The Never Series

Never Two: Sarah Williams just bought an old Victorian house to celebrate her divorce from The-Good-For-Nothing that she wasted the last few years of her life on, but she's about to find out that her new home comes with a few extra surprises, not the least of which is an enchanted canine. J/S AU

Genre: Romance, Fantasy

Rating: M

Never Sit On A Werewolf

Part Three.

When it came to ignoring things, Sarah figured that she should hold the world title. She had been able to ignore for a while that her husband had not loved her, she successfully ignored that her house was a hodgepodge of poorly done repair jobs and still needed a lot of work before it could be considered wholly comfortable, she had ignored that her best friend had some sort of talent or power that didn't fit in with her idea of how the world worked, but she could not ignore this. Oh sure, it had been easy to ignore the attention-seeking wolf at first, but that had been before she had pet him. Now he was…

Loveable.

And it was kind of disturbing. Jareth's fur had felt like silk under her fingertips, cool and exquisitely soft. Sarah really hadn't registered at first what she had been doing, but the moment she realized she was rubbing the wolf behind his ears, a warmth had skittered up through her fingers, traveling lazily along her arm until it had infused her entire body. It had been like being wrapped in warm towels after a long day out in the cold. It was comforting, and she was a woman starved for comfort. One touch turned into two, two into three, and so on until she had no idea how many times she had patted his muzzle or stroked his back. Any moment she was not touching him was suddenly a moment of pure torture. It was unnatural but, at the same time, he filled her with a sense of peace. Was that so wrong?

And the sad answer was that, yes, it was a bit wrong. Sure, his companionship was admirable, but touching him did something strange to her; it was enchanting, and yet at the same time it made her skin feel too tight. So while Jareth drooled himself into a shut-eyed stupor of pure bliss, Sarah couldn't help but worry even as she wove her fingers through his soft fur. In the end, she chose to not to ignore it, but to simple accept this new dimension to their relationship until she could find a way to get rid of him entirely.

There was absolutely no warning about it, although in retrospect it probably wouldn't have helped her much if there had been. One moment she had been lost in a book and cuddling up to her wolfy houseguest, and the next moment she had been deliberately hiding behind her book because she was now cuddled against a man.

"Sun's set then, has it?" Sarah asked from behind her book, trying to sound nonchalant and failing miserably.

She felt him shake his head from somewhere behind her shoulder. "No, but the moon has already risen."

"But that's cheating," she frowned. "You changed back into a wolf this morning when the sun came up!"

His arms curled around her waist as he rested his chin against her shoulder. "Yes, but it wouldn't have been nearly as dramatic if I had waited for the moon to set."

"Do you mean to tell me," she hissed, barely managing to refrain from elbowing him, "that there could be some time in the future where I'll have to put up with you for most of the day, all because the moon is out even when it isn't night?"

"More or less," Jareth responded happily, nuzzling her ear.

Sarah froze, trying to ignore his touch but, much like with his wolf form, the more she felt him, the more she wanted to feel him.

A shiver worked its way up her spine when he suddenly nipped at her shoulder. "Like that, do you?" he whispered against the skin of her neck, sounding smug.

And suddenly Sarah's mind flew back to Isaac. How many times had he asked her the same question in that same insufferable tone? And the whole time he had only done it because she had had something he'd wanted. She'd been nothing more than a whore with benefits to that man. Her heart stuttered a bit at that thought. She had wasted precious years of her life on a man who hadn't loved her. Wasn't she doing the same thing here? But, then again, she wasn't necessarily looking for love, maybe just a little companionship.

Sarah quickly shook the thought from her head. That was a dangerous idea she did not want to entertain; she refused to be a man's fool again. Quickly, she hit Jareth over the head with her book, scrambling away when he loosened his hold on her waist.

He looked back at her, frowning, confusion in his eyes. After a moment, he brought a hand up to rub his head. "What was that-"

"I need to call Meg," Sarah blurted in a hurry, on the verge of panic. She practically ran to the phone when his frown deepened.

"Good timing, Sarah," Meg called from the other line.

The dark haired woman frowned. "How did you know it was me?" she asked, trying to ignore the fact that she could feel Jareth drawing closer to her. "You don't have caller ID."

"Lucky guess," her friend chirped happily, "but as long as I'm right, what does it matter? Anyway," her voice grew somber, "I think you and your werewolf need to come over; I might have found something."

"That was quick," Sarah replied in surprise. "Thank goodness."

"Don't count your blessings yet," Meg warned. "I have a bad feeling about this."

