Disclaimer: I don't profess to owning the 'Labyrinth' or anything to do with it.
Story Type: Mild slash
Pairing: Jareth/Toby
Author's Note: I don't know why the hell I wrote this, but since I'm one of the few authors writing 'Labyrinth' slash, I figured this wouldn't go amiss. Put it down to another mad plot bunny. It's sappy and silly and the structure is not the best, but I just thought some constructive criticism would do it some good.
Author's Note 2: This story has recently been updated due to grammar errors and bad writing. That said, it will remain the same, only a few tenses and a few words have changed.
"Trouble in paradise?"
Toby Williams started and then turned around with a grin replacing the frown he had been directing at the floor beneath his sneakers. "Jareth! Hey! Where've you been?"
The Goblin King curled up in the window seat as he always did and smirked. "Tormenting innocent human beings," he laughed, "Surprisingly there were two wishes in as many days."
"Bully for you." Toby got up and locked the door, not wanting his parents to walk in unexpectedly. As it was they thought he was strange. Just because! "So what will they turn into this time?"
"Two more fae," Jareth sighed, "I swear there are too many in the Underground now. The goblins are beginning to be outnumbered. And as for elves! Does no one on the earth plane like nature any more?"
"Well, yeah. But there's hardly any nature left to like, is there?"
The two gazed solemnly at the other and then shrugged and discarded the topic as a bore.
"How's Hoggle?"
"Terrified."
"Sir Didymus?"
"Guarding the Bog."
"Ludo?"
"Exploring."
Toby blinked. "Are you going to be monosyllabic? Because then I'll just go do my homework, shall I?"
A white hand waved at him impatiently and a crystal began to restlessly be played with. "I do apologize. But life is just a shade frustrating now. So many things to do… so many ways to escape work."
"You sound like me in English," Toby teased, "What's been bothering you?"
"Life. Do you believe in life?"
"Isn't that a kind of weird question? I have to believe in life; I'm alive. I have a life."
"By whose say so?" Those differently coloured were narrowed, staring at something out of the window as fingers tapped out an impatient staccato on a black-clothed knee. "What dictates that we have a life? We could be dead, and completely unknowing of that."
"I think you've spent far too much time thinking in that staircase room of yours," Toby said bracingly, "Snap out of it."
The Goblin King shrugged and got off the window seat, stretching to ease the kinks out of his back. "As you say. Tell me, how is Sarah?"
A sideways glance from blue eyes. "Fine. You're not going to suddenly appear to her, are you? She'll just scream. She thinks that whole thing with the Labyrinth was a dream."
"Does she? How strange."
"That's what she said about the Dream," Toby chuckled, "Sit down. Um, you couldn't summon me up a pizza, could you? I'm starving!"
Jareth laughed and shook his head. "Did Karen cook again?"
"It was meatloaf tonight. I said I felt sick."
"Not a lie, eh?"
"Not quite. So, you coming to see the game on Friday?"
"Would I miss my heir's childhood triumphs?" the Goblin King pointed out, "Besides, what else will I do? Unless someone gets wished away, there is very little amusement that the Underground provides. Want some help winning?"
Toby glared at him. "Use any kind of magic in public and I will disown you."
Peculiar though the conversation might have seemed to people, Toby Williams was not delusional. Nor was he delinquent. He was merely talking to a good friend. After all, the man had sung to him when he'd been a baby, had bounced him on his knee and played with him, had fed him, and then proceeded to be there for every major event in the rest of his life. Peculiar, to call the Goblin King a friend, but there it was.
Toby never really understood how it happened. He just knew that Jareth had always been around, popping in and out of his life, sometimes on a day-to-day basis. Of course, they were careful. No one could know. Sarah couldn't know.
Birthdays- Jareth always appeared at night with his own gift and his own manner of greeting.
School events- Jareth somehow or other always managed to be somewhere in the crowd; once he'd even appeared in the changing room after a football game and spent a large amount of time scandalizing his heir by appraising the boys around him in various states of undress.
Graduation and College- Jareth just floated around. No one seemed to think he was anything more than a weirdly dressed man.
Toby never questioned him. It was the Goblin King, after all, no one questioned the Goblin King! But the fae was nice, kind of cool, and a hell of a lot smarter than most people he knew.
