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“Five hours.”
His fingertips curl idly around the crystal sphere cupped in his palm, his body a languid sprawl atop the lip of the labyrinth.
“Damn,” you mutter, curling dirty palms around your knees as you attempt to catch your breath. Five hours, huh? Better than the four hours it had taken Jareth to find you last time, or the two before that, but still.
You feel the weight of the Goblin King’s fierce gaze baring down upon your bent head. “You’re filthy.”
You scowl, dusting off your clothes with a few swipes of impatient hands. “I fell,” you return sourly. The distant sound of wingbeats had startled you into a run and a twisting root in your path had sent you sprawling straight onto the dusty floor of the labyrinth. “We agreed on no magic.”
“You reneged on our agreement,” Jareth returns coolly, his sharp eyes darting down to your hand. “And so I followed suit. Hoggle’s penchant for baubles remains, I see. How fortunate for you.”
You tuck your hand behind your back, though the futility of the gesture has been made more than apparent. “No magic was what we agreed on,” you persist, feeling the missing weight of the ring you’d given Hoggle prickling along your nerves. “Not that I couldn’t ask for help.”
Jareth scoffs, the crystal sphere disappearing from his palm in a blink. With a move far more graceful than any you could reasonably perform, he leaps from the lip of the labyrinth and lands before you in a whirl of obsidian robes. They settle about his form like a pair of great wings, and despite yourself, your heart gives a resounding thump at the sight.
The Goblin King holds out a gloved hand. “Let me see.”
You think about refusing, but ultimately slip your hand into his. You’re caked in dust and dirt from your mad dash through the labyrinth - and your subsequent tumble - but Jareth seems to care little about the filth upon your skin marring his own. He merely studies your fingers and the empty space where a ring had once sat, an indistinguishable expression upon his handsome face.
“You’ll be needing a new ring, I take it,” he murmurs, thumbing at the strip of bare skin. Even through the barrier of his gloves, the warmth of his skin sinks into yours, and you struggle against the urge to press closer. His nose wrinkles. “And to bathe,” he mutters, ignoring the sour look the quip earns him. “Come along then.”
Before you can protest, his robes have whipped about you and spirited you away. When next you’re aware, you find yourself standing within the castle, the gently steaming basin that houses the Goblin King’s private bath filling the room with steam.
It takes you a moment to right yourself, Jareth’s preferred method of travel never failing to leave your mind spinning. By the time your stomach has ceased its tumbling, Jareth has divested himself of his robes and gloves, his slender fingers working at the ruffled sleeves of his tunic and exposing lean forearms to the humid air.
His expectations are clear, and with a thudding pulse, you turn away from his gaze and set about wriggling free of your dirt-laden clothes.
It isn’t the first time the Goblin King has seen you in a state of undress, nor is it the first time you’ve been within these chambers together, and yet your face burns as you ease within the warmth of the steaming bath, the heat an immediate balm to the aches and pains you’d sustained from your long trek through the labyrinth.
Out of the corner of your eye, you spot a pair of goblins making off with your dirty clothing. “Don’t - !” you start, only to be stalled by a wave of Jareth’s hand.
“They’ll be returned once they’ve been rid of the muck you soiled them with,” he tells you, a slim brow arched as your expression softens into relief. “Though I cannot fathom why you continue to persist in wearing nothing else.”
“I like my clothes,” you return, your lips twitching as Jareth’s brows furrow in annoyance. He had tried time and time again to ply you with the ruffled and bejeweled trappings of his own vast closet, but you preferred the simplicity and comfort of the clothing you had arrived in, clothing that Jareth continued to scoff at but would dutifully return to you after they’d been cleaned or mended.
Such generosity was to be hoarded like gold from your arrogant and selfish King, particularly when they arrived without fanfare. There was little you could do if Jareth chose to take those last trappings of home and spirit them away as swiftly as he’d spirited you, and yet a part of you knew he never would.
