Fade into You: Chapter 1 - Makeover
"You're chewing the inside of your cheek," Jareth observed. "Do you enjoy the pain of it?"
Sarah's finger paused on his cheekbone where she had been dabbing golden shimmer. She met his gaze with an arched brow.
"Just a question." His shrug was all innocence.
Sarah's smile was wise and knowing as light fingertip taps continued toward his temple. "Your questions are never just questions."
"True enough," Jareth agreed, returning the smile. "But does that make me so unique?"
"Well," Sarah mused, tilting his chin to check that her work was symmetrical. Touching his face like this was new; she was trying very hard to seem casual about it—which was difficult, considering how reluctant she was to release him. "I suppose all questions have a motivation. Yours just happen to be particularly duplicitous, Goblin King."
"Clever, you mean," Jareth corrected.
"No. I really don't," she replied, still smiling. "Anyway, it's not that serious. I was concentrating."
"I've never seen you do it before. I have all of your mannerisms cataloged." Jareth tapped his temple with a wink.
"How rude of me," Sarah said dismissively. He was taking this somewhere, and she did not want to play. Not with him so close. "I'll be sure to inform you when I start up with a new one."
"Oh, do," Jareth said before pulling a pout. "I miss the lip bite. It's my favorite."
She couldn't keep a smirk from stretching at that. "My face is less than a foot away from yours, Jareth. It didn't feel like the opportune time to drag my lip through my teeth."
His eyes lit up like he had won a prize. "So, a decision was made after weighing risk and reward?"
"A decision was made based on my need to focus and your status as a pervert."
Jareth gasped in mock offense. "I'm a pervert now, am I?"
"Now?" Sarah snorted. "Please. It's not new."
She scanned Jareth's smug expression before shifting her attention to the clock on the bathroom counter. "It's getting late," she commented noncommittally, knowing it wasn't the same as 'it's time for you to leave now,' and he wasn't going to treat it like it was. She didn't want him to.
Evenings were her favorite part of his visits. Ease settled between them as the sun began to sink. Their days were busy with catching up and playful conversation. The longer the shadows stretched, the deeper they allowed themselves to reach.
But with the darkness crept a dread that started in Sarah's belly as a light squeeze. As the hour grew late, there would come the moment when Sarah would directly give Jareth his cue to leave. She never wanted to, but the pressure of having to decide was too overwhelming.
Jareth never overstayed his welcome, but he did nothing to hide his intentions. They were woven into every small touch, how he studied her movements, the sound of his voice as he spoke her name in the way only he could. He desired to stay with her. If she asked him to, she knew he would.
"Well?" Jareth needled, pulling her from her thoughts. She realized her gaze had been lingering on his lips, now twisted in a smirk. Her fingers still held his chin, and she dropped her hand. She'd been contemplating what lip shade to use before her mind drifted, but Jareth seemed to assume her long pause had signaled she had finished his makeover. "Give me compliments," he added in a well-practiced kingly tone.
Sarah laughed, admiring her artistry. She'd opted for matte browns and grays to give him a smokey eye. Black kohl rimmed his water line, and a bright metallic gold shimmered at his tear ducts, matching the sweep of his sharp cheekbones. "I did well," she said with a proud nod. "I knew neutrals and golds would bring out your eyes." She'd been right, she thought, as his cut sapphire eyes sparkled under her appraisal.
Jareth tutted. "I requested compliments about me, not about your talents."
"You are beautiful to the point of rudeness, your majesty," Sarah told him with a half-hearted eye roll. She grabbed his arm and made to pull him into the hallway from the chair where he was seated. "Come on. I need something sweet. Cinnamon hot cocoa?"
"Wait," Jareth announced, getting to his feet and tugging her gently back into the bathroom. "It's your turn."
Sarah squeaked in surprise as Jareth lifted her by the waist and deposited her on the bathroom counter. He released her as soon as she was seated, leaving her uncharacteristically stunned. The counter was deep enough for her to scoot back comfortably, but she had to spread her knees to make room for him. Her bathroom was not large, but it suddenly felt microscopic as they regarded each other at eye level.
Jareth, suddenly possessed with artistic whimsy, pushed her hair back with both hands, then turned her face this way and that. He hummed in contemplation.
Sarah giggled at his scrutiny. "Let it be known that my expectations are very high."
