Author's Note: Thanks, guys! It's not that I require constant sustainance from reviewers, but I just wanted to know if this series was going okay. Since it seems to be doing all right, thanks to each and every one of you who reviewed and to anyone who reads but doesn't review as well; you're all equally wonderful.

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"People stared at the make-up on his face..."

Toby stared. Forget the make-up; there was no make-up: only soft dyed-black hair that swept long and silky down the slender neck. The black silk robe was too thin on those white shoulders, making them seem less masculine, less strong. Toby could imagine a young woman with those prettily displayed shoulders. If he blocked out the face and voice, if he didn't look too closely at what that black robe didn't even try to conceal.

He started as Archer silently joined him in the echoing hall.

"He sings," the Fairy Lord murmured, "A sign of content, yes?"

"The boy in the bright blue jeans... jumped up on the stage... and Lady Stardust sang songs of darkness and disgrace..."

"He cannot remember what jeans are, or what a stage is, but he still uses the words. Do you like the song? I believe it is a new one."

"...the band was altogether... yes, it was all right... the song went on forever... he was awful nice... really quite out of sight... and he sang all night long..."

A white finger dipped into the grass, completely unaware of the two pairs of eyes watching him magically through a mirror. A blade of grass was snatched lightly up and tossed away just as fast. For some reason Toby felt his heart constrict at the sight. Jareth had once picked him the perfect blade of grass and set it in a crystal. Even though the events surrounding that dream had been horrible, Toby still didn't want to think that Jareth never cared any more about that perfect blade of grass, about the kernel of truth in the crystal. He didn't want that!

"Femme fatales emerged from shadows to watch this creature fair..."

The robe was pulled up with an impatient hand, long hair pushed away from the red metal band around the delicate throat.

"The boys stood up on their chairs to make their points of view..."

Toby took a step back, trying to leave this scene behind- Archer with his hungry eyes and awful look of possessive love, Jareth so changed. How could he break this spell? If he did, how was he to deal with the repercussions? Jareth's pride was too great to accept that this had happened to him. And the pain! The unmitigated torment of betrayal and self-disgust- Toby feared it would only drive him to insanity.

"I cried sadly... for a love I could not obey... and Lady Stardust sang songs of darkness and dismay..."

Jareth seemed to still completely with those words, staring away into something else as the words began to swell with some kind of bewildered emotion. What he was thinking about Toby couldn't tell. He wondered if even Jareth himself knew.

"...it was awful nice... really quite paradise... and he sang all night long..."

A fist closed in the grass and yanked out an entire handful, and then Jareth was ripping it to shreds, gasping as he threw the bits as far from him as if they physically hurt him to be so near. The tears were streaming down his face.

Toby felt his heart break. It was terrifying to be so near and yet unable to go to him. What would he say to him? That the meek, unhappy little slave was really the Goblin King in disguise? That this Goblin King had a formally bound bond mate who was not his Master, and a child? He couldn't do it.

"Have you tasted his tears?" Archer taunted, "No, he never did cry before you. He put away that side of himself for you. He could never be soft or delicate with a mortal; you simply would not understand it. How could you? You know nothing of his life."

"I knew what he told me," Toby snapped, turning away with a glare of disgust, "And you! You think you have the right just because he lets himself be weak in front of you?"

"He gives me the right," Archer said, "Every right, in fact, and more than you ever received."

"I'm not having a pissing contest with you about Jareth!"

"Strangely enough, I am. I feel quite a lot of pride in my cousin's transformation." Archer placed a hand on the mirror, the other meditatively pushing his dark hair behind his ear, "I enjoy it."

"You like seeing him like that?"

"I like seeing him," Archer corrected, indicating the person in the mirror, "On my initiative. Not when our worlds allow us the chance, but at once. Whenever I call."

"He was crying. How often does he cry?"

"Quite often. But he laughs as well, and every person must cry at times." Archer genuinely regretted it. "It is the price we must pay, alas, to get free. But yes, I enjoy his company very much now. This was better than I had planned."

"You couldn't have planned him losing his memory," Toby declared.

"But what good fortune for me, Master Elf. My cousin would never have consented before this and now look at him. He can't listen to a conscience that can't remember its conditioning. And if I am to be that conscience, guiding him in all matters- well, then, who am I to refuse the former Goblin King?"

"That's sick."

The Fairy Lord didn't seem very perturbed by the verbal attack. He waved his hands and the mirrors went dark. The candles once more cast a soft light through the high-ceilinged room, playing bronze and gold shadows over the gilt frames and sparse furniture. The chair at the head of the hall appeared inordinately stark and hard, the frosty sheen of light gleaming over the worn material.

