A/N: Well first and foremost I'd like to give mad props to my FABULOUS beta, Late March. Not only did I keep her on hold for over a month, but then I made her go through this whole crazy email dance, and she still did a spectacular job. (THANKS!) Other then that it's just the regular garble, r&r please, yada yada.

Disclaimer:I don't own the Labyrinth. Seriously.

Warning: Dark. Self harm, noncon, a little angst, and hints of lemon.

The Goblin King had won. Jareth, had won.

Well no, no he hadn't. She, Sarah, had won. She sat in her parents room now with Toby firmly in her arms, so adorable, so utterly innocent. But it didn't feel like she had won. It felt like…a tie?

She looked back down at Toby, the babe, baby, she held. Not gazing at him gently, but staring at him, scrutinizing. She starred intensely at his sleepy expression, his goofy half smile. She starred at his little red and white stripped jumpsuit. Starred relentlessly until red and white turned to a blurry pink as silent tears tricked down the snowy softness of her cheek. She starred down at him and her arms tightened, but not protectively.

There was nothing to protect him from anymore. She did not clutch at this tiny creature to shelter him, and her tear filled eyes did not reflect worry, only longing.

Would she never look that way again, would her smile never look so totally guiltless?

What would her father see in her now? Would he be able to tell? If she were to put Toby to bed and look into the mirror would she be able to tell?

Was she supposed to act different?

Or should she act as if nothing had changed? Was she permanently traumatized? Sarah did not feel traumatized. She just felt empty, confused, and almost peaceful, but in a way that also made her feel very lonely.

What if she had put up more of a fight?

And Karen, what would she think? Karen, whose judgments Sarah had never cared about, suddenly her opinion meant everything. What would she think of her bratty stepdaughter now?

What did he think of her now?

He. Jareth. That was the name her storybook had given him. It was the name he had forced into her mind in the ballroom. Sarah had never heard him speak it aloud, though it had fallen from her own lips when he'd—she choked back a sob, catching it at the base of her throat and strangling it. The tears had dried on her cheeks, each leaving its own stiff, salty trail. Sarah never wanted to cry again. She'd wept when she'd been with him.

And she did not want to wake Toby. She stood to place him in his crib, realizing she could not pluck the innocence out of the little form. Could not snatch a little bit of it to try and mend her tattered sprit, soul, heart, and broken mind.

Could Jareth see her now? Was he watching her? He had seemed genuinely pained when she had refused his invitation.

"Fear me, love me, and I will be your slave."

The words still rang in her ears, a never-ending echo resounding in her thoughts. Yes, he had seemed hurt. But she could not forget he was a master of illusions. He had tricked her before.

Sarah tugged a little blanket over her stepbrother. She nuzzled Lancelot between the railing and his head, thought better of it, and moved the familiar old animal down a little towards his feet. She did not want him to roll over and smother himself. Really Toby was too old for that to be of any real risk, but she didn't want to take any chances.

He seemed so precious to her now. It would seem she had realized how much so when he had first disappeared, when the first glimmer of cold dread had frozen the blood in her veins. But she had not. She had realized then how irreplaceable he was. It was only now she truly saw him as precious.

She had won him back only after conquering the mighty Goblin King and his treacherous Labyrinth. This child's precious innocence was what she had fought for. She rescued Toby from a most horrible fate. A most terrible fall from grace, to be turned into a cruel, mindless, goblin. The goblins, the most wretched of beings imaginable. Whose foul and corrupt ways had twisted the Labyrinth into something far more sinister then it was ever intended to be. She had triumphed! That meant she had won- didn't it?

Maybe it had not only been Toby's innocence at stake. Maybe that was why she felt such a devastating defeat within her heart.

It had not been a victory, not hers anyway. And it had not been a "tie". It had been a farce.

Sarah sank down to the floor, burying her head between her knees. Despite her best efforts the tears came again. And this time they would not be silent. She wailed out her misery, her confusion, her worry. And it occurred to her that she did not hate him. She hated what he had done, the position he had left her in, but him? No. The sobs continued to pour out of her. Long, guttural, painful, sobs that left her breathless.

