The Love Me Not

It had been three (excrutiatingly long) months, six (incredibly dull) days, twelve (dragging) hours, and thirty four (hauntingly boring) minutes (not that she was counting or anything) since Sarah had left her child hood behind in the looming walls of the forbidden Labyrinth. She had been brushing her hair (one hundred strokes a night to keep it nice and shiny) when she heard the clicking sounds of magic altering the fabric of her world.

And Jareth, the King of the Goblins, appeared in her room with a bouquet of oddly colored flowers wrapped loosely in tan cords.

She promptly screamed.

“Sarah, Sarah, SARAH!” Jareth exclaimed, getting louder with each recitation of her name. “Quiet down, or you’ll wake Toby.”

She gaped for a moment or so, gasping for breath with air starved lungs, before she realized how foolish he was being. “I’ll wake the whole house up if you don’t get out of my room, RIGHT NOW!” Sarah said, throwing a brush at his head.

Jareth easily dodged the unlikely weapon and grinned. “Well, I didn’t hear ‘I wish’ in there, so I don’t really have to obey, but you should also know that I came bearing gifts.”

Sarah frowned, and took a step backwards, towards her door. “The kind of gift that requires a child in return?” She asked haughtily. “Why are you here anyways? No one summoned you.” She paused, and then a look of enlightenment swept over her face. “My god! I killed you! You’re a ghost! I killed you, and now you’ve come back to haunt me.” Sarah wailed. “Oh, this is SO not fair!”

The lines of Jareth’s face tightened considerably, and Sarah realized that she had said something very unkind.

“You’re cruel nature aside, Sarah, I will answer your questions: No, you didn’t kill me.”

“But, at the end, when the Escher shattered. . .”

Jareth casted her a cold look. “It was your fantasy. You believed a villain had to die.” His toothy grin was a hint masochistic. “I suppose I fit the role, huh?”

“Listen, I didn’t mean-“ Sarah was interrupted again

“And no, no one summoned me.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m the bloody Goblin King, I can do as I please. Second: I’m here because I thought that I would come and give the little victor a nice parting gift, and finally: no, you don’t need to give me a child.” He plucked one of the iriscident colored flowers out of the bouquet. “It’s only a plant.”

Sarah smiled, sickly sweet. “I have learned a thing or two about your world, Jareth. . . but most importantly I learned that nothing is as it seems.”

“Oh, quit being a little bugger and take the bloody thing.” He said, offering it with a gloved hand.

Sarah cast the flower a scrutinizing look. “Why is it colored so oddly?” She asked, and had to stop herself from collecting the pretty flower.

“It’s a ‘not.’” He said, a smile playing on his lips.

“A not?” She inquired. “Like. . . a forget me not?”

“Not quite.” He smiled at his own wit. “It’s a Love me Not.”

She accepted the gift with shaking hands. “What’s it for, then?” She asked, her eyes making quick trips from the flower to his own, mismatched ones.

“It’s a bit of a game, again, I supposed.” Jareth said with a smile. “You pluck the petals off the flower. . . one for she loves me,” he lifted her clenched fist to his lips and touched them lightly. “And the other one for he loves me not.”

“It’s a magic flower, isn’t it?” Sarah asked, grasped the stem tightly in an effort to hide her quiet quivering. “This flower is from the Labyrinth, isn’t it?”

Jareth lifted one, elegant shoulder in a sweeping motion. “It may be. . . It may be not.”

“What would happen if I plucked a petal?” Sarah asked. “I love you, or you love me not?”

“It is a fairly simple game.” Said Jareth, swirling his cape dramatically around himself as he did a light spin about Sarah. “A simple little fairy game. If you end saying, ‘he loves you not,’ I am bound by the laws of the Labyrinth to never darken your stoop again. However;” and he paused here, because as the Goblin King, he felt that he needed to add a bit of drama to the otherwise too simplistic moment, “if the last petal falls and the words that grace your lips are ‘she loves me,’ then you, too, are bound by laws that you can not even begin to comprehend to come back to the Labyrinth, and rule by my side for a thousand years at least.”

Sarah snorted unfeminine. “A thousand years?” She smirked.

“At least.”