"Why is that, Toby?"

Toby spun, a look of incredulous loathing on his face. "He's your cousin," he ground out, "Your mothers were sisters! He treated you like the family he didn't have. You're supposed to take care of him, not make him a slave. Does it get you off, doing this to him?"

"The love I hold for my cousin is pure beyond anything you can know," Archer said quietly, a gleam in his eyes warning the mortal not to go too far, "We are everything to the other. I am his family and I am his lover. He is mine. I am his Master and he obeys me willingly."

Toby wasn't in the mood to pay attention to warning hints. "But you aren't his mate; I am. He chose me. He is the father of my child. And you know what? You had to rip his memories from him to get him; he came willingly to me. Did he even know that you wanted him like this? No. You knew he'd never say yes. He's sobbing his eyes out because you've made him something he hates, and he senses it! He would never take what you've done to him."

Archer moved suddenly, but stopped when he saw the crystal balanced on the golden fingers. Then he smirked, a slow cruel smirk, just before turning to the mirrors and calling on them once more.

"A picture of just how willing he was."

Jareth... lying in a bed with no shackles, no ties. He was writhing on the sheets, hands reached out to someone. Eyes closed, the Goblin King was calling for someone or something, sweat-slicked and desperate.

Toby watched as that beloved voice called out for the fairy. He watched, sickened, as Jareth welcomed Archer by name and pleaded softly to be taken out his misery. The fairy was gentle where Jareth was forcefully demanding more and ever more.

Jareth had asked. And the image faded.

"He never went willingly," Toby repeated slowly, "You must have done something to him, made him think a certain way or something."

"His memories were clear," Archer pointed out, jerking his head to indicate the silent mirrors, "You see he called my name. He asked clearly and distinctly for what he needed. He threw his Kingdom away just for my touch. Jareth is not the innocent you think he is."

"Then why take his mind? Why put him through torture?"

"Safety. For him and for myself. And privacy. My servants and guards alone know who he truly is. They are discreet. Amarild has no real wish to kill him and the capture of the Goblin King gives her victory. She will not jeopardize it by taking him from me. Without his memories, he is protected from himself and the life that gave him so much pain and worry. You didn't help, need I add."

"I never did anything..." the mortal stopped. No, he couldn't, in all honesty, say Jareth and he had been particularly happy together. Tempestuous and passionate, perhaps, but not altogether happy. "He chose me, not you."

"And came to me when he faced the problems you brought. My child, I told you once that he would never give me up. Jareth always knew I would be the constant. Can you honestly say he never hinted that to you?"

"You were a dirty secret. Jareth was eccentric but he wasn't a pervert. This would have been shameful to him."

Archer only laughed and folded his arms. "Well, now he is not himself and so there is no shame to it."

Toby longed to smash the mirrors, but he sensed the magic around them and knew that to do so would only spark an unnecessary amount of chaos and disorder. He could live without that. Not yet, he knew, now was not the time to announce his presence. Or give Archer a reason to get angry with him. More than ever he wished he had never let Arradine come with him.

"I'll say this once- I'm not leaving Jareth here," he said abruptly, "The next time I come, I'll take him with me. So say your goodbyes if you have to. If you've got any kind of heart, you'll stay away from him and give him a few less nightmares."

With that, the mortal disappeared, leaving the Fairy Lord alone in the room. Sighing to himself, Archer took the seat at the head of the hall, his body moulding to the worn wood. He tapped a finger impatiently on the tulip carved into the armrest and sighed again.

Toby would do as he said; the fairy never doubted that.

But would that be for the best?

Archer had always marked Jareth for himself. He wasn't about to give him up without a fight. And a fight wouldn't help because the boy was magically stronger and much more controlled from those seven years on the run. Archer felt his lips curl: no, not so controlled. He could still smell the youth of that ripe body. He had never loved him but Toby was his by proxy, belonging as he did to Jareth. Archer had the faerie sensibility of ownership and he didn't see why he should give up so easily what was his to have.

There was something else that belonged to him by that very same rule, the something else that served as a bond stronger even that the magical collar that shackled the half-goblin.

Archer rang the bell by his side.

A tall woman entered and curtsied respectfully before him, her eyes on the floor as he instructed. No one in his palace looked at him except for a chosen few and those who were ordered to do so.

"Bring me my pet," Archer commanded, "And the child."

The woman left the room, shivering a little in apprehension of that command. The famed Goblin King who had been the guest of honour for so many hundreds of years, who had followed his reputation of being powerful and arrogant and selfish. That Goblin King was reduced to pet! She would not dare to speak out, but it seemed so wrong to trap something so wild in a gilded cage.