Driving with Jareth had been an exercise in patience. The weak afternoon sun had still made his hair look like spun gold, still made his eyes shine with an unearthly blue fire, still made him look like a living work of art created by a master whose grip on reality had slipped just a little bit. In short, it had been hell. She had tried desperately to ignore him, and for a while she had succeeded. Then she'd noticed that he'd been wearing dark jeans and a black t-shirt, and it shouldn't have looked good on the fop, but it did. He wasn't built like a muscle man, but the shirt was pulled tight enough to reveal his lean and powerful form, and his lithe muscles appealed to her more than anything else could have. So it was with great difficultly that she fought the urge to fidget when she found herself sitting next to him, fifteen minutes later, in Meg's living room.

"So, what have you found out about the Big Bad Wolf, Little Red?" Jareth asked.

Meg ignored him, turning her attention to Sarah, who was trying very hard not to show how uncomfortable she was sitting so close to Jareth. "He's an obscure fertility god," she finally said, eyeing her friend strangely.

Sarah felt the ground drop away from under her. "Like Greencraft-obscure?" she asked, wishing for some sort of touchstone in this crazy landscape they were suddenly traversing.

"No," Meg shook her head, "not one of mine, but a god all the same."

Jareth chuckled then, and Sarah would have called it triumphant if his eyes hadn't been narrowed so calculatingly. "And you found this out on your own, did you?" he asked quietly. "Not that it matters, either way," he added as an afterthought. "Now that you both know, I can talk about myself without reservation."

Meg sighed, interrupting Sarah when she began to make a comment about how self-centered that sounded. "I think you two need to meet my Uncle Dillsby. He's waiting in the other room," she gestured to a dimly lit doorway that was mostly obscured by a hanging curtain.

Walking over the threshold felt strange to Sarah, as though the curtain clung to her, slowly drawing out a small part of her soul; it left her empty and shaken and more than a little dizzy. The room was dark and quiet however, and she was able to recollect herself quickly. The emptiness lingered though.

"I'd like to present both of you to my Uncle Dillsby," Meg stated grandly as she entered through the curtain.

It was then that Sarah realized the room wasn't lit by candles in colored glasses, like she had though. Instead, an aqua light poured from a man that hovered in the center of the room. He was tall, and muscled more overtly than Jareth. His tan skin had a strange caress of blueish-green to it, matching the Grecian chiton he was wearing, while his midnight colored hair floated around him serenely, making it look for all the world as though he were under water. Aside from the fact that he was floating on air and glowing, the man would have looked perfectly normal… well, except for the long slash across his chest that had dyed the front of his tunic and ugly red. "I had a feeling it was you, my old friend," he spoke to Jareth, his voice oddly echoed, but powerful in its own right.

The blond laughed humorlessly. "Friend is a strange way of putting it, Caerlik; protégé, rival, tormentor, and murderer, certainly, but never friend."

"You wound me, Jareth," Uncle Dillsby—Caerlik?—replied, a bored look on his handsome face.

"Yes, I did," he answered succinctly, openly staring at the bloody rip across the other man's chest.

Dillsby's face twisted angrily. "I meant emotionally, you twit."

"I know," Jareth answered with a wicked grin, "but I do so enjoy yanking your chain."

"I should have been more firm with you," Dillsby reflected to himself, shaking his head, "taught you proper respect and punished you a bit more."

"You did punish me," Jareth said, a chillingly blank look on his face. "I am only a man by the grace of the moon so, by my own magic, I am a man at a time when female passion is at its highest. It didn't bother me at first, you knew it wouldn't, but a lover in the dark stays in the dark; you knew I could be nothing more than a fleeting dream to those women, a dirty little affair that was savored but soon forgotten. You knew I wouldn't be able to possess them, not like I used to. I need that connection, Caerlik, otherwise I'm nothing to them; I can revel in the anonymity of my craft, but only if I know that I'll always mean something more than their other lovers. I have been punished greatly."

Dillsby rolled his eyes. "Yes, and then you killed me, so I'm thinking it wasn't exactly the most effective punishment."

"Am I the only one who's completely lost here?" Sarah asked suddenly, feeling like she was in high school calculus all over again: she was staring at something and she had absolutely no idea if it was the problem or the solution.

"Don't concern yourself with him, Sarah," Jareth replied, the dark look in his eyes softening a bit when he turned to her. "He's just a bitter old fool."

"Better than a murdering old fool," Dillsby shot back, his hair billowing around him as though he were momentarily trapped in a strong current.

"A mere technicality, I'm sure," Jareth sneered, his blue-flame eyes lit with a rage that bordered on inhuman. His sharp gaze swept over to Meg who, despite her silence, looked just as confused as Sarah felt. "I appreciate your attempted help, but now I'm asking you to stay out of the matter. There is no room for you in this. Sarah," he turned back to the dark haired woman and held out his hand imperiously, "we're going home."

She stared at his hand, dread sweeping through her. Why did it suddenly feel as though Jareth was making her choose sides, like he was asking for something from her, some sort of… submission? "What's going on?" she persisted, too worried that taking his hand would be some sort of signal that she valued him over anything else.

