A/N: YAY more goofy fluff. This is my consolation prize for losing some other document I was typing today.
"Oh Jareth, you are such a scoundrel."
He grinned and pulled her tighter into his chest.
"mmmHm," the vibration of his voice flowing from his torso to hers. His smirk broadened, but Sarah could feel the grip of his fingers falter ever so slightly.
"I mean that's not to say I don't begrudgingly enjoy your rascally highness's antics…" she trailed, letting her hands move softly over his partially exposed collar bone.
"Oh, so you like it? After all, then?" His eyes brightened with a boyish I-told-you-so sort of glee…and something else.
Oh his eyes, she was powerless when he looked at her with those mischievous eyes. Especially when he already had her in his arms.
"Yeah…I guess so," she mumbled as she turned her head away only to lay her cheek upon his shoulder.
The Goblin King was satisfied with her admission. He celebrated by exploring the silk texture of the chocolate tresses carelessly clinging to his vest and shirtsleeve. In no time his palms were cradling her scalp.
"But sometimes it really hurts."
He felt rather than heard those last garbled words, muffled now in the fabric of his collar.
"Now, now, Sarah," he pulled her face up toward his, speaking with gentle authority.
The innocence in her eyes as she gazed up at him sent a spike through his intestines and made his spine tingle all at once.
"You of all people know that life isn't always fair," he let a gloved hand move down her jaw to rest underneath her chin.
At his words, Sarah turned her eyes sheepishly in the other direction. It wasn't that she was a pushover, but resting coddled in the embrace of her Goblin King seemed to quench a bit of the feistiness of her temper. It was after all what she had longed for all this time.
"Why like this though?" she finally managed to say.
"Like what, my love?" his blue eye twinkled. She squirmed slightly in protest before he relented and continued, "All right darling, but that was the way it happened. This is our story, our journey, our path. I am no saint. You know that."
Sarah sighed as she felt her body release another layer of tension, sinking still deeper into his arms. Her heart was sinking too, slowly falling out of itself and into the warmth pressed against her.
His hand rose to brush lightly against her brow as he allowed his eyes to pierce the veil of her soul. Shivering with unspoken delight mixed with something only describable as joyous terror, she tucked her face under his neck and whispered into his frazzled mane:
"Please, never leave me."
"I don't intend to."