Author's Note: Sorry this took so long, but this chapter has less dialogue and more narration. That, and I had a bad case of 'flue for a week so I was laid up at home with tissues and soap, croaking wretchedly at the TV and unable to sleep. Hope this makes up for the wait.
After such a disturbingly surreal occurrence, very little really was said.
Toby said nothing, silently blaming every other factor except himself for having behaved in such a reprehensible fashion. And since Jareth did not seem in any way inclined to repeat the conversation, Toby stood on his pride and didn't bring it up either.
Jareth said nothing because he felt guilty, blamed everyone else, and concluded after one very uncomfortable morning that the world was out to ruin him. If he had any goodwill left to spare, it was wasted on self-pity and platitudes.
And so they both wallowed. And they both steeped.
Of course, there were other things said, things not directly involved with that surreal occurrence. Toby calmly told the Lady Pandora that things were progressing as well as could be expecting between himself and the Goblin King. Jareth told her that everything was going to hell in a handbasket. Jervohl spent the better part of her dawns defending herself from surprisingly seething attacks from her own bodyguard in what was meant to be friendly sparring. She spent the better part of her evenings in a cluttered study answering a litany of searching questions about a period of her life she preferred to forget.
Words were not confined to just the immediate surroundings, either. They spread, and winged their ways in select directions over the warm, wet Underground lands. Elban was growing very confused by the growing number of terse missives sent to him every day. Jareth simply never wrote that many times! In the case of his subject matter, he simply never wrote so little! Beran was beginning to growl again, too, which always made the forest sprite want to break furniture. Truly, his lover would be jealous of a frog if it hopped into his hand one too many times. And then Beran would say that Elban was 'encouraging' it!
Merilin too was receiving his own perplexing series of letters. In his case, they arrived every three days, what with his distance from the Goblin City. But they were no less annoying. The other members of the elvish political community were growing suspicious of the Goblin King's constant correspondence with him on this unknown matter. His father bluntly asked if the elves had anything to be worried about. Merilin laughed it away and said it concerned certain policies. He would not, naturally, say that Jareth was demanding to receive more news on the situation with Gildred's lieutenant; a sorry situation indeed because Merilin could not report more than everything he already knew, which he had already done… in triplicate.
Rooms were changed when Toby pleasantly asked to be allowed to take a room nearer to Jervohl so he could better fulfil his duty. The Lady Pandora had expected Jareth to say 'no', succinctly and with full bloody-mindedness. Jareth had, astonishingly, dismissed every concern by simply summoning Yava and ordering it done by the end of the evening. He himself moved back to his accustomed simple bedroom with no backward sighs.
Jareth insisted that Toby continue with the exercise he had initiated for at least an hour every morning. Jervohl, used to talking with Toby and reading the fine tension in his face and shoulders, fully expected the man to argue and refuse. Instead, every morning when he had finished practising with her, he would excuse himself for exactly an hour to sit in the spot that Jareth had selected and attempt blindly to do what Jareth still would not explain. At the end of an hour, he would get up, sling his old brown jacket back on and go up to his room to bathe and change, untouched by whatever mystery the meditation was supposed to unlock.
Things were not, therefore, as good as they could have been. And there were many times during the days when the tension would make its screeching presence felt. A snide word; a measured glance; a curl of the lip; a bland smile; a subtle exclusion from conversation; a silent refusal to interact- people tiptoed around in circles not really saying anything and holding their breathes, fervently trying to keep the peace in a Castle that loomed darkly around them like an resonating mausoleum.
Everyone was worried. Pandora worried for her children. Jervohl worried for herself and for the uncertainty with Madigh's intentions. Elban worried for the volatility of his relationship. Merilin worried for the precariousness of the balancing act he was in. Everyone worried.
But then words, as any Underground infant could have said, were much deadlier yet. One word could shatter glass thicker than a fist; two could ruin a kingdom. Worse, an exchange of words lasting roughly four and a half minutes in length could serve to ruin whatever shaky truce had originally built up between the Goblin King and his ward. Had that Underground infant, obviously possessed of a great and powerful wisdom, told anyone of this, it is still doubtful that the truce could have been saved.
