Chapter Seven

It was hard to tell what was going through Jareth's mind; with his forehead pressed against hers, Sarah couldn't read his eyes very clearly. His body was speaking plainly enough, it wanted satisfaction from the warm female curves it was pressed into, but his words of patience, of forbearance, contradicted such primal language. He was as wound up as she had been a minute ago, but he was willing give her time. How very sweet of him.

She could tell him where to stick his noble actions though, because that didn't change the fact that he was still acting proprietary and, while flattering on some strange level, it was sort of freaking her out now that she didn't have the distraction of his lips.

"You have no right-" Sarah began to snarl, head rearing back to glare at him.

Jareth sighed. True, he didn't want the woman to blindly give in, but a lecture, deserved or not, wasn't anything he felt like sitting through. After all, what was the point? She could talk her pretty little head off, but that wasn't going to change his plans. Hoping to cut her off before she could gather any steam, he lowered his head for another kiss.

Sarah's palm shot out to stop his decent, smacking flat against his forehead. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh at the picture they must have made, but he did know that he was glad she wasn't afraid of him.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" Sarah wondered aloud to herself.

It had taken a lot of blustering, and several threats to call the police that had been dully ignored, but she had finally managed to get Jareth out of her house. Not that it particularly mattered since the bastard still had her key, which meant she'd be lucky if she didn't see him at all today.

Now, sitting at her kitchen table, Sarah couldn't help but wonder what had come over her last night. "I just let the man kiss me and say all that territorial bullshit without a single word of protest!" What had happened to the prickly young girl who had run through the Labyrinth, who had come toe-to-toe with the Goblin King and scoffed at him? "I'm not thinking like I used to," she mused. "Time must have dulled my instincts." It had been easy back then to snap and snarl at that king because she had known that he wasn't human, or at least not entirely, nowhere near trustworthy, and possessed a dangerous magic. But that was the sort of thinking that you lost as you got older. Magic stopped existing, you learned that no one was entirely trustworthy, and any question about a man wasn't over his species but rather how nice he looked. Where once she had seen merely an enticing challenge to overcome, she now saw something that she had been craving in the worst way possible: lean plains of muscle and a male presence.

Or perhaps she was letting confusion cloud her judgment. There still remained the vague possibility that Jareth could truly just be a normal guy. She snorted at that. "Mortal man or not, he certainly acts like the Goblin King," Sarah chuckled, "I suppose it would be criminal to treat him any different then I used to." And there was no better way to find out who he was, either. She'd wasted so much time being preoccupied by his none-too-subtle advances that she hadn't really been able to think about how she could get any answers to this burning question. If she had to repeat everything she'd ever said to him those ten years ago, just to see how he'd react, then that's what she'd do! No more passivity for this girl!

Now if only she could forget the ghostly memory of his lips devouring her own.

She'd left him, but she hadn't been meant to. She'd won, but she hadn't been supposed to. He'd paid for both mistakes, paid dearly. Such a terrible thing they'd done to him, but he had found her, just like he said he would. At least he had been right about that.

Things were beginning to happen, he was starting to leak back in thanks to her. How ironic that the one to take it all away was now the one who was giving it all back! They would send someone though, to keep them apart, to interfere.

He was really starting to hate that dwarf.

Jareth sat at his desk chair, typing idly and thinking his life over. It didn't take that long. Wildly successful and charmed to the bone, but he had always felt as though his life was missing something. Companionship, perhaps? Aside from Hoggleston, he really couldn't say that he had any true friends and his philosophy on romance had always been 'love 'em and leave 'em'. The constant affairs had all been some attempt on his part to fill the void he felt.

With a confusing restlessness, his thoughts turned over to the latest lady in a long string of mistresses. Sarah… something about her was different. Undoubtedly he was being a bully, relentlessly pushing her in the direction that he wanted to go, but he wasn't being ruthless yet, not in the ways he knew he could be. Something about her stilled his hand, something deep and sad in her eyes. She had a look about her, as if she knew a secret that would blow the rest of the world away and, for whatever reason, he felt as though he was supposed to know that secret too. Jareth felt like he knew her, like a friend you'd had as a child and then met again years later, a vague imprint left of on a memory that wasn't strong enough to hold it.

No, something about Sarah was decidedly different. When was the last time he had actually had to plan out a seduction? Not since he'd truly cared about trying to build meaningful relationships, probably. But those days were long over, he was tired of searching for something that didn't exist, and brief affairs kept his life relatively uncomplicated. She was a sweet girl, the sort that deserved a man who would promise her eternity, but that was something he wasn't willing to give anymore, not since—

Someone knocked at the door, interrupting Jareth's thoughts.

'Well, well," he thought, trying to fight down a wicked smile, 'the lamb has come to the lion.' Except the lamb was wearing a tight black sweater, with half her lovely dark hair swept back into a ponytail, looking very determined and not lamb-ish in the least. He cocked is head to the side and leaned against the doorjamb. "What are you doing here?"

Sarah gave him a quick once over, almost visibly steeled her nerves, and replied, "Turn about is fair play. You invaded my life, now I'm invading yours."

He stepped out of the door and made a sweeping gesture into his home. "Invade away," he chuckled.

A few minutes later found Sarah sitting on a couch, sipping wonderfully hot tea, and petting Ludo, who had once again happily curled up in her lap. The reason she had come was simple; know thine enemy, as the proverb went. She had been able to keep up with the Goblin King because she had already known him through stories; if she wanted to do the same thing now, then she had to get to know Jareth-the-possibly-mortal. Still, just so she didn't give off the wrong impression... "I'm not sleeping with you, just so you know" she said bluntly.

Jareth ignored her statement. "How did you get here?" he asked, stopping her from going through the mental inventory of small-talk questions she had decided to stick to for today.

