Fade into You: Chapter 16 - You And Your Sun
Jareth's hands tensed on the picnic table as he assessed Flit. "Is everyone alright?" was his first question, and Sarah warmed at the concern in his voice.
Flit harrumphed. "Yes, but—"
"I told you I would be unreachable this weekend," he reminded her after exhaling a relieved sigh. "What is so urgent that has you bursting forth onto our cheese plate?"
Flit planted her fists on her hips in an indignant pose that Sarah immediately recognized. She did her best not to laugh—a task that was proving much more difficult in person—when her mind idly wondered if Flit had picked up the habit from Jareth, or visa versa.
"Does something need to be urgent for a castle to require its King?" Flit demanded with nasally impudence.
Jareth lifted a brow as his head tilted. "Are you reporting that the hands I left said castle in are not capable?" he queried, a playful edge in his voice.
The little goblin scoffed an affronted scoff, and Sarah had the distinct impression it was Flit's hands he was referring to.
"I'm not saying that," Flit answered grumpily.
"I see," Jareth drawled, feigning boredom. He took a casual bite of a hand pie, taking the time to chew and swallow before asking. "What, precisely, are you saying, then?"
"I'm saying," Flit began, already exasperated. "Regardless of how capable one's hands are, there's only so much anyone who isn't you can take."
"Ah. It's Curd," Jareth supplied, relaxing a little. "This is all about Curd."
"It's not all about—well, yes, fine, it is largely about Curd," Flit admitted. "She's taken to secreting herself away and then surprise-scaring the life out of whoever happens to be existing nearby." The little goblin mimed what Sarah could only assume was her best impression of a raccoon leaping out with teeth and claws bared.
Jareth looked like he was trying to conceal a smirk. "Why do I suspect that the person existing nearby is most often you?"
Flit scowled and pointed a finger at him. "Don't look so pleased with yourself. You never should have taught her how to play hide and seek."
"She may have overgeneralized it a bit," Jareth agreed regretfully, though the curve of his lips betrayed him.
"A bit," Flit said in clipped tones.
"I'll speak with her when I return home," he told her, his tone suddenly solemn.
She squinted at him warningly. "You say that like you're not coming home now."
Jareth smirked. "Oh, I'm having too much fun to leave."
Her orange eyes bulged. "But—"
"You must try funnel cake," he said before scooping some onto his fork and airplaning it to her.
Flit, not to be distracted, shooed him away with her tiny clawed hands.
"I'll be home tonight," Jareth swore, his fork hovering menacingly.
"Tonight?" Flit squawked. "But that's—"
Jareth's hand darted forward. Flit snapped her beak shut but he was too quick for her, popping the bite into her mouth.
She glared. And chewed. And one of her little scaly eyebrows raised. "That's delicious," she allowed around the mouthful.
"I know," Jareth said with a dreamy sigh. "So you see my predicament."
"A bit more clearly, yes," Flit conceded as her goat-like gaze swung to Sarah. "Though I think it has more to do with present company."
Sarah's cheeks heated as she became suddenly aware of her outstretched wrist still laying flat on the tabletop, fingers splayed as though grasping for Jareth. She pulled her hand into her lap self consciously.
"Ah, right. Introductions," Jareth said, suddenly fiddling with his napkin. Sarah could have sworn there was a current of nervousness in his voice. "This is—"
"I'm Sarah," Sarah asserted. "It's so nice to meet you, Flit."
The corners of Flit's beaky mouth twitched into something resembling a half-smile. "Sarah," she greeted with the mildest of curtsies. "Finally." She didn't sound unkind, but there was a note of blame behind the word.
Jareth groaned. "Don't start in on the poor woman," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers.
Flit sucked air through her beak scoldingly. "It's not Sarah I should start in on." Her horizontal pupils narrowed on Jareth. "It's you. Coming and going whenever you please and never bringing her to meet your family."
