Author's Note: An almost direct follow-on from the previous chapter, give or take a few sentences, still in Toby' room and it is approximately twenty minutes later.

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Toby was resigned to being disoriented. Jareth was still in his room, still in that peculiar mood between chatty and temperamental but at least had the decency to get dressed. Since the mortal was still fumbling away from his usual scruples, he decided that his safest option was to be straightforward. It was a hopelessly logical choice, but it was the best he could do in the circumstances. "Could you tell me what really happened?"

Jareth adjusted the gloves on his hands and pushed off the wall he was leaning against. "I would really rather not," he murmured.

Toby nodded and let that rest. "Alright. Now I demand that you tell me what happened."

A dark brow quirked. "Are you always this pushy?"

Toby considered that they were both passed the point where he took warning signals at face value. "Why did you come to me last night?"

Jareth laughed and sat down in the window, one long leg dangling over the edge and both gloved hands gripping the sill before him.

Toby suppressed the urge to tell him to get down.

"You saw the condition I was in," the Goblin King reminded him, "Would you expect me to go to my mother's room? My sister's?"

"No, but there are others, surely? People that you usually go to for these things?"

"Oh yes. But I have sworn off Ezreeka, have I not?" The smile was almost evil. "You did bring this on yourself."

The mortal made a strangled noise of protest and flipped his hand in disgust. There would obviously be no talking to Jareth in such a mood. Toby knew better than to try. He gave up and got up to leave.

"Alright." The leg swung back over and the fae had his back to that magnificent view. "If only to pre-empt another fight. I was not thinking. I needed relief and I needed it close. You were the closest."

"There is a bell-pull in your room," Toby pointed out, "Besides which you have the ability to be anywhere you like in the blink of an eye."

"I did say I was not thinking." Jareth had been quite pleasant before now, but his nature was easily changeable. He was beginning to sound ever so slightly annoyed and there was an audible snap in the words. "Forget last night, Toby. It is over!"

Had Toby not been concentrating on sorting out the disorder of his thoughts, he might have heard it. As it was, he was not even aware that the Goblin King was tapping restless fingertips on his knee in a prelude to throwing himself into a passion. Instead, he dug his grave even deeper- "Is it? What if it happens again?"

"Such confidence in yourself." Jareth was really working himself up now. "Such vanity." The mockery was growing unpleasant. The sharp tongue was making its presence felt after such a short moment of friendliness.

Toby flushed and looked down. If there was anything that he wasn't, it was vain. And while he didn't flatter himself that Jareth would make a plan to ever… "I simply do not like being a consolation prize," he argued doggedly, "Surely you can understand that."

"Do I? Tell me all. Just what kind of consolation are you supposed to be?"

Toby realized a little too late where it was he had taken the conversation. Jareth was easily provoked, so long as he knew that the provocateur was not doing a deliberate job. Toby had already made a note of that; it helped to know that the truth was a tricky thing around a male that filed the same fact in numerous different levels.

He scratched his chin and attempted to find some way to back down gracefully. "I beg your pardon. If I offended…"

Wrong.

He briefly wished that the Goblin King came with an instruction manual.

Said Goblin King sprang down from the window ledge in a foaming fury, scowling fiercely. "Is that all you ever do- efface yourself? Is this how you fight? If we used swords instead of words, your wrists would be so weak your defences would crumble into the dust against even a novice! What kind of protector will you make if you cannot even protect your ego! What kind of man are you!"

Toby retreated from the shouted words in alarm. He had set off a very important alarm, it seemed. Oh, he had seen Jareth in a temper. He had heard tell of such times. But he had never yet heard of nor seen the world disintegrate.

'… if the world begins to fall apart, leave.'

Elban's words seemed the height of good advice. But by the time he reached the door, the wood with its metal handle had disappeared. There was just a wall of nothingness. A crumbling, visionless, untouchable wall of nothing! A jagged brick opening yawned around the gap but there was no door. Toby did not dare touch it.

