"Not the most graceful little goblin, are you Jareth?" Smirked the voice.
Toby managed to arrange himself on all fours enough so that he could reconcile voice with speaker. Speaker was tall and blond and glittered as if He Himself were set with stars. He wore the night as a cape, or perhaps a cape as the night, but either way clutched in long-fingered hands which seemed to have personalities entirely independent of their smiling master. His teeth were sharp like things from fairy tales that liked to eat children for breakfast, and they were grinning at him. Of all the weird things he had dreamed up waking, this was, by far, the most weird and slightly cool.
He didn't want to ask what the person was doing there, or how they got there. So he said, 'My name's not Jareth. But if I'm a goblin, s'at make you a god?"
"A god? Now there's an idea I've never heard before from one like you, Jareth. If you are a goblin, you certainly are a Jareth." The tall man grinned and swept back his cloak, seating himself on Toby's bed. "I named you myself in fact. You've only forgotten."
"Oh?" Toby picked himself up carefully, righting his chair and straddling it backwards. "Am I a goblin, then? Is there anyone like me?"
The man looked at him for a long, twinkling time, and then shook his head with a smile.
"You might be a goblin. But no, I'm afraid there isn't anyone like you." he touched a finger to his chin thoughtfully, "I must say, you are a lot smarter than your sister was when she was your age. Though I wonder if you're as clever. Why didn't you wish for what you really want, instead of squandering it on that stubborn little girl? You should know by now, as long as you've lived with her, she's not the sort to come readily when called. Nor is she particularly open to orders, suggestions, or even friendly advice. There's only so much magic allotted to each person in your world, Jareth, and it seems rather a pity to waste even a scrap of it on someone like her."
Toby cocked his head. "Is there anyone like her, then?"
"My!" The man laughed richly, tossing his head back, like a lanky mustang, "You are full of the bright questions. "Like Sarah? Hardly." He said her name as if he said it often, with a familiar, exasperated fondness, "Sarah and I go way back, back to when you were only a little goblin baby. No, I don't suppose you would remember me at that. You were, in fact, frightfully young at the time. Such a pity." He shook his head. "But you've gone and wasted that wish of yours, and there really isn't anything I can do about that, directly. So imagine I ought to be going." He rose. "Give my love to your sister, Jareth, next time you see her." He bowed gracefully, and pulled the rippling curtain back from the window.
"If you can't do anything about it," said Toby quickly, not really inclined to see this waking-dream end, "then why did you come?"
The man paused, then turned back into the room.
"Now that you mention it, Jareth, there is something. But it will require a little effort on your part." He paced very slowly in front of the window. Then stopped again. "You know, I named you very well. You still have my eyes. I originally came to get them back, but they look quite well on you, I think." Toby's eyes flickered up to his visitors, and the world tilted forty-five degrees as he met pure black sockets, where eyes should have been. And then there they were, one brown eye and one blue, twinkling at some spot just over Toby's shoulder. Toby started. His eyes really were mismatched like that. He moved to say so, but as he did, the man's gaze shifted, just over Toby's other shoulder. The room stayed askew.
"Has anyone ever told you," murmured the man, "that you have the most lovely hair?"
"Stop that!" Toby swayed to his feet, dismayed by his severe disorientation. Everything had been a fine, just a moment ago! "You're doing that on purpose!"
"What's that? What am I doing?" The two-tone gaze switched shoulders again, "what is it you want me to do, Jareth? I'm afraid I don't quite follow you. You're fading, you see."
Toby did not look down at his hands to make sure they were still there. He looked at the man's hands, toying with a crystal ball. Two crystal balls. They flowed over the too-clever fingers, dancing merrily. Toby felt an overwhelming urge to grab them and smash them, but he didn't move. He concentrated on standing upright.
"Look at me," Toby pleaded, clenching his teeth around the words, "I need you to look directly at me, or get out of here."
"Now why's that? I thought we were getting on so very well, Jareth." The mockery in the man's voice sang up and down like gypsy fiddles, like dreams one had almost forgotten. Maybe this was, finally, a dream? Maybe he'd really fallen asleep, for once, and that's what this was... a flush of relief washed over him, and he smiled, exhaling.
"Oh, I can stand it now, if I'm really dreaming again. If I've got my dreams back, then maybe people will..."
