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Chapter Text

Sarah walked up onto the beach and picked up her towel, panting lightly from her swim.

"I must admit, twenty-first century fashion does have its upsides." Sara groaned and straightened, the towel hanging limp in her hand. She turned to face Jareth, salt water dripping from her hair. She watched as his eyes trailed over her and the bikini she wore. The waves crashed behind her as she draped the towel around her shoulders, pressing the end of it to her cheek and licking saltwater from her lips.

"Stalker."

Jareth smiled, clasping his hands casually behind his back. "You know I always preferred the term voyeur."

"So you admit to being a peeping tom?" she teased.

He gave her an easy smile. "My dear girl, I admit to nothing."

Sarah frowned. "I'm not a little girl anymore Jareth."

He watched her for a moment before letting his eyes trail down below her collarbone once more. "Yes. I can see that."

Sarah glared at him, crossing her arms over her chest. "What do you want Goblin King?" she asked.

"Can I not simply look upon your beauty?" he asked all innocence.

Sarah stepped closer, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Only look? Don't you want to touch?" she said quietly. Jareth looked down at her, beads of saltwater clinging to her supple skin.

"In this case? Not so much." He took a step back and Sarah grinned.

"Ah, that's right. The Fae don't like salt do they?" She took another step towards him, a smile teasing her lips.

Jareth smiled thinly. "Perhaps." Sarah reached for him, but he surprised Sarah when he didn't back away. She let her hand hover over his cheek, a breath away from touching him, watching for a reaction from him, but there was none. He just stood calmly, his eyes watching her in a curious manner, as if wondering what she would do.

Sarah didn't know what the salt would do to him, but she had an idea and despite her teasing she didn't want to cause him pain, so she refrained from letting her fingers trail along the planes of his face, instead keeping them just above his skin.

Jareth watched her as she traced the outline of his features, her eyes following the path of her fingers. He smiled as she reached his lips and paused. He caught her eyes with his own and she hesitated, her cheeks heating.

She dropped her eyes but before she could pull her hand away he trapped her wrist in gloved fingers and brought her palm to his lips, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin there. Sarah's body tingled, her heart leaping in anticipation.

"You will not always be covered in salt little Sarah," he whispered, the words sending puffs of air over her skin. Her eyes slid closed as he brushed a kiss over her palm, the salt burning his lips. When she opened her eyes he was gone.

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She wasn't listening. She hadn't been listening for the past three years and she wasn't about to start now. She couldn't.

Sarah hugged herself more tightly trying to fight off the cold air, but not willing to go back inside. It was too easy in the silence of the house to listen to his whispered words in her ear. At least the crashing of the waves offered some kind of comfort, but sometimes she thought she saw him in the spindrift coming off the waves, especially on days like this when a storm was on the verge of breaking. On days like that there was no escaping him, no matter how hard she tried.

Sarah… His voice tickled at her, like the breeze ruffling the fine hairs on the back of her neck.

She shifted, the wet sand making her toes numb with cold as she stared out at the grey sky.

Sarah, he whispered again, his voice lilting and crashing with the waves.

She could never tell if the voice was coming from inside her head or if it drifted to her on the wind. Maybe it was only her imagination playing some kind of twisted trick on her. - She hoped not, but wouldn't that be better than the idea of him really whispering to her, trying to seduce her back to the Underground?

Hear me.

Sarah shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut and hugging herself more tightly.

"I won't." She couldn't because if she did who knows what she would do. No matter how long it took, she would never listen to the Goblin King. He could make her hear him, but he couldn't make her listen.

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"What do you want from me?"

"Your heart."

Chapter Text

Sarah adjusted herself on Jareth's chest and watched him slip into wakefulness, the sunlight drifting in through the window dancing across his skin and lighting his hair. He blinked groggily, his eyes sweeping slowly across the room and then down at her. A smile graced his lips and he ran a hand over her hair.

"Good morning precious," he whispered, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Sarah smiled and said in a sing song, "Hey baby whatcha say we go pickin' wild flowers?"

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"You can't be serious." Annabeth sat up from where she had been lounging across Sarah's bed a look of disbelief on her face.

"Why not?"