It didn't hurt that he was good looking. Toby had no illusions about how close they were. Jareth had christened him as his mortal heir in case he died. If Toby died first, another young mortal would be picked. He was just useful. Jareth got along with him, sure, but considering the geniuses in the Underground, it was either talk to him or talk to a clucking chicken. Toby fancied he was rather the better option. So there was no attraction, as such. Jareth seemed to like girls as much as he did, for all his posturing and sashaying. Never once did he ever see Jareth seriously consider a male. And he should know. For some absurd purpose, one of the traditions of his college life was to spend Saturday night with his mentor.
It had degenerated into a very weird kind of tradition, naturally, where those Saturday nights became sacrosanct. Nobody else was ever invited. They talked, drank, smoked and occasionally picked up girls. No guys. Though Jareth had talked him into going to a gay club once, for what Toby never did find out.
The Goblin King was always just a little reserved. No matter how much he drank, or how much he said, he never once let the mortal close enough to see what was really going on behind the differently coloured eyes.
The Saturday Night was threatened, obviously, when Toby found a girl he really liked. Then, the Saturday nights had to be devoted to his 'best girl' and to her alone. He regretted it, he really did. But Jareth was more than understanding when he told him.
"It's about bloody time you found a girl," the Goblin King sighed, playing with a letter opener, "I was beginning to think I would have to play matchmaker."
Since Toby was busy wolfing lunch between classes at the time, there was nothing he could say in reply, so he just glared.
"Is she nice?"
The blond head nodded. Chew. Swallow. Smile. "Yeah, she's great. We get along really well."
Jareth blinked absently up at the ceiling, still running a finger up and down the edge of the letter-opener. "The question, my dear child, is not whether she laughs at your jokes, but whether she gives good head."
"What?"
Jareth pushed himself up on one elbow and looked innocent. "Well, it is true."
The sandwich was put down and promptly forgotten. "I'm not with Suzie because she's a great lay! I like this girl; I could fall in love with her."
Jareth shrugged and lay back down on the bed. "Have it your way. But never underestimate the power of a good sex-life. It's not all, but it's actually quite a lot. No point in being with someone whom you are not really attracted to."
"Attraction isn't everything."
"I beg to differ. Attraction is a lot when your life is too short to waste it." When silence greeted his comment, the Goblin King sat up and looked serious. "By all means, date the girl. Marry her if you like; I could care less. All I'm saying is be careful. You're in danger of entrusting the rest of your life to someone else and that is a serious matter. It's not always about champagne and roses and intimate dinners at expensive restaurants."
The frown softened somewhat. "I know this will be a little weird at first, but I do like her. You know, you would too. She's a lot like you."
He was busy rooting around in his bag, so he never noticed the Goblin King's eyes narrow in speculation. Or see the way his lips tightened. He kept talking, listing all Suzie's many perfections and the times he had seen her. She was a brunette, he said, with hazel eyes. Really pretty. And she studied art.
Jareth tolerated it for as long as he was able, but his annoyance kicked in fairly soon. "Well, wonderful as all this sounds, I did come here with a purpose. What are we doing this Saturday?"
Toby stilled and then straightened up. "Oh," he mumbled lamely, "I forgot to tell you. I, er, kind of have a date with Suzie this Saturday. It's an afternoon thing, but…" He grinned sheepishly and gestured.
"Ah. She might put out?"
"Jareth!"
"Oh, stop being coy. Well then, good luck to you, Toby Williams." Jareth winked at him and then took himself away, still grinning that knowing little smirk that made his heir want to hit him or giggle like a nervous schoolgirl.
Yes, he had been understanding. They did do the occasional Saturday Night thing, but the flow was broken. Suzie was a raging ball of energy and she liked to do things. It was one of the most endearing things about her. There were constant streams of plays and movies and exhibitions and parties that she wanted to attend on a Saturday night and the few times that Toby did put his foot down and said 'no', he felt unbearably guilty about it.
Jareth didn't pressure him into anything. He seemed to understand. Whenever Toby explained, he'd just laugh it off and flit away to do whatever it was he did anyway. He listened patiently to all of Toby's stories about Suzie's latest exploits, threatened to kill the boy out of frustration when the split eventually happened and then took him out and got him so drunk Toby woke up in a strange hotel room in a strange bed with a strange back turned towards him.
He'd all but hyperventilated himself back into unconsciousness when Jareth noticed he was awake. That wicked grin did nothing to ease his horror, but it did snap him out of whatever trance he'd fallen into.
"We didn't! Did we?"
Jareth had opened his mouth, the mischievous glint in his eyes growing until Toby almost cowered into the pillows beneath his head. "No, we didn't. I have a little more self-control than that, Toby. Besides, you kept mumbling about that silly girlfriend of yours. I refuse to have my lovers call me 'Suzie'."