"That's my fault," Sarah confessed, her heart clenching—both from how Flit had said family and the assumption Jareth was in and out of her life only on his terms. "He's asked me to visit. I…" she trailed off and glanced at Jareth blankly.
"Flit," Jareth said as his ankle rubbed Sarah's reassuringly beneath the table. "Sarah knows she is a welcomed guest whenever she so chooses."
"Oh," Flit said with a new gentleness. "Well. I'd be happy to host you, Sarah." She cast a sly eye at Jareth. "I've heard so much about you."
She'd expected Jareth to rebuke Flit for such a statement, but he was smiling when Sarah looked over at him.
"Have you?" Sarah asked, feeling her own smile tugging at her lips.
"So very much," Flit said teasingly, her gaze still fixed on Jareth. "I could tell you all sorts of things about him, too. To make it even."
Sarah giggled. She decided she adored this cantankerous, meddling goblin.
"Alright," Jareth interjected with a chuckle. "Let's not—"
"Woah, kid!" crowed a voice from behind Sarah.
She turned to see the group of teenagers from earlier meandering towards their picnic table. She'd been so enthralled by meeting Flit that she hadn't even considered she might attract the attention of fair-goers.
"Sweet goblin costume!" Another teen chimed in.
"Goblin?" Flit squeaked as Sarah asked, "Costume?" and Jareth complained, "Kid?"
The teenager frowned and looked at Jareth. "Yeah… you said you were the Goblin King."
Jareth relaxed. "I did say that, didn't I?"
Flit looked scandalized. "You said what?!" she whisper-screamed, her hand unhelpfully cupping her mouth in the wrong direction.
Her tone was so sharp and chiding that one of the kids took a step back in surprise. Another grabbed her friends by the arms and started to lead them away.
"I told them the truth: I am the Goblin King," Jareth said calmly as the teens wandered off. "Fitting, as we are at a costume-themed event."
Flit blinked at the teenagers, dressed as various steam-punk characters, and then more broadly at the patrons around them. "They think I am your child in a goblin suit." She shuddered. "That's horrifying on so many levels."
"Agreed," Jareth said, grimacing.
They were quiet for a moment. Flit's eyes darted around the fair nervously before she said, "I probably shouldn't be here."
"You really shouldn't," he told her with the patient grin of someone awaiting another to arrive at their desired conclusion.
"I should go," Flit admitted wistfully, as though being asked to stay.
Jareth nodded sagely. "If you must."
"You." She pointed a threatening finger at him again. "Tonight."
"Tonight," Jareth promised her.
"And you." Flit turned to Sarah. "I hope I see you soon," she said, and with a comparatively discreet pop, was gone.
Sarah glanced around, but no one seemed to have noticed Flit's sudden disappearance. When her eyes met Jareth's, she caught the strangest expression on his face before it melted into impassivity—something like excitement and anxiety all rolled into one.
"Well," Jareth said, shrugging. "That was Flit."
"I love her," Sarah blurted, grinning.
He looked surprised. "Do you?" He seemed to ponder that for a moment then sighed. "As do I."
"Come on," she said. "You should see the rest of the faire before we leave."
They strolled around the patchwork of booths and pop-ups, and Jareth found a new hobby in pointing out various historical inaccuracies to Sarah in conspiratorially low tones only she could hear.
They stopped under a large tent selling jewelry. Jareth was off, immediately driven by the need to inspect and touch everything shiny. Sarah wandered through the tent and found herself at the back where copper wire-wrapped charms hung in front of a mirrored display. A pair of necklaces caught her eye—a sun and a moon.
She touched the moon, a deep purple crescent carved from smooth, tumbled amethyst. Her fingers strayed to the sun necklace—carnelian, a rich burnt orange with gold and red flakes. Copper designs framed it with twists and curls radiating outward.