She just wished…she wished…she did not even know what to wish for. All her wishes had withered and died the moment he reached out and caught her in his lust, as had every other bitter trace of her former innocence. Sarah sat there wailing, determined to wring every last bit of air from her lungs. And all she could think was, "Oh god, how did this even happen?"

---

She'd been…dizzy.

Her mind for one reason or another could not get a firm hold on anything around her. Every time she made an attempt to focus on something, which she had only tried a few times, after all it had been so much more peaceful to just flutter around, to simply sway back and forth, to just relax and…

NO!

---

Sarah pulled at her hair, imprinting the physicality of each hair popping out of its root, into her mind. Measuring the small pain against the despair in her heart. It did not compare. Her mind would not be distracted…

---

Every time she tried to focus, the object of her attention just melted away, fallen into a shadow of swirling colors and melodies…

Then someone took hold of her, took her firmly in their arms. For a moment she felt relived, and she smiled up at him. Because though everything was beautiful it was a beauty tinged with an ugly murk, a graceful beauty, flowing with a slimy undertone. And she almost felt that the creatures, which appeared human but were somehow not, she almost felt that they were mocking her. That they were paying her far more attention then they had need to. And she knew there was something she needed to get. No. Something she needed to do…but then this man found her, captured her in his arms. And he awoke the tiny fluttering of wings in a secret pit deep inside her…

STOP!

---

Sarah ceased pulling at her hair, preferring instead to grind her fingers into her eyes. Push them back, back, BACK! Inside her skull, inside her mind, inside her soul, further, further. Pained colors popped in her vision, Technicolor wonder. But still the memories played…

---

He looked like a valiant stormy prince. He would help her, this wondrous man…this, Goblin King, no, Jareth...Jareth. The name forced itself into her head. She wanted so badly to press her cheek against the dark crinkled fabric of his vest.

Only he wasn't helping. He was not helping at all. Everything was spinning faster and faster. He started to bend his head toward her slowly, so slowly, and so close, and…and she knew she had to go, to leave, and she had to do it right then…

GO!

---

Sarah rose from the floor. She scratched at the bed comforter, ripped the curtains off her window, and smashed a tiny glass figurine against the wall, gasping as glass shards bit into her fingers, as small red spots dotted her trembling palms. Iron beads that smeared with saliva as she forced her fist into her mouth and down her throat, pushing back the scream squeezing its way from her lungs.

Biting down hard on her knuckles Sarah tried to keep it at bay but the scream would not be censured. It rebelled, kicking wildly in the pit of her stomach until a vile lurch sent her tearing into the bathroom, hovering over the white porcelain bowl. She gagged upon wave after wave of putrid sick as her body ripped itself apart, attempting to purge itself of the filth inside her.

She collapsed in one ragged breath on the floor. The shell colored tile was mercifully cool against her hot glossy forehead. She had needed that, to be drained of all impurities from the inside out.

And yet she was still such a mess.

Sarah crawled over to the shower and turned it on full blast. Then she stumbled over to sink and flung open the medicine cabinet. Her hand closed around a tiny pointed pair of scissors, her hand tightened around them, it tightened…

---

Her hands tightened on his shoulders and she pushed him away suddenly. He stumbled back, reaching for her, but she was already gone. Sarah shoved her way through the crowd. Stumbling every few steps, being pushed around every twist and turn. She was not able to see properly, and all she could hear was an evil sinister buzz. Blindly she grabbed fiercely onto something hard and wooden and swung it about manically, desperately. Something broke, there was a squealing crunch of glass, and screams died all around her. It didn't matter. She was free. Cool wind whipped across her, cool fresh air. Sarah ran, ran free of this smothering prison with its slow suffocating allure...

DON'T!

---

Clean. Drained. Clean. Get it out. Get him out.

Sarah fell into the shower. She let the scalding water fall onto her face. She felt her clothes grow heavy around her. Rolling up one of her sleeves she quickly ran the pointed blade vertically across her wrist and watched as she was rewarded with a faint red line. It didn't even hurt. She would have to go deeper.