Toby didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So he contented himself with blinking rapidly and gaping like a goldfish.
The Goblin King got out of bed, completely unconscious about his state of nudity and began to dress, humming beneath his breath in some kind of tuneless way. Toby just lay there and tried very hard not to look. They hadn't; he knew that. Jareth didn't ever look at him that way, and besides, the fae never had mentioned ever sleeping with a man before, so it stood to reason that this was just as innocent as with any of his other friends.
Jareth's fingers paused in the act of lacing up the neck of his shirt. "Are you going to lie there all day?" he asked laconically.
Considering he was standing there in just a shirt, Toby still wouldn't look at him. Or get out of bed himself. "I, uh, seem to have misplaced my clothes," he muttered.
Jareth turned slightly to point to a chair in a corner of the room. "They're there. You were threatening to be sick, so I deprived you of your clothes. I wasn't going to wake up in the middle of night and do laundry."
"Thanks. If you could just, um, give me a minute."
The long fingers paused again as understanding dawned. "Ah. Of course. Excuse me." Jareth picked up his clothes and vanished into the bathroom.
They had made it out alive, true, though not before some little old lady in an elevator had twinkled at them on their way down and said they made a wonderful couple. To which Jareth fed her some cock-and-bull story about their second anniversary and then laughed heartily all the way back to the dorm. Toby had smiled weakly, but the images were still too fresh for him to enjoy it.
Now, lying on a bed in a hospital, Toby believes that that is exactly when things went wrong. After all, it had been perfectly innocent. He'd been drunk; Jareth had taken care of him. It was sweet, really, considering the Goblin King could have just dumped him back in his dorm bed and left his roommate to deal with anything that happened.
The Saturday Night had never again happened after that and Toby wonders wistfully if they had always been quite as much fun as he remembers.
It's not a good thing to be thirty-six and dying of AIDS-related something-or-other in a hospital bed. Nothing worked any more. Hell, they have barely worked for six years, why would they work now.
The clock ticks away in the gloom and he's not quite sure if he appreciates it or doesn't. He likes the sound of clocks; it's soothing. But he's dying now and all the clock does is tell him that he is running out of time. Like Sarah in the Labyrinth.
Sarah.
He presses the buzzer for the nurse and asks for his sister to be called. "I need to speak with her."
"You need to sleep," the nurse tells him sternly, "I'll get you something to help you sleep, shall I?"
Damn it all, he is the heir to the Goblin King! He does not appreciate being coddled like a child. He grips the woman's wrist with all the strength left in his fingers and levels a burning gaze at her. "Call my sister now. Tell her I need to speak with her."
The nurse knows her patients. There's been something bothering this one for a while. And those blue eyes are red-rimmed and opaque, glittering with all the intensity of desperation. Poor Soul. It wouldn't be that long now. One night of restless sleepwould make no difference. "I'll call her, Mr. Williams."
"And my wife," he rasps, his hand falling away uselessly as his eyes close.
His wife. Yes, his wife. The final rift. Telling Jareth had been like walking a precipice. Somewhere in those dual-coloured eyes lurked the disappointment in a wasted opportunity. Toby knew that, felt it himself. But whatever ridiculous attraction had grown around seeing the Goblin King in just his shirt was surely just nonsensical. He loved Harriet. Thought the world of her. She was smart and sweet and genuinely cared for him. Throw all that away for a maybe with a fae not even living on earth? Not likely!
He says so, when Sarah and Harriet turn up an hour later. He tells them. Sarah is horrified; Harriet is sceptical. It all does sound like a dream, now that he is so tired and actually explaining everything out loud. Maybe it was just his imagination? Oh God, maybe the entire thing was his imagination?
'Do you believe in life?'
God, no, he is dead! He'd always been dead! Does he even exist? Perhaps he is just a figment of someone's imagination? Is Sarah real? And Harriet? Is Jareth? The most frightening question of all- is Jareth alive and real? Is it possible that he has dreamed up this selfish, fictional man and built his life around a castle of sand?
What are the words? How had he called Jareth before? He hadn't! Jareth had always just appeared. Out of nowhere. He'd even once picked him up and soothed him when Toby had had a nightmare. He'd been… six? Four? Something like that and Jareth had shushed him and been kindness personified.
