Disclaimer: I don't own 'Labyrinth', or the characters thereof. I don't own anything except this strange little plot bunny that ran around and around my head until I agreed to follow its paw prints in the snow.
Pairing: None at all.
Author's Note: This is a rather vague, doomsday-style piece I found myself writing. I think most of it was to deal with characters and with consequences. After all, if Toby can be wished away like a piece of property, then logic says that he can be taken back like a piece of property. Things like that, really. Oh, and it was just a study in descriptive technique. This is more of a writing exercise than an actual fiction. Hope it works.
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Toby looked around in a kind of dull confusion, hardly aware that he was pressed against his mother's shaking form, or that his best friend's hand was still resting on his shoulder. The minister or priest or what-have-you was still droning on. Everyone around him was still and mournful, dressed in black and shivering in the cool autumn breeze.
Not that the day was that cold. It was mild as far as early autumn went. The leaves were still turning; summer was still holding on. The overlong grass in the cemetery was rustling in the wind. The gravestones and various small monuments seemed so drastically pointless- human memories trying to outlast the people they belonged to. Did it even matter? Toby wondered if it would matter to Sarah that she was buried in an expensive casket in her best dress, her face carefully made up and a bunch of white lilies strewn around her. Would it matter to her what they wrote on her headstone? Would it matter if they put up one of those god-awful weeping angels over her final resting place?
Not to Sarah, Toby knew. She hadn't believed in life after death. She had lived staunchly for the moment. Maybe that was why she'd been drink-driving after that stupid party?
The fat man there… her publisher, wasn't he? Toby decided he didn't like him. The man hadn't stopped Sarah from driving home after the book launch. How was it that no one noticed she'd been drunk off her arse? Surely that wasn't possible! The star novelist of the past five years, the guest of honour at that champagne-and-roses get-together and no one knew that she couldn't walk a straight line? For God's sake, the press knew when she'd miscarried before her family even had!
And then there was Alexis, Sarah's best friend. Toby didn't like her either. Her hard mouth and shrewd eyes always seemed to belie her compliments and gratuitous smile. Sarah had been so generous with her, had showered gifts on her and paid to take her along on her various trips around the States and Europe. They'd been planning to go to Australia for the winter. To escape the snow, Sarah had laughed. And now Sarah wouldn't go. But Alexis would, Toby would bet; she'd go and sit on Bondi Beach in her tiny bikini and swim in the pool of a five star hotel and eat her luxury food and it would be at Sarah's expense. Everyone knew Sarah had already bought her the ticket, and Sarah had openly said that Alexis would be taken care of in her will. And why? Toby never had understood that. Sure, they were best friends, but no best friend needed to be kept that close. For God's sake, they'd even lived together!
Oh, but he couldn't forget the woman sobbing opposite him. A lacy slip of cloth held up to her green eyes, carefully made up to make the crow's feet disappear. The dyed black hair hung in a shiny waterfall around her face. Toby hissed inside himself. Sarah's mother. Bah! The bitch had left when Sarah was thirteen. And never saw her again until Sarah got her first big cheque. Thank God, Sarah had listened to her father and never given her a single red cent. But she'd kept in touch and given her a few expensive presents. The handbag on that bony wrist, if Toby wasn't mistaken, was a Gucci exclusive.
And then the flash of black.
Toby whipped around, uncaring that people were staring at his furious action.
There! Just there!
"Excuse me," he muttered, ripping his shoulder out of Shaun's grasp and striding away.
The slender figure was leaning against a pillar, mane of hair eerily untouched by the wind. Black sunglasses sat on the straight nose. The long blond cloak was pulled closed and he seemed as nothing more than a long pillar. No, not so much- Toby found he was taller.
"You bastard." This male he hated. With every fibre of his being he hated this male.
A black-gloved hand rose to pull the dark glasses from a pair of cold mismatched eyes. Toby caught a flicker of something just before the icy reserve filmed them once more. And intelligence. He saw so much intelligence in that measured gaze.
"Whatever do you mean?" Cultured voice with gravelly undertones. It was the sort of voice that probably purred. Sarah had used that expression- the Goblin King purred.
"You have no right being here," Toby snapped, shaking with the force of his rage. He pointed in the direction of the entrance gates. "Leave. Leave, before I chuck you out."