She began again. This time she pressed the metallic point downward until it disappeared under her skin. Then slowly, so slowly, she began to drag it down her arm. Her jaw started to ache as she gritted her teeth on the pain. She made a long deep gash that ripped across her polluted veins, spilling a dark poisoned wetness upon her ruined flesh. She lifted the blade to her temple and followed its twisted pattern with her tongue as it carved across her cheek and beneath her chin. The tainted thickness continued to gush forth, bursting crimson in the sweltering air.

Get. Him. Out…

---

She had been falling, falling free...

Until she heard a deep rumbling chuckle. A hand caught hold of the sparkling taffeta on the back of her gown, a vice like arm wrapped around her waist. She screamed, maybe she cried, but it wouldn't let her go, wouldn't let her free. The world around her was crumbling to a mess of muddy brown, and cries of terror echoed off broken glass. All she was able to see were two stunningly clear eyes, one blue, the other a warm brownish green. And then his lips pressed against her own, and she knew nothing except him.

PLEASE!

---

It was too late…

---

He kissed her gently, so gently; kisses that were like a warm summer breeze playing around her lips. She felt her legs failing her as he lifted her into his arms. It felt wrong to push away someone being this gentle, this careful. She was slightly aware that they were leaving, or more that the world around them was leaving, and they were falling into its new creation. He carried her a little ways away, to a sort of lush, white, bed.

He didn't stop kissing her. Her arms somehow found their way around his neck. She felt her back sink into softness with Jareth on top of her. It felt so good, so peaceful, it was wonderful to give into such bliss. One of Jareth's hands pushed up under her skirts, tracing along her thigh. His hand was cool as glass and smooth as marble against her bare skin. But she knew this was wrong. He really shouldn't… She put a hand on his chest and pushed him away.

"Stop." She gasped the moment their lips separated, she hadn't realized how heavy everything had actually become, but then being around Jareth had always been like that hadn't it? Dangerously deceiving.

"What are you doing?" she asked, sitting up, her own chest heaving, threatening to break open the tight bodice suppressing her from every angle.

"Sarah, I'm…collecting, everything has it's price." he said casually, and bent his head towards her again. She backed away a few inches.

"What?" she repeated.

"I've allowed you to come unharmed this far my stubborn little princess." he said staring at her with those impossibly gorgeous eyes, they sparkled in wicked amusement "And what's more I've rearranged time for you, I've turned the clock on it's head!"

"You took an hour from me!" She retorted.

He smirked, "It has been rearranged none the less."

"I never wanted you to do that! I didn't ask for any of this!" She shouted.

"Quite to the contrary, you did. You asked me to take your brother, I did. You pleaded with me to allow you win him back, I conceded. At the very least you ought to thank me for my generosity so far!"

"You aren't being fair- " she started, but he interrupted her.

"Can you say nothing else? It seems impossible to me that such a mouth as yours has the potential to be so very irksome! You agreed to run my Labyrinth and everything that agreement entails. You will not skate away lightly this time my spoilt little cherub. Remember you haven't my dear Hogwart to assist you. No, you will not leave this room until you've paid my price." the amusement in his eyes grew.

She glanced about nervously, looking for an escape. But Jareth quickly took her chin between his thumb and forefinger "Well?"

She pouted and tugged her chin out of his grasp "Well? Well what do you want then?" she asked.

"I would have thought it obvious" He smiled in a way that made her understand exactly what he wanted. The look he gave her could suggest nothing else.

She drew her breath in sharply. Her thoughts began to race, her pulse to quicken. If he had not just given her that look she would have never, ever…then again up in the ballroom, how could she not have seen this?

"No!" Sarah insisted sharply and quickly scooted away from him a full foot and a half.

Jareth cocked his head to the side and raised one of his gorgeously decisive eyebrows "No?" he questioned, "Sarah the time to reject my proposal would have been before the proposition, not after."

"There was no proposition!" She squeaked indignantly.

"You would not accept my crystal."

"I didn't know what your price was!" she snapped at him hotly "honestly do you think I would have agreed if I had known-", she stopped, blushing deeply.

"Of course not," he said smirking.

"So I-what? I don't care!"

"You should have asked. It is not my fault you did not." His voice picked up an edge. "You've been running through these walls long enough to know the rules. Nothing is as it seems!"

