Mornings of Gold (a Jareth and Sarah fanfiction)

Chapter Eight

Five minutes of uncomfortable walking later and Sarah was wishing she was more of a naturally chatty person so she could initiate some kind of conversation to combat the silence around her and Jareth. Ten minutes later and her aching feet were cursing his name.

    It wasn't really the silence that bothered her – she preferred it to his voice, that was for sure. It was the stiffness of it, the awkward air that engulfed them as they walked in what seemed like companionship. It was not the comfortable silence that she had the luxury of experiencing with her friends: the kind where the air hangs warm and full around you, almost alive in its embrace of you. No, this air was static, harsh with tension. Sarah was sure she'd get an electric shock if it became any more intense.

    "We're almost there," Jareth said suddenly, surprising Sarah so much she gasped. He looked back, that impossibly infuriating smirk doing something truly sinful to his cheekbones which Sarah tried her best not to notice. "I'm sorry, did I startle you?"

    Sarah shook her head, her eyes turned to the (seemingly never-ending) ground as she hid the embarrassed pink hue of her skin that had risen against her will. "Where actually is 'there', may I ask?" she queried, trying to distract herself from the reaction he, Jareth of all people, had somehow elicited from her.

    Jareth shrugged and turned his attention back to the blackened passageway stretching out before them. "I want to take you to my castle." He sounded confessional, and it took Sarah a moment to realise it was due to his, let's say, dishonest nature. He wasn't used to admitting things to her without being coaxed into it first, and it clearly came as a shock to them both. She raised an eyebrow at him, attempting to prompt a more informative answer, but Jareth's gaze seemed to be fixed upon the unknown abyss they were walking deeper into. If he'd seen her scathing glare that followed soon after, he made a good job of not showing it.

    Seeing as he wasn't going to elaborate on his point, Sarah took the opportunity to study him as they walked along. He looked distracted enough by the corridor, so Sarah deemed it safe to let her eyes rove over him without risk of that damned smirk he favoured so much.

    She started at the top of him and worked her way down, always wary of him turning. His ash-blonde curls fell over his one hazel eye in lazy tangles, so relaxed and casual that Sarah found it hard to picture them when they'd been in that stiff mullet not too long ago. His fringe didn't quite cover his cheekbones, which were high and jutting against his creamy, almost-translucent skin. The shadows of the corridor emphasised their gauntness, and Sarah found herself having to forcefully tear her eyes away from their... she couldn't quite stop herself from saying 'beauty'. Her gaze continued to wander down him, faltering a little at his incredibly pronounced jawline, which looked sharp enough to cut her should she touch it... which she never would, of course.

    Down his neck, down his shoulders, broad and tight against his t-shirt. Down to his chest, his torso, his arms (the muscles of which were tensed and sinewy to support the grocery bag he still carried). To his hips, where his shirt had ridden up a little and a strip of white skin was visible above the waistline of his jeans...

    "Are you going to keep staring at me?"

    Sarah yelped in surprise, her eyes immediately shooting to the floor and a warmth rising up her face. She gritted her teeth at the audible smirk in his next words: "Oh, I wasn't protesting.".

    She ignored him and lifted her chin toward the passageway. "Are we nearly there?" She was still unsure as to where 'there' was exactly, but she wasn't about to ask him.

    Jareth nodded, his pace picking up. "This tunnel is a direct route to the human world from my throne room. Right now, we're walking directly under my castle," he informed her. The nerves kicked in at the words 'throne room' – she was really coming back here. The place of her worst nightmares.

    "Of course, it being me, there is a certain level of magic integral to this place's function." Jareth continued, seeming not to notice Sarah's stiffness as they came ever closer to the heart of his kingdom. "Without my power, it is just a normal tunnel.

    "If I think where I want to go in your world, this passage will end there. Of course, I could have teleported us straight to my throne room along here, but due to your reaction to the entering of this passage, I thought you might prefer the more... rustic route."

    Sarah's feet resented him from that moment forth.

    "Humans cannot get through here without my power, though. For instance, a normal human cannot walk along here and expect to resurface in their world unless I have opened it." A sadistic smile spread across his lips, his sharp incisors glinting wickedly at her, and she mentally likened him to an alligator. "Many of your kind have thought to escape through here, but, since it wouldn't have been magically enabled..." As if on cue, Sarah caught sight of a pale object half-buried under her feet that looked suspiciously like bone.

    Her legs were out from under her in a moment, and she collapsed to the dirt too suddenly for Jareth to catch her this time. The nausea was back with a vengeance.

    Jareth glanced back and, seeing her lying shaking on the floor, frowned in concern. "I apologise," he sighed, coming over and crouching above her. His gloved fingers brushed her hair back from her face as he helped her sit up, propping her back against the wall as she tried not to throw up. "I did not realise you were so affected by the memories you associate with the Underground."

    "I don't want to be here, Jareth," she gasped.

    He rested a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry," he said, "you are here under my personal protection. Therefore, I will not let any harm come to you."

    Sarah looked up at him, wanting so hard to believe him (if only for her sake). "Are you sure? Nothing will happen to me if I'm 'under your protection'?"

    Jareth's jaw was set in a determined line. Lifting her hand to his mouth, he breathed across her skin, "you have my absolute word." He kissed it quickly before letting it drop and standing up. "Come on," he grasped her and helped her up without preamble, "we're almost there, I promise."

    Sure enough, Sarah could see some sort of ladder or something beginning to materialise out of the previously-impenetrable blackness before them. Jareth paused and turned to her, allowing her in front of him. Mistrustful, but impatient to get out of this evil tunnel, Sarah stepped up and cautiously took hold of a rung. She pulled herself up the ladder, Jareth swiftly following beneath her (Sarah began to regret wearing such tight jeans) until she came to a trapdoor in the ceiling.

    "Push it," Jareth told her. His eyes glinted in the light of a nearby flame, almost starlike in their brightness.

    Sarah swallowed her jitters, steeled herself and once again entered the castle.

—

A/N: Hey guys
Jesus, sorry for this chapter honestly it's so fucking bad ://
I've had writer's block for more than a week and I finally got over it at 5:30am this morning (yeah, that's probably why this chapter was so shit... IDK I'M A KNOB I'M SORRY)
Yeah so the next chapter should be better; I think things are actually going to happen in this one!1!!!1!1!!1! Sorry again for my terrible writing, I'll go and cry in a corner now :)
- Luke