Author's Note: I know there's a difference between 'fairy' and 'fae', but for this fic they refer to the same magical creature. Sorry, but I have no knowledge of anything magical and so I'm not going to change twelve chapters' worth of errors. Therefore, Jareth is actually half-fae and Archer is a pure blood. But when it's just Toby and Jareth, then I simply shorten Jareth's heritage to fae.

Author's Note2: Thank you to all my wonderful reviewers. One, for telling me that she likes my writing. The other two for telling me that this is the best Labyrinth slash fic on the internet. You have no idea how happy you made me- I bounded around the room like Tigger on speed for four whole hours because of you!

Author's Note3: Having recently updated this story, I find myself updating the notes too. There is a very real difference between 'fairy' and 'fae'. I am trying to change the chapters to use the term 'fairy', but in case I miss one- as I'm sure I will- then please be aware that any 'fae' is meant to be 'fairy'.

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Toby opened his eyes to a sardonically handsome face staring down at him. A pair of spaniel-brown eyes blinked almost coldly at him but the perfect mouth was soft and compassionate.

At the moment, Toby didn't give a fig leaf for compassion.

He leapt to the other side of the bed like a shot, dragging the covers up and getting ready to scream the walls down.

"Toby, it's all right," Archer soothed, getting hurriedly off the bed and stepping away, "I won't hurt you. I promise."

Toby's eyes flicked to the door and back again, but his defensive posture stayed intact. There was no hint of recognition in his blue eyes and Archer found himself staring at those eyes in awe-struck wonder. The boy simply didn't trust anyone at the moment.

"Jareth asked me to stay with you," Archer tried.

It did the trick and Toby sat back down on the bed and took deep breathes. "Jareth?" he echoed softly, needing to clarify his facts.

Archer nodded. He studied the unguarded face before him, watching as Toby hauled the quilt closer around him as if he was too cold to bear anything. The fairy lord had intended not to get involved, but such pain was simply too much- "Jareth told me what happened."

Toby's head snapped up, untied blond hair falling into his face as he listened in open horror. He cringed back, waiting to hear the derision and the blame. After all, why did he deserve any sympathy; he was a worthless toy, nothing more.

"Toby, you must not fear me. Why would I hurt the bond mate of a good friend?"

"I- I thought you were cousins?"

Broad shoulders shrugged. "We are. But fairies have little emotion for family beyond a sense of duty and respect. We hold friends to a higher esteem. Therefore Jareth is a good friend. It is awkward, but workable."

Toby climbed back into bed, making sure to keep covered. His body was so cold, and protesting his recent burst of movement. A cut on his shoulder in particular throbbed rather painfully. Archer must have noticed because he went to the dresser opposite the bed and came back with the little carved wooden box of healing stuff that Jareth had used on him before.

"You can apply this yourself," the dark-haired fairy ceded, "Or else relax and let me help? Either way you will be more comfortable when your wounds are treated."

"How did... was I attacked again?" Oh God, no! He didn't feel like he'd been touched again and he wasn't hurt in that kind of way so far as he could tell. But he couldn't remember the previous evening and his body felt so sore and painful that if that man had... if he had so much as looked at him again...

"No, no," Archer soothed quickly, waving a warrior's hand at such fears, "No, I'm afraid your injuries were by your own hands. Jareth went to find you and reached you moments before you had a fit. Apparently you were talking of being poisoned and trying to tear your own flesh. When Jareth tried to stop you, you fought him. Do you not remember?"

"Hell, no! Did I- no I couldn't have- did I hurt him?"

Archer did not answer. He couldn't very well do so without inflicting more self-pain on the child. He was not accustomed to strong hysterics; the fairy folk deemed such displays of strong emotions unseemly and perfectly ill-bred.

"I hurt Jareth?"

Archer looked up just in time to see the young man with the suffering in his eyes turn into a frightened, terrified child. Toby went paler than he already was, biting on his lip to counter-act the stubborn tears pricking at the back of his eyes.

"It was nothing but a scratch," he said hurriedly, "Doubtless it is healing as we speak." Toby swallowed and forced himself to stop acting ridiculous. He was strong enough and so was Jareth. He certainly hadn't killed the Goblin King. "It's time we did the same for you," Archer added.

Be brave, the mortal yelled at himself, the guy is practically family and he's being nice; you can let him help. Toby sat up and let the covers pool around his waist, so confused by recent events and the perfection of his aid that he was ashamed of his own body as he peeled off his shirt. Long fingers with calloused tips gently spread the cool ointment over his sore arms. But Toby shifted uncomfortably. It wasn't that he craved Jareth's presence precisely, but there was something coldly objective in Archer's touch. It was less sensual and caring, less human somehow. A remembrance of the touch of another pair of hands sent his blood singing through his veins.