"I-" Sarah stammered, she knew he was right, she should have been more careful, more heeding of his many warnings. But he hadn't given her a choice, she had to run the Labyrinth, she had to get Toby back! Of course, she knew she should never have wished her brother away in the first place. But she did not believe one mistake, however big, earned her this. Especially this.

Suddenly nothing felt real. She got a sudden impulse that she was going to wake up to the sound of Toby's wailings, and she would be safe, in her own bed. Nothing here was real, it couldn't be.

She looked back up at Jareth; she looked into those ridiculously gorgeous eyes, and she repeated herself "No."

"No you haven't learned the rules?" he asked with a touch of sarcasm.

"No I'm not playing by your rules," she told him firmly.

"I afraid that's not your decision to make," he was beginning to sound angry.

"Well I'm still not following them," she said "You can't make me." and she turned and began to get up off the bed, swinging her legs around and onto the floor.

Quick as lightning, he took hold of her wrist and spun her around in a frightening display of violence. His face was blazing in fury, contorted in an awful rage. And his eyes, those strange beautiful eyes, were swept up in one of his fragrant and dangerous mood changes. They now showed nothing but cruelty and malice.

"You don't really believe that, do you?" he asked mockingly before throwing her down on her back. She screamed but he quickly covered her mouth. She grabbed his wrist with both her hands and tried free herself but he wouldn't budge an inch.

"You don't really think," he continued, the fury in his voice not ebbing in the slightest "that you can stop me from doing ANYTHING to you, that you could EVER have stopped me." He increased the pressure of his hand so much she was worried he meant to flattened her skull. He smiled at her, if something that cruel could be called a smile, "You are going to play by my rules Sarah."

He pressed one knee hard into her stomach, continuing to hold her down, while with both hands he took hold of the top of the heavily beaded bodice of the extravagant ball gown and in one fluid movement, ripped it open. He laid flat against her, one of his hands had slid beside her head where he bent his arm to support himself and not crush her with his weight.

She felt his bare chest press against her, his own sparkling blue jacket and billowy shirt melted away upon contact with her skin, and the tears began to pour silently and uncontrollably down her cheeks. Jareth nuzzled his head deep into her neck, caressing it with his mouth; he nipped gently at her ear.

"Don't cry," he whispered. All the anger was gone from his voice.

"Jareth please," she begged him softly, imploring, "stop."

"Shhh" he whispered back caringly, only one couldn't caringly rape someone.

He made his way down the gentle arch of her neck, onto her chest, moaning to himself when he reached the top of her breast, but he did not go farther. Instead he traveled back up to her head; taking delight in the little red marks he left along the way. She turned her head away from him and for a while he simply kissed her cheek and her ear, even her hair, but soon he turned her head forward so that she had to look directly at him again. Jareth pressed his lips tightly to both her eyes as though trying to force them to stop producing tears. He was unsuccessful and began to laugh at her lightly.

She hated him. She really, really, hated him. In that moment she hated him more then she had when he unjustly stole that hour of time from her. More then she had only a few moments ago when he stopped her from fleeing free of his glass bubble. Even more then when she first realized he had kidnapped Toby. All those times she had been angry, but also slightly afraid and, something else. Something that made her feel almost excited. But that was gone now. She was still terrified, but more then that she was furious. She couldn't believe he could laugh at her like this. Couldn't believe he could still be mocking her helplessness. She tried to kick out at him and made a quick scurried movement in a frenzied hope of escape.

He was too quick for her, of course. In one blinking moment he firmly took her by the shoulders, and pressed her farther into the bed. When Jareth saw the anger and hurt in her eyes he immediately stopped his soft chuckling.

"I'm sorry." he apologized, though he'd still been grinning. "But you're crying, please stop crying Cherub, I've never been with anyone while they were crying." Her tears fell even faster. His little smile vanished "I don't want you to hate me. That was never my intention." He insisted softly.