That stag night, Jareth had just come to the club and pulled Toby away to a corner. Hot, hungry kisses and long desperate fingers. Lean, hard body crushed against the wall as Toby melted into the Goblin King, confused with the pulsing lights and music and the circumstance and yes, just the delight in seeing him again after so many lonely months without contact. Ripping open the coat and shirt to touch skin and luxuriate in rich sensation.
'Faggots!'
Those hadn't even been fighting words, just a mechanical disgust from someone uncomfortable with the idea. But Toby had pulled away with sheer fright, pinning Jareth to the wall and staring at him as if he'd never seen him before. The Goblin King was panting, hair tousled and lips swollen, his cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkling, that triumphant smirk just touching the corners of his mouth.
Mockery.
'Come, come, Toby! Don't tell me you want to shackle yourself to that woman without knowing? One last night of freedom, Toby. Give in to it.'
Sarah tries to quiet him, but Toby is sitting up and whispering to himself in a desperate undertone, wringing shaking hands in his lap and shivering in fright.
Harriet just sits there. She doesn't know a thing about what Toby is going through, but she knows that it's nothing she can cure. She has heard the name 'Jareth' before, usually on those restless nights when Toby talks in his sleep. As those have been happening more and more ever since that day six years ago when he'd accidentally pricked his finger with a needle on the bus, she is fairly certain that she knows why the man is so important.
So she turns to Sarah and raises an eyebrow. "Toby said you knew this Jareth. How do we reach him?"
"Jareth is just a dream," Sarah snaps, "He's not real."
Blue eyes snap up, terrified and shocked. "Not real?"
Sarah loses her composure a little. "No, I- I don't think he is, Toby. He was just a dream. And I used to tell you stories about the dream, remember? That's all. He was just a story."
Toby shakes his head emphatically. "No. No, he was real. We were friends and he made me his heir. I have the mark. See? I never had that before." Shaking fingers draw the sleeve up and there, on the inside of his wrist, is a tiny splodge of black.
Sarah looks from the wrist to her sister-in-law. "Harriet, call the nurse, will you? Toby, we can talk about this tomorrow, you need to rest."
"No! Damn it all, I know what I'm talking about! Jareth is real and he- he came to me. He kissed me, for God's sake!"
Now Sarah is really confused. She never knew her brother was gay. Or is he? He looks as much revolted by the idea as desperate. "Toby, who is this Jareth? Where does he live?"
"In the Underground," Toby answers, "In the Castle at the Centre of the Labyrinth."
"Does AIDS make you lose your mind?" Sarah sighs, more to herself as the query is too soft for Toby to hear it.
"I tell you, he's real. I wish he was here right now," Toby ends wretchedly.
A flash of de ja-vue and Sarah gasps as lightening and thunder threads across the sky. It's raining? It wasn't raining a few minutes ago. It was the clearest of summer night skies. But the wind is howling beyond the window and a storm seems to be breaking.
Harriet stops at the door and turns around, her own self-control slipping at this absurd situation.
Only Toby seems genuinely to take heart. He looks around himself, feverish eyes wide in his thin face as he turns eagerly towards the window. "It might be," he says, "It really might."
A vain hope, but one that he can pin the rest of his life to.
The window crashes open and a snowy white owl flies in. Sarah shrieks and claps a hand to her mouth. The Dream! This is the dream all over again! The owl lands gracefully on the foot of the bed and blinks.
Toby stares at it in fascination for a few moments and then laughs weakly, clapping softly in mocking applause. "Very well done, Goblin King," he teases, "Quite a dramatic entrance."
Sarah barely has time to think that an owl cannot possibly be a Goblin King- she would expect an enchanted king to be an eagle or a phoenix or something- when the owl vanishes in a light shower of glimmering air to reveal a man sitting on the foot of the bed.
He is smiling, his eyes fixed intently on Toby. But at the sight of the young man, the smile vanishes. "What happened?" Rough, demanding voice. Sarah knows this voice, has heard it once 'in a Dream'.
"Who are you?" she shouts.
The familiar stranger barely glances at her as he rises to move closer to the man still silently watching him in the bed. He only picks a small round glass orb out of thin air and tosses it to her. Sarah catches it and sees herself, her Dream, the friends she made. Harriet has yet to move from the doorway, her stricken face both bitter and resigned by turn as she watches her husband and his new guest.
"Toby? What's wrong?"
Toby looks down to see the long fingers touch the blankets and then the drip in his arm. So gentle. Jareth had been this gentle until that last night when they'd kissed.
'Get out. Don't ever come near me again.'
He looks up, not crying, but sad. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
Jareth's eyes flare with remembered hurt and he gives a curt nod. "I agree. It was singularly rude of you."