"Well, because-" Annabeth sputtered and Sarah's hands stilled.

"Because it's crazy," Sarah filled in not looking at her friend. Annabeth looked ashamed and blushed, dropping her eyes and fiddling with her hands.

Sarah dropped the shirt she'd been folding on top of her bag. "When I told you about my adventures in the Labyrinth as a little girl I thought you'd believed me." Sarah looked at her with an almost sad expression. "But you didn't did you," she asked quietly.

Annabeth shrugged awkwardly avoiding Sarah's gaze. "I thought it was all just another one of your stories; and I loved it. But I never seriously believed that you believed it."

Sarah turned away and continued packing. "It wasn't just a story Anna." She stared down at the shirt in her hands before glancing at Annabeth out of the corner of her eye. "He's asked me to come back."

"And you're going," Annabeth accused.

Sarah gave an irritable sigh. "Yes, I'm going."

Annabeth stared at her in horror. "You're in love with him." It wasn't an accusation, just a quiet statement of surprise.

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment before nodding. "Yes."

Annabeth frowned. "A bird may love a fish Sarah, but where would they live?" she quoted.

Sarah made a face and turned to look at her, a fist on her hip. "You do know the bird and the fish wind up together at the end of that story right?"

Annabeth looked horrified and clamped her hands over her ears. "No, no spoilers! I can't hear you, la la la! I'm not listening, la la la!" A smile tugged at Sarah's lips.

Annabeth shot her a look before slowly lowering her hands.

"Haven't you already seen it, like, three times?" Sarah asked.

"So? Spoilers are still spoilers," she snapped. Sarah laughed and rolled her eyes but turned back to packing her bag.

When she was done she closed it and pulled on a coat, Annabeth watching from the bed. She bit her lip and fiddled with the bed sheet as Sarah picked up the little crystal resting on her desk. She held it in her hand, a nostalgic smile on her lips.

"Where are you going?" Annabeth pleaded.

Sarah turned back to her and smiled. "To the horizon, where the sea meets the sky." And she vanished in a flash of light.

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Jareth had spotted a curiosity and now that it had captured his attention, he had every intention of finding out what it was. "What is that?" he asked as he stepped forward, sweeping Sarah's dark hair away from her back, exposing the swirling text that stretched across her shoulder blades. She recoiled from his touch as if slapped, but it had been enough. Jareth had seen what was written there, permanently scrawled across her skin: I move the stars for no one. He stared at her through a cool mask of indifference, but inside his heart twisted.

"What have you done?"

Sarah dropped her gaze and tried to move past him. "Nothing. It's just a tattoo." Jareth caught her wrist and jerked her back around. She gave a yelp of pain and curled in on herself with a wince, her hand trembling.

Jareth eased his grip and stared suspiciously at the wrist cuff she was wearing. He'd thought nothing of it earlier, but now he wondered what she was hiding beneath it.

"Don't-" she tried to say but it was too late, he'd already pulled it free, exposing the crisp white bandage beneath.

Jareth glared at her and threw the cuff aside, tearing at the bandage. He was too furious to speak. What had she done to herself?

Sarah trembled and cowered in his grasp as he twisted her arm around to expose the underside of her wrist. Surprise stopped him short. Scrawled across her skin were the words Not long at all staring back up at him. The skin around the words was swollen and inflamed and looked painful.

Flushing, Sarah looked away as if Jareth had just exposed her darkest secret. He took up her other wrist a little more gently and pulled the cuff free, undoing the bandage with care. Sarah tried to hide her other hand behind her back but Jareth caught it up again and held the two side by side, reading the text.

"It's only forever." His words were cold and clipped.

"Not long at all," Sarah finished refusing to look at him.

Jareth turned cold eyes on her. "Why would you do this to yourself? And with my words no less," he demanded.

Sarah looked away. "I don't know."

"That's a lie," he snapped, his cool fingers tightening around her slender wrists. Sarah's eyes flew back up to his face as his fingers tightened. She hesitated; she didn't want to tell him, but she knew he wasn't going to let go until she answered him.

She shrugged awkwardly. "Punishment I guess," she mumbled not looking at him.