Sarah picked up the necklace and held it out, letting rays of light shine through the spherical stone. She smiled to herself, her thoughts straying to Jareth's fingers on her wrist in times of comfort, spreading like the warmth of the sun.
"It's beautiful," Jareth commented from behind her. His long, gloved fingers slid the necklace from her hands and draped it around her neck before deftly clicking the clasp closed.
He'd chosen the shortest loop. The pendant glowed a beautiful deep orange from the hollow of her throat.
Jareth's fingertip trailed along the excess chain that hung from the back of her neck and Sarah shivered. She wanted to tell him she'd been thinking of him when she saw the necklace, but the words stuck in her throat as he touched the pendant, then traced a finger below her collarbone.
Something about watching their reflection as he touched her had her heart beating wildly. She could see the pulse in her neck thrumming against the necklace chain.
"Would you wear it?" he asked, his breath warm at her nape.
Sarah's eyes cut to his.
"As a token of affection between friends," he said, hugging her from behind and giving her a chaste kiss on the cheek before releasing her. "Nothing binding or anything so predictable."
Sarah laughed and leaned back into him before he could pull away. "Stay," she said to his reflection.
Jareth flashed her a grin as his arms slid back around her. He perched his chin on her shoulder. "It suits you, you know."
She covered his arms with her own and leaned her head on his. "How so?"
"You're constant," he told her.
"Stubborn, you mean," she offered with a smirk.
"Stubborn," he agreed. "And Unconditional. Unwavering"—he nuzzled into her neck and left a lingering kiss against her pulse—"and so warm."
His eyes caught hers in the mirror. "Will you wear it?"
Sarah caught the slight change in how he had asked this time. Will you, not would you—removing the hypothetical from the question.
"I love it," Sarah told him, "But those things describe you more than they do me."
Jareth frowned slightly and Sarah quickly did her best to elaborate. "I was thinking of you when I saw it. It's not the first time you've reminded me of the sun."
His eyes lit up and he turned her to face him. "Is that so?"
"It is," she said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. "I'm much more like the moon, anyway."
"True," Jareth relented. "You're deliciously moody and powerfully grounding." a smile curved his lips. "And you keep me thoroughly in your thrall."
She laughed. "You said I was constant!"
"You are," Jareth told her, his eyes dancing with hers. "Constantly you. Constantly surprising. Constantly inquisitive, and brave, and honest."
"Oh, god," Sarah said in mock embarrassment, though her cheeks were heating. She gestured to the nearly abandoned tent. "You're making me blush in front of all these people."
"Well, one of us should wear the necklace and my vote is you," Jareth remarked, eyeing where it lay nestled at her throat. "I wasn't lying when I said it suited you. The flecks bring out the gold in your eyes."
"You can't lie," she said by rote, though the compliment made her stomach flip.
Jareth's gaze lifted as something caught his attention behind her, and Sarah turned to see his focus was on the amethyst moon pendant.
"Ooo," he cooed, snatching it up. "Treasure."
She eyed him skeptically. "Both?"
"Don't be daft," he scoffed as he maneuvered it under his hair. "This one is for me."
The moon fell to the center of his sternum, a few inches above the pendant he always wore. Both were visible against his bare chest where his shirt was parted.
Sarah was nearly overpowered by a sudden urge to taste the skin there. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to cry. She wanted to look at their reflections as they wore these new little pieces of their hearts around their necks.
Instead, she touched the amethyst at his chest. "It suits you," she told him. "The purple. The shape."
Jareth leveled her with a playful stare. "And the part where it will always remind me of you," he finished.
Sarah smiled through a blush and moved away from him as the clerk approached. "Buyin'?" she asked, a tankard of mead sloshing in her hands.
"Yes," Jareth said, businesslike as he brandished the gaudy watch that had made a sudden reappearance on his wrist. He slipped it off and said, "I propose a trade. The watch for the two necklaces."
Sarah's eyes widened. "Jareth, you can't just haggle—"
"Aye! A bartering!" The clerk cried, seizing the watch and marching off. "Huzzah!"