For both Jareth and Toby were, as Pandora frequently pointed out to Eloise, stubborn. And along with their stubbornness, they were proud. And along with that pride, they were dominant personalities. Neither, she always mourned, knew anything at all about real compromise. Jareth would as soon eat his own powerstone as compromise with anyone. And Toby would rather leave the Underground entirely before he gave in to Jareth. As Eloise had remarked, "Wild cats, the both of them, my Lady. How will we do your hair today?"
Toby's stubbornness was a strange thing, however, and the little goblin woman said so to her mistress. She had looked after the Lady Pandora for almost eight years, since the one and only time His Majesty had attempted to make contact with his ward and gone to visit the ancestral home he never bothered with. One look at how much support the mortal provided and Jareth had petitioned Yava to find someone suitable for his mother. But as far as Eloise could tell, Toby had had a lot of power on that estate since his fourteenth year. He had grown up around the servants. They knew and trusted him; liked him too, and no wonder, for he didn't give himself airs and graces no matter how much bigger he had grown. The man, Eloise knew, could have asked for almost anything and no goblin would have questioned it. And that habit of having his orders obeyed gave him a very bad habit of expecting his orders to be obeyed- a deadly business when interacting with the Goblin King. Stubbornness and Pride…
Toby happened, as it were, to go to the library one afternoon to get a jacket he had left there. Pressed against the wall across from the door was a figure he knew very well and one he didn't. They were still dressed, but from the look of things such a state would not be lasting long.
The gentlemanly thing would have been to excuse himself and leave Jareth with his latest paramour. Even better, Toby should have quietly shut the door and neither would have even noticed.
Three things stopped him:
One. Toby was not a possessive man, but he didn't take any pleasure in seeing someone he had once been intimate with being intimate with someone else. Like most men, it was a blow to his ego. And while he knew rationally that Jareth was, in essence, promiscuous, seeing it flaunted so casually was distasteful and irksome.
Two. Toby could not quite stop himself from being mulish and contrary. He didn't really care if Jareth felt up an elf girl in the fae's own library. But Jareth had been avoiding him. They had been circling each other warily all month since the last time they had shared an embrace. Now those mutual boundaries were violated by his interruption of this private meeting, waking up a few normally dormant impulses. Toby had been spoiling for a fight for a long time.
Three and by far the most important. Toby had eaten himself away with guilt, his nerves rubbed raw by the thought that he was somehow taking away from his sister, dead as she was. Jareth was Sarah's property in every way that mattered; Toby had had no right to seek to enjoy any physical union with him. But by that same token, neither could he idly watch anyone else take that place without a furious burst of betrayal on Sarah's behalf. And with Ezreeka! A betrayal in the worst way! She was slender. She was small. She was dark-haired. Moreover, she was female. Toby couldn't see it happen, irrational though that was.
So he entered with a deliberately loud thud of his heels on the cool, tiled floor and banged the door shut behind his back for good measure. Ezreeka jumped, terrified eyes widening over Jareth's shoulder as she pushed the fae away and tugged her clothes into place. Jareth only peered over his shoulder and muttered something under his breath too low to be heard by the intruder. But he let the elf go and leaned back against the wall, eyebrow raised and arms folded.
One thing was said and then another. Very quietly; very civilly. An equally short answer was made, with less civility and more impatience. A gloved hand rose in a dismissive gesture and waved another statement away, the mocking smirk more than speaking where sharper words would not.
A lot more things were said. The voices rose, as did tempers. Blue eyes hardened with unalloyed loathing and mismatched ones replied with disgust. The gloved hand turned to grasp tightly at the pendant, the thin edges cutting into the thin leather.
Ezreeka fled when the crest of anger threatened to engulf even her. She was sensible enough to push away the hurt from those callous remarks, to know that it wasn't really herself that Mr. Williams had meant to attack. He had always been so courteous and gentle with her in the past, apart from one instance and that had been partly her fault. So she resolved not to let herself take the insults seriously and concentrated on helping. They had lost their minds, the both of them, and there would be bloodshed if someone were not careful! And she needed to find someone else who could stop them fighting before Toby made the Goblin King angry enough to attack him.