"I will explain everything," he soothed hypnotically, "once we get home."

Sarah darted a look to Meg, who appeared to be engrossed in studying the floor. The raven-haired woman sighed when she thought of the choice she was being asked to make. The red head was her best friend, but Sarah was already too deep into this mess to pull herself out, which meant she needed information. It looked like the only way to get that information was to accept whatever Jareth was offering. With a damning sigh, she cast her fate, laying her own hand within Jareth's.

Dillsby scoffed loudly. "He will fuck you and then destroy you, woman. You are a fool."

She already knew that.

Sarah slammed the door behind her, wishing that the act could somehow bring her even the smallest sliver of relief, but it didn't. The loud slam echoed in her empty house, like the tolling of a bell, but whether that tolling was for her or the man standing quietly before her she had yet to figure out.

"Would you like something to drink?" Jareth asked quietly.

"Would I like something to drink?" Sarah repeated, a twinge of hysteria coloring her voice. "In twenty-four hours I have been forced to suffer the invasion of a werewolf into my home, been visited by my ex-husband, belittled by a dead man, and found out that my uninvited houseguest is really some sort of cursed god! And you want to know if I would care for a drink? I would care for some answers!" Her voice had steadily risen over the course of her outbreak, to the point where she was practically screaming by the end of it.

"It's not a particularly long story," Jareth shrugged, looking annoyingly elegant in his t-shirt and jeans, "but I thought that perhaps you would like a little liquid fortification before we begin."

Sarah deflated, overwhelmed and still feeling oddly empty. "Sure," she said gloomily, "why not?"

He made a complicated gesture, his golden hair caught in an errant wind, then pulled a delicate looking glass from thin air.

"How did you do that?" she asked, momentarily mystified.

He handed her the glass, a sad smile playing about his lips. "This? It's just a parlour trick." Jareth ran a hand through his hair, his frustrated look at odds with the playfulness he had exhibited the night before. "I could have the heavens rain down chocolate, if it would make you happy."

Sarah snorted. "Why?"

"I like making women happy," Jareth answered confusedly.

"No," she shook her head. "I meant: why chocolate? If it came down in blocks it would probably hurt, not to mention do a lot of damage, and if it came down in syrup it would just be a sticky mess." She frowned in disgust, "Could you imagine trying to wash that crap out of your hair?"

He smiled bemusedly. "You're not very romantic, are you?"

She rubbed at her arm with her free hand, feeling suddenly chilled as she thought of Isaac once more. "In my experience, there's no such thing as romance. It's just an illusion that men create to trap lonely women." She jumped when Jareth's arms curled around her, pressing her head to his chest. It was cozy in a strange way, although somewhat awkward thanks to the glass in her hand.

"It was that fool at the door, wasn't it?" he whispered into her ear.

Sarah shuddered. "Isaac? What about him?"

"He hurt you," Jareth growled lowly, "abused and bewildered you until you finally cut him out of your life." A finger pressed gently under her chin until she was forced to meet his blue gaze. "But it was too late because the damage was already done, wasn't it? You have too many scars on your heart, and you're too scared to open yourself back up for fear of getting more."

She shifted restlessly in his grasp, his thoughts much too close to the truth for her comfort. "What," she snapped, getting defensive, "you're the God of Love now?"

His arms tensed around her, but he didn't pull away. If anything, Jareth only cuddled her closer. "No," he finally answered, a strange note rolling through his accented voice, "and perhaps that was my failing."

Sarah felt instantly guilty for lashing out at him. She wasn't entirely sure what to think about Jareth—the way he had entered her life, and the things she was learning about him were pushing her to her limits—but he had been nothing, if not companionable and kind. So what if he was insightful when it came to women, and was much too blunt about emotional wounds that she wanted to keep in the dark? True, it hurt to think about her failed marriage and the ways that it had jaded her, but he obviously had his own pains to nurse and it would be petty of her to point those out. She would not let immaturity and long-ago broken hearts push away the only man who had been kind to her in longer than she cared to remember. All the same, though, he had promised her information, and it was knowledge that she had a terrible feeling she would need in the coming days.

"What happened?" she asked softly, laying her head against his chest again. She had forgotten how nice it was to simply touch and be touched.

"The same thing that always happens," he replied, a hint of resignation in his voice, "pride made me do something stupid." He paused for a moment, then added, "This is the part where you might want to start drinking. It's not a pleasant story."

A/N: That was shorter than expected, sorry, but it's the best I can do at the moment.

My absence has been protracted and unexplained, and for that I'm sorry, but after a crazy semester (only two weeks left!) and an unexpected death in the family, I didn't much feel like writing, nor did I have the time. But now I'm back, and ready to start weaving stories again. There are still a lot of stressful things going on right now, but hopefully they'll help me more than they'll hinder me.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth or Sarah, everything else is mine.