Sarah shook her head. “I’m sorry, but this is too great a risk for me to take, and there isn’t really that much of an award, so I’ll just have to pass.” She thrust the flower back at him. “No thank you.”

Jareth smiled, and magicked the flower away. “Very well, you fascinating little thing.”

Sarah frowned. “That’s it?” she asked. “I expected. . . more from you.”

Jareth shrugged. “Well, I do plan on being here, every hour of every day, in every single moment of the rest of your life, so I don’t think that there’s much worse I could do.”

Sarah paled. “You wouldn’t.”

Jareth only gave her a cryptic grin. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me, really, because the fact of the matter is simple: until you pluck these petals, I’ll never go away.”

It was Sarah’s turn to grin. “Ha!” She said. “Everyone will see you, and then I can just tell them that you’re a creepy guy that’s following me, and they’ll call the cops, and you’ll rot in a jail with a big guy named Bubba, and Bubba will change your name to . . . Barbie.”

“Barbie?” Jareth arched one oddly trimmed brow. “And I suppose he’ll expect me to call him Ken?”

She nodded. “You’re getting the idea!”

“Well, there’s one problem with that scenario: only mortals who had bested the Labyrinth can see me, and since you are the only one. . .” Standing next to her, he wrapped a caped arm around her bare shoulders. “You’re stuck with me.”

One day while walking up the stairs, I saw a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today, oh how I wish he’d go away!

The otherwise nonsensical rhyme looped madly through Sarah’s head as she struggled to ignore the Goblin King, who sat in a conveniently empty desk next to her own, spin crystals madly through his fingers.

“You know Sarah, I could just tell you the answers to that test.” He told her, and began to hum a tune that sounded awfully like Magic Dance.

Sarah flashed him a stony look, but steadfastly refused to talk to him. After all, since no one else could see him, it would just look like she was talking to herself.

He clapped his hands, and the crystals vanished. Leaning over her desk, Sarah tried desperately to ignore the pungent smell of man as he studied her test.

But still, it was impossible. Even the Goblin King saw how her breath hitched a bit. He saw how her eyes darkened considerably, and how her lips parted just a fraction of an inch. He saw.

“Sarah?” Apparently, so had the young boy who sat next to her. “Are you feeling okay? You look a little. . . pale.”

Sarah trembled, trying to think of a proper lie, when she realized her way out. “Oh yes. I’m very ill.” Standing quickly, she ignored the terrible feeling of pins and needles as she stood through Jareth. “Teacher, may I please go to the nurses office? I’m feeling very sick.”

Jareth laughed and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Pretty little Sarah! You lie so eloquently!” He said with a smile. “What sort of nefarious human girl have I gotten myself involved with?”

She barely resisted the urge to tell him that they weren’t involved. But she didn’t bother to resist the urge to hit him in the head with her back pack when the teacher gave her permission to leave.

Jareth was still rubbing his head with a light grin when she came in to the hallway. “I could through a little bubble at you.” Jareth told her, the humor in his eyes taking on a dangerous undertone. “After all, you are feeling so very ill.” Jareth stood before her in the hallway and solidified himself, barring her further advancement. Leaning down, he kissed her brow lightly. “Yes. . . you’re very, very. . .” he paused, searching for the right word. “. . .hot.”

Sarah made a gagging motion with her hand. “Could you think of something a little more original at least?”

Jareth smiled. “You doubt me?”

With a roll of her eyes, Sarah sighed. “I will refrain from answering the obvious question here.” With that, she edged around him and continued down the hallway.

Jareth smiled. “You aren’t tired of me yet, are you?”

Sarah snorted “Hardly.”

He smiled, because they both knew it was almost the truth. “You aren’t beginning to kinda like me a little, are you?”

She snorted again.

He dipped his head quickly to the curve of her neck. “Because I love you.” And with a sardonic laugh, Jareth vanished behind her before she could give him a good tongue lashing.

Which Sarah thought was probably a good thing, because she couldn’t think of anything to say.

Her sanity wasn’t something to be trifled with, he knew all too well, but Jareth was a man who liked to take risks. So at every given opportunity, he pillaged – rummaging through her personals and even managing to pocket a few when he thought she wasn’t looking. Whenever she showed a slip of defense, he teased her in to laughing so gaily her face glowed. And whenever she looked like she was weakening, he offered her a flower from the dying bouquet.