She was right. The relationship had been uneasy at best, built on assumptions, expectations and a vague notion of shared time. But time could be spent apart as well as together, and the assumptions and expectations had not been met. The relationship, such as it was, was breaking under the strain. Its strange dynamics played out to the full when Jareth taunted the mortal about jealousy and possessiveness, throwing his former boyfriend up with a malicious flourish:
"Jealous, are we? Well, you did have your chance and you said no. Change your mind? Second chances are rare. I never let just anyone near me. Not like your darling Luka."
Toby hit him. He was fully conscious, fully cognizant and fully aware of his own actions. He did not regret it when it was over. Luckily, he also thought far enough ahead that he pulled his punches and the shock hurt worse than the blow:
"Take your second chances and warm your lonely, empty bed with them. I at least have a lover I call my own; you have no one. And those meaningless nights with another body? It's just the mindless rutting of a whore who doesn't even know better."
Toby was not, needless to say, to know what Jareth would hear in those words. He was not to know a female voice echoed in his. Or that the spit of loathing that accompanied them was a repeat of an older and infinitely more damaging argument. But he did feel the retaliation in a blaring flash of agonizingly bright light that blinded him and made him twist away. He stumbled, knees weakened with the searing burn across his retinas and he fell, jarring his wrist awkwardly.
A moment later, Jareth was gone. Four minutes later, Hessie knocked cautiously at the door and entered at Toby's quiet call. She looked around, expecting to see one or the other stretched out and bleeding profusely from the way Ezreeka had trembled and stuttered. But the room was quiet, a cool breeze blowing briskly through the windows and fanning the mortal's flushed face. No furniture had been damaged; no books had been torn. The floor was spotless and everything seemed to be in its place, including the reading lamp that had been Jareth's weapon of choice in a previous temper tantrum. Something seemed wrong.
"Is everything all right, Mr. Williams?" she asked softly.
He didn't seem to have heard her for a moment, so intently was he staring outside. And then he tipped his face somewhat towards her and beckoned her to enter with a tired hand.
"I need your help, Hessie. And then I shall require the services of a very discreet healer."
There were drying tears on his cheek and he seemed to be cradling his left wrist, but that was not what worried her. He had turned towards her, yes, but in order to favour his hearing not his vision. He was not looking at her, even though he spoke with his usual humility.
Hessie went to him and laid a hand on his arm, noting the heat of his skin through the thin shirt. Mortals were not meant to be that hot. And he was flushed. What had happened? Since he didn't seem inclined to speak, she hesitantly put a hand up before his eyes. He didn't flinch; he didn't blink; he gave no sign of even seeing it.
"Merciful love," she breathed, "What happened?"
"Explosion," Toby said softly, "I upset His Majesty very badly. There was a bright light. I think it damaged my eyes."
"Tsk," she scolded, bending down to examine them. They were reddened, certainly, and watering profusely even then. The pupils were bare pinpricks in the blue iris and that, as Hessie stressed, was not good. "You might be right, Mr. Williams. Up, then. Put your arm on my shoulder and let me steer. One step at a time. That's right, dear. Are you alright?"
Toby made a face. "I keep trying to see," he groaned, closing his eyes tight before blinking them rapidly, "What the devil is going on?"
She steeled herself. "We'll go very slow, Mr. Williams. Your sight might return after a short rest in a dark room. We'll see. Gibil can get a healer this evening just to check on you, and I'll assign him to your room to get you anything you need."
"Thank you, Hessie. If you have work, I can follow a goblin." Toby felt bad taking the woman away from her duties. She was assigned to look after Jervohl and care for her, a full-time job as he could guess.
Jervohl! He had completely forgotten about her! What sort of bodyguard would he be when blinded? The little voice in his head took petty delight in the fact that Jareth would have to release him from that duty now. He couldn't see. It was Jareth's fault and this little mishap would inconvenience the Goblin King himself.
Toby swallowed on that bitter, shallow, petty smirk in his throat and wanted it gone. Resolutely, he concentrated on following his guide in as straight a line as he could manage, listening intently for the sound of her footsteps to tell him whether there were rises or dips in the floor ahead.
