Chapter Text
What's said was said.
What's said was said, and Sarah's words were still spinning in Jareth's head, dappling his mind and scoring his throat like Sarah's nails down his back.
"I'm yours."
Hours had passed, but he still hadn't caught his breath since she'd stolen it. Hadn't had the reprieve needed to let the words sink into his marrow, but they were fizzing in his bloodstream like a drug as Sarah moaned beneath him.
She's mine.
When there was enough of himself to spare he thought he might weep about that. He'd yearned for her for so long with so much of his being that the emotion waiting on the edges of this evening might drown him entirely.
But right now he was hypnotized by Sarah's hair fanning across the floor, the muscles of her back tensing every time he rutted into her, her hips high, her face pressed to the velvet cushion he'd placed beneath her, his left hand over her right, their fingers linked in a tight grip above her head.
Mine…
Sarah squeezed hard, her breath ragging again, the muscles of her core cinching tight around him and Jareth groaned as she broke around him, quivering and shivering and moaning his name as he allowed himself to let go with her, collapsing across her back with a gasp. She convulsed from the sudden electric feeling of his chest against her back, nerve endings sparkling.
It was very nearly daybreak, and he'd lost count of how many times they'd crossed that glowing threshold into oblivion, never a single moment where her skin hadn't been pressed against his in some way or another.
"I think I might pass out," Sarah murmured, smiling weakly as he carded a hand through her hair away from her face.
There was a dark mark on her neck from his teeth as he'd held her against one of the ballroom's pillars, penny-sized bruises on her thighs from where he'd gripped her, pressing her into the marble. If he flexed his back he could feel the welts scoring his shoulder blades from where her free hand had dragged across his skin countless times.
He'd kiss every bruise later. If she were amicable he would bath her skin and comb the tangles from her hair too, and comfortably admit those were purely selfish desires, just parcelled up in princely manners. His greed for her was unfathomable.
But she was his now, so maybe that greed could be reframed as devotion, that vice now a virtue.
"Not yet, love."
He cupped her face, bringing her mouth to his, kissing her back towards consciousness. Even the Sweet Nettleviolet's properties were beginning to weaken, and Sarah's eyes were so heavy-lidded as to be almost closed.
"Again?" she asked, still panting, and Jareth grinned, casting an eye to the pale light outside the ballroom window slowly filling the sky with gold.
Minutes, maybe, before night slipped fully into morning.
"Yes," he answered, nuzzling into her neck.
Once more before they could simultaneously crash into unconsciousness. He was still hard inside her, her walls still pulsing around him, and he dragged her down into him, hitching her leg to turn her over so he could melt back into her embrace.
It was more comfortable to hold the hand bound to his own against the floor, pinned by her head. The ribbon had at points been tricky to work around, but he knew he would miss it once it evaporated on the first rays of daybreak.
Sliding deep inside her, he moaned just as Sarah did, her back arching off the floor, but he kept it gentle. Half movements and soft grinding, aware of how swollen she was around him, how achingly tender.
He braced himself on his forearms above her, keeping her dazzled with deep kisses, a hand cupping her cheek as she moaned into his mouth. Her feet hooked over his calves and as the head of his cock dragged across a spot that had previously had her howling, her thighs hugged his hips desperately, the muscles in her legs vibrating as she gasped out a curse.
Jareth smiled to himself, watching as her eyes tightened, her fingers scrabbling to be let into the spaces between his. She was such a wonderfully easy thing to please.
She was building too fast though, if the light from the window was any judge. A few more minutes only but he wanted her to break when the tie finally broke. When the spell finally had its due.
He slowed, and she growled, immediately frustrated, eyes flashing.
"Jareth!" she pleaded, the nails of her free hand biting into his bicep.
"Patience," he whispered, wrapping an arm beneath her to deepen the bend of her spine. "Hold on a little longer, precious."
She gasped as the roll of his hips forced her onto that edge again, but the cruelly slow rhythm kept her trapped on the brink.