"What? See you?" The eyes snapped back on Toby hard, and the room righted so suddenly it forced him back into the chair. The visitor pursed his lips. "It could be. So, is that why you wanted Sarah here. Not because you really wished for her presence but because..." He was being invited to fill in the blank, and found himself doing so without thinking about it,
"...Because my real wish is..." He stopped, looking at the man's expression, fixed eagerly on his face. The right words, they seemed to say. You know them, come on. Toby licked his lips, "That is, I wish..." He stopped. The man blinked, even before Toby spoke. "Tell me what you get out of this. That's not a wish, mind."
Something very ugly passed over the visitor's face, his teeth glinting wickedly in the lamplight. "I've already told you my wish, Jareth. I told you when I first appeared. It's not my fault if you've forgotten already." He chuckled meanly.
"So, why are you using your wish on..." He broke off as those teeth snapped in his direction.
"I have considerably more magic than you do, my little goblin prince. I'm even less human than you are." The teeth made a very feral smile, "Now, are you going to say it, or am I going to leave again? I see, by the look of you, there's something you've remembered. You're not going to make me spell things out for you, are you? No, you're far smarter than that."
Toby frowned. He had never believed that the things in his dream were ever, "just" things in his dream. Or perhaps he'd just come to believe that, in their absence. But the voice in his dream had a face, that was clear, and here it was. In the inhuman flesh.
"The dreams didn't leave until she did." Toby said.
"Good for you!" The man tossed a ball over to Toby, who caught it unthinkingly. "Can you handle another?"
"What's your name?"
"Now, that's a real trick to juggle." He tossed another crystal, and Toby caught it. They spun in his hands, and he stared. "What do you think? It's the same as yours."
"Tob..." Duh. The boy tore his gaze away from the churning crystals in his hands, and tried not to look at the ones in... "Jareth?"
"Got it in one and a half, my bright little goblin! Not that I expect it should matter much. Anything else you want to juggle, while you're at it?"
The crystals were moving Toby's fingers, faster than he'd known they could move. Jareth readied another one to toss, and Toby swallowed hard. With a supreme force of will, he clasped the balls still in his hands and squeezed them until he thought they, or his fingers, would break.
"I wish to have my dreams back, so that people will see me again!"
"Very good!" Jareth crowed, and Toby opened eyes he hadn't known he'd shut. "Very good indeed."
Toby's fingers relaxed, and the crystal spheres slipped from them, arching neatly back to Jareth's hands. He tucked them back inside of his cape, save one.
"There." Jareth smiled, setting the crystal down on the bed. "You'll want to keep this. A souvenir, think of it." He grinned, all fangs again, and went back to the window. "Don't lose it, mind. Or break it. That would be terrible."
Toby stared at it, licked his lips with a very dry tongue, and flicked his gaze up at Jareth. "Right. Thanks..."
"Oh no." The man raised one of those long, eloquent hands again, "Thank you, Jareth. I expect we'll see each other again. Sometime. Sweet Dreams..." And then he was gone. When Toby went to the window, he saw the owl perched on a branch a little ways away wink at him, then take wing. He shivered a little.
The crystal still lay complacently upon his coverlet. He took it up, gazing at it, a world of color seemingly trapped inside the glass. He was still turning it slowly in his hands, when the door opened downstairs.
They were home. He put the crystal on a model stand on his night table, and slipped out of his jeans, snuggling down under the covers with a comic book. Presently, there was a tap on the door.
"Toby? You awake? The light's on..."
"Sort of."
The door opened, and his dad put his head in. "What'cha reading, sport?" He smiled through his beard. Toby looked up from the comic, and his eyes met his father's with a profound shock.
"Something the matter, Toby?" But the old man was smiling.
"No, no nothing..." Toby looked back down at the page, and back up, just to be sure.
"Is everything all right?" Toby's mom peered over her husbands shoulder, and smiled at her son. At him. Directly, wonderfully, ninety degrees at him. Toby slid out of the bed, and surprised them both by throwing his arms around them in a profound and heartfelt hug.
"Woah!" Said dad, patting his son's back, "you're too old to have missed us that much."
"Are you sure everything's okay, honey?" said his mom, a mix of surprised warmth and finicky concern. He loved them so. He loved them both. He felt like they'd been away for years... or he had. God bless that Jareth, parlor tricks or no!
"Everything's fine." He grinned at them, sheepishly. "I just had... a bad dream. That's all. Really."