Jareth left a sleeping Toby to go to his throne room. He hadn't been there for days, spending most of his time playing comforter and nurse. But now he needed time away.

Walking into the room, he stood languidly in the doorway and watched the chaos as the goblins trashed everything in sight. A decapitated chicken landed at his feet and he stepped distastefully over it into the room.

"Your Majesty!"

Instantly every goblin froze in place and turned to watch him stroll to his throne. The raised stone seat was the only spot left exactly as he had last seen it; mainly because they knew what would happen if they touched it.

The Goblin King picked up the familiar riding crop left on the velvet cushion and sat down. He stared expressionlessly around and enjoyed watching his subjects hold their breathes in fear. It had been so long, he thought wistfully, so many days since he had felt this reassuring power. "Proceed," he sighed at last, flicking the riding crop in their general direction as he swung his legs up over the arm of the seat and relaxed.

Noise and commotion erupted around the room. Enjoying the brief return to the way things had been, Jareth put his hand up over his eyes and sank into thought, his riding crop beginning a rhythmic tapping against his left boot.

He reviewed dispassionately in his head every second of the past two weeks- his unexpected decision to attempt to make the relationship an equal partnership instead of a convenience, the rape that occurred the very night that he and Toby had finally begun to settle things between them, the sight of his bond mate trapped in a horrific world that he could do nothing about, and then Archer's advise.

He trusted his cousin with everything he had. Archer had been there where friends had not. Being the only child of the Goblin King, who took too much after his fairy mother, was not calculated to help Jareth make too many friends. And he had early learnt that he wanted friends that could think like him and match him word for word. That had easily discounted every goblin child he'd ever met. So he had gone instead to the humans locked in the Ivory Tower, speaking to them of the Aboveground and their lives before they were wished away.

And then there had been Archer... Jareth was very hazy as to what life was like before his cousin but the friendship had flourished into something so strong that not even political allegiances could break them. The Goblin King had two weaknesses that everyone knew of- his love for beautiful things and people, and his strong reliance on his cousin's opinion. And Archer had warned Jareth to send Toby back:

"He is not one of us, Jareth. He does not think as we do. I cannot see how this child will let you settle down with a wife and allow you to creep to his bed at night like a thief."

"I would be very clear on my reasons for marriage. The lady will accept that she will have only my title and my name, nothing more. Toby will not be hidden away like a shameful secret."

But the conversation had rankled- "How can you hope to protect him when he was attacked right in front of you twice, and you could do nothing to prevent it!"... "You cannot believe that he will ever submit to being taken after such a fright?" ... "Jareth, you are thinking with what lies between your legs and not with your head! You are the Goblin King and this mortal stripling cannot be what you look for!"...

And yet... Toby had asked, hadn't he? He had looked up with those blue eyes of his and asked to be taken. True, Jareth was certain the child would change his mind by the evening; but still, it had been a step in the right direction for them. Or was he only imagining that there was a 'them'?

What had finally sold him to the boy? For Toby was only a small, slim little mortal and Jareth could well find any number of child-like mortal youths to discharge whatever fetish he seemed to have developed. It was something about his spirit. The fire in him had been so dimmed by the recent happenings and yet there were rare occasions when it shone through like a light- Jareth felt his lips curl into a mirthless smile- no, like the sun. The Goblin King had many dark corners in his nature, but he felt positively brightened by that light. Fire-blond in every way, he mused, vaguely aware that a song was being sung around him. And like all fire did, it left its mark.

That evening, Jareth paced up and down for a while before making his decision.

It was all very well wanting to pleasure his bond mate and receive pleasure in return, but logically he knew he should refuse. It was far too soon and would probably only serve to terrify Toby. Besides, too much was changing between them and though Jareth hesitated to say more than that he cared, even he knew it was beyond that. The warmth that flowed whenever Toby let him near was intoxicating. It made the rest of the world fade.

And what of Toby? Jareth wondered if he was only turning to someone who offered comfort- the lesser of two evils so to speak. Somehow that wasn't a very nice thought.

Sighing heavily, he gave his orders and summoned Kyfrem. He had decided his way. The ridiculous plan for tonight could go ahead the next night if Toby so wished it- Jareth was certainly not going to turn down a night of passion- and his conscience would still be appeased. He would have to end it there, however, and he squashed the tiny voice inside him that mourned the projected loss.

