't prepared to have nothing to do but think and feel. It's alright to dedicate a day to wallowing once in a while."
"You're telling yourself that," Jareth said. "I've always been in support of a good wallow."
Sarah smiled. "I've been looking forward to seeing you, though. I'm glad you're here. I'm sorry I'm no fun today."
Jareth returned the smile. Fingers slipped between blanket and cheek. "What, precisely, is going on under here?" He coaxed the hood down, letting her choppy hair tumble forward. It framed her face haphazardly, and Sarah felt a blush creep up her neck at his grin.
"Edgy," he noted lightly with twinkling eyes. The warm crinkles were back in the corners.
"You hate it," Sarah complained.
"I love it," Jareth corrected. Not a lie, but a truth stacked with other truths.
She leveled a severe look at him. "You love chaos. This," she gestured at her hair, "is chaotic."
Jareth's grin widened into a crescent moon. "Chaos suits you."
Sarah sighed. "Can you fix it?"
He chuckled, teasing the layers of her hair between his fingers. "I can. Tomorrow. For now, you need rest. I've glamoured it for you temporarily to carry you through this…transition period."
"You what?" Sarah twisted to look at her reflection in the large mirror behind the couch. Her hair was large, permed, and sticking out in every direction. "Wow. I'm pretty sure you're fucking with me right now, Goblin King. But," she tilted her head this way and that. "I look like Marc Bolan. I'm kind of into it, honestly."
Jareth laughed, her commentary harkening to their many dance parties centering 's 'Dandy in the Underworld.' "You would," he said, affection coloring his tone.
The T.V. clicked on with a casual twist of his hand. The soothing timbre of David Attenborough narrating the mating habits of various birds of paradise chased away the melancholy of sinking ships and hearts. Nature documentaries were Sarah's favorite thing to fall asleep to when too many stimuli crowded her busy mind.
"Rest," he insisted, drawing her in close.
Sarah let her eyes flutter closed. When they opened again, it was to see the underneath of Jareth's chin. She blinked up at him, confused at the shift in perspective. Her head was in his lap.
He must have felt her awareness because he glanced down at her immediately. "Good morning," he cooed at her, smoothing her new curls away from her forehead. "Evening, really."
"Hi," Sarah said, her voice froggy. She cleared her throat as her stomach gave a wail of protest at its emptiness.
Jareth's lips twitched. "I thought you might be hungry." He nodded to a takeaway bag and what looked like a frosty milkshake on the coffee table. "It's not homemade, obviously. Forgive me for cheating."
Sarah couldn't help the rush of affection for him. She sat up and flung her arms around his neck, awkward from her position, not caring that she was fully in his lap now. Jareth seemed surprised by the gesture. After a moment, he folded her into an embrace.
She pulled away enough to look at him. "Stay tonight."
A flipbook of emotions flashed behind his eyes as he registered her request. His response wasn't what she had expected or hoped for.
"Not tonight."
"Why?" Sarah asked, stung by the perceived rejection.
"You know why," Jareth said, gingerly disentangling himself from her. "But I will see you tomorrow if you'll have me."
"I'll have you," she said a little too quickly. She cursed herself for the smirk that slid across every angled feature of his face.
He tsked as he unfolded his long limbs and climbed to his feet. "Come, come, Sarah. Do be careful not to appear so eager. I may start to question your intentions."
"Ugh," Sarah groaned. "Stop torturing me and get out of here already, glitter boy."
Jareth sent her one last toothy grin and burst into an entirely unnecessary explosion of sequins and feathers.
Author's Note:
This chapter had no beta
I hope you liked this chapter! Let me know what you think. The next few chapters are cooking, and some are already complete. Updates should be on their way.