Sarah dreamed.
She was chasing someone she couldn't see, following a line of silver thread that spooled out behind the object of her pursuit. She ran alongside a river, its placid surface reflecting a bloated moon which kept pace beside her. "Wait! Please wait!" she called out, but the figure ahead never slowed or came into sight. When she could run no more, she collapsed onto the ground, fingers twining in the gleaming thread. She pulled as much as she could to her, but the stuff was nearly as voluminous as moonlight and apparently just as insubstantial. Impossible to grasp, it seeped through her hands and wound itself around her legs and waist, tangling with her hair and pushing up and over her throat and lips until she resembled a silver mummy. Barely breathing and stretched out on the ground, she felt her limbs dissolving in the molten moonlight, leaving her hollow and filled only with the heat of a great longing...
Sarah woke with a start and the hollow feeling of her dream revealed itself to be simple hunger. She felt sluggish and frustrated; both, she supposed, attributable to unsated hunger. But still...
She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and sat up, eyes turning towards the mirror like a compass needle pulled to north. Silver glinted at the edges of her vision and in the mirror, ripples spread out from the center as though it were a pool, disturbed by a stone.
"Hello?" She stood slowly, legs still heavy with sleep. The clock on her desk read 5 a.m. and the only light in the room came from the moonlight seeping in around the ill-fitting curtains. From out in the common room, music began to play and Sarah recognized her favorite Nik Kershaw tape.
"Someone's been in my room again! I hate that!" She let the music guide her through the darkness and pressed her thumb down hard on the cassette player, stopping "The Riddle" mid-song. The common room was empty, but from the other bedroom, low voices were murmuring. She remembered her roommates. Could they have returned? She tried to remember how long they had been missing, but a growing sense of discomfort distracted her. It was so muggy, the air thick and hot. It was hard to think clearly. The voices drew her on, the need to know.
Wary, she crept forward and pressed her ear against their door. Sweat dripped down the sides of her face, beneath her arms, and plastered her t-shirt to her chest. She still couldn't make out any words, just the low rumble of several voices all speaking at once. Steam seemed to rise from her bare feet, making everything wet. She reached for the doorknob and swore softly when her hand slipped and couldn't find purchase. Leaning hard now, she pushed all her weight into the door, wrapping the hem of her t-shirt around her hand to help her twist the knob. "Hello?" she called, "Who's there?" She continued trying to open the door, simultaneously pounding on it with her other hand and all the while the heat continued to build.
Behind her, the cassette player switched on.
She stopped struggling with the door, instead letting herself slide down to the floor. She must be dissolving, melting into liquid silver. Waves of heat blurred her vision. She stretched out on the cold cement tiles, letting it pull the heat from her body. Surely without it she would have burst into flame, so hot was her skin.
I've got plans for us, nights in the scullery and days, instead of me... sang Nik Kershaw.
Sarah closed her eyes. Stars swirled behind her eyelids; at least, she thought they were stars. There were so very many of them, all dancing in the dark. So very many. When strong arms scooped her up, she was too busy counting them to notice.
Out of the sea of blackness, voices swam to her ears. A cool breeze licked her hot skin and she hesitated, just a moment, before opening her eyes.
"Sarah!" Someone was tugging at her shirt.
Sarah blinked and rubbed her eyes. Toby was leaning anxiously over her. Behind him, her father stood with his arms crossed, eyes dark with worry. "What the... How?" She shook the last of the stars from her vision and sat up, surprised to find that she was somehow back on her bed, the small window behind her open to the afternoon sun. She had clearly missed several hours.
Toby threw himself at her and Sarah reached out and pulled him close, tousling his sandy-blond hair and mentally running through the events of the past 24 hours. "What time is it?" she asked.
"Nearly two o'clock," said her father. "Toby was so anxious to see you that we left this morning." He shifted his feet and put his hands into his pockets. The small room felt smaller than usual.
Two o'clock! All she could think about was Gi. She needed to check on her right away. She gently pushed Toby aside and climbed out of bed.
"Sarah..." began her father, but Toby cut him off.
"Sarah! I have to give you something!" The little boy reached into a small backpack and drew out something wrapped in a towel. He thrust it at her expectantly.
Sarah glanced to their father and then back to Toby. "Toby, I'm not sure we should..."
Her father frowned. "Where did you get that, Toby? What is it?" He reached out but Sarah quickly snatched it from Toby's outstretched hands and tucked it beneath her shirt.
"It's, ah, um, it's..." her eyes latched onto the red heart stenciled on the wall calendar. "It's a valentine."
"It's a ..." Toby started, but Sarah spoke over him.
"It's a valentine, from, er, that magician you hired for Toby's birthday." She stepped between Toby and her father so that she could gesture frantically to her little brother behind her back.
