A/N:
This chapter takes place sometime after the events of the last chapter. I'm keeping it ambiguous because dates and times don't matter in this fic, but we can all assume it's at least a different day.
Fade into You: Chapter 5 - Sleeper
Loud, hypnotic drumming. A pulse that thumped and thumped. Hers? His? It was hard to tell with Jareth's heart newly stuffed into her ribcage. Her bones were unused to having so much to protect. They stretched painfully to make room. A perfect stretch, a perfect pain.
It was overwhelming, a sensory storm—almost too much. The creaking leather of searching fingers. Salt on her tongue and something else. A shared moan spilled back and forth between open mouths.
That drumming, still. Louder, urgent. Their bodies pushed and pulled in a rhythm that matched its demanding beat. His scent clung to her, all forest and moss and stone. She could smell herself on him, too. Her shampoo, her sheets, her cunt.
"Perhaps this is an inopportune time to remind you of my unfailing punctuality," Jareth observed from somewhere in the void. Somewhere not in her arms, not insideher. Somewhere that was else.
Sarah frowned, unwilling to surface from the nebulous tides of feeling and touch. She chased after fading flutters, half-lucid and desperate to find release before she—
"Wake up, sleeper," void Jareth sing-songed. His beautiful baritone juxtaposed harshly with what was promising to be a sadistic, decidedly unsexy jingle.
More frowning, her whole face making the effort. This grating, needling Jareth was an unwelcome replacement for the one she'd shared heated whispers with only moments before. Kisses she wanted to remember.
"Sleeper, wake up," grating, needling Jareth continued his terrible tune, though he was less voidy now. He was a few feet away—yet somehow directly in her eardrum. Sarah buried her face into her pillow and cupped the sides over her ears. Oxygen be damned.
His song, only slightly muffled and no less intolerable, carried on. "Wake up, wake up! You've promised me cakes and company!"
Cakes. No promises had been made, but he always wanted cakes. Had she been dreaming? Was she still? Dream Jareth wouldn't waste time on cakes or aggravating songs.
"Sleeper, sleeper." All peaks and valleys. Drawn out e's and r's. Each syllable was the thrust of a rusty saw over her rusty pipe nerves. A confirmation that, yep, she'd been dreaming and no longer was.
A dream she already missed. A dream that Jareth was pouring nightmare fuel all over.
"Stop calling me 'sleeper.'" Face-in-pillow as she was, Sarah's complaint was a stifled growl.
Silence. The kind of silence that stage whispered, I refuse to acknowledge anything you say until you face me. Unsolicited serenade resuming in 5, 4, 3, 2…
The cool air on her skin was a relief as she turned to meet his waiting grin. That impish, gloating grin she knew would be there.
"It's creepy, and I hated it. I hated every second of it," she said hatefully, though her spite sounded forced to her own ears. He was where she wanted him to be. A warmth was already rushing through her like it always did at the sight of him.
In her world and barely fitting in it—square peg, round hole—but here. Real.
Jareth hummed. "The tune is versatile. We could think of a different word." It didn't take him long. "Wake up, precious," he sang experimentally, testing the sound of it.
"Jareth, look at me." An order.
He already was, of course. He always was.
"In my eyeballs," she specified.
Blown-out pupils slid to earnest greens. He looked too pleased with himself, all teeth and glee and concealed cards.
Sarah pointed at him, aiming a nearly visible laser beam of I mean this from fingertip to chest. "Never again."
Not a request. Non-negotiable.
Jareth shrugged an ambiguous shrug and smiled an ambiguous smile.
She was smiling back at him. She wondered if she'd been smiling the whole time. Probably. Damn him.
Her cheek sought a cooler pillowcase corner. "You're early, Goblin King," she said, hoping it was true but suspecting it was not. Sarah had never been praised for promptness. Her concept of time was a slippery thing. Jareth was the moon, the tides, and time itself. Her odds weren't great.