"My Lord loves him too much," she assured herself, "It is just his way."

His way?

The child looked up when she called him from his room, carefully putting down his pencil and papers to trot sweetly at her side. And when she arrived in the garden, the pet was on his way in, pale and trembling as if sensing that something potentially wrong was afoot. His mismatched eyes were too vulnerable by half and the helplessness only eased somewhat when he saw the child.

"Aidan! Are you taking a walk now?" he asked, stopping to brush the bright gold hair away from the child's face.

Aidan shook his head. "Leela brought me," he said, "We were finding you."

"You were searching for me?" Mismatched eyes rose to the woman's slightly sympathetic face. "Miss, what is it? Does my Master call for me?"

Leela winced at being so addressed. Whatever else, it was certainly wrong for the Goblin King to call a servant 'Miss' or 'Sir' but he did. Not on Archer's command- for Archer had given none- but on his own initiative, as if he were less than the peasants who worked for a hard living.

"My Lord does summon you." There was no way to address him. So no one did. "And the child," she added, hoping to prepare him a little. There could be no harm in telling him because Archer had given no instruction to the contrary.

The right hand faltered somewhat as it stroked once more over the golden head. "Please; why is Aidan needed?"

"My Lord did not tell me," she said coolly, "But you know it is never wise to keep him waiting."

Jareth nodded slowly and scooped the child up in his arms, pushing aside his fears and apprehensions to murmur pleasant nonsense to him as they walked. Outside the door to the Hall of Mirrors, he put him down. "Stay quiet," he warned, "Don't talk or move unless my Master allows it. All right?"

"Yes, father."

The answer was meek and it tore at some core part of the former Goblin King to see his child so contained. Something in him rebelled at that, made him want to scream at someone for forcing a child to go through this horror. The anger drained away to pure fear when he opened the door and saw the soldiers.

Leela tightened her own lips as she showed the slave and his son into the hall. The soldiers were the only ones who dared to show an open interest in the slave, and only because they retained a cruel interest in seeing the one who had caused the deaths of so many of their friends in the war now forced to bend to the pleasures of others. But there was nothing she could say.

Jareth had quite a few things he could say but he knew better than to say them. His Master would not listen. He knew that from sickening experience. He walked to his Master's feet, dropping instantly to his knees before him with his head bowed. He ignored the smirks and hot gazes burning into the back of his neck. None of the guards had any weaponry or armour, but that gave no clue as to why they were there.

"I had a visitor today, dearest," Archer sighed, holding out a hand and drawing his pet closer, "A young friend. A young mortal man, in fact."

Jareth looked surprised. "You have a mortal friend?" he ventured to ask.

"I? No, he is not my friend particularly. I know him, but I don't take pleasure in it. No, this one is your bond mate."

The entire hall stiffened. The former Goblin King frowned slightly, sifting hopelessly through his mind for any memory of who this might be. He felt his Master presence inside, felt the twist on his thoughts. But he couldn't remember. He should remember! A bond mate was not easily forgotten!

"You do not know what I mean, do you?" Archer laughed, a finger tilting his face up, "So easily forgotten? Poor Toby! He will not be best pleased."

"Master, I thought you were..."

"Your bond mate? No. But that is not why I called you here. Ah! I see Aidan is with us."

Aidan took a step back. He didn't like Archer. A vague memory of his father hurt by this fairy's hand made him fear and hate the male whom his father professed to love.

"Come here, Aidan," Jareth called quietly, holding out his hand.

The five-year-old came up and pushed against his father's side.

Archer smiled, noting how the golden hair gleamed in the candlelight. So like Toby's, he crowed. And yet those eyes... he knew those eyes from almost five hundred years ago. Jareth's eyes- knowing, watchful, calculating, and capable of such blindness. Those eyes would come in useful when the child was grown. Oh, Archer didn't mean to take his innocence; Jareth was all he had ever wanted. But there were alliances to be forged and political contracts to be, ahem, agreed on. Aidan would do nicely as an incentive.

"Your son is truly lovely. It would be horrible if something were to occur that destroyed that loveliness, would it not?"

Jareth clutched tighter at his child and nodded, not quite sure where the conversation was going.

"Your bond mate threatens to kill everyone in the Castle if I do not let you go to him."

"Let me go? But- but you... I cannot... how..." he stared helplessly to his Master, feeling the sharp sting in his head as Archer twisted inside his mind, sorting through the emotions present with a pleased grin. "Master, you told me you would keep me."

"I want to," his Master agreed, "I do not want to let you go. But you see my predicament. If I keep you, your child will be in danger."

"What am I to do, Master?" The world spun under his feet, the barely contained confusion surging to an overwhelming flood around him.