"Do you miss your bonded lover?"

The question was so abrupt it startled him, scaring him out of his mental hidey-hole and bringing back to reality with an erudite "eh".

Archer laughed softly and stood to put the box back. "I asked if you missed your lover."

"He's not my lover," Toby protested, slipping his shirt back on and feeling less vulnerable.

"Jareth has mentioned that too. I apologize for my rude comment of yesterday. What you and my cousin do between your respective or shared sheets is none of my business. I have been a lord for too long, I think. And mortals are not held to high regard in the Underground."

"Yeah, I'm getting that." Toby couldn't help sounding bitter.

Archer pressed on- "Which is not to say that all of us are in league to hurt you. Your, uh, tribulations of the past ten days have been terrible to hear of. I hope something can be done. Jareth is certainly bent on avenging you."

Toby blushed, whether happily or not was yet to be decided. He looked at his hands, almost lost in the over-long cuffs that slid down past his knuckles. It felt nice to have someone he trusted so much. Perhaps, he thought wistfully, it was just the bond.

"You look apprehensive," Archer commented, "Have I offended you?"

Toby looked surprised and glanced up with enquiring blue eye. "Not at all. I was only thinking. You know, two weeks ago I wouldn't have trusted Jareth as far as I could throw him? And now I think I'd really miss him if he wasn't with me when I woke up. I was just thinking that the bond must be really weird to make that happen."

"It need not be the bond at all." A well-shaped hand pushed wisps of dark hair behind a sculptured ear just as Jareth sometimes did. "Sometimes a being can feel that way with love. And you and my cousin are certainly close."

"We are?"

"The minute the sun began to sink last evening, the Goblin King went flying out into the night air to find a missing mortal. He brings you in and there is open anger for what has been done to you. This morning you wake and the only thing that comforts you is Jareth's name. Why, the very thought that he might care made you blush just a minute ago! I would say you are closer to him than many of his past lovers have been."

Toby bit his lip and looked fearful. Love? He was not in love with Jareth and knew for a fact that Jareth was not in love with him. How could he be? The moon-blond Goblin King could no more love someone like him than his dark-haired cousin could. Maybe Jareth sometimes found him attractive. But it was like he had said that night in the library- Toby was the crystal he could touch, the physical personification of his spiritual connection to another creature. There was no real knowledge between them.

"Jareth cares very deeply," Archer broke in, his face serious and sombre, "I do not want to see him hurt."

"He's old enough to take care of himself," Toby whispered, fighting the underlying current of accusation in the fairy's voice, "He's all grown up and he doesn't need you fighting his battles."

"Listen to me, mortal," Archer said quietly. There was a hard, cold glint to his eyes and a roughness to his voice that resonated unpleasantly with darkness. The effect of the danger and his beauty almost seemed to invite Toby to kneel at his feet and offer anything in worship of this vengeful God. "Jareth and I have been brothers for more than twenty times the years of your life. Do not make the mistake of thinking you can break my favour with him. Many have tried; all have been disappointed. He will not give me up no matter what you do or say."

"And what makes you so special?" Toby wasn't about to say that he had no intention of making Jareth giving Archer up. In point of fact he liked Archer. True, there was something dark about him, but he reminded the boy of how Jareth might have been had he been less tender.

"I am his family. And I am his heir."

Toby looked confused. "To the Goblin Kingdom?"

"To the Goblin Kingdom," Archer agreed.

"Oh." He looked down to his hands again, seeing scratches that still nestled in the golden skin. Had Jareth been applying the cream, they would have been sought out and treated, no matter how small. Archer had simply treated the visible stuff. And there lay the difference- Jareth cared for what lay below the surface. Toby suspected that the half-fairy was a closet romantic. And he was definitely a sensualist! But Archer was clinical and a pragmatist. He operated on what was there and not what might be. Jareth was the dreamer; Archer dealt with facts.

"I did not mean to make you think I disapproved of you," Toby explained hesitantly, "I just don't know anything about Jareth or you and I guess my nerves made me over-react. This thing... it isn't easy and it makes me snappish."

"It is understandable. Rape is never easy. This man, you cannot recognize him?"

Toby shook his head. "I can't remember what he looks like. I've tried! But I've never seen his face. After the first time I thought it was only my mind trying to forget what had happened. But then I looked at him even in my dreams and I just couldn't see his face! Only his eyes."

"What were they like," Archer asked gently, "Tell me, Toby. It will help to talk and I might find something Jareth cannot see."

"They're dark, so dark they look black," the child whispered, losing himself to his memories, "All of him is black- his face, his eyes, his hair, his clothes- I can't see anything of him. And he hates me. He never mentions it but I can feel it. It's like he hates me, but he wants me too. He'll whisper in my head about how beautiful I am or some such shit. But he hates me so much I can feel it every time he talks to me or touches me. And I don't know why..."

