Chapter Four
Jack wasn't sure that he had fainted and the sudden loss of that ever important control unnerved him. Very slowly he became aware of his surroundings and with the well honed instincts of his chosen let's call it... profession, a steely brown gaze shifted around the room and all the... things inside of it. For the barest of moments he wondered if he had simply been drinking and fainted.
The first thought in his head was, 'Oh my god, I've died and gone to Barbie's Dream Hell.' And that's exactly what it seemed like to him. It seemed that the Labyrinth shifted to each person's personal perception of what they thought the hallowed halls should be. Well, actually Jack hoped so, because otherwise this Jareth was more insane then he was.
Chloe's was pink. Nauseating, disgusting, Bismuth pink. And shiny plastic. Everywhere. Liberally splattered on the walls were stickers. Stickers and painted furniture and wild scenes of impossible people standing in lame mockeries of gross-out childhood style. It seemed the only real scrap of furniture was a monstrous mountain of pink and white plastic. It was ornately shaped and seemed to almost have cravings of unicorns with rhinestone horns and dolphins with rainbow paint covering the whole bloody thing. And of course, what would a throne be without a king?
The Goblin King sat on the fake velvet pad, looking even more disgusted with the currant state of his throne room then even Jack was. One high-heeled boot was cast over the way to high arm as he glared around his room. The serial killer took slow steps towards the goblin king, fully intending to offer the king a bucket and a flick of his pocket knife. However, first things first, he needed to protect Chloe then find Sam and get them all out of here.
Chloe was sitting on the ground in front of an old fashioned looking blackboard, complete with colored chalk. Shaky lettering formed out the Alphabet in a crude childish hand. She was holding a long pointer and tapping it lightly against each letter while the goblin sat enraptured, reciting back every word. From the grin on her face, he was guessing that Chloe was enjoying playing schoolmarm to some Muppet-looking rejects.
A small sigh of disgust was made before he looked even farther around the room, looking for anything that might be useful as some sort of weapon. And a quick exit. A little flash of light, and his gaze was drawn to what appeared to be a large mirror in an ornate plastic frame on the wall. Perhaps it was better to say it was mirror-like, for the surface was shimmering, like that warped, fake tape they used for children's play mirrors. The images with in were distorted and slowly shifting, almost as if they were viewed through murky, moonlit water.
A quick step was taken towards it as what appeared to be to huge wooden doors shifted into frame. The large and imposing wood was almost zoomed in upon and Jack's sight was met with a little man, as out of place here as he was himself. He leaned forward, almost as if to touch the scene when he heard voices. Hardly discernable, and almost too far away, but he could hear them if he strained enough. Inwardly he spoke, his tone cold as the thought entered his head, 'Malone?'But that thought was pushed away as impossible.
Impossible. That was really almost to funny coming from the man who was standing in the Goblin King's Barbie throne room, staring into a paste mirror, watching as if it were a television screen. A little laugh was made as Jack wondered for the first time if he was somehow crossing the line between organized and disorganized psychosis.
But there was no time to absorb that, for once again that slow ripple morphing affect was happening again. And now his view was something that he had looked upon so many times before. He drank it in as man who welcomes the sun after a long, cold, winter's night. And for the moment, his world was totally right, submersed in blond hair and sad blue eyes. A soft sigh was made, intense in longing and in lust, "Oh, Samantha..."
Sadly, he didn't have long to reside in that blissful welcomed state, and the grimness of the situation fell across him like an icy shadow. Gloved fingers were pulled into tight fists as he saw her. She was in a word, unraveling. For a moment, an intense remorse hit him, this was his fault. He had broken her to this point. A seize was made to his ego for the barest of seconds before he saw the almost Malone press that lighted cigar to her flesh. The noise he made wasn't quite a growl and wasn't quite a scream, it was an almost indescribable sound of anger as he turned and started to almost stalk towards the Goblin King who was sitting non chantey on his throne, playing with a whip.
Jack's voice was chilled, a warning state that would have made most men cower away from and wish that they had a gun. Not that it would have done them much good. He had almost reached the throne, fingers reaching into his pocket and flicking his butterfly knife open as he did so. "I am going to make you wish you hadn't done that!"
A casual blink of a heavily shadowed lid was made as he watched Jack come forward with that blade. His face shifted into a sneer as Jack got almost close enough to touch him, the blade's edge coming to rest just above the tightly encased thigh before one leather encase hand was cast out, stopping the killer in his tracks.
To Jack, it seemed like he was encased in a bubble. The world outside of him was visible, but shot with an iridescent rainbow of pastel colors. The butterfly sang over the seeming insubstantial prison, the sharpness of the blade causing nothing but the spreading of the rainbow around and the marring of his vision. No longer able to hear what was viewed on the mirror, he could only half-see the picture of Sam entering the maze.
Jareth stood by, arms crossed over his chest in a trademark manner before he turned to Jack with a cold smile on his face. The words that Sam had spoken seemed almost like to sweet of a memory, to much of a cliche to ignore. "Well, Jack, tell me how do you think I should answer her little comment? Tell me, did you get so far into the novel that you even understand what that means?"
The responding voice was cold as he flicked the butterfly closed and kneeled down in an almost dismissive way to adjust the tie of his shoe. "It means, Jareth, that you most certainly need to come up with some new sort of obsession rather then an obscure reference to a long forgotten story book. After all, who reads fairy tales anymore anyway? The world is about flash and substance. You have neither. What you have and what I understand is that your tights are to tight and cutting of the oxygen supply to your brain. Something I will have to change after I am out of this little balloon you put me in."
Pale painted lips opened and shut slowly before he spoke again. Two egos this big would
most certainly have to clash sometime, right? Well, of course and Jareth was not about to take this
sort of thing lying down. One gloved finger lightly flicked against the bubble and it constricted even
tighter.