"Do you want to stay, pet?"

Jareth had often thought about escaping. There had been times when the pain of staying had been too much to bear. Something inside him told him that this was not the life he was meant to lead. Shadows inside him would hiss at him to run, to take Aidan and run. But with the collar... and Archer would find him; he had full confidence in that. And Archer provided stability in a world that had so much pain. Archer loved him.

"Yes," he whispered.

"I see. Well, there might be a way to save your child," Archer smiled. It was really too easy to manipulate this mind now. "Your bond mate will return and I will send for you. You will tell him that you wish to stay with me. He will see the errors of his ways and he will depart."

Jareth nodded automatically, knowing it would be required of him. And it sounded like a reasonable plan. Surely no one would go to so much trouble for him? Well, except his Master. And Jareth thanked the Gods every day for the miracle of being loved.

"We are agreed then. Now, pet; just to ensure that you truly are as willing to stay with me as you say, I have a task for you."

Jareth stiffened. His mind was confused but his intelligence wasn't compromised; he guessed what the task was. He slipped his arm off his son and pushed him gently to the side. Aidan would be sent away in a minute and then the tormenting would start. The thoughts made him shiver with nervousness and desire. It was abusive and it would hurt, but he would please his Master. He would prove himself. And his Master professed to like watching this, said he looked beautiful when he was so overwhelmed.

"... the soldiers deserve a little treat, do you not think?"

The assembled men and women leered just a little as the pet bowed and rose gracefully to his feet, turning to stand respectfully before them. At Archer's answering nod, one woman came forward. Dropping a calloused hand on his shoulder, she used the other to grab a fistful of the dark hair and tug his head down, kissing him savagely as if to mark him permanently as her own.

The pet had one moment to fear for his safety when there were hands, stripping him, stripping each other... and so many hands and mouths on his flesh. He threw back his head and moaned as a soldier bit at his neck.

Archer turned to see Aidan watching the scene with a confused frown on his face. By rights, he should send the child away. This was no place for a five-year-old boy. But Aidan was the shackle that would bind the Goblin King to his will, for Archer was about to do something that was a risk and quite possibly the only way left open to him.

He heard a yelp of shock and smirked. He loved watching this. No matter how it exhausted his pet, Jareth never looked more desirable than in the throes of helpless passion. He loved to see that look, to see those eyes shut with a hoarse cry of desire as sexual frenzy took over all logic and reason.

It would be only a while more.

"Aidan, come to me," he demanded quietly.

Aidan sidled closer until he was standing at Archer's right hand. The Fairy Lord placed a hand on his shoulder and continued to watch the scene, eyes intent as he felt an answering desire stir in his own veins.

The right moment was almost there... Soon. His pet would know better than to re-think his decision.

The hand on the child's shoulder tightened and then Archer grimaced just a little.

Jareth suddenly went limp on his knees, faint and in pain, moaning quietly as agony hammered in his temples. He opened his eyes and looked up to see the soldiers were not about to let him go just yet.

Memories came rushing back.

He almost threw up even as his mouth was forcibly filled. Archer! How could he? How had he? Frantic now, he began to struggle, striking out against the bonds. Momentarily confused, the soldiers let him go. Jareth gasped in a lungful of air as he was released. The collar seared over his skin as he unthinkingly called on his magic. He groaned and felt the sound stick in his throat.

"Archer," he called, bewildered and panicked, "What is this?"

The fairy smiled a bittersweet smile and shrugged. "You belong to me, my dear," he replied, "I do not intend to let you go."

Rough fingers plundered into him. Rape- that was all this would be- rape. He shut his eyes and let his body go as limp as it would. Fighting would only hurt more. He could survive this.

'Your bond mate...' Toby was here. It was only a matter of time. Oh Gods, Toby knew! Jareth felt his stomach twist and then cried out. It hurt! Worse than he remembered.

'Your son is truly lovely...' Aidan!

"Aidan, cover your eyes," he called out throatily, "Archer, please! Let him go. Send him away."

"He is your reminder, Jareth. I will keep you; I promised you that. And that is with or without your permission."

"Archer, please!"

"You will remember what I trained you for, my dear, and you will do that for the safety of your son," the fairy called.

Jareth couldn't even feel his fingers anymore; they were numbed from the tight grip on his wrists. No magic, no strength, no will to fight while his body agonizingly drew pleasure from this pain as it had been taught.

"Aidan, close your eyes," Jareth called again, desperately. He shut his own eyes, unable to contend with anything now.

The child whimpered and shut his eyes, covering his face so that he couldn't even peek out. The hand remained on his shoulder and burned through his thin tunic with its fevered touch. The next scream sounded louder than ever.