"How does he touch you?"

The question seemed perfectly plausible given the direction of the discussion and Toby answered it without hesitation- "Like a toy. He told me last night that he liked the smell of my blood. He said there'd be a next time. Every time he touches me I can't stand it! He's so cold, so very cold, and he freezes me with just the brush of one fingertip. I don't know why but even the way he looks at me is so wrong."

"Does he ask you to submit?"

"Not in words, but when he raped me, he tied me down. He didn't try to seduce me or anything. He just chained me down and got on with it, like he couldn't care less whether or not I wanted it."

"He doesn't. Such men never do. Poor child," Archer sighed, "You poor child. He'll keep coming back for you. How can he not?"

"How can he not?" Toby echoed, looking up with bright blue eyes, "Why should he? Why does he want me? I never did anything to anyone! Why would he hate me so much that he'd hurt me like this?"

Archer reached out a hand and stroked away a lock of golden hair, a sad smile on his face. "Because you are beautiful. You smile incredulously; you do not believe me? Why not? Your hair and your eyes, the litheness of your body... why do you imagine Jareth finds such delight in you? You are a golden idol created from the rays of the sun itself. For males like Jareth, golden idols are to be kept on a shelf and cherished for all time. For males like your rapist, you were meant to be enslaved and flaunted like a prized possession. Such men need to possess your beauty, to grasp it in golden chains and hold it captive until it freely submits to anything they desire. And one thing you must remember- this man does not love you. You are a prize; nothing more and nothing less. He will only value you while your body is supple and your face is smooth with youth. He could care less about your feelings."

Toby shivered, feeling the magnetic pull of Archer's word and hypnotic voice. It was confusing. In some dark place, the visuals in his mind were not so very different from what the Dreams had been. Jareth had flaunted him and possessed him and done things to him that Toby would not necessarily have ever wanted to even think about let alone try. And it had all ended the same way- enjoyably. Now this?

Archer was only reciting the same seductive demands as those Dreams. And Archer and Jareth were so similar it was scary. It could have been Jareth sitting there beside him, talking in this way. Toby wanted to fall to his knees and beg he be taken, just so the confusion would stop. He would put up with the pain and the fear if only in the end it was worthwhile. He couldn't stand this anymore! The pain was becoming so common to him that he wondered vaguely if he had ever lived without it.

"You look heated. Are you ill?"

Toby moaned softly as a hand was laid against his forehead. He leaned into the touch. But something was wrong. Even while the rich, magical voice was so enslaving, the hand was wrong. He didn't crave this hand and he longed to push it away, to demand the hands that knew the evil he craved but soothed and held him safe. Oh yes, he could well imagine that Jareth would take him right to the very precipice between pleasure and pain and push him further and further, inching his toes over the very lip... but then Toby trusted him to pull him back and save him from falling to his death.

"Jareth was right," that warm voice caressed parts of him that sent hot blood running wild in his veins, "You are falling so far into darkness. You need it now; you crave it."

"Yes."

"What do you need?"

"I need..." Toby licked suddenly dry lips and closed his eyes, "I need this to stop."

The hand was removed and Toby opened his eyes, the loss of contact bringing his senses back with the shock of reality. His heart stopped pounding and the blood stopped roaring in his veins. He flushed and scrambled backwards, mortified by what he had been thinking. How could he face either Jareth or Archer now, knowing what he'd been seeing in his head just a moment ago?

Archer settled back in his chair and smiled slightly at him, not in the least ruffled by what had almost occurred. "Perhaps I may offer you advice?"

Toby met Archer's gaze with a fearful nod.

"Experimenting requires active participation," the fairy began, "We are more open to same sex coupling in the Underground. Jareth tells me it is not so in your world. He mentioned that your father threw you out for being what he termed 'gay'. Be that as it may, if you must find out, go to him. Jareth is no rapist."

"No! No, he isn't. He would never! I've never thought…" He had, though, a few times. He had wondered about how Jareth seemed to know just how he felt and how his rapist was affecting him. How could he know those things unless he had- perhaps- been there? But Toby usually dismissed those thoughts; Jareth had no reason for such subterfuge. He would do it openly if he wanted to do it. Why would he hide his face and use Toby's mind? "Maybe soon," Toby evaded, "I'm not really into guys and it's not…"

"But you are attracted to Jareth."

"I suppose. He doesn't disgust me, at any rate."

Archer raised an eyebrow. "Good," he drawled, "That is a start. Keep in mind, however, that you are walking a very fine line with him. He will not wait an eternity for you to make a decision. Your chance might slip away very soon now. Tell him today. Tell him everything. Tell him that you want to be possessed and taken and driven mad. Make him swear to stop whenever you say so and let him guide you. Believe me; you can have no better for the ways of the flesh."