"Am I?" Jareth's knowing smile told of a secret shared between them. "Did I come too soon?" The smile pinched into a disappointed pout.
His sleeve swept back with a practiced flourish like it was a thing he did. The big reveal was a gaudy watch. It looked out of place and ill-fitting around his gloved wrist, made worse by how demonstrative he was being about it. Peering with exaggerated scrutiny at what Sarah imagined were tiny numbers.
"Ten o'clock. You slept in," Jareth declared. The watch disappeared as his hand dropped to rest on his hip, which he jutted forward to emphasize his reprimand.
Sarah followed the movement. That stance. That hip jut. Her attention drifted in a slow perusal. A thorough inventory, just to ensure things were in their proper place.
They were.
Her hips moved, unconsciously seeking friction from something she held tightly between her thighs. A pillow, its presence now uncomfortably still against wet flesh. Her fingers smelled of her own arousal.
Oh, no. No no no.
Jareth tsked at her sympathetically, missing nothing. "Really, Sarah. You are in a state."
"I was asleep," she said. It was both obvious and true, but not enough. Not something he'd let her get away with.
"Oh, I know," he agreed too quickly. "And enjoying what must have been a pleasant dream. Hair matted to sticky skin. Cheeks and mouth flushed with blood." He paused, his face all large, punishing smile. "My name on your lips."
"Liar," she told him, the denial squirming unpleasantly in her belly.
His smile threatened to crack like thunder in a sudden summer squall. "Never."
"Voyeur, then."
"I did wake you," Jareth pointed out, "I could have lingered."
"True," Sarah allowed. "A feather in your chivalry cap."
He considered her, his head a tilted axis planet with a golden halo ring. "Would you have expected me to?"
"To what?" She asked, distracted by the urge to rub her legs together just a little bit. Just enough to ease the discomfort of his absence between them.
"Linger." A test.
Her answer was an easy one that she gave without hesitation. "No. I wouldn't."
Jareth nodded, pleased.
"I'll leave you to it," he announced, heading to the door with purposeful strides. He hovered there, looking at her. Seeing. Just shy of leering. His eyes glittered darkly, daring her to ask him what he could possibly mean by that.
Sarah nestled back into her bedding. She wasn't going to cling to a sliver of hope that Jareth was just letting her catch a few extra z's, but she did make quite a show of getting cozy that bordered on performative. Just in case.
Jareth smiled indulgently. Patient and biding. "I'll be downstairs. Take all the time you need." Fingers drummed on the door frame. Silence. And then, "Oh, and Sarah?"
"Hmm?" She murmured noncommittally, hoping her feigned sleepiness was believable.
"I am not an opportunist."
"Right," she said in her real, awake Sarah voice. Her eyes found his. "I know that."
An understanding passed between them. An acknowledgment of trust.
Jareth nodded again and pivoted to leave. He paused. Fingers drummed again. "Oh, and Sarah?"
She sent him a flat look, unimpressed. "Are you just going to 'Oh, and Sarah?' me into an early grave? Is that the plan?"
He smiled. He waited. Even with a foot in the hallway, he still managed to take up most of her bedroom.
"What is it?" she asked, giving in, though she knew the question set him up.
"Think of me."
A/N:
It's heating up, folks! I hope you're enjoying where this ride is taking us. Please let me know how what you think :) Your comments have made this all the more fun to write. I love learning what made you laugh or feel something, it makes me a stronger author. So thank you!
This chapter was short to accompany the last chapter, which was also relatively short. I'm trying not to worry too much about chapter length consistency and just keep letting this one flow organically.
A note on the timeline: While the dates and times of scenes and chapters aren't always directly sequential, they are linear. That is to say, if there is a flashback or a memory, I will make it clear within the text that that is what is happening. You can assume all chapters occur sometime after the previous one and that it isn't a flashback. I wanted to keep dates and times loose so we can all focus on their friendship and everything else brewing between them (compared to another unposted WIP I am working on where those details matter so much I needed a break from writing it, lol).