"And now there is nowhere to run. What else were you planning to do, Toby? Beg? Is that the kind of man you are?"

Jareth was mocking him, needling him. Toby thought he should be angry. Moreover, he thought he should be scared. He steeled himself to look around and feel afraid.

Jareth was standing an arm's length away, maddening grin on his pale face, hair loose on a blue shirt and hands on his hips. The medallion was mostly hidden in the artistic shreds of his shirtfront.

A pity, Toby thought, and all so very strange. He was more fascinated by such a scene than actually frightened. It flew against all odds, but he put it down to his recent spate of insanity and cheerfully decided to roll those dice and see where it landed him again. If Jareth threw him into the Bog of Eternal Stench or into one of his oubliettes, so be it. If he decided another week and a bit without sight was required, there was nothing Toby could do. Why fight the inevitable? Kicking and screaming only made things worse.

'Being dull and depressing has never solved problems,' Luka had said.

It went against his nature considering what his boyfriend- or former boyfriend- was accused of, but Toby took advice where he could get it.

But then again, he didn't like to be mocked. "No," Toby shrugged, "You stole the door."

"Did I?" The Goblin King actually smirked and took a step away. "Are you sure? Look again."

Toby simply turned fully and looked down his nose with cool unconcern. "I propose to take your word for it," he said. He smiled charmingly and leaned back. The support on his shoulder certainly felt like a wooden door. "I see my door has returned. Thank you, Sire."

"Strange choice of title. You would have to be my subject to call me that."

"I consider the Underground to be my home. By default its customs are my own."

Jareth was not looking quite so ferocious any longer. That strange gleam was there, but the scowl had given way to a smirk- even more deadly in certain cases, considering that smirk could not be interpreted in time to duck out of the way of any tossed off stroke of vengeance. Instead, the fae was standing straight, arms crossed in a mirror of the mortal facing him, head no longer quite so high or so arrogantly held.

"Your home." Jareth shook his head. "It does not work like that, Toby." The chaos insurgence disappeared as suddenly as it had begun and he tapped the heel of his palm lightly against his forehead. "Damn these physical limitation!"

The mortal was genuinely surprised.

Jareth caught the look and rolled his eyes in expressive annoyance. "Last night leaves me more prone to automatically utilizing my magic and less able to sustain it for very long." He gestured around the room. "You see it has already dissipated."

The room was back to normal. Toby risked a glance over his shoulder and thanked his stars for the return of his door. It was a welcome sight in case of emergencies. "Then could you tell me what happened last night?" he asked.

A pink tongue snaked out to lick slightly dry lips. "No."

"No?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Why?" Jareth had, as usual, turned the question to the quester.

"Because we woke up in the same bed," Toby hissed, involuntarily looking to the wall that separated his room from Jervohl's.

"What you mean to say," Jareth corrected pedantically, "Is that we had sex."

Toby glowered darkly at him and muttered something inaudibly rude in another language about the fae.

"Sex has never moved mountains, nor shattered the earth. We just had sex. Is it such a hard concept to understand? It has happened a fair few times before this last night."

"Never in such a manner," Toby argued, "And since we seem to be relegating things to a non-dramatic point of view, let me ask you why it was that I do not recall being in any way interested until you forced the issue. And further more, explain why I seem to be the only one that experienced… what we did, in a sexual way."

For the second time that afternoon, Jareth sat down on the side of the bed and patted the place next to him. He waited patiently until the mortal took him up on the invitation and then looked reflectively up at him. The silence dragged for a few tense moments before he rallied himself to respond. "I manipulated your body a little. But I was prepared to stop if you asked. Second, I was not looking for sexual release. At that moment of time, I was too taken up with trying to stop all of myself from vanishing into the aura of my lands. You must forgive me if I was not up to scratch."

Toby dazedly drew on the memory in his mind of the fae plated in light and glowing like a star made man. Up to scratch, indeed! More like a homosexual's dream!