He kissed her full on the mouth again, biting her lip sharply so that she opened instinctively to him. He inhaled her sobs. His hands groped at her huge skirt, pulling it down around her. He brought his hand back up between her legs. She tried to make some sort of protest, but Jareth started kissing her harder, and so fiercely that she couldn't really even manage a whimper. One gliding finger slid up and into her, then another. Her body gave a little convulsion under his touch but he ignored it.

He stopped kissing her and she began really crying. Not the pretty silent tears she'd given before but really crying. She turned her head to the side and began sobbing inconsolably. His inspection had utterly and totally humiliated her. He tried comforting her, tried smoothing her hair, but she shrieked and buried her face farther into the layers of soft quilted blankets.

He did not make another attempt. Instead he explored the little cleft, searching, searching for something, and then finding it. A hardened kernel. He pinched it sharply and she released another little scream, but she wasn't able to hide the wave of shameful pleasure that behind it.

"Please..." She gasped under him "I can't..." She was not sure weather the droplets of moisture on her face were tears or sweat. "I can't…don't."

He bent his head down and nuzzled it beside her ear "Just let go, it's not so difficult cherub" he whispered hotly, nipping at her earlobe, she moaned softly. Still, his fingers were playing between her legs, ready to send her over the edge, push her past the brink and forward into blissful oblivion, if she could only let him.

"I can't…oh" she mewed against him. He said it was at once the most adorable and arousing noise he'd ever heard. Like the purr of cat, she was his own withering little kitten. She was playful, but fierce, and yet, innocent.

He moved against her as he pressed their bodies together farther. He felt all of her squirming under him, the involuntary buck of her hips, her smooth pale belly, her young budding breasts and pinched nipples, all of her. He wound his hand through her silky hair to pull her head back, violating her arching neck with a series of quick demanding kisses. With his other hand he pushed two fingers inside her again, leaving his thumb to rub against the engorged center of her pleasure. His movement became faster, quicker.

"Sarah, let go, come with me, come for me, now…" he demanded.

And with a series of whispered moans and gasps she did. She came hard and quick. Her body reddened to a light rosy tint, nearly shaking. Jareth felt her honeyed walls clench around his fingers uncontrollably as wave after wave of spent desire rushed through her every nerve. Her back arched up and her hands twisted the blankets at her sides. Finally she collapsed down and rolled onto her side, saying nothing, for everything that she needed to say he heard in her quiet exhausted panting.

A faint buzz began to vibrate between the two of them. It had pulled them together. Connecting them in some dazed melting of minds. It made her feel almost content, it was warm, trusting.

Jareth sat up and lifted the two fingers coated in her sticky sweetness to his lips, musing to himself, while gazing down at her. His slightly deflated beauty. He hadn't really looked at her until that moment. She was something like a vision of perfection to him. She still had that faint rosy glow.

She had small, but still sumptuous, curves. Girlish curves that made him painfully aware of how young she, his woman child, was. Only fifteen. Her dark satiny hair had lay splayed across her face, the ends waving over her sloping shoulders. Her lips were still red and moist and even a little swollen. A flicker of regret flashed through him. He felt he had been gentle. Perhaps he should have been gentler still? Her eyelids were almost closed. Even her imperfections were flawless. They must have been, for he saw none. She was a fresh white lily he had plucked from the grimy dirt- and only just begun to enjoy.

With a fearful start Sarah realized how painfully aware of his own aching need he was becoming. She saw something dark flash in the corner of his eye. It had been there earlier, when her had pushed her onto her back and covered her mouth. An image, an urge, a feeling, something that definitely had not come from her mind. It screamed against the silence. It was his nature. His very nature was, at that moment of rest, urging him to flip her on her stomach and batter through her virginity. To take her this instant, hard and without mercy.

But she knew he would not. Knew he had no real desire to hurt her like that. Kinder, soothing assurances began impressing upon her. They told her it was just an ancient, guttural instinct, one that for a moment had licked the flame of his desire, but one that he had quickly pushed back inside himself, as he always had. He laughed aloud miserably at the irony of the situation. Never had he thought he loved another, except perhaps her. And though he had slaked his lust many a time with many a woman, never had he raped, except perhaps her.

She saw something tugging at the back of his mind. A regret, and a fear. What if she did win?