Toby was blushing in earnest now, feeling the heat rise from below his collar all the way to his hairline. The thought of completing yesterday's innocent beginnings after the agony of last night seemed unthinkable! Archer's description didn't help matters. To have another man touch him and do those things to his body seemed horrific. But then Jareth had been gentle yesterday; and Toby had been picturing it in his head mere moments ago.

"Is there a vow of silence I have not been told of?"

The restless voice came from nowhere, startling both within the room out of their personal reveries. Toby's spirits rose and sank in alarming sequence when Jareth shrugged carelessly out of his coat and came to him, taking his outstretched hand and landing a gentle kiss on his palm.

"And how are you today?" Jareth asked, a small smile gently over his lips.

Toby nodded and cleared his throat. "Same as yesterday morning- still not pregnant."

The Goblin King smiled and reached for the shirt, undoing the neck and checking the already healing bruises and cuts with a keen eye. Doing it up again, he was ruefully aware of how he appeared to his cousin. But after a quick sigh for his lost reputation, he pushed the thought of the entire topic away and turned to Archer with gratitude. "Thank you for taking care of my elf," he said, secure in his belief that the other fairy would understand. After all, was Archer not the closest family he had ever had?

"Elf," Archer repeated, warm brown eyes regarding Toby thoughtfully, "It is a fitting description for a fragile creature such as he."

That sounded far too close to the seductive words of enslavement that Archer had murmured to him, and reminded Toby of nothing so much as his recent swerve between wanting that enslavement and wanting to hide from it. "I am not fragile," Toby huffed, folding his arms in a snit, "And I'm still in the room so stop talking about me as if I was a new watch!"

The two older males shared an expressive glance and Archer bowed deeply to Toby. "We shall meet again I think, Master Elf," he said teasingly, turning to walk straight through the wall and disappear from sight.

Toby raised his eyebrows and blinked and then realized Jareth was looking intently at him, a gloved finger tapping his mouth in thought. Unbidden, the advice Archer had came to mind even as the memory of Jareth's kiss brushed his lips. He blushed and shifted on the bed.

"Is there something we need to talk about?" Jareth asked, confused by such behaviour. He'd expected to find either a broken child or a traumatized youth in his bed, not a shy virgin that didn't dare show his desire but betrayed it anyway.

"I've been thinking... oh, I'm sorry about last night!"

"It's understandable. You suffered a shock and you were merely reacting to it. But that wasn't what you were thinking, was it?"

"No," Toby agreed reluctantly, "But how do you know?"

"There's a way that a man looks, my elf, before he admits to a personal revelation," Jareth said expressively, "You have that look."

"Oh!"

"Yes."

The two fell silent, waiting for the other speak. Just when Jareth decided the day would end before this conservation, Toby jumped in with both feet- "I want you to take me."

Jareth had heard many come-ons in his four hundred and fifty-one years of life. This was, though, quite the strangest one yet. He'd expected something a little more subtle from Toby. "I don't think that would wise," the Goblin King cautioned, holding up a hand as if to actively stop him, "We should wait a few days at least before you decide such a thing."

"Decide? Jareth, I might never decide to do it! I need you to- to... I don't know! Show me what's been happening to me; show me what I don't need to be so scared of. I need to experiment now, before I think too much and chicken out. Because- because you were nice to me and kind and- and I trust you."

The oddities kept coming! Jareth had been called everything from sexy to downright addictive and suddenly he was also kind and trustworthy! He might have laughed if it hadn't been real.

"Toby, I don't think-"

"No, you know what- just forget it! I'm being stupid," Toby sighed, settling down on his back and closing his eyes. After all, his mind reasoned, he was poisoned and unclean. Why would Jareth want any part of him? He was nothing but a nuisance, a burden on someone who was used to being free to care about himself and no one else. He was asking too much with this... of anyone!

The soft kiss on his lips startled him into opening his eyes, a soft gasp escaping his tongue as he noted how close Jareth was leaning. He could feel the breath on his face, could see the texture of his skin and the true colour of his eyes.

"I find you very attractive," Jareth said softly, "And before you ask, I knew your doubts because I know you."

Toby shook his head and swallowed. "Not really, you don't," he said simply.

Jareth's thin mouth quirked meaningfully. "I believe I'll soon have the means to do so," he purred, sending a gently lascivious gaze over Toby's face, "But not now. Tonight, when you are rested and prepared. It will give you time to think and reconsider."

"Will you stop if I ask you to?"

"Whenever you demand it. If I feel your displeasure, I'll stop."

Toby nodded decisively. "Then I won't reconsider."