"I will, of course, be more 'present' the next time."

Jareth sounded quite matter-of-fact about it. He was sitting there, leaning forward companionably, with his hands clasped lightly between his knees and tapping out a rhythm with his right boot heel.

"Next time." A bell tolled with dire warning in Toby's ears. "Wait a minute, I am not sure this is a good idea. It did not work the last time; it will not work now! We are just not those kinds of people."

"Stuff!" Jareth exclaimed bracingly, "We can be any kind of person we want to be!"

"Well, I would like to be a sane person. Somehow, I never feel sane around you."

"Tragic," Jareth agreed, "I propose we move back to our original quarters. Much more private. Jervohl will have no occasion to hear things unsuitable for her young ears."

Toby gulped. The conversation was getting far out of hand and he was even more confused in the afternoon than he had ever been in the morning. It was a lesson to him- not only to never follow his uneducated instincts, but also to never trust his guardian.

"Are you alright, brat?"

"My brain is forcing its way out of my ears to make room for the pressure in my skull," Toby assured him.

The sound and snap of worn leather and then a cool hand touched his forehead. "No fever," Jareth commented, "Possibly shock. Have you received unexpected news recently?"

Toby looked blankly at him.

The hand fell away. "Ah." Jareth carefully took his hand back. "I seem to be forcing the issue again."

Which brought them right back to the start of the problem- Toby scratched his head in bemusement. "Exactly what did you do to me last night?"

"Simple magic," Jareth soothed, "In words- I sent a wave of pleasurable sensation of a certain magnitude and type just under your skin, focusing on certain specific areas of your body so as to elicit the response I wanted."

"Simple," came the dry answer.

"Of course."

"You did all that. Just so I would have sex with you." Toby couldn't wrap his brain around it. "Why?"

Jareth tilted his head as he thought about it. "We were mostly naked and I needed it."

"Yes, but I still do not understand why you came to me. Why did you get out of your bed, walk three rooms down the corridor and collapse on the floor of my bedroom? Why me?"

"Toby, if you are looking for some startling revelation, I am afraid I cannot oblige," Jareth sighed, "I woke up in a state and I thought of you by some illogical twist of consciousness. Your room was close so I obeyed an impulse."

Toby could believe the logic. He just could not actually accept it. The story sounded half-written to him. "You did all this on impulse. How? You said your senses were locked in chaos."

"Self-preservation."

"Fair enough. I suppose you knew I would not turn you away. Was I that obvious?"

The Goblin King laughed out loud at such a thought. "Not at all! I only sought your help, though what help I imagined you could give other than what you did I do not know. I was as unprepared for all this as you were. But it happened. We both got satisfaction from it. Why tempt fate by trying to analyse it?"

Toby fidgeted a little and muttered something. It came out as a garbled stammer of some kind so he cleared his throat and tried again. "I cannot afford to make a bad judgement call in my position, Jareth."

"Ah. You suppose when this comes to the sticky end you assume it will, I will be angry enough to do something spiteful to you." Jareth didn't seem very upset at such a thought. "It is not my usual style, but I might. Or," he added, "We might not come to that sticky end you predict."

"If this is how you swear undying love, I imagined better from you." It slipped from his tongue before he could safely swallow it away and the minute it was out he went pink.

Jareth didn't laugh. He didn't smirk or say something sharp. His lips twitched, but he replied with the complete gravity, "I only use this as a wicked ruse to trap young men in my spider's web."

"Pity," Toby remarked acidly, "And here I thought you were being honest."

"I was! Mostly. I freely admit I am not in the least inclined to eke out the rest of my existence with you. I hope you are not…"

"Mercy, no!" Toby was horrified and amused by the thought. In love with the Goblin King! The thought was ludicrous.

"Then we have not a thing to worry about."

"Except that I do not have sex for the hell of it."