She knew he saw more then just beauty and innocence in her, but strength and determination. At times she behaved as a coddled princess, and acted on foolish impulse and selfish whim. This whole game had been designed to taunt her about this.

But she also became aware of a fire inside her. This newfound fire felt powerful, but it also worried her. Sarah was worried it would scorch the inner child still dwelling in her spirit. Burn to a cinder everything friendly, imaginative, vulnerable, safe, innocent. That it would blaze and blaze until there was nothing left inside of her but dry brittle ash. The kind of stuff she imagined Karen was made of.

He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and she flinched.

"Sarah," he whispered huskily. He turned her toward himself again and positioned himself between her legs. The buzzing chord between them wavered, tightened. "Sarah." his lips brushed against her forehead, one of his arms wound around her back, effectively trapped her against him. The tip of his passion rubbed against her core- and the chord snapped.

"Sarah."

The warmth was gone. The contentment. The trust. She felt abandoned, tricked, and desperate. Her eyes flew open, widening in fright as her small hands clutched his shoulders. She tried to push him away but he held her firm.

"Sarah shh, it's ok, you're fine." he murmured.

"You're hurting me," she cried. Her voice was frightened and panicked, though she held on to him still more tightly.

Jareth kissed her forehead again, her cheeks, the corner of her mouth. "I'm barely touching you cherub, you're just frightened." he said.

"I-I ca-can't" she hiccupped though her tears "I just-" Jareth cut her off with a quick tender kiss.

"Listen to me cherub" he started. She turned her head away again and whimpered in frustration. He urged her chin towards himself, forcing her warm green eyes to lock onto his own.

"Listen to me." he began again slowly "Relax. This is my game, you are my player, and these are my rules. I will be gentle with you. This is happening, and it's not your fault, it's mine. Your guilt and your innocence are both mine, soon you are to be mine, Sarah."

He bent down towards her again, demanding, his lips opened her once more. He kissed her as if she was intoxicating, a pretty little drug he just couldn't get enough of. She wondered if he could still taste the poisoned magic from the sweet peach he'd had Hoggle bestow upon her. His hands traced over the curve of her waist, roamed over the broadening of her hips, and finally pinned them down to the bed.

"This is going to hurt a little at first." He whispered in her ear, and began to press inside her.

It did not hurt a little, it just hurt. It was a sharp tearing pain the stretched, as she was being stretched, into a prolonged searing ache. An ache that moved in a series of clenched pangs from between her legs into the pit of her stomach, where it threatened to become even more terrible.

It was not a brutal pain. No, it was more the like slow pull of a band aid, measured, precise, and careful. She half wanted him to just burst into her, just break whatever it was he was breaking and get it over with. Only she was so scared, so horribly, horribly frightened.

"Sarah." he mumbled. As his lips brushed over her chest she felt the faint tickle of his long eyelashes against her racing heart.

Her lips were quivering, her eyes were wide and darting with fear. She looked like a fawn trapped in headlights. Or more like a lost kitten that just found itself in the shadow of a wolf, yes, she was his kitten. He felt her trembling from the inside out. And nearly died with the sensation.

She heard him groan, and he collapsed on top of her. He had wanted this, wanted it so badly, and for so long. He started to move inside her cautiously, hesitantly, and all the while he still whispered words of comfort.

"Trust me." his words padded their way into her thoughts, thumping against her fear, her anxiety. "Relax." he urged.

She did, she thought she did, she tried. Tried which she wasn't sure. She wasn't even sure she wanted to do either. She just wanted it to stop hurting.

Slowly, slowly but surely it did. The burning ache dissipated into a stretching ache, and then just a stretch. A considerable stretch, a

huge, filling stretch, but just a stretch, nonetheless. It was not pleasant, but it was enough. Enough that for just one flickering moment a dangerous new image entered her mind.

It was unlike the soft tingling images she had felt coming from Jareth. It sparked from the earlier bliss he had given her she was sure, but still separate. It was an image completely her own. Been one from her oldest, most guarded, most erotic, imaginings. Fantasies.