"But you couldn't just jump on me the night before my wedding," Toby says, coughing a little as something sticks in his throat. It might be memory, it might be humility, or it might be phlegm.
Jareth absently rubs his back. "And what was I supposed to do? Let you get married to that scheming bitch?"
Toby looks to his wife and bites his lip. "She never was to blame, you know." He can feel Jareth stiffen as his eyes take in the female standing in the shadows. "I asked her to marry me. It was my fault. Or yours, rather."
"Mine? In what way?"
"You spoilt me for everyone else, Jareth. I don't love you. I just… need you."
"I suppose that will have to do." Jareth sits down beside him, holding a twitching hand in his, ignoring the other two women in the room. They aren't important. "What's wrong? Why call me now?"
Toby feels a little foolish, but he only has this one last chance with Jareth. He has to make it count. Lying will be tantamount to denying that he does care. "I thought you weren't real. I was beginning to wonder whether any of this was and I thought you'd know. Besides, I needed to apologize."
"Really. Well, I don't accept apologies."
"What?"
"I thought I was clear enough."
"Jareth, I am trying to make things right." Toby clutches tight at the hands holding his. It won't do to try to kill Jareth the first moment they have together in ages.
"Toby, I really have no use for you," Jareth remarks callously, "I'm not about to die; I don't need an heir for the next few years. My powers are as great as they have ever been. I rule a Kingdom designed for my whims and fancies alone. I have everything I need."
"That's not fair!" Harriet bursts out. "You bastard! Do you know what you've put us through the past few years? He loves you!"
Toby colours and shoots a look at his wife. "Harry,relax."
"Harry?" Jareth turns an amused eye to the very feminine woman quivering beside the bed.
"Jareth, this is my wife- Harriet. Everyone calls her Harry for short. Harry, this is Jareth, the Goblin King."
"Charmed," Jareth says blandly. His expression is more bored and dismissive than charmed.
Harriet is having none of this. "I'm sure. Toby is dying. I don't care what the hell has happened between the two of you in the past but stop being such a bastard to him!"
"Are you always this demanding?" Jareth sneers.
"Are you always this thick?"
"Not especially. The death of one human being is the same as another."
"He's immortal, Harry," Sarah suddenly pipes up, looking away from the crystal in her hands, "He can't fear death because he never has to die. Besides, I'm guessing he's bored of eternal life."
"Thank you, Sarah," Jareth sighs, "Very perceptive of you."
"He loves you," Harriet repeats.
"No, I don't," Toby interrupts, "I don't love him."
"Yes, you do, Toby. You say his name in your sleep. You've called me by his name when you're so sick you can't think straight. I'm tired of it! I've put up with it for six years and I won't anymore."
Toby looks helplessly from Harriet's exhausted face to Jareth's expressionless one. This is a choice? He doesn't want to hurt his wife, but then again he can't lie to himself.
'You spoilt me for anyone else.' He wants what they had once had. He doesn't want this life anymore; he's been down it and he's almost reached its end. It's empty now. Jareth sits there and Toby wants what Jareth might have given him. Even if it was never really offered.
"Harry, I'm sorry. I should have said, but I didn't think. I don't love him, I…"
"Enough. Look, Toby, do what you want. I'm okay with it. Just make up your mind and die in peace."
Jareth groans and throws up his hands. "All this talk of death! Is that all your mortals obsess over? No one is going to die."
"He's not?" Sarah asks dubiously, "Jareth, the doctors only gave him a few weeks more."
"On earth, Sarah."
Green eyes frown in perplexity and then widen in comprehension. "Underground! Can that happen?"
"If Toby wishes it."
"Wishes what?" Toby demands, trying to sit up and not quite managing it. His limbs feel so heavy. "What am I wishing?"
"To come with me," Jareth says simply, "What I offered a long time ago. It's still open. You will never be able to come Aboveground again, however. You'll be dead in this world."
"I- I can still live?"
"I don't trust you, Jareth," Sarah says slowly, "You'll trick him into something. Why do you want him?"
"We get along," Jareth explains, "And I do want a companion."
"A companion. Not an heir?"
"I do not need an heir for that nameless day when I die.Just as a companion."
"Will you treat him well?"
"Nature itself obeys my commands, Sarah. I will see to it that he has everything he wants."
Toby shakes his head in shock. It seems as if his sister and the Goblin King have already planned everything between them. "Wait! Don't I get a say?"
Mismatched eyes pin him to the bed. "Do you want to stay here and die?"