The Goblin King straightened from the stone cross he was leaning again. The cloak fell open, held only by the silver brooch on his left shoulder. "Go back to your family, Toby Williams. Do not take your anger out on me."
"She would not have wanted you here!"
Jareth actually looked amused. "And you think everyone here attends for her? Funerals are for the living, not the dead. We come to pay our respects, to regret the things we did or did not do when the dead walked amongst us."
Good God! Toby clenched his fists and refused to accept the utterance of what he had been thinking. "You've never respected her."
"I respected her more than she ever knew," Jareth sighed, running a negligent hand over the twisted silver belt on his hips.
"She knew that you tried to get her killed."
"She knew what she thought she knew. What she knew was not always right."
"Are you saying you didn't try to kill her?"
"I am saying, Toby, that I did not want her dead."
"That isn't the same thing."
"I see." The hint of a sad smile. "She trained you well."
The words were like a slap in the face. "Get out." The words trembled on his mouth like some kind of plea.
The Goblin King seemed to think so too, for that flicker came back once more as he felt out a hand, grasping the mortal's arm. "Are you alright? Sit down if you must."
"Please, just get out…"
"Whatever you may feel, Toby, I have a right to be here."
"No…"
Jareth nodded to the young man who had followed his friend. "Tell his parents that I took him home," he instructed, "He will be quite safe with me. Leave us, now."
Shaun nodded automatically, his boyish face worried and reddened with the cold. He'd expected something like this to happen. Toby had worshipped his older sister. Her death had hit him hard and he'd been in shock for days. It seemed it was getting to him, now. What Shaun wasn't quite happy about, was this strange man who seemed to be taking care of Toby. Something about him was peculiar.
"Well?"
Hooded eyes looked at him impatiently and Shaun started back in shock. The hazel iris was glowing steadily brown while the blue one was softening to light grey. He nodded hurriedly and went away, looking over his shoulder every so often.
Jareth waited until the young man had left before turning back to his charge, watching dispassionately as Toby leaned weakly against the stone cross, his head in his hands. There was a slight tremble in those broad fingers. But eventually, when the silence grew too uncomfortable, Toby dropped his hands and squared his shoulders, the light of battle in his eyes.
Jareth was still just watching him, patient in his stillness, arms folded across his chest.
"Stop staring at me."
"I do not stare." Cool and collected; not a hair out of place.
Toby snorted and uncoiled his long limbs. He wasn't about to stay and listen. Sarah had told him never to trust the Goblin King and he wouldn't. He could see what had angered her in this man. She'd omitted to mention the sexual aura around him, or the pull the fae held on those around him, but Toby hadn't ever needed to know that, had he? For Sarah's memory, he could walk away.
He made to move and just as he brushed passed the slightly shorter male, his arm was grasped in a clasp of iron and he was whisked away through time and space. Falling over with a short thump to sit down very hurriedly on hard stone floors. Looking around in a panic at the crystals that glowed and flickered everywhere around him.
"My museum," Jareth introduced, waving a hand around as if this was nothing out of the ordinary, "All the dreams that have been refused."
Toby gasped at the millions of serenely floating little bubbles of magic.
"Those who reject their dreams, will never find their dreams," Jareth continued, picking one out at random, "This woman wanted to be a doctor. She wished her mother away and thereby put her dreams up as insurance as she ran the Labyrinth. She lost and so she sweeps floors as a living. Tragic, is it not?"
Toby heaved himself up, far too conscious of his bulk with all these delicate things around, one of which was the Goblin King. The cloak was dropped, pooled negligently at his feet as he let go of the crystal and pinned the brooch on his sleeve.
"Follow me," he ordered, walking past Toby to the other side of the hall. Toby followed.
The fae led the way to where a simply crafted pedestal stood. Two crystals sat side by side on the marble surface, somehow brighter and bigger than the others. Jareth picked them up and began to weave them around his fingers. The way he smiled down at his actions said he was only acting through force of habit. It was the space of a few seconds before he remembered his guest. He lifted one of crystals from the dance and tossed it lightly to the mortal.
"That is yours," he said.
Toby blinked in surprise and looked at the crystal. There was no sense of revelation when he held it; there were no visions in its heart. There was just the crystal. "What are my dreams?" he asked instead.
The smile widened to a knowing smirk. "That is not for me to say," Jareth replied, "Surely you have some ambition, some… want." Abrupt change of topic. "This is Sarah's."