Fantasies fed off years of peeking through her fingers when she had been told to close her eyes during certain "grown up" scenes in movies. Off a curious glimpse at dirty magazine some kid had brought to class in the sixth grade. Off certain articles in her mothers Cosmo. Off trashy paperback romance novels she was afraid to read in public. Off the gigglish whispers of the popular girls and their prissy, pristine pouts. Off the closed door to her father's room, which had always been open, until Karen entered the picture. Even off of Toby, who appeared a short time after.

It was a deep, wild flash, of raw thrusting movement, undulating hips and tangled limbs. She saw her back arching up off the bed, her heels digging into the mattress, her nails scratching the glistening surface of Jareth's back, his calves tightening, her thighs clenching. It was all hot sticky breath, frenzied heart rates, crumpled clothing, messy hair, smudged eyeliner, and smeared lipstick. It was uncut passion, wanton desire, pure radiant pleasure.

But Jareth did not deliver her to this smoldering paradise.

He could not. His embrace came with a tender intent, but it was a cruel embrace at heart. A wild rose, after all, can feign delicacy well enough when surrounded by a luscious greenery. But his thorns shall forever prick at the naïve fingers of those foolhardy admirers who dare to venture too close to his domain.

Her heart had indeed been racing, her hair had torn free from its soft arrangement, and the grand ball gown had come to lie in a disheveled heap upon the floor. However the pale skin around the corner of her mouth was tainted with only the sheerest tint of lip color, and there were no smoky rings around her eyes. Her face had been nearly baby fresh when she had entered the Labyrinth. And to sin of the flesh, though the seeds were sewn in early childhood, was the dream of a woman in full bloom. Not the nightmare fairytale of a budding girl.

Yes, the fairytale had been distinctly satisfying. But it had always been a satisfaction largely for his enjoyment; she had only received the physical taste of it. It was sweet, and he had used that sweetness to momentarily masquerade it as something light, gentle, and delicate. Exactly what he personified when he had appeared to her, as her savior, in the ballroom. Before his illusion had broken and he was forced to begin again, bringing her here where he forcefully crafted another hazy enchantment around her from whispers, thoughts, caresses, perhaps even her tears.

Now that it began once again to be more completely to his satisfaction Jareth's magic was faltering once again. His body still moved against her, inside her, but instead of feeling warm, she felt slightly chilled. The breath coming against her neck was surprisingly icy. She realized she was trapped in the arms of a truly ghoulish king. And he was a selfish lover…

---

Sarah blinked through her bloody tears. She lay stiffly, in the tub. The water continued to pour down on her in roaring monotony. A pulling ache drove through her mangled arm.

It had never been Toby's innocence on the line.

As for her own?

She had caught his attention. Jareth, the most beautiful of roses. She had reached for him, and as any rose might he gave to her everything he had to give. His proclamation to be her slave had not been false. She received his love, and the fear that came with it. She had felt the soft brush of his petals against her cheek and when pierced with a thorn, her innocence had merely slipped away, as surely as the new blood slipped from her veins. It was not lost to some vile thievery. It was lost because she had been careless with it.

So careless.

Blackness began to fill the corners of her eyes, and her lids began to feel so incredibly heavy. She wanted to shut them only for a moment. A moment edging onward to eternity. The pull on her arm quieted into a gentle tug, and then to nothing. Her pulse was breaking, and her breathing slowed to a gentle wheeze. She felt as though she was falling down a long, desolate tunnel. She was sinking, shuffling off layers of herself along the way. The physical, the emotional, until there was almost nothing left of her. There was this one tiny stubborn piece refusing to let go, that's all. And once it did, she'd be gone, forever.

"It's only forever…"

Something fluttered, flapped, in the emptiness around her.

"…not long at all…"

At once silky and soft, it brushed against her cheek.

"…the lost and the lonely…"

A nerve twisting pinch shot down her arm, she grabbed it, hissing in pain. The wound spat a new revitalizing bout of blood.

"…that's underground…"

She lay back, and smiled, hearing sirens in the distance.

"…underground."

AN: Anddd cut! This has deffinitely been my favorite story to write. All of your reviews have been fantastic so far, really I've been overjoyed and blown away!!...but you know I could always use a few more *winks*, concrit is ALWAYS welcomed.