Sparks lit in his eyes at the challenge, and he reached for a palette. "So good of you to warn me of that now." The way he expertly balanced the eyeshadow brushes in his gloved fingers as he went to work spoke to his expertise.
The first few minutes were easy enough to manage, his stifling closeness tolerable while he painted the tops of her lids and filled in her brows. Sarah didn't need to look at him for that bit, after all, giving her the time she needed to figure out what to do with her damn hands. Finally, she let her palms settle on the tops of her thighs.
"Look up," she heard Jareth say as though it hadn't been the first time he'd issued the gentle command. He tapped her chin.
"Oh," Sarah said. "Sorry."
There was a smile in his voice as he carefully swept eggplant liner in her waterline, smudging it out into her bottom lashes. "Distracted?"
"Mmhm." Sarah wasn't surprised that she had answered the question that she could have easily brushed off as an observation. There was something about the way she felt when Jareth asked her something directly—a tug at her navel that propelled her into truth. It wasn't an irresistible compulsion, she could always wiggle out of it if she wanted to.
It had taken years of exposure to Jareth for Sarah to stop feeling mistrustful of his every word. But now, it was a relief to lean into honesty around him. Her truth would tumble right past her lips if she wasn't careful.
"Look at me," Jareth demanded, the smile still there on his face when she did. His hands were in her hair again, shifting it off her shoulders and away from her face where her natural cowlick stubbornly forced it to fall. He dropped his eyes to hers; her head cradled in his palm. "What has you so distracted?"
"You." The confession spilled from her mouth like it burned to keep it there, and she couldn't help but laugh. "Obviously."
Jareth hummed, his eyes leaving hers to dance across her features, dutifully checking his work. His fingertips rubbed her scalp slowly as he considered his final touches. The intimacy of it was also new, a small test. She allowed it, leaning her head back into his massaging fingers.
One hand slipped from her head, leaving the other to hold her in place. "I would have assumed the novelty of me had diminished by now." Jareth closed his teeth on the tip of a leather-clad finger and tugged the glove off, his feral eyes trained on her face.
It thrilled her to see that wildness in him. The unpredictability of it had initially drawn her, how unfathomably inhuman he was. She'd learned to adapt to how he could turn the mood in a breath. He wasn't unfathomable anymore; he was endearing. Still dangerous, she knew, but genuine affection had her smiling when she said, "The novelty, maybe."
Her eyes tracked his exposed hand as he dug into a cosmetics bag. She had seen him ungloved twice before—once in her early twenties when she'd been shamelessly hungover upon his early morning arrival. He'd interacted with her for less than a minute before decidedly heading to the kitchen, where he made her a greasy breakfast. Sarah had always regretted that she had felt too sick and sorry for herself to pay closer attention to his bare hands at the time, not realizing his naked fingers were a rarity.
Years later, an unfortunate bat had gotten trapped in her apartment. Sarah had watched as Jareth cradled it to his chest, soothing the injured animal with gentle touches and words she couldn't understand. His fingers were bone-white in the moonlight and stretched wide when he released the healed bat—ready to catch his new friend should it tumble back to earth before its time. Sarah had made sure to stare, unsure if she'd get the chance again. but she couldn't shake the feeling she had glimpsed more than she had intended to. The kind of more that stirred emotions she wished away by rote.
"Then what is it?" Jareth's tone was casual, but she knew he was baiting her—or at best, fishing for more compliments.
Sarah considered her answer. She was experienced enough with Jareth to know that he could make this harder on her if he wanted to. His questions could be more direct, the traps less avoidable. As savvy as she was, she was certain he was skilled enough to force the truths he wanted out of her. He never did.
She opted for honesty and shrugged, hyper-aware of his fingertips still gliding in her hair. "We aren't usually this close."
Jareth canted his head, a playful smile spreading. "The makeup was your idea, Sarah. Surely you didn't expect me to leave room for the gods between us. Is our proximity too much for you?"
"I didn't say it was too much, but I didn't climb onto the counter myself either. I brought a chair in here for a reason." Sarah's protests sounded hollow even to her. If she had wanted to be anywhere else, she'd had plenty of chances to move.
Jareth huffed with mock offense. "I am taller than you, and I refuse to hunch. This arrangement is much more suitable if I am to pay my posture any respect."