"Why?" he asked, an edge of pain making his voice raw.

Sarah looked up at him, her eyes haunted. "Why not?" She searched his eyes. "Is it any less than I deserve for breaking your heart?"

Jareth released her and stepped away, turning his back to her. "You did not break my heart." His tone was mocking. Sarah watched him, tracing the planes of his tense back and shoulders with her eyes.

"Who's lying now?" she asked quietly. He said nothing so Sarah continued. "I guess these are a kind of penance." She stared down at her wrists. "I can look at them every day and be reminded of everything I gave up when I chose Toby." A pang of regret went through her at the thought. "Instead of you," she finished.

"Do you regret it?" Jareth's back was still to her, but he'd tilted his head towards her, listening.

"No," she finally admitted. "And I would choose the same way again." She dropped her head and stared at the floor, knowing she was tearing open old wounds again not only in her own chest but his too; whether he wanted to admit it or not.

She glanced up at him from under her eyebrows. "But I regret losing you." She slowly lowered her eyes back to her wrists and ran a finger over the writing. "Forever can be a long time when you're miserable."

Jareth finally turned and looked at her. "It doesn't have to be." His mask was still in place but there was a wary longing in his eyes. He didn't want to be hurt again, didn't want to be rejected again.

Sarah's palms began to sweat. "I don't deserve it," she said slowly, "but is it too much to ask for to start over?"

"As what?" he asked with a bitter laugh.

Sarah gave another awkward shrug. "Friends?" she finally offered.

"I don't want to be your friend Sarah." The dark look in his eyes frightened her and she swallowed thickly.

"We have to start somewhere." She almost choked on the words and tried not to take a step back at the look in his eyes.

Eventually Jareth smiled. It was a sad, tired smile of someone who'd lived longer than she would ever know, but it was something. "I suppose you're right." He gestured to the table where two glasses and a bottle of wine appeared. He offered Sarah a seat which she took as he poured her a glass of wine. It looked like melted garnets.

Jareth took the seat next to her and raised his own glass. "To new beginnings," he said.

Sarah smiled and took up her glass, tapping it against his. "New beginnings."

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She'd fallen asleep drawing him again, sketches and loose paper scattered across her bed, some falling to the floor in the night. As the sun reached her face she groaned and stretched the light playing over her closed eyelids.

"My, my Sarah. Naked pictures?"

Sarah gave an eep and jumped out of her bed in surprise and fell to the floor in a tangled heap, adrenaline pounding through her veins. If she wasn't awake before she was now. Struggling upright she glared at him from the side of the bed, her hair disheveled and dark circles under her eyes.

Jareth grinned at her, one leather-clad hip resting against her computer desk, the reference images she'd used to draw him still pulled up on her screen.

Sarah blushed scarlet. "What are you looking at those for?" she accused. She scrambled across the bed, leaving crushed paper in her wake. She didn't know what she was more ashamed of, that she had photos of naked men on her computer and that he'd found them, or that she'd used them to draw him.

Either way she slammed the lid of her laptop shut and turned to glare at him, but he'd stepped behind her to the edge of the bed, collecting a few of the scattered drawings, a curious smile on his face.

"Give me those." Sarah snatched the images out of his hands and began collecting the others strewn about her bed and the floor before he could look at those too. Jareth grinned at her as he watched her scramble to hide the drawings, tucking her hair behind her ear out of nervous habit. He'd recognized that the images were of him; all of them.

Sarah refrained from making eye contact with him as she stuffed the drawings into a lower drawer of her dresser, kicking it shut more out of embarrassment than frustration. Jareth lounged across her bed, flipping through one of her sketchbook which was still out, trailing his fingers over the paper. She only prayed her didn't discover the obscene amount of drawings she had hidden in bins beneath her bed.

Sarah didn't dare try to get the sketchbook back from him and instead stayed as far away from him as possible. Knowing the Goblin King something awkward was bound to happen if she tried so she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the far wall.

He smiled up at her, his strange eyes sparkling with mischief. "If you wanted to see me naked Sarah, all you had to do was ask," he teased.

Sarah glared at her bookshelf, her flush burning a trail down her neck. She didn't know why she drew him, she just knew that she did.

