Author note: I promise I've not forgotten about this fanfiction, I've just now started college, and my Jareth obsession is dwindling to an almost normal-person level. I'm sorry for anyone who actually likes this story and has to wait. I'm going to do my best to finish it, unlike my Skyrim fanfiction, but I can make no promises as to how soon it will end. I'm not even sure how many more chapters I want to write. It could be four, it could be fifty, who knows? Feel free to review (negative reviews please include constructive criticism, not just something like "you suck" y'know? That doesn't help me and only makes me cry so unless you've ever had the displeasure of seeing me cry, you don't know just how unhelpful it is to my mental wellbeing.) To make up for how infrequent updates are likely to be, I'm going to try my best to make each upcoming chapter fairly lengthy so anybody who cares will have something to tide them over. Thanks for reading! Also, I have Word now, so my spelling should improve. Woot!
Jareth's fist came down hard upon his immense wooden desk. "What do you mean you haven't found her?" he shouted.
The poor goblin responsible for delivering the news trembled with fear, its bulbous monstrosity of a nose running down its filthy white shirt. "W-w-we've searched the entire kingdom, M'Lord, but the girl is nowhere to be found…"
"Oh, the entire kingdom?" Jareth's fangs glinted in the sunlight streaming through the high windows and the goblin gulped, nodding shakily. "Did you hear that, Niiz? They've searched the entire kingdom." Jareth laughed, looking towards the captain of his guard. She looked back at him through hazel, cat-like eyes and smirked. She looked back towards the goblin, shaking her head slightly. Jareth slipped around his desk and placed his gloved hand on the goblin's shaking shoulder. "The entire kingdom, my, my, that is a daunting task." Jareth looked down at the creature, walking towards the door with him in tow. "Why, you all must be exhausted."
"Y… Yes M'Lord…" croaked the goblin.
Jareth grasped the goblin's shoulder tightly, raising him the extra four feet necessary to bring him face to face with Jareth. The creature squealed and began to sob hysterically. "Quiet!" shouted Jareth. The goblin immediately silenced itself, hands over mouth, eyes wide with fear. "Listen well, Mossrat, you will take the search parties out again and scour every kingdom as far as the horizon, do you understand?" he hissed sweetly. Mossrat shook his gigantic head vigorously. "Good. Now, get to it!" Jareth threw the goblin into the hall and with a flick of his hand slammed the door behind him. "Honestly, Niiz, I will never understand these creatures. I feed them, I clothe them, I protect them, and what do they give me in return? Stupidity." He shook his head disdainfully and sat down behind his desk, head in his hands.
Niiz walked over, her rock-bottom boots clicking on the floor, and placed a hand on Jareth's shoulder. "We will find the girl, Sire," she whispered.
He looked up at her, meeting her gentle hazel gaze. He smiled faintly. "I know." He sighed and steadied himself, looking towards his paperwork. "I know we will," he whispered.
"Surprise!" A cloud of confetti fell from above my head and people jumped out at me from all corners of the living room, laughing, cheering. I laughed with them as I looked around. All my friends, my parents, my aunt and uncle, even my grandmother all standing together, clapping. I put my bag down and my boyfriend walked over to me, taking me in a big hug. "Happy birthday, babe," he said into my ear. I smiled up at him and my mother came over to us.
"It was your father's idea of course," she said, smiling.
"Next time help him have the idea not to have everyone park in front of the house," I laughed.
My father blushed furiously, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, we couldn't very well use Mrs. Jeeve's drive now could we? She'd bash in all the windows." Everyone laughed and my mother pulled me over to the cake.
"Oh no," I said.
She chuckled and waved her hands like a musical director and everyone began to sing, sloppily, out of tune, my boyfriend and dad each bellowing every syllable in deep, poorly executed operatic voices, their arms around the other, kicking their legs like they were doing the CanCan. I blushed furiously and pulled my hood up over my face, squealing. As soon as they sang my name, I used my super strong flutist lungs to blow out the fifty-something candles that were currently melting my beautiful Alice in Wonderland themed cake. Everyone cheered and my mother shooed me away so she could cut the cake, insisting she was the only one capable of doing it.