For the rest of the night and most of the next day Jareth found himself back in his rooms, trying to ignore the vague restlessness and disquiet. He was bonded to Toby, was very fond of him and genuinely cared for the boy's happiness. But he wasn't in love because he'd surely know that. All this- this mess was simply a mistake. One that was tragic but not unsolvable.

Soft candlelight, rich opulence, wine... Jareth lounged in his seat and waited.

"Erm, Jareth? What's going on?" Toby was very uncomfortable. First Kyfrem had insisted on dressing him like a Prince in a fairytale and now he was standing in a small but ornate dining room that looked like the movie set for a Valentine's Day dinner in a bad movie.

Jareth looked up with a bland smile, and the smile faded. Blue-brown eyes stilled and trickled slowly down the vision that stood before him in simple black velvet. The material was too rich, too heavy for such a slim, youthful frame and yet... and yet Toby looked good enough to inspire quite a few fantasies. Jareth distractedly pulled his mind away from that and blinked several times, forbearing to reveal his reactions by standing. "Sit," he commanded, a little more caustic than usual, "I thought an evening together might be in order. We have so little time to talk."

"I guess that's my fault," Toby chuckled good-humouredly, sitting down with tired blue eyes, "Weird guys keep jumping me. And then I throw a fit and you have to clean the messes up. I should pay you over- time."

The half-goblin looked incredulous for a moment and then hurriedly put a hand up to block a smile with his lace cuff. "My work is my reward," he murmured chivalrously.

Toby grinned and hesitantly raised his glass to his mouth. He let the liquid barely touch his lip; tasting the residue first with his tongue to be sure it was all right. It seemed okay, so he swallowed a mouthful and sighed as the slick heat wove its way through his veins. Ah yes, the numbing effects of alcohol!

There was too much silence, too much tension. So Jareth did what he did best- he was insulting. "Do try not to drink your way under the table before dinner, will you? Jamelia will be most disappointed."

It worked. "Get stuffed, Jareth." Toby took another gulp and waited haughtily for his goblet to refill itself magically.

"Only with your assistance, my elf," Jareth tossed back, his own fingers tracing patterns on the stem of his goblet. The entire set was ancient and he would prefer not to have to use it but it was tradition. And he wanted Toby to experience that before... well, before.

"Why do you call me that, anyway?" Toby asked softly, "I'm not an elf. I'm mortal as everyone keeps reminding me. From which angle do I look elvish?"

"From mine."

Blue eyes looked adorably heated and confused. Jareth had once again forgotten to warn Toby about the potency of his wines. Ah well! It would be interesting, nonetheless. "The elves are a fair race of great beauty and wisdom," he explained, "Unfortunately, when the Underground formed itself into two rival Kingdoms many generations in the past, the elves decided they wanted nothing to do with either the Fairies or the Goblins. They took themselves to the Aboveground, hiding amongst the mortals for protection. They have been dying out over the centuries. Only a few remain."

"I remind you of a bunch of dead guys?" Toby asked dubiously, wondering why that sounded wrong.

The Goblin King rolled his eyes. "No, your beauty is elvish. The Gods know you don't have enough intelligence to fit on the head of a pin, but you are physically attractive. The elves were small and slight, like you, retaining an innocence about them that was belied only by their eyes."

Toby looked saddened, sobered up a bit by the sombre look on Jareth's face. "You're very upset by it."

Shoulders in white silk shrugged. "It's the principle of the thing. Beauty should not have been let to die. I met a pure-blooded elf when I was very young. He was of an age to look old, but he still held faded traces of immeasurable beauty. Oh, the fairies have their classic good looks and legends abound of people enraptured by a pair of fairy eyes or the honeyed words from a fairy tongue. But their beauty is cold and forbidding. The elves were of the earth, and their charm was of the dappled shadows of the forest, or the exotic birds of faraway lands. None will ever compare to such a people."

The monotonous ticking of a clock sounded loud in the following silence. Toby shifted and longed to reach across the table and touch Jareth's hand. Even better, he longed to sit in his lap and kiss the sadness away. Confused by such intense feelings and the image in his mind, he held himself in check.

The Goblin King roused himself from his nostalgic apathy and forced a smile to his lips. "Tonight is not for morbid meanderings! Tell me of the Aboveground and your life before... us." Mismatched eyes challenged Toby to rebuke the use of that word, but Toby only blushed and scratched the back of his hand. "Surely you had a life before me?"