It had all started just a few months after her return from the Underground; she couldn't get his face out of her head, couldn't stop thinking about him. The drawings helped to ease the obsession as she'd come to identify it; she didn't know what else to call it.

The sketches had grown more elaborate as she'd grown older. Some were dark, filled with blood and violence, others were much lighter bordering on the edge of being out of character for him and yet she still drew them. One of her favorites was a close up of him lying in the sun taking a nap in a garden somewhere as he leaned against a tree. He looked so serene.

Jareth's smile fell from his face as he came across a certain drawing within the book. She knew which one it was because it was the one that drew the same reaction from her every time she saw it. She'd drawn it in charcoal, not graphite which made it all the more frightening to her mind with its deep shadows and heavy contrast. It was filled with blood and lust inspired by a nightmare she'd had. It had woken her in a cold sweat.

Both figures were nude and standing in a dark room, torchlight illuminating them. A woman who looked strikingly like Sarah was lying across a stone alter with her heart cut out before the figure of the Goblin King who held her heart in his hands. She stared out at the viewer with hollow eyes, her hand reaching out, even in death, as if for help. The Goblin King leered out at the viewer, his body slick with her blood, bits of her heart stuck in her teeth and clinging to his lips and chin.

The dream had terrified Sarah and even now she couldn't flip past it without feeling a chill; she didn't know why she didn't just burn it. She'd tried to on several occasions but just couldn't bring herself to do it and instead wound of closing the sketchbook and doing something else.

Looking at it Jareth appeared to be as disturbed by the image as Sarah felt. "Is this how you really see me Sarah?" He sounded almost as hurt as he did angry.

Sarah huffed and marched over to the bed offended that he would think she was so afraid of him. He was frightening true, but she had never been afraid that he'd hurt her.

"Of course not." She pulled the sketchbook out of his hands and sat down next to him, flipping through the pages to the drawing of him sleeping in the sun that she loved.

"I drew this too, but it doesn't mean that I think you're a helpless kitten either." She tossed the sketchbook at him and he picked it up, examining the drawing. "It was a nightmare, nothing more." She glared at him, lounging back against her pillows. "Don't take it so personally," she muttered.

"That still doesn't explain why you've been drawing me. And naked of all things." She could hear the teasing note in his voice and despised it. "How long has this been going on?"

Sarah ground her teeth. "If you're going to mock me I'm not going to answer any of your questions."

Jareth was still smiling. "You have to admit it is rather amusing."

She turned on him. "You think this is funny? How about you try obsessing over someone for six years, having to tolerate the compulsion to draw them over and over again for just as long.

"It's nothing but insanity," she snapped. She was furious. How dare he mock her for something she had no control over. He'd invaded every aspect of her life and now he was mocking her for it. She turned away from him and glared at the wall. "You have no idea what this is like," she hissed.

"Oh but I do precious, I simply don't relieve it by drawing."

"No, you spy on me with those damn crystals of yours."

Jareth shrugged, nonplused by her accusations. "You said so yourself, it is a compulsion and there is no point in fighting it." He seemed almost pleased.

"And what reason would you have to obsess over me?" She laughed bitterly.

"I could ask you the same thing." His head lolled to the side and he ginned at her for a moment before returning to flipping through her sketchbook.

Sarah gave a half crazed laugh. "I thought the answer to that was obvious. You were the embodiment of everything I wanted as a girl, didn't you know that?" She looked at him and shook her head. How could he have not known that? "You were dark and seductive and dangerous, but you never dared hurt me." A flicker of pain ran across her face and she turned away again.

"Others have done worse." She pursed her lips at the memories of all her bad boyfriends as she struggled to find someone like Jareth in the Aboveground, but she'd never succeeded. Part of her had always known she wouldn't, but she'd been desperate to forget him so she tried anyway.

"But not you. You let others do it for you," a fact for which she was not pleased, "but you never directly laid a hand on me." It had taken her a long time to realize that, but now that she knew it the fact was glaringly obvious. He'd frightened and intimidated her as a little girl, but he'd never done anything to really harm her.