"Such an opportunist," she accused, mimicking his huff.
"Really, Sarah. If that were true…" He let the statement hang there, unfinished. The pad of his thumb brushed beneath her bottom lip and pressed there. "Open."
That first touch of his naked skin made her feel like a marionette on strings. It was barely there, but it obliterated any ability to further whatever point she had been trying to make. Sarah was too focused on how she couldn't prevent her breath from puffing out against his face with him so close and her lips apart.
Jareth's thumb left her chin, and his hand returned with a dark lip liner. He traced her cupid's bow like he had the shape of it memorized. Like he could have sketched her lips with his eyes shut.
"And, I'd like to point out," he continued, as though Sarah was still participating in whatever conversation they had been having. "You are not where I put you."
She'd been staring at him, she realized belatedly, and he was grinning in a self-congratulatory way that tore her from her trance. Her thumbs stilled on his hips where they had been drawing mindless patterns as she turned over his words.
Sarah took stock of herself all at once. Not only were her hands not where she had left them the last time she'd thought to check in with them, but she had dragged herself forward and tightened her legs to hold him.
With the awareness of how open she was to him came the sudden impulse to rock forward just a little bit. She wanted to see what kind of state he was in, but she refused to drop her eyes. Instead, she held his gaze, sure that a fleet of emotions had played across her face as Jareth watched her unravel and then pull herself back together.
"You're right," Sarah said before pressing her thumbs into his flesh again. An admission in the small squeeze. "I'm not."
Jareth made a pleased sound that sent a shudder straight to her core. She could sense his mind flitting through possible responses like shuffling cards as he stared at her. He seemed to settle on saying nothing at all, ostensibly content with the closeness that Sarah had confessed to initiating.
She suspected he was being strategic rather than giving her grace.
His bare hand was back, a fingertip smoothing a dark purple cream on her lips. His mouth was slightly open as though unconsciously mirroring her. Jareth lingered, his strokes on her lips something close to worship, and all Sarah could think about was how badly she wanted him to slide his finger across the scrape of her teeth and onto her waiting tongue.
"Well?" Sarah asked when his hand finally dropped away. She winced internally over how shaky her voice sounded—like she hadn't used it in years.
Jareth scanned her face, evaluating his work, and hours seemed to pass in the time it took for him to meet her gaze again. When he did, she sensed that he had weighed his options and knew what words to say—he was debating whether or not he was going to say them.
His eyes dropped to her lips again before flicking back to hers. "I want to make a mess of it."
He was so close. It felt like he had poured the words into her open mouth. The ones he had spoken and the ones he hadn't.
Let me.
It wasn't hard to imagine what he would look like if she did; that wildness that Sarah loved, purple paint smeared on his face, his teeth, his cock. The edging throb in her cunt pulsed, and her quick exhale was almost a moan.
His grin was a flashing thing, her sound a small triumph he wasn't above acknowledging. The expression on his face was all dare and had her fingers itching to leave the safety of his hips to explore him. To pull him closer.
Jareth had never been one to shy away from flirting with her. His advances were always cloaked in innuendo or a half-joke. This was different. This was a let-there-be-no-mistaking-my-meaning statement of intent that sent a burst of adrenaline rushing through her system.
He'd handed her the baton an inch away from the finish line. He'd sent up a plane with a trailing banner that read, 'KISS ME, DUMMY!'
As Sarah struggled to control her body's reactions, more unspoken things flooded her mind as if he'd said them plainly:
Make your move.
It would be so good.
For a moment, she was sure neither of them breathed. She could only hear the creak of leather in her hair as Jareth's fingertips continued their mesmerizing massage. It would be such a simple thing to close the space between them and feel his lips on hers, but she knew that nothing else would be simple after that boundary was crossed. Still, Sarah wanted it more than anything. Wanted him more than anything.
She wanted to fall into whatever this could be and let it take them deeper.
Jareth's eyes were dark as he watched her, his lips parted in welcome. "Sarah," he purred, breath feathering her face. "Breathe." Fingers tightened in her hair, and Sarah let out a sharp gasp of surprise. His smile bordered on sinister, but there was warmth in his eyes.
Sarah felt on fire and frozen at the same time, overly aware now of trying to breathe normally while her heart was a battering ram against her ribs. Jareth's hand on the back of her head held her there, suspended in the moment. His thumb brushed the shell of her ear, and she shivered.