It had only been a week before she began to accept his affections.

She had been sitting on the edge of her bed, and he on the edge of reason, as she bit her lip and stared at him as if he was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.

She released her lip from the torment of her teeth. “I just don’t get you.” She said after a few minutes.

“What’s not to get?” Jareth asked, crossing his arms over his chest and flashing her the most cunning grin he could muster.

“Well, for one,” she said, “I don’t get why you’re hanging around me so diligently. I mean, you’re a king.”

Jareth smiled. “Well, I do believe we’re making progress. You can finally begin to grasp some of my authority.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant, dork, and you know it.” At the raise of his brow, she amended that to, “I think you know it. What about your people?”

Jareth laughed. “The Goblins? They don’t need me. I only drive them in to more chaos.” When Sarah didn’t argue, he frowned. “What?” He asked her, creeping closer to her bed.

Sarah shrugged and stared at him from under her dark lashes. “I can’t argue when your point has no flaws.”

Jareth sighed, and flopped dramatically on to the bed, jostling Sarah a bit until she was leaning in to his shoulder.

“You should be asking me to get out of your bed now.” Jareth reminded her.

“I know.” She said, closing her eyes and just drowning in him.

Jareth situated himself more comfortably, and wrapped his arms around her slowly, as if afraid she would flee.

“You should be pushing me away.”

Sarah smiled, and pressed herself against him, her hand on his chest. “I know.” She yawned.

Jareth smiled. “Then. . . why?”

“Because in the morning, you’ll already be out of my bed.” She told him. “And I’ll just convince myself that this was a dream anyways.”

Jareth yawned as well. “Well, as long as we have a plan.”

It was only another two weeks before she began to share more intimate details of her life with him.

“You know,” she said, chewing absently on her eraser, “I think that maybe I do like the regal, medieval look.”

Jareth couldn’t help but grin wildly. “Well, I think I have got that down pat.” He said, giving her an eloquent turn.

“No, no. no! I mean for the new play.” She said, casting him a glance from the computer desk over her shoulder, to where he sat at the kitchen table. “See? Come look at some of the layouts for the playbill I’m designing.” She beckoned him over with one graceful, sweeping finger.

He came to her, and stared, fascinated, at the swell of her breasts as she blathered on and on about a play that the school was putting on.

“Are you even listening to me?” She asked, looking up at him. She followed his gaze to her shirt, and crossed her arms around her breasts. “Do you mind?” She asked, blushing a bit.

“Not at all.” He told her and slowly lifted his eyes to hers. The look of hunger in them made her gasp, and turn her attention back to the playbill.

“Shakespeare would have never dreamed of this.” She said with a smile.

“Shakespeare?” He repeated like a parrot.

Sarah smiled and nodded. “Yeah. .. we’re rewriting a midsummer night’s dream to be glam-tastic, which you would know if you hadn’t been staring at my boobs.” The look that she flashed him could only be described as coy.

Jareth smiled, and leaned in to try to steal a kiss. Sarah laughed merrily, and averted her chin. “And guess who I’m playing?”

Jareth smiled. “Long, graceful features. . . delicate, pale skin. . . why, you could only be a faery queen.”

“Yeah, I’m playing Titania.” She said, and tried to pretend that her stomach hadn’t been filled with butterflies.

“And I?” He asked.

She shook her head sadly. “Alas, poor Jareth. There is but one King in this play, and he is a false one.”

Jareth snaked his arms around the chair and inhaled her scent. “And how would you care to be a real life faery queen?”

He felt Sarah tremble in his arms, before muttering some poor excuse to rise. But none the matter. He was immortal, and he had all the time the world.

Over the next week or so, he picked up the nasty habit of watching her in her sleep.

The half memorized script lay on the mattress between them, and Jareth held her at arms length only to watch her in reprise. And, since there was no one the hear him anyways, he liked to fancy himself her King.

“What thou seest when thou dost wake, Do it for thy true-love take, Love and languish for his sake.” Jareth muttered nearly unintelligibly as he slipped between waking and dreaming.

“Jareth. . .” Sarah whispered with a smile.