"Well, yeah! It's just... it was very boring. We didn't have elves or goblins, you know. It was just school and... well, normal stuff."

"School," Jareth echoed, "Really. What was your favourite subject?"

"None of them," Toby shuddered, "They were okay, I guess. But I wasn't really a studious kind of guy. I liked to draw a lot. But that was stuff I couldn't really tell anyone about, as you can imagine."

Dark brows met in a light frown. Jareth steepled his fingers in front of his mouth and looked enquiring.

"A guy who's into arty stuff is labelled gay?"

"I see. So you followed these interests in private, I take it? Mortals! Such a pity about their closed-mindedness."

"I resent that!"

The tranquil conversation abruptly halted as two goblins flung open the doors and announced dinner. Jareth looked ready to strangle them but nodded his consent under Toby's amused eyes. He was, however, pleasantly surprised to see how his lover reacted to his subjects. Soft laughter at some private joke came from that side of the table, which quickly dried as the goblins approached him. He said nothing, but didn't glare the poor creatures into clumsiness as he normally did.

Whatever the hell the soup was, and Toby was inclined to think it was mushrooms, it tasted good. So he set about ingesting it with business-like good humour, relaxing in Jareth's reassuring presence.

"Slowly, my elf; you make me think I've been starving you."

Toby didn't like the projected implications of this conversation. But then again, he couldn't lie. He didn't want to. And what good would it do? "I haven't eaten for three days, Jareth," Toby pointed out quietly.

Movements were halted and Toby was given Jareth's full attention. "You haven't?"

"The day before, I was wandering around the Labyrinth and forgot to eat," Toby confessed, "And then yesterday I sort of slept through everything. It's no big deal, really. I just didn't feel like eating." He half hoped that Jareth wouldn't notice the slight flaw in his explanations.

"And today? Why did you not eat today?" Jareth evidently had noticed the flaw.

"I am! See? By the way, this is good. Jamelia should be congratulated."

"Don't. Change. The subject."

Uh oh! Bad humour and this generally meant the scene was going to be messy and very likely argumentative. Toby felt his hackles rise at that tone of voice. So he put his spoon down and looked up, meeting Jareth's smouldering gaze very steadily. "You want to know what happened to me today? I got another little mental visit. He didn't do anything this time, but he said some things. Nothing too bad."

Jareth opened his mouth in horror, but nothing came out. There were no words left in his blank mind. Again? In spite of everything? He had been in his room, thinking of himself while Toby was going through all that again? Gods preserve him, but how was this even possible?

"Don't tell me you're feeling guilty." The eyes flashed. Toby took that as a yes. "Well, you shouldn't! Nothing happened. I didn't have a fit and I talked myself out of whatever panic he talked me into. And he didn't rape me this time though he is threatening to do it again soon. Let's forget it."

He went back to eating. Only his hand was trembling so much he couldn't actually grip the spoon properly and the wine was hitting his empty stomach and everything was so messed up all over again. "Damn it!" he swore, throwing the spoon across the room after two attempts to keep eating.

Jareth was by his side in an instant, his arms holding the boy safe as the feeling of standing on the edge of a precipice suffused him again, warping his mind and making black spots dance in front of his eyes. Dimly he was aware of a rough voice whispering soothing words in his ear through the roaring of his own blood.

"I'm- I'm fine," he gasped, weakly trying to push Jareth away with one hand.

Jareth smacked the hand away and let go only enough to smooth golden hair back from over-bright eyes. "I'm sorry, Toby, so very sorry for everything."

Toby felt a cool finger trace down the bridge of his nose, tapping softly on his lower lip. The gesture was so terrifyingly familiar yet so different. It tickled, for one. "It's not your fault, Jareth. It's mine. It's my fault and I failed you..."

"One more word like that and I will lose my temper," Jareth warned him quellingly, "You know you aren't to blame; none of this is your fault. But tell me what's wrong, luv? You are tired and hungry, yes; I can feel that. And I understand why you would be upset, but you never push me away. Why is that?"

"I can't," Toby protested, struggling and getting his attempts to get away rebuked again, "You don't understand. I can't tell you!"

"Why not?"

"Sire? Oh."