"A valentine?" asked her father, "Really?" He leaned around Sarah to look at Toby. "That was your big emergency? A valentine?"
Toby stammered, "Well, uh, yeah, I..."
Sarah maneuvered around them both and backed towards her dresser. "It's my fault, Dad. Toby thought I'd be sad today without it, so, um, he wanted to bring it to me." She kicked herself for how impossibly lame that sounded, shifting the object behind her and using her fingers to pull out her sock drawer and dump it inside.
Her father was shaking his head slowly. "I didn't realize you had gotten to know that magician, Sarah." He moved to her bed and sat down heavily. "Isn't he a little old for you?"
Sarah felt her color rise and quickly said, "Oh, no, Dad, but you know..." she pushed the drawer closed behind her and slid into her desk chair. "It's not serious or anything. We're just friends, really." She cast around for a change of subject. "How did you get in here, anyway?"
"Through the front door, Sarah." He stood up, one hand rubbing the side of his head as though it hurt. "Toby and I should get going."
Sarah frowned. "Have you seen my roommates? Were they here?" She bit her tongue before more questions could slide out.
"Meet me out front, Toby..." There was a click as the door closed behind him.
"He's just mad 'cause Mom was yelling again before we left." Toby shrugged as though this news was only to be expected. He indicated a plain cardboard box on the nearby coffee table. "She did pack some stuff for you, though. It might be cookies. Do you think it's cookies, Sarah?"
Sarah shivered, remembering Karen's "fiber specials", but Toby looked eager. "What do you think is in it? Let's open it!"
Sarah glanced back at her doorway, picturing her father impatiently flicking his fingernails and tapping his foot out in front of the dorm. "Later, Toby. I need to find Gi." She reached for the phone and then stopped. "Toby," she whispered, "who gave you that crystal, really?" She paused, "It is a crystal, right?" The smooth shape had been apparent even through the towel.
Toby was still eyeing the box, "Hmm? Yeah. It was the shadows..." He ran his thumb over the seam of the box. "Don't you think you should see what this is?"
"Shadows?" She lowered her voice to a whisper, "Do you mean goblins? Did the Goblin King give this to you?"
Toby was trying to pry his finger beneath the top flaps of the box and just shrugged in answer to her question. "Dunno," he said, "maybe".
Her father reappeared in her bedroom doorway. "Toby, time to get moving. I'm sure your sister has special plans for today." He didn't look at Sarah, but came over and herded a reluctant Toby away from the box and out the door.
"See you in a couple days, Sarah!" called out her brother over his shoulder. "Don't forget the valentine!"
"Valentine?"
Sarah whipped around at the sound of the new voice. The Goblin King was standing in her room, just in front of the closet mirror. Behind him, ripples of silver were spreading out across its surface.
He moved toward her, completely out of place in his asymmetrical leather coat, snug breeches and high boots. "Sarah," he said, raking her over with his eyes, "something...peculiar...seems to have happened to you in my absence."
Sarah instinctively backed away from him, but in the small room that amounted to only three steps before her knees came up against the ratty sofa.
"My, my, my..." He was way too close now, close enough to smell the distracting, wild otherness of him, a weird yet exciting mix of leather and spice and something sweeter. He smiled his familiar mocking, lopsided smile and moved his hands slowly up and down in front of her, like a scanner at the airport. "You simply reek of magic, precious thing." Both hands came to a stop somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. He cocked his head and regarded her, "how unexpected."
Her temper flared. "Unexpected my ass. This has your fingerprints all over it." She tugged at the hem of her t-shirt, conscious of its bedraggled state.
"Oh you think so, hmm?" His regard was cool, his eyes glinting dangerously.
"I do." Her chin was set in a stubborn line. She shimmied out around him and grabbed a bathrobe from a hook on the wall; once covered, she felt less vulnerable.
"Didn't you get my present, Sarah?" He had followed her across the room and leaned closer than before, effectively trapping her against the wall. "I believe you called it...a valentine." He was smug, as though he had won a battle in the great war between them.
"If you were coming to see me yourself, why did you send it to Toby? Why are you here now? I called you..." She stopped speaking, uncomfortable with his growing grin.
He tilted his head and strands of his wild blond hair brushed her arm. Something like electricity sparked between them and he feigned surprise. "Why Sarah," he purred, "you know I have no power over you. But Toby..." he let the sentence hang unfinished.
Sarah was aware of every hair on her arm, every seam of her shirt and pants. "You leave Toby alone, Goblin King."
He raised one eyebrow and ran the fingertips of his free hand lightly along the soft chenille of her robe. "I can't Sarah. Don't you see that I can't?" He grinned fully then and she knew he mocked her.