Toby looked from the crystal in his hand to the one in Jareth's. They seemed the same; there was nothing different in either of them. There was nothing different in anything! He was in some otherworldly realm, with some otherworldly creature, holding an object of great importance, and he wasn't the slightest bit intrigued by any of it. He was too numbed, too broken.
"A part of you is fractured, is it not?" A disembodied voice, almost, in this mausoleum of dead dreams. A soft sigh, though perhaps not one of any sympathy. "Headstrong girl. And now look at you- dying inside because your parent spirit is departed."
Now that did intrigue Toby. "Parent spirit? What's that? And what do you mean- 'dying inside'? I'm not dying!"
"No, of course not," Jareth said, dripping irony with every word, "You work. You have a cosy job in a cosy town, supported by your family and your girlfriend. You lack for nothing. You have the few luxuries commonplace to your station in life. You will soon invest in your own house. You appreciate jazz and you take great enjoyment in your garden. A full and satisfying life, Toby Williams. Would you not agree?"
"There is nothing wrong with my life," Toby griped softly, glaring down into the hard eyes gazing up mockingly at his face.
"Truly?" The cruel flash of sharp dogteeth in a sharp smile. "When was the last time you saw life beyond what you have always known?"
The mortal backed away. Something in that question seemed to bode very ill for him. "I don't know what you mean. If you're going to rave like a lunatic, you might as well take me home."
"I will, when the conversation is done… Sarah would have wanted it."
Again with the irony! What was it with this bastard fae and irony! Toby snorted in disgust and stalked past Jareth's slender body, carefully placing the crystal back on the stand. He was curious as to what it contained, but oddly enough the curiosity was a mild one, the same he felt for the crystal in that black-gloved hand or the others floating serenely around the room.
"You haven't answered my question."
"I don't have the time."
"And the time doesn't seem to have you," Jareth laughed.
Toby turned with raised eyebrows just in time to see the fingers let go. In slow motion he watched the crystal fall. He knew Jareth would stop it crashing. It was precious, surely. The Goblin King wouldn't just let someone's dreams vanish without a trace. But the crystal smashed. And nothing happened.
"You… you…"
"I? And what have I to do with anything? I thought time was at fault. Come, come, Toby, surely you have a better excuse."
"I don't think this is any of your business," Toby protested. His suit was beginning to feel too heavy on him. He wanted to get it off. He worked outdoors. He wasn't meant for suits and tight collars.
The Goblin King had yet another cutting remark for that- "What you think is tainted by what you believe. What you meant to say was, you don't believe that this is any of my business. The truth is that it is."
"Oh, really!" Toby was losing his own temper once again. Sarah had warned him to stay away. She'd told him not to approach. She'd promised him Jareth would have some stuffy little plan festering in his Escherian brain for revenge. But he didn't care! He'd take whatever Jareth had to dish out and he'd spit it back in his face. "Because I was wished away? Good luck. Sarah got me back. I don't belong to you."
He watched while Jareth deliberately stripped off his gloves, somehow managing to make the act look like a slow striptease.
"This concerns me, because I am an actor in this little drama and I refuse to play anything but a leading role." A charming answer with a charming smirk. "When was the last time you saw life beyond what you know? It is a simple question."
Toby had had enough. Enough with the blowing hot and cold, enough with the enigmatic questions to answers he couldn't provide. So he slipped into his teenaged standby- "I don't want to, okay?"
And it had quite the wrong effect. Jareth perked up quite considerably, nodding his blond head with a triumphant jerk and flinging his arms out as if to welcome the world into his embrace. "Finally! A clear answer! Of course you didn't want to, you imbecile. If you had said you had I would never have believed you. Naturally you don't want life. You don't want to live. You never have. You haven't, as I have been saying, the capacity to live."
Blue eyes blinked. Once. Twice. The tip of a pink tongue flicked out to lick dry lips. Two little creases of concentration deepened between those eyes. "I don't know what the hell you're babbling on about."
The Goblin King sighed and beckoned.
The walk was short. It paced from the one end of the hall they stood at, to the other. The door was plain, wooden and thick enough to merit a battering ram should anyone want to break it down. But it opened under Jareth's hand with a soft creak. Beyond it was a world of ice and snow.
Jareth brushed the snow off a stone bench and waved his guest over to his side. "Sit," he ordered.