My father took me aside while everyone chatted, my boyfriend helping my mother to pass out the cake. He put his arm around my shoulders as we stood at the window, looking out. He had a big smile on his dopey face, his glasses crooked and filthy as usual. "Jacky baby," he began, "the day we brought yeh home from the hospital, yeh wouldn't stop cryin' for even a second. Jus' all day jus'—(and here he proceeded to imitate the wail of a newborn, catching everyone's attention, bringing most of them to listen intently)—all day and night. We thought—well I thought yeh were dying. I didn't know what teh do. Yer mehm," he glanced over his shoulder at my mother who was shaking her head in disbelief, chuckling to herself. She had heard this story many times. "Yer mehm was workin' at the factory then, 'n' I was jes' fixin' up cars on the side, yeh know. 'N' one day, she comes home from work, y'see, 'n' she's got a pressie fer yeh. 'N' yeh know what yeh did?"
I rolled my eyes and shook my head, watching a squirrel on the big oak tree out front.
"Yeh shut yer gob." Most people chuckled. "Yeh shut yer gob 'n' yer mehm she took you into her lap 'n' she helped yeh open the pressie 'n' that's when I knew."
"Knew what?" I looked up at my father, eyebrow raised.
"I knew jus' how high maintenance yeh was gonna be!" He busted out into uproarious laughter, joined by most of my friends. I blushed and pulled my hood back over my head, swatting his arm. He pulled me close in a tight bear hug and I breathed in his scent of tobacco, sweat, and honey roasted peanuts. He pushed my hood down and ruffled my hair. I squeaked and huffed up at him, patting it back down into a manageable shape. He smiled down at me and I smiled back.
My boyfriend cleared his throat and took my hand, pulling me away from my dad. "I'm sorry, sir, but she's taken," he joked.
My dad laughed again and went to help my mom set up the presents' table. My boyfriend pulled me into the hallway leading towards the bedrooms and he glowered at me. I frowned back at him. "What?" I asked defensively.
"You bought another fucking video game?" he hissed at me.
I narrowed my eyes. "Yeah, I did, with my own money, is that a problem?"
He grabbed me by the shoulder, hard, and growled, shoving me against the wall. The music from the living room drowned out the thud. "I fucking told you to give me any money you get."
I shoved him back, rage bubbling inside me, along with the familiar hurt that filled my throat and burned my palms. "And I fucking told you to quit sexting other women, to quit accepting pictures, to quit saving them to your phone, to quit sending them, but no! You're still doing it! You're still talking to that bitch in Texas, to that one in Dakota! What? I'm not enough for you? I'm too fat for you? Too ugly? No don't you fucking dare speak." He closed his mouth, eyes burning with anger, with embarrassment. "I've had it with your shit. I've had it with the lies and the deceit. I'm done with you. I don't deserve to live like this, to constantly compare myself to every woman we pass, wondering if your eyes are staying on her too long, wondering if when you hold me you're thinking of someone else. You can go get your shit and get out. I'm not putting myself through this another goddamn year!" I threw myself away from the wall and stormed out into the living room. In my anger, I hadn't realized how loud my voice had gotten, how quiet the living room had become, I hadn't realized that everybody was listening.
My eyes stung with tears, my cheeks burned with hatred and shame. My mother shook her head, busying herself with something. She never liked to get too personal with me, a trait I adopted quickly. My father rushed to my side and took me in a deep hug. "Excuse us, everybody." He pulled me into the kitchen and held me tightly as I sobbed into his shirt. He rubbed my back, shushing me, humming quietly. "It's ok, Jacky baby, you don't deserve scum like that. You deserve the moon on a string. You deserve someone willing to give that to you, someone who will respect and appreciate you, not that shit bag."
Some shocked shouting came from the living room and my father ran out through the doors. I followed closely. My boy—my ex—was trying to shove past my two very short, very not strong friends, my tv and entire game collection in his arms. My father shoved past everybody in his way and grabbed my ex by the back of the neck. "Yeh want teh put tha' down, lad," he hissed. My ex audibly swallowed. My father was a large man, 6'5", roughly 300lbs of pure Scottish muscle. My mom always called him her "teddy bear log thrower" because he had once entered a log throwing competition in his small hometown. He broke the record. By like a hundred feet. It's still broken to this day. My ex, in comparison, is the same 5'8" as me, barely even 130lbs.