Jareth allowed himself to wake a bit, and sigh. He sat up to tidy the bed a bit so he could once again gather her in his arms, but her sleeping hand reached forward to still him. “Out of this wood do not desire to go: Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.” She mumbled tiredly.

Jareth lay the script on the ground, and tucked the comforter in around them. “Of course not.”

Since no one else was around, she figured that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if he were to help her study her lines.

“I was never really good at reading lines.” Jareth confessed in a last ditch effort to get out of the task. “I was always much better at singing.”

Sarah smiled coyly, and pressed herself against him. “First, rehearse your song by rote, To each word a warbling note: Hand in hand, with fairy grace, Will we sing, and bless this place.” She quoted

Jareth shifted uncomfortably, but could not stop the drifting of his body to hers. “Now, until the break of day,” he coughed and put the book down. “I can’t do this. . . it’s just. . . weird.”

But Sarah gave him the prettiest pout, and he conceaded. “I’ll do it. . . for a kiss.”

Sarah nodded quickly. “Deal!”

He raised an eyebrow, before realizing what she was planning. “No, no. I want a real kiss, from you, here.” He said, dragging a finger across her lips.

Sarah’s breath hitched a bit, and her eyes caught on his finger. “O. . . Okay. . .” She agreed. After all, it was only one little kiss. . . it wouldn’t cause any problems.

“Through this house each fairy stray. To the best bride-bed will we, Which by us shall blessed be.” Jareth said smoothly, executing the lines like a professional. And the issue there create Ever shall be fortunate. So shall all the couples three Ever true in loving be; And the blots of Nature's hand Shall not in their issue stand; Never mole, hare lip, nor scar, Nor mark prodigious, such as are Despised in nativity, Shall upon their children be. With this field-dew consecrate, Every fairy take his gait; And each several chamber bless, Through this palace, with sweet peace; And the owner of it blest Ever shall in safety rest. Trip away; make no stay; Meet me all by break of day.”

Sarah nodded quietly, and shyly wrapped her arms around his neck. Leaning up timidly, she lay the gentlest of sweet kisses upon his lips, and then pulled away, blushing and avoiding his gaze.

“Perfect.” They said, simultaneously.

By opening night, all but one flower had died.

Jareth had thought about it, and decided to return briefly to the Labyrinth during intermission, so that he could gather some new ones.

So he sat in the audience, an invisible specter, watching his lovely Sarah flit across the stage in dresses fit for a queen, and sing praise to the other actors.

“These are the forgeries of jealousy: And never, since the middle summer's spring,

Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind. . .” Her execution was flawless, and he briefly considered it a shame that since she would eventually cave in to him and come to live with him, that she would never get to explore Broadway as a career.

Act one faded in to act two, and a few moments before the intermission curtain dropped, Jareth magicked himself in to her dressing room, and lay the last living love me not flower on her vanity, before vanishing to his own kingdom with a swirl of glitter and smoke.

Sarah appeared in the room as it the last of the glitter had fallen, and she looked at the desk and smiled at the flower.

Casting a nervous look about her, she picked up the dying plant and cupped it in her hand, sighing. It had been four months since she had conquered his labyrinth, a little over a month that she had slept in his arms, and just under a week that she had finally made her decision.

Giving her dressing room one last look around, she called for the substitute.

She had to go home to prepare.

Jareth had returned to the aboveworld only seconds after the intermission curtain rose. Settling in to his chair, he glanced at the stage, trying to see Sarah.

Finally, he spotted the dark-haired Titania, laying with her back to the audience, as Quince and Bottom and Snout flitted about the stage. She didn’t have any lines for a few minutes, so he gave his flowers a cursory glance.

In the underground, it was always the right season for growing plants. And without the aid of sunlight, the flowers photosynthesized the magic in the air around them, which was what gave them they’re power.

Bottom finished his song (the same foolish one that Sarah had made him sing over and over and over again) and Jareth looked up, preparing to see Sarah.

“What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” A girl who was not Sarah asked, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

Jareth froze for a moment, before magicking himself backstage.

Nothing seemed to be amiss in the back – everyone was chatting, and no one was throwing up in to random trash buckets, so Jareth moved on to her dressing room.

Her clothes were gone, he noticed immediately, as well as the flower that he had left for her. But in it’s place was a note, written in slightly arrogant handwriting, that was undoubtedly meant for him:

My Fair King,

Don’t come home till 8:30. I am making a feast fit even for you.