Jareth stepped back from her when she made no move to kiss him and gestured toward the mirror. "Look for yourself."
This was a familiar game he played with her, presenting her with a moment to choose and then floating away from her abruptly when she went with inaction. Jareth respected her and her choices—that much was clear after years of similar, though less heated, interactions—but he wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to play with her at least a little bit.
Sarah had fed herself a myriad of reasons for why she hadn't crossed into the point of no return, which was what giving in to what they both wanted would be. Out of all of her excuses, though, there was only one truth: Sarah was afraid that it would unbalance the friendship they had carefully grown.
It still baffled her that they had become friends at all, considering their history and all of the misunderstandings that came along with it. It had taken years to build the easy trust they shared now, and she needed that more than kisses.
Even so, her restraint slipped a little more each time she found herself trapped in a potent moment like this with him.
She twisted to look at her reflection, and her breath caught in surprise. Not at seeing Jareth's distinctive designs on her eyelids, her sweeping brows, or the cutting contour of her cheekbones. Or all the glitter. She'd expected as much, but she hadn't anticipated her expression.
"I look…" Sarah trailed off, something she didn't typically do, but all her brain offered as she stared at her face was:
Aroused.
Needy for something within my reach that I won't accept.
Like anyone giving me a cursory glance could correctly guess that I am soaking through my panties.
"Like royalty," Jareth supplied, and for a brief moment, Sarah thought he had rescued her from naming her observations. Then he added, "You've also managed to look touch-starved and thoroughly fucked. Impressive."
Sarah didn't argue. It more than accurately summed up her appearance, and she liked that his tone was teasing again. Even though he never punished her for not meeting his advances halfway, it was still a relief when the 'we're good' moment would inevitably follow after. Usually, it would come in the form of Jareth saying something blunt, disarming, and thinly veiled as a joke that wasn't.
"I have, haven't I?" Sarah agreed, looking thoughtful. "It must be my acting skills. That would only explain half of your assessment, though. I'll let you wonder which half."
She admired the unfamiliar seductive smile her reflection was wearing. It was an odd thing, she thought, to learn her face could produce such a smile that was pure siren song. Especially with Jareth still so unnervingly close in what Sarah was now sure was the smallest bathroom in the ever-expanding universe.
"You didn't put color on my lips," Jareth complained after catching his reflection. He began rifling through her lipstick options.
Sarah took the bag from him. "Let me choose. That Fanta Lip Smackers you were wearing at the end of my run was at least eighty percent of why I said the words, you know." Sarah felt Jareth stiffen, and she froze for a moment—the sudden change in the atmosphere heavy. She almost regretted it. Almost. She continued looking through her lipstick collection before selecting a dark matte blue.
When she looked at his face, his eyes were chips of ice. He watched her coolly as she applied the color, and Sarah was overly aware of the turning wheels in his head that she had purposely set into motion. When she capped the lipstick, Jareth pressed his lips together expertly to spread the pigment, then cocked his head regarding her. "And the other twenty percent?"
"The 'fear me,' and 'do as I say' bits." Sarah knew she had left out an essential piece of his plea, and it hung between them, unspoken but acknowledged by the narrowing of his eyes.
Love me.
"I see," Jareth drawled, pulling away from her to lean against the doorframe. Sarah felt the abrupt absence of his hips between her knees in a way that made her wish she had paid closer attention to the feel of him there while it had lasted. "Not a single percent for a stolen baby brother?"
Sarah slid off the counter and headed into the hallway, ruffling his feathery head on her way past him. "I had already won. I'm not under the impression that what happened after had anything to do with saving Toby, and I wasn't then, either."
Author's Note:
Thank you CrimsonSympathy for beta reading! 3
'Fade into You' is a song by Mazzy Star
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I hope you enjoyed this! It was going to be a smut one shot and turned into something very different. I have two more chapters of this written so far and a good idea of where I am heading. This WIP has done the thing where Sarah and Jareth are just writing themselves and telling me what their relationship is. So, I'm here for the ride.
WIP Updates: Your Power is Yours to Give -and- Dandelion Tea are NOT abandoned! Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me for my long hiatus. I will find my way back to them. Both stories are still very much living and breathing to me. I have also been thinking about a follow-up to Quicksand, but I'm not there yet.