"A fact that I deeply regret I assure you." Jareth's voice was sober with no trace of the mockery that had been there before as he stared down at her sketches. Sarah wondered what exactly he meant, but wasn't sure she wanted to know.

She'd dreamed of touching him for years, letting him touch her, of being with him, and now with him so close she wanted that more than ever and it frightened her. She had to get off the bed before she was unable to keep her hands to herself. She'd run her fingers over the contours of his body in her drawings so many times that she was no longer embarrassed by what she drew, but now she was sorely tempted to discover what his body really looked like under all those clothes and suddenly she felt horribly embarrassed.

She rolled away from him, making to rise from the bed when he caught her by the back of her shirt and yanked her back down. She gasped in surprise and found herself staring up at his mouth, so close she almost moaned with the agony of being unable to taste him. She drug her lower lip through her teeth as she stared up at him and sunk further into the mattress trying to hide either from him or from the thought of what she wanted to do to him.

"Are you frightened of me?" he asked, the laughter back in his voice.

Sarah stared up at him, taking a moment to find her voice. "It would be very wise to be." Her voice came out far more hoarse that she'd meant for it to and she swallowed thickly.

Jareth chuckled and she felt the vibration on her back through the bed. The sound sent shivers down her spine and she felt goose bumps prickle on her arms, racing across her chest and sending chills racing up her legs. She'd hoped he wouldn't notice but she had no such luck.

He lowered his head to whisper in her ear and Sarah's chest heaved, her hands fisting in the sheets. A breathy gasp came from her throat as his breath caught in the shell of her ear.

"Cold?" he whispered. She tried to speak around the lump in her throat, but then he kissed her ear, flicking her tongue across the tender skin there and she moaned instead, a hot flush once again coloring her fair skin. She could feel him smile into her hair as he reached up, trailing gloved fingers over the expanse of chill skin on her chest from the hem of her shirt just above her breasts up to her collarbone and over her throat, his thumb drawing small circles over her jaw.

Her eyes fluttered shut at his touch and she shivered at the feel of the leather against her skin, arching her back into his touch. She gasped in surprise as he pressed on open mouthed kiss, hot and possessive, against her parted lips. He ran his tongue along her mouth, taking her breath and then pulling away suddenly, leaving her trembling and gasping for air. She moaned, mourning the loss of his mouth against hers.

She could hear the laughter in his words as he spoke. "Until next time dear one." His voice echoed through her room and when she opened her eyes he was gone.

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Sarah stood on the edge of the parapet between the stones, her tattered skirt swirling around her legs as Jareth came up behind her. She smiled in spite of herself, staring out at the setting sun.

"Thinking about jumping?" he asked softly.

"What for? It won't kill me right?" Laughter lilted in her voice and she shrugged, keeping her back to him. "So what's the point?"

Jareth watched her, the sun caught in her dark hair, highlighting every strand as the wind made it dance. She spread her arms to the sun, arching her back and freeing her mind. Jareth was captivated by the way her body moved beneath her skin, at her grace and the power she'd gained from the Labyrinth. It saddened him to see her so changed.

She turned to face him then, a gentle smile on her face. "Why jump?" she whispered, the sun casting black and gold shadows across her face. A strange light was in her eyes that Jareth didn't quite care for. "Why not?" she teased.

Jareth watched in horror as Sarah took a graceful step backwards and over the edge of the parapet. He lunged for her but it was too late and he stared down at her smiling face as she fell. She held his eyes him until the moment she hit the ground.

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Jareth sighed as the door to Sarah's room closed behind them. Really, her wardrobe was getting out of hand. The red dress she'd chosen to wear tonight was set wide across her shoulders and plunged down to her waist, the back of it stretching just as low. The satin clung to her skin like spider silk and it was painful to try and look away from her. He'd eventually stopped trying; unfortunately so had everyone else in the room.

"Really Sarah, if you're going to dress like that you might as well walk around naked." She was leaving nothing to the imagination and though part of him was pleased by the view another part was horrified. He hated that the others stared at her like he did. What's worse, she knew it. She did it deliberately.
Sarah gave him a coy look.

"Well, if you insist." And before Jareth could stop her she'd pulled the narrow straps from her shoulders and the silken garment fell to the floor.