Jareth slid an I-was-right-and-you-know-it smile at Sarah.
"Huzzah," Sarah cheered with a sheepish grin.
Jareth's eyes glittered as he reached out to touch her sun pendant. "I look forward to seeing this against your naked skin." He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. "Just you and your sun."
Sarah hummed against his mouth, a swarm of butterflies loose in her belly and chest. Her hand slid to his cheek and she held him there, their mouths barely touching. "Are we really committed to this whole three dates thing?" she asked, moving her lips over his.
His palm flattened over her pendant, fingers gently curling around her neck. "Oh," he said before nipping her lip. "Definitely."
She whimpered, sagging slightly in his hold, and Jareth pulled back and smirked at what Sarah knew must have been a crestfallen look on her face. She pouted a very Jareth-like pout, and he leaned back in to kiss it away. The softest slide of his mouth over hers, and Sarah was spinning.
As chaste as this kiss was, it was heavy with mood and meaning. So much had been acknowledged—established between them since last they'd kissed, and she could feel it in the tender press of his lips. In the massage of his fingertips sliding into her hair.
Sarah sighed as he drew away from her. Her eyes felt heavy and hesitant to open. When they did, he was beaming at her with so much affection, her heart teetered out of rhythm.
She smiled and dropped her hand. "We should get going," she told him.
Jareth held her hand on the way to the car, just his pinky clinging to hers. Sarah raced ahead of him when they reached the car, flinging his door open for him with a bow. "Your Majesty," she said, ushering him in.
He curtsied prettily and folded himself into the passenger seat.
Sarah felt his stare follow her as she skirted around her car and climbed into the driver's seat. She turned to him once she settled and clicked her seatbelt on. "What?" He was grinning, and Sarah succumbed to the impulsive urge to grin back. "Why are you smiling like that?"
Jareth touched his moon pendant, his fingers lingering on the stone as he reclined in his seat. "Adoring someone this much is a reason to smile, I think."
A flush crept up her neck and her heartbeat slammed with renewed vigor behind her ribs. She started her car and pulled out of the parking spot and back onto the road. She peeked over at him and said his name. A question and a plea.
"Oh, relax," he told her, flipping a hand at her dismissively. "I said adoring. A safe enough word."
Sarah chuckled. "I adore you, too." She reached a hand across the car and rested it on his knee. "You know that."
"Of course I do," Jareth said, covering her fingers briefly before she pulled away. He busied his hands with carding through their CDs.
"What will we be listening to?" She asked.
Jareth slid her a grin as he pushed a CD into the stereo.
Sarah perked up immediately when the opening notes to 'Seasons of Love' from the Broadway musical Rent began. They sang the well-rehearsed lines passionately trading off verses they had practiced so many times before.
The soundtrack had ended and they were almost home when Jareth popped the CD out. He'd grown pensive, and Sarah glanced over at him. "What's up?"
"Sarah," he said casually. "Why were you so eager to start our drive?"
A secret smile played on her lips. "I need some time to get ready for our date tonight."
Jareth's head snapped over to her. "Our what?"
"Date," she said the word as simply as he'd said it hours before. "Our first official date."
Jareth looked devastated with temptation. "I promised Flit I would return Underground tonight," he reminded her warily.
"You did," Sarah said as she pulled into her parking spot. She took a deep breath and turned to him. "And I'm asking you to take me with you."
A/N:
Thank you, Geliot99 for beta-reading!
Hi, all. It was so much fun writing Flit. I hope you enjoyed her visit!
And all of the relentless fluff.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Your words and support mean so much to me and put the biggest smile on my face.
A few updates:
-I have 3 chapters posted of a new Labyrinth fic called 'Glimpse of Us'
-Geliot99 and I just posted chapter 7 of our Labyrinth fic 'Thirty Days to a Magical Life'