My father towered over him, casting a shadow over my ex who narrowed his eyes. "Or what, old man?"
My father smirked and I saw the sunlight shine off his teeth for a second, giving him a menacing look. "I'm glad yeh asked, lad."
My ex, who I will refer to as Dipshit from this point forward, was smart enough to know to try to run. He dropped my stuff—the pain of seeing my relatively brand new Sony Bravia TV crashing to the ground, screen shattering, with my PlayStation3 and my Xbox360 and game chest falling with it, lemme tell you, I cried. Fortunately, both systems were barely damaged, save for a crack here or there—and made it three steps before my father's huge, burly hands slammed down on his shoulders and pulled him back. He threw Dipshit against the wall, spider-web cracking it, and he punched him square in the nose. I couldn't help but to let out a few giggles. After so long wasted on Dipshit, it was nice to see him finally get what he deserved. Dipshit's head leaned back, blood already cascading down his filthy blue shirt. It took a minute, but finally, he shoved himself off the wall and lifted a blood hand to my father. "You'll pay for this, old man!" he cried before he shambled out of the house.
My father followed him, shouting out the door "If yeh ever come back 'n' bother my Jacky baby again, yeh'll be dead!" The room was dead silent, everyone watching the spectacle, my best friend and his boyfriend grinning widely, my mother's brother with his hand over his gaping mouth. The seconds passed slowly, crawling really, until my dad closed the door and cheers erupted throughout the room. I grinned widely and ran to him, throwing my arms as far around his massive frame as I could. He chuckled and patted my hair before he looked around at the mess and sighed. "I'm sorry yer party is ruined, lass," he said forlornly.
I just laughed and buried my face in his chest. Everyone began to talk again, my uncle helping my mother to clean up the TV, consoles, and games chest. Dad brushed my still-long hair back and hugged my tightly. "I'll always protect yeh, lass."
I'm not sure when exactly I fell, but I suddenly found myself on my butt, staring up at the massive tower that is my dad. His electric blue eyes, same as mine, looked down at me, and his smile shined down, too. I shook my head slightly, a scowl taking up my face. "You're dead. You're fucking DEAD!" I shouted, subconsciously noting how hoarse my voice was from lack of use after so many years. His smile disappeared and his eyebrows knit together in something amidst regret and worry and something else. I got to my feet and glowered at him—in my head, I was basically as tall as he was, fierce, and frightening, when in reality, I probably just looked like an angry puppy, but lemme tell you, I thought I was terrifying—and I crossed the distance between us, shoving hard on his chest with both my hands. "YOU'RE DEAD!" I screamed. I beat my hands against his chest, repeating myself over and over until he took my wrists gently and held me to him, and my stupid ass cried. I cried harder than I had in years, since I was a child probably. He just held me until I quieted, stroking my hair and rubbing my back. He shushed me quietly and hummed the lullaby he used to hum to me as a small girl. When I finally calmed down, I whispered hoarsely into his chest, "How?"
He released me and stepped back, his smile back in place. He gestured for me to follow him and I watched him go for a second before I followed, hesitation and trepidation flooding every cell in my body. The light was different than when I had entered the room. It was still intense, dazzling, but there was an undertone to it I couldn't quite place, almost like there was darkness within the light itself. I shook my head, telling myself I was being crazy, and I followed my father.
Jareth threw his work across the room with a deep growl of rage and exasperation. A gentle chuckling came from behind him, in the corner of the office, and Jareth narrowed his eyes. "It's been a long time," he said, not turning.
A pair of heels click-clacked slowly, steadily around to the front of his desk until stopping at the armchair that sat across from him. She sat down and he could feel her impudence radiating from her very core. Slowly, he drew his eyes slowly over to her, followed her unnecessarily long silver hair up to the withering face, up to the eyes that mirrored his own. "Mother."