"I walked," she answered simply. When he frowned and seemed about to launch himself into a lecture, she continued, "Well my phone is still dead, so I haven't been able to call a tow truck yet. Besides, it's only two miles."

"Two miles through a god-awful freezing drizzle. You're tempting fate, you know. Do you want to end up sick?" Jareth sat down across from her, lounging indulgently across a loveseat, his crisp white sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and hair spilling around his face, looking slightly more wild than she had so far seen it.

"I'm not going to get sick," she rolled her eyes. She was hot because she always seemed to blush around this man, and she was cold because she had just walked two miles in less than pleasant weather. Nothing feverish about that, Sarah nodded to herself. "So tell me about yourself," she carried on before he could start berating her.

He seemed confused, perhaps taken aback. "What would you like to know?"

"Whatever you're willing to tell," was the immediate response. She thought about it, then quickly added, "And considering all crazy talk you put me through this morning, it had better be a lot."

Jareth smiled at her and seemed to contemplate his words. "I hate bees."

She stared at him. "Seriously," Sarah asked, annoyed "out of everything in the world you could tell me right now, all you're going to say is, 'I hate bees'?" Ludo gave a disgruntled sniff from her lap, as if to back up her incredulity.

"Stingy little bastards, they are," Jareth shrugged, taking a sip of his tea.

When it didn't seem as though he was going to elaborate, or try talking in general, she switched topics. "Why are you here?"

He stretched like a lazy lion, then slouched back into the loveseat. "I was standing in my apartment, looking over the lights and buildings of Boston when I had this horrible feeling. In that moment, I realized that if I were to drop dead no one would notice until my editor came storming by to see why I missed so many deadlines. It felt like the longer I spent working on this damn book, the more my life was passing me by. Boston isn't my home, merely the place that I live; I'm disconnected from everything around me."

Sarah raised a brow. "Is that why you're trying to get into my pants?" she asked, hoping to lighten the suddenly dark mood.

"I'm a red-blooded man and you're a lovely lady; do I need any other reason to get into your pants?" he replied with a devious look.

"How romantic of you," she rolled her eyes. "Why Maine though? It seems to me that the problem is your work, not where you live."

"Oh minx, you can't stop a writer from crafting words," Jareth explained lowly, seriously, "it would be as fatal to me as the cutting off of a knight's sword arm." He sat up a bit and sighed. "We all go through dark periods, but I can't stop writing anymore than you can stop breathing. Without my stories I'm just a man, but with them I'm a king. I can enchant millions with the stroke of a pen, keep audiences enraptured until the closing line, bring whatever joy can be achieved to those who find normal life tedious beyond endurance."

"But again, why do think that Maine is going to change things?" she asked, trying to understand this man across from her.

He patted his knee and Ludo leapt across the small coffee table to curl up beside him. "I can't change who I am," he answered, quietly stroking the cat, "but I can change where I am. Admittedly, Maine was a random decision, but the atmosphere here is something I was craving; I need this distraction from the hell that this project has become. If I can get past this commission, finish this damn book, then I can get back to my normal life. I'll have the time and chance to set things straight and put some roots down for once."

"Why can't you do that here?" she questioned. "Seems to me you're just putting things off, ducking behind convenient excuses."

He was. For the longest time he had been looking for the right place to make home, but it had always been a case of the wrong place at the wrong time. It was like being adrift at sea, knowing you were looking for something, but having forgotten what it was. Life had been infinitely easier as a semi-reclusive writer, so he had simply stopped searching.

That didn't mean the desire ever went away though.

They had chatted for a while, running to lighter topics after the heavy air that had briefly settled over Jareth. It was strange, Sarah thought, that he seemed to yearn for some sort of meaning out of life, and yet shied away from the personal commitment that could bring him that satisfaction. She hadn't learned much about him though, it was very hard to get any personal information out of the man, and so he remained something of a mystery. It was all rather disheartening, really. How was she supposed to reach any sort of conclusion about who he was if he wouldn't cooperate with her plans? He was supposed to spill his guts so that she would know what she was facing, and be able to get on with her life!

Sarah kicked at a frozen pebble morosely. She was disappointed, confused, and walking back home in cold, misty mess. Jareth had all but demanded to drive her home, but she had needed to get away so that she could regroup and re-plan. Talking to the man was obviously difficult since he had a way of dancing rather skillfully around the subject. She would have to take a quieter approach to get personal details. The Goblin King issue still remained, though. Perhaps if she just discussed the Labyrinth with him point-blank; after all, he already thought she was crazy and/or incompetent, it wasn't as though anything she could say would really change his opinion of her. Worst-case scenario was that he really wasn't that Jareth, and maybe he'd leave her alone for fear of catching some taint of lunacy. And if he slipped in the other direction? Well, at least she'd have an answer.

Mind slightly at ease now that she had a general plan of attack, Sarah continued on her way home. The wind, while nowhere near as bad as it had been the night before, howled through the trees and cut straight through her thick coat. Shivering, she tried to quicken her pace, but her limbs were feeling lethargic and her head was getting heavy.

"Just half a mile more, Sarah," she told herself, "then you can put up your feet and rest a little." But her feet were firmly disagreeing that she could make it that far and the world was beginning to dance around her.

In the few second before she blacked out on the side of the road, Sarah was struck by the realization that she had felt this way before. It was oddly discomforting to know that she wasn't going to wake up to a Crystal Ball this time.

A/N: Two apologies: Sorry for the delay on this one, and sorry for the fact that nothing much happened in this chapter. I've been running around all week trying to get my schedule for next semester ironed out, so I've been a bit discombobulated. That's done now though, so there shouldn't be many other issues until finals.

This chapter is for yodeladyhoo. I hope this helped at least a little with your cannon cravings! Thanks for calling me on that. ;)

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