Dual-coloured looked at him with serious bewilderment and that silky voice said, "I never understand why. Inconsequential sex is the privilege of youth. How can you know a person without knowing his body? Perhaps it is me, but a male- or female- reveals so much of himself between the sheets that it seems a crime never to interact with him on that level."

A sudden click, a brief flare of illumination and Toby was suddenly looking at the world from a whole new perspective. The people he had met, the voices he had heard and the hands he has shaken- they mixed in a sudden jumble and jumped out at him with a clamour of silver tongues. He blinked in shock.

"A bit unorthodox, I know, but that method has never failed me so far," Jareth continued, "A lesson a very old and wise politician once taught me. Of course, he meant me to interact with people on a purely platonic level. I adjusted it to suit myself."

Toby waved it away. It was all too much off the topic to take in just yet. He would have to reflect on it. "That is not the point. I am not going to sleep with someone just to use them as a political ally. Besides, I am not the sort who could get away with such an elaborate charade. This is about the two of us and…"

"Are you attracted to me?"

Toby's mouth snapped shut obstinately.

Jareth grinned. He forbore to demonstrate; he had the feeling that there was only so much the mortal could take without leaving the room in a huff. "Take a chance," he invited softly, "Use your considerable logic. If I were not interested in bedding you, would I be spending this amount of time persuading you? What is the worst I could say?"

"You could laugh in my face," Toby snapped.

"Or I could be relieved," Jareth reasoned, "That you feel the same way I do."

The single grandfather clock standing in the corner began to chime the hour. They had been in the room for two hours, now, and the evening was approaching.

"Why me?" Toby repeated, "Why not let me go back to my nice, quiet existence?"

"I think you will find that you will need these skills sooner or later. If only for the ruthlessness it teaches you." Jareth didn't like to be morbid, but when the Lady Pandora died- and she might at any time- Toby would essentially be left without a home. Jareth would do what he could but since that depended on his mood and the time, it was best for Toby to learn some sort of marketable ability. The better for the man's independence, too. "It is all about your choices."

Toby sighed and brushed his hair out of his eyes. "Alright. Yes. I cannot believe I am about to do this, but alright."

The Goblin King stood up and stretched. "Well! If there are no more questions?"

"I have one condition."

Jareth stilled.

"No one is to know," Toby said firmly, "Not the Lady Pandora, and not Jervohl. Keep it from the servants if you can too, or Eloise will find out."

"Something that shames you about this? If it is going to be this difficult…"

"Look, I am not used to this. My logic is telling me this is a bad decision! I do not want to make a fool out of myself in front of everyone else."

"Toby, I am not trying to victimize you. I only insist because…"

"I know. And I am really not averse to it."

"Really?" Jareth raised an ironic eyebrow. "I am beginning to think my allure is fading. I have not worked this hard to get someone into bed with me since Elban."

"Elban?"

"Suffice it to say, it ended with a bucket of cold water and a very amused forest sprite."

Toby sniggered behind his hand in response to the wry humour in the drawled words. "I can believe that. Elban is quite a character."

"I like those around me to have character. Now, are you interested in my offer or not?"

It was an indirect compliment and Toby recognized it for what it was. His reservations were crumbling and he privately thought that it would not be as bad as it sounded. Just a little bit of shared camaraderie. "I am interested," he allowed.

Jareth smiled and left it at that. "Then I suggest we keep our rooms on as we do now. I will have Jervohl's room moved and I will simply visit at night."

"Like last night?" Toby grinned a crooked grin. "I was not expecting that."

"Neither was I," Jareth said, "But I suppose I should not be surprised. I should have expected it would come naturally to you."

"Because we are all desperate men at heart? Is that not what Sander sang? The entire Underground was singing that three years ago."

Jareth wished his jacket into his hands and shrugged into it. "Actually, I meant that I should not be surprised at your generosity. The strange thing about honest men is that they help even those they despise."

The Goblin King swanned out of the room, Sander's song on his lips.

Toby rubbed his eyes and looked to his wardrobe. He had really let himself in for it this time.