Breath is coming just a little short and Toby knows he doesn't want it to stop altogether. He's dying before he's ready and he'll jump eagerly at any chance to live. "No."
"Hmmm…" Jareth is still looking at him like a snake looks at a mouse. "Toby, do you understand what I am proposing?"
"To take me Underground."
"To fulfil all my needs. All of them.As a consort."
"What?" This time both Sarah and Toby are shocked.
Harriet just rolls her eyes. "Get over it, Toby. You've wanted this guy since forever."
Jareth smirks and leans closer. "Is that so, Toby." He sounds supremely confident of himself. "That explains why you were so embarrassed that day in the hotel room."
Toby blushes again, just thinking of it. He can still picture everything so clearly, the folds of the shirt as it cloaked the necessary parts of the Goblin King with teasing efficiency. And then those long, shapely legs and the slender curve of his neck; the flat planes of bare chest. Strictly speaking, he has wondered about that body.
Foreheads touch and Jareth's face is so close, Toby can feel warm breath against his lips.
"There is only forever to consider."
"I don't know," Toby confesses.
"Remember what I'm giving you, Toby."
"This is not real," Toby groans, closing his eyes, "I am not contemplating being some fairytale king's lover. I'm not sodding Snow White."
A rich chuckle ghosts its way past his ear. "Does it feel real?"
"Yes."
"It always has. Why bother wondering, when it feels right? Come with me."
Toby pushes against Jareth's shoulder, pushing him away so he can look at him. "We can't go back to the way it used to be, can we?"
Jareth looks astonished. "Of course we can. Did you imagine this wasn't there in the beginning? Ever since you were aware of me, you wanted more than just a present on your birthday. Why do you think those Saturdays were so special? Do you even know how you looked at me?"
His breath is catching in his throat and Toby coughs again, trying to dislodge whatever it is. He can see it now. The way he never took his eyes off Jareth when they were out together. That night they went to a gay bar, someone had been sending glances over to the Goblin King and Toby had deliberately slung his arm around the back of Jareth's chair so the guy would back off. The old lady in the hotel elevator had told them they were a wonderful couple.
And Jareth had reciprocated as much as he was able. Toby is sure of that, now that he thinks about it.
"I've never been with another man," he warns uncomfortably.
"I made sure of it," Jareth laughs.
Toby blushes and looks at his wife again, trying to find the words to make it better. But Harriet actually looks relieved.
Sarah is the only one left to deal with this in business-like practically. "What do we do now? How do we explain Toby's disappearance?"
"I'll leave a cast behind," Jareth decides, "To anyone unacquainted with magic, it will seem like a corpse. That should be sufficient."
Toby remembers something else. "What about my parents?"
Sarah touches her little brother's hand. "Toby,Karen and Dad expect you to die; they're ready for that. To tell them you're alive but they can't see you will be cruel. Let them think you're gone. It's easier for them."
"But… but I can't say goodbye."
"I'll tell them for you," Sarah promises, "Now hurry! We've made enough noise for that nosy nurse to turn up anytime now."
"She won't," Jareth reveals, "I put a silencing charm on the room as soon as I entered it."
Sarah shakes her head.
The Goblin King wordlessly holds out his hand to Toby. The mortal takes it, more with determination than certainty.
Blue eyes dart to the woman standing just away from the little group. "Harry, I really am sorry."
"You should have told me. I'd never have married you if I'd known. But I hope things work out," Harriet says. She doesn't want or need to kiss her husband goodbye. It hasn't been that kind of marriage for years. Not since the honeymoon, if she has to be honest. He's always been distant with her, as if she wasn't quite what he wanted.
"Sarah, thanks."
"No problem, little brother. Say hello to Hoggle and the rest for me, huh? Tell them I miss them."
"You can see them whenever you want, Sarah," Jareth growls impatiently, "You made that promise to them. You simply need to call."
"I can? Can they tell me about Toby and take messages and things?"
"Whenever you want."
"Thanks, Jareth. If you don't take good care of Toby, I will wish myself to the goblins and make your life hell," Sarah threatens.
The Goblin King only smirks and nods at her. He looks at Toby. The mortal is just skin and bone, now, his eyes closed with lack of energy. His skin is chalky and his lips are slightly blue. His hair is stringy and dull. All that will change in the Underground. It will take some time, but forever is long enough. He can afford to take this slowly, to make sure Toby isn't rushed into hating the rest of his life.
"Whenever you're ready, Jareth," Toby replied softly, "I'm done here."