"Get out!" A goblet clanked against the hastily closed door, just missing hitting the intruding goblins in the face. Seeing as they were carved from silver and inlaid with gold, the goblet was a fairly good weapon when thrown properly. And Jareth had thrown it properly.

"Toby, tell me now or else..."

"Or else what? You'll hit me? Lock me up? Chain me up like the bad pet I'm being? Well, sorry I'm pissing on your shiny new boots but this puppy wants to go out now!" Toby was quite aware he wasn't making much sense but since he was being bombarded by overwhelming emotions from all sides, he didn't really care.

Jareth, however, did. "Toby, stop it! You're not making sense. And I am appalled that you would dare accuse me of hurting you!"

"Not even if I asked?" Toby whispered, "Not even if I went on my knees and begged?"

"If that is what you need, Toby," Jareth ground out, flushing slightly, "I didn't think you would want that from me."

"Do you bite, Jareth?"

"Sometimes."

"In the middle of sex?"

Jareth frowned but nodded.

Toby pushed again to get out of Jareth's arms, but the limbs tightened warningly around him. The talk repelled him, made him sick to his stomach as the fear crawled over his skin. "You're disgusting," he cried, "Let go, you sick bastard! Don't touch me!"

Jareth let go and lost his own temper. "Sick? It's called passion! Something you wouldn't know a goddamned thing about!"

"No, I wouldn't! But who the hell cares to show me?"

Silence seeped into the room as the echoes settled down. Blue eyes stared bitterly into mismatched ones, looking between the brown and the blue as if trying to gauge what the punishment would be for this crime. In the end, it was this fear that made Jareth stop crushing the bones of Toby's arms and calm down.

"I care," he commented inadequately, "You have an infinite number of people who care for you."

Toby hung his head as his eyes refused to look at Jareth any more. He had experienced passion before, but it had been in dreams before this living nightmare had begun- dreams of mirrors and warm sex, long fingers trailing down his arms to secret places that craved the sly flick of a fingertip. But he was ashamed of what he felt; couldn't the Goblin King see it? "No, my father would tell me that I deserved it. He hates that I'm attracted to men. But I'm not! I'm not attracted to men and I never wanted a man to take me. Until you; you came had to make me want it, didn't you?"

Jareth flinched. He remembered the tremulous voice that had begged. The child had asked! He'd been so caught up in what it might mean for him that he had forgotten to question what it had cost Toby to confront his fears.

He nodded once and looked at the floor in thought. Then looked up and reached out, giving Toby's hair one last stroke. "Very well, then. I was going to tell you this after dinner, but seeing as we were interrupted; Toby, I'm sending you back to the Aboveground. I can't keep you safe here, my elf. You don't belong here, much as I could wish you did. You're free to go wherever you want."

Toby started, staring with enormous blue eyes as Jareth got to his feet. "But the bond..."

The Goblin King shrugged. "We're neither of us in love, Toby. And the bond doesn't take away our right to lead separate lives. It will simply create uncomfortable feelings at first, but even those will fade. You will be safer in the Aboveground, my elf. There won't be anyone to hurt you and you will heal."

"But I don't... what about you?" Toby asked, still too bewildered to form a coherent sentence.

Jareth raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you needn't worry about me. I will go back to having mistresses. Or I might marry. You reminded me of my responsibilities; it would depend on which noose I want to place my neck in. Tell me where you want to go, Toby, and I will provide for you."

"Provide for me?"

"Your money and your lodgings," Jareth answered a touch impatiently. The sooner they finished this conversation, the better.

Toby thought about it. He didn't want Jareth's money or his help. If he couldn't have the comfort, there was nothing else. There could never be anything else and there was only place where he might conceivably feel at home again- Home. "I want to go home, Jareth," he whispered, sounding too old for his sixteen years as the tiredness in his voice rang clearly around the room.

Jareth nodded, pulled his bonded lover out of the chair and placed a chaste kiss on his lips one last time. Then, before Toby had the chance to start dithering, he sent him on, completing the entire farewell with the inclusion of a last present in Toby's pocket.

Toby blinked and sat down very heavily. Evidently his bonded lover didn't like long goodbyes. Which was fine with Toby because he didn't like them either.

And he hadn't wanted to stay in that place one minute more with a man who might rape him. Except Jareth hadn't ever, had he? No, he'd done something worse- Jareth had made him want it, beg for it, and crave it with every fibre of his being. And that, Toby decided morbidly, was half the problem.