Toby blankly stared out his bedroom window at the rain-slicked suburban streets. He was having one of the worst days of his relatively short life and to top it all off his irritating older sister was back and retelling that god-awful story. Every time she came home to tell mom and dad about her latest odd and artsy job, she'd sit with Toby, and not knowing how to communicate with the boy, she would tell him about the time she gallantly rescued him from the goblin king. Now, it wasn't the fact that she was telling this campy, mystical tale of creatures and the labyrinth when she was well into her twenties and Toby was a lad of 15… that would be degrading enough, but what got on Toby's last nerve was that, if it really DID happen, Sarah had revoked the one real adventure Toby would ever experience. He hated his dull suburban life, with kids calling him a faggot and his parents throwing him in therapy every time he complained… or worse, when he didn't complain about anything they knew something had to be troubling him terribly. Why did Sarah have to be so cruel? To tell such a farcical tale and then to be so condescending about rescuing him from such a fantastic world. Like, "well, you could've been goblin royalty, but I brought you back to normalcy, YAY!" Sarah had been the reason he was trapped. Most times he really wished to be taken away…
A lightning bolt was brought tot his attention, followed by a loud crash of thunder. The rain was now torrential, and Toby smiled as he thought of all the people that were going to get caught in the rain. Toby liked to think he controlled the weather with his mood, therefore causing these people's misery. He was still stuck in his reverie of escape, when he heard his mother's shrewd announcement that Sarah was leaving. Toby reluctantly got up and went downstairs where his mother and father stood waiting by the front door and Sarah was already outside with her umbrella. She hugged all of them, and before departing she left Toby with some thoughtful advice: "Toby, I know you're miserable here, but don't wish for anything else. I did, and I had to bring you back because…" Sarah went blank now because she couldn't actually remember why she went back for Toby. It was most likely because she would've gotten in trouble if her parents returned that night to see Toby wasn't in his crib. But she wasn't gonna tell him that. "Something bad would've happened" "My ass" Toby retorted. "Toby, you're lucky you don't remember…" But that was all she could say because Toby stopped listening as he really was trying to remember, as if you can remember something you can't imagine. Toby had no real memories of this "ordeal"; he would've been two years old if Sarah had been telling the truth. But Toby had dreams… he was surrounded by creatures with demonic faces. They should've been scary to a small child, but Toby found them amusing in some sick way. They always brought back a sense of nostalgia, not so much though as the face of Jareth himself. A man so fantastic and surreal, the only part of him he could surely define was his face. Chiseled, structured and intense features, straight and sharply angled bone structure. He looked animated, half fairy, half anime, which added to his surreal look. And he had eyes that even now seemed to overpower him... but then again, these were not memories but subliminal seeds of imagination planted by his sister. There could never really be any goblins and Ludo, and Hoggle, and Sir Diddymus… and certainly no goblin king, no sane man could ever surround himself with such nonsense. Yet every time Sarah came over he thought about it, more and more trying to determine whether his visions were imaginations or memories. He wished it were true, and he stayed up late that night theorizing over why Jareth hadn't fought harder for him. True, Jareth did throw in extra obstacles in the labyrinth, and he did alter time (Toby could never really believe that part). But how likely was it that his 14 year old sister navigated the labyrinth and ultimately defeated the goblin king with the words "you have no power over me"? (And how likely was it that she remembered that bloody line last minute?) But still, there had to have been some way for Jareth to defend him. Now the question was: why hasn't he returned? Did Toby get too old? Did Jareth already find a new protégé? It was all Toby could think about as he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He was momentarily shaken when he heard a noise outside his window. He sat up and saw it was nothing but a tree branch knocking into his window. Feeling annoyed that his train of thought was broken and disappointed that nothing slightly interesting had been out there, Toby was about tot lie down again when he heard another crash, so loud he thought that his window might break upon the next one. When he looked up he was startled to find a pair of black, beady, soulless eyes staring at him. They belonged to a white barn owl, perched on a tree branch, watching him. It was a quarter to midnight, and Toby had the unsettling feeling that he wasn't going to get any sleep that night. He sighed as he turned on the TV, and thought to himself "I wish the goblin king would come take me away… right now". He was flipping through channels, aimlessly trying to distract himself, when he caught a program with two scantily-clad teenaged boys grinding and thrusting on top of each other. Toby's hand snaked under his boxers, still semi-aware of the owl outside his window. Occasionally one of the two boys would look directly into the camera, as if beckoning Toby to come join them through the screen. He was swept up in lust and fantasy, wanting to kiss a boy, wanting to suck and fuck, and wanting to be sucked and fucked. His other hand frantically slid across his chest, face, belly and thighs. He tightened his grip as he tugged himself closer to the edge. He gripped onto the sheets as he came, and his few short moments of bliss were interrupted by a loud crash, and Toby's window flew open and before he would whip his head around he was there. A man so elegant and indescribable he stole Toby's breath away. Toby knew who it was in an instant, but still asked, being the thing to do when a freak breaks through your window and catches you masturbating. "Who are you?" Toby asked, his face flushed with embarrassment. The goblin king simply looked Toby over, and with a grin said "My Toby, how you've grown". The boy stood before him with his long, curly blonde hair falling in front of his blue eyes, and one hand covering the mess in his underpants. At that moment, he realized that Sarah had been telling the truth. And thoughts like "if this is real, and Jareth is right here, then there is a castle with a labyrinth and oh my god, there IS a Ludo!" flooded his mind. Toby's jaw hung open, his lower lip trembling. He asked "why are you here?" and Toby couldn't stop himself from whimpering when the man replied. "Toby, I'm here to bring you home." Jareth extended his hand to caress Toby's face, his thumb tracing over Toby's lips. "Are you ready?" he asked. Toby thought about all he'd leave behind. He thought of his rotten school with the lousy students. He thought of his parents, who sit around and wonder what they did to Toby that made him go horribly, horribly wrong. Was Toby ready to leave it all behind? Certainly. Toby had been waiting for it all his life. "I'm ready, sir" Toby said bravely, and Jareth took him over to his window, where his neighborhood had disappeared and had been replaced by a labyrinth, and a large castle in the distance. Toby marveled at it all, as if it had been in his backyard all along.