But there was truth, too. Sarah saw that at last. "You couldn't come to me before, could you? Not without Toby here." She was caught between longing and repulsion. "What did you do to me?"
Something flashed in his eyes, but Sarah couldn't tell if it was dismay or relief. He stepped away from her then, but his eyes never left her face. "It's just a kiss, Sarah."
"A kiss?"
"A kiss of magic, Sarah, and a fleeting one at that." His grin had vanished.
Sarah tore her gaze away from his face and tightened the belt of her robe. "I don't have time for this. I have to check on Gi." She moved purposefully across the room toward her door, but was stopped by a hand on her arm. She held herself perfectly still.
"Your friend? She's fine. They're all fine, Sarah." His fingers around her arm exerted gentle pressure, not enough to hurt, just enough to be impossible to ignore.
"How do you know, Goblin King? How do..."
"Jareth, Sarah," hissed her captor. "I'm not your king. Call me by my name." His grip on her tightened briefly, then relaxed.
"That's right, Jareth, you're not." She pulled herself from his grasp and entered her bedroom, ignoring the color still moving across her mirror. She removed the crystal ball from the drawer and spun around to face him again. "If they're all fine, Goblin King, then why send me this?" She tossed it at him and he caught it without looking at it.
"It's a way for you to call upon me," he said softly, "just you, without your brother needing to be nearby." In his fingers, the crystal spun like a globe.
"But Toby..." She was angry again and once more the heat within her was building.
Jareth shook his head. "Trust me, precious thing, your friends are all perfectly safe. The effects of your magic are...temporary. It's you who are in danger." He moved closer to her and she resisted the urge to slam the door before he reached her.
"Danger? I'm in danger? My roommates... I made them disappear, but I'm the one in danger?" Her robe suddenly was an unbearable extra layer and she tugged it off with feverish haste.
Suddenly he was right there, a hair's breadth from her. "Stop!" he shrugged out of his own coat and let it fall to the floor. His hands came up and caught her around the waist. "It would seem I also underestimated your innate capacity for fire. My...kiss...has become tangled with your own desire. It threatens to burn you up, Sarah, but I can help." He pressed against her, unbelievably cool.
Her hands came up to push him away, but the coolness of his chest was distracting enough that she let her hands remain resting there instead. "You don't know anything about my desire." Her voice was soft. She remembered the stars from her dream: oceans of stars, mountains of stars. Why did her thoughts keep dancing away from her?
He chuckled, low in his throat and bent his head so that his lips were next to her ear. "You're wrong, Sarah. Shall I show you how wrong you are?" His hands on her waist were moving, pressing her even closer.
An image of Gi's sealed mouth floated before her mind's eye. "No!" She pulled sharply away from him, her skin tingling. "I can't keep making people vanish...or have other things happen to them." Unconsciously, she leaned back towards him, still drawn to the coolness he promised.
Jareth sighed and plucked another crystal from the some hidden place. "I can bank your fire, Sarah," he said, "but I won't extinguish it."
She eyed the crystal on his fingertips, tracking its movements warily and nodded her agreement.
His elegant features took on a hard cast. He raised the crystal, hesitated, and lowered it again. Faster than lightening he moved forward and caught her up again, pulling her against him and lowering his mouth to cover hers.
As kisses go, his was soft but thorough. She felt the last of the unnatural heat ebb from her. Something else, sharp and bright, seemed to take its place. Without meaning to, she closed her eyes, letting the sensation wash over her.
A loud knock sounded at the outside door. "Sarah?" Gi's voice reached through and banished the last of her brain fog.
"A pity," said Jareth softly and she could no longer feel him against her.
She opened her eyes, not surprised to find herself alone in the little room. She smiled anyway and touched a finger to her lips. Behind her on the bed, a solitary crystal winked from the depths of her pillow.
Gi came bursting into the room, wreathed in smiles. "Geez, Sarah, you haven't showered yet? The free chocolate is going to be all gone!" Her friend bore no reminder of the previous night's trauma; no reminder and perhaps, no memory.
Sarah opened her mouth to say something and then changed her mind. Behind Gi, silver threads winked in the mirror like a promise. She smiled and picked her robe up off the floor, tossing it behind her onto the bed so that it covered the crystal completely. Grabbing her bathroom tote she hurried past Gi.
Chocolate sounded perfect.
Fin
Author's Note and Disclaimer: So we have our second interlude in the larger story of Sarah and Jareth, and more of the elements of that larger story are falling into place. I envision a couple more three-part shorts before the cycle is complete and doubtless I will attach them to upcoming holidays, just because.
I do not own the characters or concept of Labyrinth.