Gold started to fill the room, reflecting off every crystal in the chandeliers, in the mirrors, the abandoned glasses, the strewn tinsel. And Jareth turned his head to the skyline.
Seconds.
He bore down on Sarah, capturing her mouth as she screamed, holding her tight enough to crush the air out of her lungs.
"Now," he demanded breathlessly.
She howled, her spine arched in a dramatic bend and the ribbon shattered in glittering particles of magic. He came with her, clinging frantically to her, lips pressed to her neck as she shuddered beneath him, her hand buried in his hair.
Mine.
Her eyes were almost closed when he finally pulled back from her, a tiny sliver of sight still holding out against unconsciousness, and as he brushed the hair back from her face she fell into it.
Muscles sore and practically creaking, he scooped her up and laid her down on the chaise. He curled into her side as he pulled a blanket of fleece and owl-down out from beneath the chaise, spreading it over them and tucking in tight alongside her.
"I love you."
Jareth blinked, gaze fixing on Sarah's face, half hidden under her hair and an arm thrown over her eyes.
He might have misheard. It could have been only a sigh.
But as he reached up a hand to cup her cheek she nuzzled into it, her breathing lengthening out into slumber.
He leaned in closer and whispered it back into the tangled tresses of her hair before letting sleep take him too.
"Aww… dey do look sweet togever, don't dey?"
With pained slowness, Jareth cracked an eye open, squinting into the bright midmorning light.
And was greeted by a multitude of goblin faces staring down at him. One such face had the jagged smile line of a crocodile, decorating the unfortunate overall countenance of an elderly walnut.
Oh, Lords…
"Lóhri," he huffed, covering his eyes with a hand as he attempted to pull himself together with a weary sigh. "That is entirely too close for this early in the day."
"'Pologies, sire," Lóhri muttered and wriggled back a half inch as Sarah let out a groan that filled the ballroom, rolling to bury her face in Jareth's side and wriggle deeper into the blanket. "We was jus' wond'ring if you two luv birds might be wantin' breakfast?"
"Coffee," Sarah croaked into Jareth's rib cage before he could respond, her eyes still screwed shut. "All of it."
"And fer eats?" asked Yâlda, her mushy goblin face propped up on clawed hands. Her potato sack was freshly creased.
"I don't care, but the main ingredient should be grease," replied Jareth, pinching the bridge of his nose and massaging the tips of his fingers across his eyeballs, attempting to counter the headache blossoming in his cranium. "Now, go away."
He felt rather than heard the flurry of commotion as the malignity tumbled out, but a last goblin presence lingered.
Jareth rolled his head towards it.
"Yes?"
"Jus' lastly, sire," Tojî whispered at regrettably full volume. "Lady Ros'en and der Knight Liora have taken the honeymoon suite."
Jareth frowned. "I don't have a honeymoon suite."
"Well, you ain't got an armory now, neither," said Tojî, abandoning the pretext of whispering. "There's been magics happenin'. New boudoirs's pretty fancy-like."
Jareth chuckled dryly. "Wonderful. Send them their own grease basket."
"Sire," responded Tojî, and a moment later the ballroom doors clicked shut again.
Sarah stirred from under the blanket, raising herself far enough to lay her head on Jareth's shoulders.
"Hello again," she rasped, preening as he slid a hand into her hair.
"Hello again," he purred, running his lips over her temple. He let magic crackle from his fingertips since there was so much of it to waste now, and she hummed under his touch.
"The ritual worked, huh?"
"Perfectly."
He buried his face in the crook of her neck, slipping down until he was wrapped around her, his legs cradled by hers, arms wound around her waist.
"I guess you won't need me again for another decade?" Sarah asked, chuckling as his hands stroked possessively down her shoulders, easing the tension out of the muscles in her back.
"My Sarah," he sighed, pulling her into a deep kiss that made him ache anew. "I'll always need you."
Fin.