The petite woman grinned, baring her long, pearly fangs in what Jareth was sure was a warning. She was rather a ridiculous, if but mildly frightening, sight. At barely 5' tall, her thick, overly shiny silver hair fell to her ankles and had more than enough potential to curtain the woman's frankly puny frame twice over. With absolutely no meat on her bones whatsoever, Jareth never understood how this small woman ever managed to give birth to him, let alone his 31 siblings to follow. Her skin was a deep slate-ish color, as black as could be, but was not kept well. It was cracked in some places from dryness and looked as though all she did was scratch, scratch, scratch. She was old, to put it nicely. Nearing her 2,000th birthday, her face showed it greatly. Her lips were practically gone, just a barely indiscernible thin line hidden behind drawn-on mossy-green, luscious lips. Her crows' feet were crows' ravines, and she had so many lines in her forehead it looked like a map of the highway system of the United States from the Aboveground. She had no eyebrows, whether they refused to grow or she physically removed them, Jareth was unsure, but her mismatched brown and green eyes were partially obscured by skin from her forehead that had lost its elasticity. She was haunting, to say the least. "Son." She nodded her head in greeting. I've heard you've run into a bit of a problem." She examined her disgustingly long, powder blue fingernails at arm's length, turning them this way and that.
"News travels quickly," he remarked.
"It does when it's negative, especially when it concerns a royal." She narrowed her eyes at him and raised a finger to him. "I'm warning you, Jareth, if you've lost this girl, you will be sorry."
"I fail to see how it affects you in any way, Mother."
"It affects me in every way, Jareth." Jareth shivered involuntarily at the way her creaky voice hissed over his name the way a snake "When one of my own children, my eldest, no less, my son the king makes a fool of himself, it makes me look like a fool." She reached into a purse that was exactly the same spider-webby worn out grey fabric as the evening gown she wore, and she pulled out a long fan with razor sharp end points. She began fanning herself slowly, directing her gaze out the large, open window. "I don't like to look a fool, Jareth," again, another shiver, "nor do I tolerate failure in this family, as you well know."
Jareth did indeed know. When he was 87, extremely young into his adulthood, appearing as a 16-year-old to mortal eyes, his mother had given birth to his first set of siblings—twin boys, both brown-haired, mix-matched-eyed babes—and the two grew to be strong, reliable, handsome, born rulers. Their mother had had high hopes for them. Upon their 50th birthday, she had thrown a large ball, inviting all the royals from every kingdom from shore to shore, and every living relative as well. It was a coming-of-age celebration, as 50 in the fae world is the age at which fae stop growing and begin to mature into adulthood. As the ball progressed, the boys became more and more devious, spurred on by the guests' drunkenness, and tricks ensued. One such trick involved the inter-tying of shoe laces near the table bearing food. Jareth remembered well the shrieks of horror and the covered mouths as their mother unknowingly stepped between two of the gentlemen victims, probably flirting, and tripped, knocking into the table and spilling all manner of food and drink over her ridiculous dress. The more dominant of the two boys, Octillian, was put to death the next day, to teach a lesson to the younger. Karrbian was never the same.
"You have two weeks to locate the girl, Jareth or mark my words," she snapped the fan shut and pointed it at him, the blades glinting in the light. "You will have disappointed me." She rose from the chair and left the room, leaving the door wide open.
Jareth shuddered yet again before he too, rose from his chair and crossed to the window, looking out over the Labyrinth. He heard a familiar gait coming from down the halls, the gentle clicking of stone-footed heels making their way towards his office. He sighed quietly and placed his hand over hers.
He felt the woman's slender hand upon his shoulder, and he looked at her. "We must be patient, Sire, if we're to find the girl."
Nodding gently, Jareth sighed and looked again out the window. A disturbance on the far side of the Labyrinth caught his eye and he summoned a crystal ball to look in on the situation. His search party, the buffoons, had gotten themselves tangled in the maze's vegetation, every one of them hopelessly stuck. He growled in frustration and threw the ball out the window. "Niiz, prepare your horse. We are taking over the search party." Niiz said nothing but he could sense her surprise. She clicked her heels together and bowed slightly before leaving the room. He watched her go a moment before going to his desk and opening the drawer. A jagged dagger lay amidst the disarray and he took it in his gloved hand, feeling its familiar weight before he slipped it into his boot and ran towards the window, the magic taking over his body as he ascended into the air, strong white wings flapping easily. Niiz was already waiting for him at end of the walk atop her huge roan stallion, her rose hair tied back out of her strikingly beautiful face. Once she saw him, she clicked the reigns and let out a "Yah!" and followed close behind the large snowy owl.