Toby obligingly sat. And felt like an elephant with his father's broad shoulders and sturdy physique beside this slender creature with the invisible shimmer.
The explanation, when it came, was slow and gentle. It filled the cold world they sat in and touched the contours of what was believable and what was not. The snow continued to fall. The faraway chime of clocks ticked in unison. The smell of baking swept by on the air. And the explanation went on.
Jareth told him the damage Sarah had unknowingly done:
"… she sucked the life from you… you shared her pleasures, her pains… you lived through her…"
And Toby could not comprehend it. How had Sarah managed to do that? She had no magical powers. And even if she could do it, she wouldn't have because Sarah would never have used him for her own ends. It just wasn't something she would do.
He tried to say so. "That never happened. She wouldn't have done that."
"But she did. When she told you of her divorce, didn't you feel as betrayed as her? Who was it she told first of her joys and curses?"
"I was her baby brother," Toby argued, "We were close, that's all. There was nothing weird about it."
"She leeched you of your dreams."
"That's impossible! You just gave me that crystal."
The Goblin King summoned the crystal in question. "This crystal? Toby, Sarah wanted to be an actress. She wanted to act. In the theatre, or on the screen, she wanted to play characters. What did she once tell you, in the days when you used to write?"
Toby tried to think back. He'd written a bit, sure, when he'd been a child. But that had been kid stuff, about pirates and lions and dogs that could talk; nothing to do with culture and identity and loss. "She said she would act in my plays."
"Toby, when did you stop writing?"
"In fifth grade," he said instantly.
"Why?"
"I didn't want to write anymore."
The Goblin King nodded patiently. "And when was Sarah's first novel published?"
"When I was in seventh grade?"
"When did she start to write it?"
"About two years… before…"
Jareth shifted in his seat, sparing a glance for his companion. "Two years before. When you were in fifth grade. I will tell you now that she began to leech power from you then. She never knew it; you never knew it. But it happened because she could and because she won. She won you back and you became hers. Her property, if you like."
"I am not!" Toby bounded to his feet and shook the snow from his hair, furious that Jareth would even try to blacken his beloved sister's name. "I don't know what you're trying, Goblin King, but it won't work. Sarah was a wonderful person. She wasn't some kind of demon, running around sucking the talent out of people. If anyone's a devil around here, it's you. You hear me? You!"
The Goblin King got slowly to his feet, the brief sheen of human feeling disappearing from his face. Now he looked satanic and cold, the perfect foil to this dangerously cold world. "The devil is deadly because he never lies, Toby Williams. You've heard the truth from me. Sarah's crystal was broken, by my hand, so that you could live. Your spirit had grown entwined with hers. You were living through her and that, my child, was unacceptable. I set you free."
"The devil twists the truth so that he says what he likes without lying," Toby snarled, "And I think you're making a pretty good job of that, you bloodsucking rat. I'm leaving. Let me out of this place."
"Will you listen, you infernal little nuisance!"
"No!"
The Goblin King stilled and watched him, a sad look stifling the anger in his eyes. He tilted his head as if trying to view him from another angle. "Do you hate me so much that you won't listen? What I tell you will save your life!"
"I'm not dying," Toby said bracingly, "And if you'll kindly send me back home; I'd rather not have this conversation."
A heavy sigh. But it wasn't from Jareth. The wind seemed to mourn. The snow grew lighter. The Goblin King merely stood immobile. In slate grey slacks and white peasant shirt, boots to his knees and his pale hands clasped lightly behind his back, he looked the very image of Sarah's fanciful descriptions. Toby had one severe moment of wondering what exactly he was giving up to stay true to his half-sister's memory. Was Sarah's dislike of this fae male truly worth remembering in the face of what might be important news?
Jareth decided the matter. He snapped into graceful movement, waving a hand at the mortal. "Go back, then. Get out of my world and back to your own. And I hope you feel every drop of the pain your blindness has caused."
Toby faded back to the cemetery, strangely heartbroken. He was standing as he was before, leaning against the stone cross, his face buried in his workman's hands. The sky was still overcast and a chill wind still blew. In the distance, the priest still mumbled his words of cold comfort.
And the mortal could still hear the faint echoes of that rough voice, cold fury in every clipped syllable- "Death is not the only way to stop living, Toby Williams. But then, you never really began, did you?"