Titania

Jareth gave the clock a glance, and saw that it would be a half hour until he could go back to her house. So he sat in the dressing room, impatiently tapping his foot through most of act three as he watched the second hand on the clock click by far too slowly for his tastes.

Sarah darted about the house in a frenzy, and was (for once) extremely grateful that her flippant parents went out all the time. She was even more grateful that they had hired a babysitter, who had taken Toby back to her flat.

Sarah put the finishing touches on the simple meal that she had made earlier that day, and glanced at the clock.

8:29.

In reality, she supposed she could have been done by 8:00, but she needed the extra half hour to get her bearings. After all, it wasn’t everyday you told a man you. . .

As such a sad love

Deep in your eyes, a kind of pale jewel

The haunting lyrics floated on the air, and Sarah jumped, looking about for the King who had yet to show himself.

Open and closed within your eyes

Ill place the sky within your eyes

Sarah took the flower, barely hanging on to life, and tucked it in to her pocket, and closed her eyes. Que sera, sera, she surrendered. Whatever will be, will be.

Theres such a fooled heart

She felt two strong hands wrap around her waist, trailing up her body, up and up and up . . .

Beating so fast in search of new dreams

A hand left her side to lift her hair, and she felt a pair of warm lips press softly against her ear, treading softly on her skin as the formed such lovely lyrics . . .

A love that will last within your heart

She lifted her head, offering him her throat. He kindly accepted, trailing his lips down her neck, and down and down and down . . .

Ill place the moon within your heart

And she believed it. At this point, she believed him capable of anything.

As the pain sweeps through

He spun her round to face him, and she smiled sweetly at him before he spun her three more times.

Makes no sense for you

‘Do you know what you do to me?’ His eyes seemed to ask, for his voice would not stop their singing.

Every thrill has gonst

‘I imagine it’s something the same as you do to me.’ Her body seemed to respond as it swayed in time with his hands.

Wasn’t too much fun at all

“Except for when it was.” She whispered to him, standing on tip toe to press her cheek against his in a silent sort of surrender.

But I’ll be there for you

Of that she had no doubt.

As the world falls down

She smiled at this. After all, it had seemed to her that all of her precious walls were only torn down whenever he was near.

Ill paint you mornings of gold

He tore down her disbeliefs brick by brick, to be sure that there were none left to contaminate her.

Ill spin you valentine evenings

And then he filled her mind with such fantasies that she couldn’t stop the blush from gracing her cheeks.

Though were strangers till now

In reality, they were still just that: perfect strangers. . .

Were choosing the path between the stars

. . . perfect strangers tied together since the dawn of time. . .

Ill leave my love between the stars

. . . irrevocably bound to one another by thin threads of fate, that bound themselves tighter around the two until they were sure that they could scarcely breathe.

As the pain sweeps through

There was no pain anymore, and when he held her this close, she doubted there ever had been.

Makes no sense for you

But she doubted it made sense to him either.

Every thrill has gone

Every thrill save one. . .

Wasn’t too much fun at all

. . . and because she knew his song was almost finished. . .

But Ill be there for you

. . . she took a deep breath and. . .

As the world falls down

. . . her voice failed her.

Jareth smiled. “Now, now.” He beckoned, holding her a little ways apart so he could look in her eyes. “Where’s my brave Titania gone off too?”

Sarah smiled. “I pray thee, my immortal, sing again: Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note;”

She must have stunned Jareth for a moment, because he gave her the time to reach in to her pocket and remove the imperfect flower.

“She loves me. . .” And the first petal fell.

“He loves me not. . .” another.

“She loves me. . .” three. . .

“He loves me not. . .” Four.

“She loves me. . .” Five.

“He loves me not.” The final petal had fallen.

Sarah stared at the flower in agony. “What!?” She exclaimed. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work!”

Jareth laughed and plucked the steam from her fingers. Smiling at her, he let it drop to the floor.

Sarah smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him timidly, and then passionately. These were kisses meant for cold winter’s nights, and chilly sunset evenings, and for the people who love but starve for affection.

And when they finally broke away, Jareth smiled and lowered her to the coach.

“I guess that means she loves me.”