"It's no' much further now, lass." My father's heavy footfalls were the loudest thing in the hall, aside from his infrequent bursts of speech. It was awkward, being here beside him after so long, after so many long years in a hazy fog. Now that he was here, it was like those years didn't exist, like I didn't spend hours upon hours feeling like he was going to walk back through the door, hours feeling like he had never existed in the first place.
That place is a weird place, that limbo. When a loved one dies, it's not just like they're just gone. It's like some days you can go all day without even thinking about them, like some distant cousin or something, but some days, no matter how long it's been or how much closure you got, you can never shake the feeling that they're just out for milk or something, and that the whole dark mess was just some horrible, horrible dream. I'm not sure which days are worse. The days I go without thinking about him, I feel guilty because I basically feel like I never had a dad, there was just this guy who's just not around anymore. I don't know where my paternal figure went but this person who's in my photographs, whose name I've got tattooed under my heart, whose shirts I've got tucked away in my drawer still smelling of him, he's just some guy. The paternal feeling didn't transcend death for me. I know in my head that this man is my father, but the long years I spent weeping behind locked doors, those were for just this guy who used to live with me. It's hard to explain, like death had separated my dad from the body, like my dad just relocated and this guy I cried for was some stranger I knew really well. But then the days where I forget he's gone, where I expect the door to open, where I hear him whistling through the halls at school, those are difficult days emotionally. The days I forget him, those are hard intellectually. Days where he's just out to the store, those are days where it's like he has to die all over again before I can remember he's not coming back, and it breaks my heart every single time I turn to greet his whistling with a smile and there's just this weird kid who's late to class and wears saggy jeans and the world comes crashing back down around me and I remember and I relive the tragedy and I feel it in my soul and it creates the rock in my throat.
But now, walking beside this massive beast of a man, I can scarcely remember the nights my mother woke me from nightmares, saying I was screaming. I can't remember the instant disappointment when the whistler was not my father. I can't recall not remembering I had a father. He was just here, and his presence was so fulfilling, save for that small nagging sensation that something is wrong, that there's something sinister in his eyes, something more pronounced in the way he held himself that I could just not shake for the life of me. I shook it away from my thoughts as we walked, slipping my arm into his. He chuckled and patted my hand, leaning towards me so that I didn't have to stretch so high.
We walked a few short minutes more before we came to a door. He smiled at me and gestured for me to go first. "After you, lass," he said.
I looked up at him, then at the door before I took my arm back and grasped its gilded handle in hand and pushed hesitantly. The wood gave way easily and let out into an average sized room with two large windows perfectly symmetrical on the outside wall. There was a candle chandelier hanging from the ceiling and all the candles burned gently, casting dancing shadows off the walls. The shadows obscured the photographs for a moment but once my eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the room, I was able to see them quite clearly. I stepped up to a wall, unease growing in the pit of my stomach. Pictures of me, paparazzi style almost, decorated nearly every inch of the walls. This one from my last day of high school, this one at graduation, that one sitting at the mall with my friend after buying a deck of Tarot cards. Hundreds of them, everywhere. My mouth ran dry and I turned to look at my father. "What is this?" I asked hesitantly.
He touched his hand to one of the pictures—me walking down the street—and sighed. "I missed you," he said. "They wouldn't le' me see yeh meself so I had other people see you for me."
My mind instantly went to an image of me in the shower with an eyeball watching me from the drain and I shuddered.
"They told me I'd never see you again, that you were destined for something greater. Someone greater."
"What do you mean?" My hands grew clammy.
"Once yeh defeated the Labyrinth you were t' become Jareth's bride." He scowled. "Over my dead body. My wee girl belongs by my side, as my princess."
Panic took over my body and instinctively I darted for the door. His huge hand slammed it shut before I had a chance to slip out and he lowered his face to my level, his eyes glowing a deep red around the blue. He hissed in a voice that was not his, a voice that was deeper, gruffer, and his canines grew a few centimeters longer. "Ye're mine, lass."
The last thing I felt was the pain swallowing my body as my father dug his fangs into my cheek before I fell into the churning black abyss of sleep.
Author note (sorry): I've already begun writing the next chapter so I don't think it should be too terribly long before that one is up as well. I hope you enjoyed this.