The thought warms you. You duck beneath the surface of the water to scrub the dirt and grit from your face, and when you resurface it’s to the sight of Jareth warming a sweet-smelling oil between his bare palms, keen eyes catching yours and urging you to his side.
His palms are warm and smooth against your arm when you present it to him, the oil sinking into your skin and filling the air with the scent of lavender and sweet herbs. You find yourself watching his face as he attends to you, the way his eyes follow the ascension of his palms along your wrist and forearm, the way his lips part as he breathes.
The ritual is a familiar one. Many of your excursions into the labyrinth had ended just like this, with the Goblin King ridding you of the day’s grime, fingers sure and strong against your arms, your shoulders, your scalp.
The game you played was a simple one: to escape his reach, if only to prove that you could, and to reap the reward he had promised you in return - a single wish.
“Whatever you desire,” he had vowed to you, his voice a silken drawl each time you stood before the entrance to the labyrinth.
He always found you. Whether it be by magic or by might, trickery or luck, you found yourself in the arms of the Goblin King no matter how cleverly you played his game, and yet the disappointment of failure never seemed to strike you here, not with Jareth’s fingers dragging scented oils along your skin.
“Tell me.” You blink at the sound of his voice, tilting your head back to peer into his winsome face. The wall of stone at your back is cool despite the heat of the water, but its chill is not what sends a shiver down your spine. No, that honor belongs to your host, for even perched upon the lip of the steaming basin, his hands and arms bare, Jareth exudes all of the charm and power of a fierce King. “What will you wish for?”
You chew on the inside of your cheek, the words lingering on the tip of your tongue. Secrets were to be guarded fiercely within the labyrinth, lest they be used against you, but you doubted that Jareth had asked for such a paltry purpose as that. No, you can guess the direction of his thoughts well enough, having spent enough time in the man’s presence to know how his mind worked, the depths of his desires and the fierceness of his rage, should they be on the cusp of slipping from his grasp.
He wonders if you’ll wish for your freedom. You can see it in the stillness of his gaze, the firm line of his lips, the furrow of his brow. You can feel it in the drag of his fingers, warm and damp against the hollow of your throat.
You press into his touch, and you tell him, “A kiss.”
Jareth’s brows twitch, his sharp gaze gaining a new edge as he peers down into your face, searching, perhaps, for a lie, and finding none.
“And if your wish were granted?” His voice has grown low, little more than a rasp, and his touch trails along your throat, feeling your pulse in the pads of his fingers. “Here, now?”
You suck in a breath, holding it in the cage of your chest before it releases, thick. “I would ask for another,” you confess, and the slow curl of Jareth’s lips sends heat spilling into your belly.
The scent of herbs and lavender makes your head spin, but it’s Jareth’s hands curling around your cheeks that makes your pulse run. He turns you to face him, fingertips wrapping around your jaw, and you catch the brilliant gleam of satisfaction in his eyes before he dips his head to yours.
You expect his kiss to be fierce, harsh, all sharp edges and hunger, but the Goblin King takes your mouth with a softness that makes you tremble, his lips moving gently against yours, tilting, parting, tasting of skin and heat and magic.
Lost beneath his touch, your wet fingers curl within his ruffled collar, eager and clumsy. You can do little else from the warmth of the bath, its waters lapping gently against the walls of the basin. Jareth laughs at your desperation, a soft, low rumble against your lips, and flicks his tongue against your own, tasting you, his hands dragging along your sides and wrapping, firm and possessive, around your hips.
“And if I grant you another?” he murmurs against your lips, gaze sharp and bright and vicious. “What then? What more shall you ask of me, I wonder?”
“Another,” you moan, the barest graze of his mouth against yours flooding your veins with want. Your fingers delve within the loosened folds of his collar, seeking warmth, seeking skin. “And another, and another - “
Jareth kisses you silent, kisses you deep. You feel greedy, gluttonous, eager to consume and be consumed in turn, but any shame you might feel is tempered by your surety that Jareth would have you no other way - bare, hungry.
His.