Chapter: Soothing Loneliness
God dammit Jareth , you are too stubborn for your own good.
Rolling up to her feet, Sarah flashed him a tired look as she left him on the couch to prepare the bath that appeared to be so all consuming important. Entering the adjoining bathroom, she still couldn't keep from admiring the beauty of the pale silver marble walls and the creamy white half sunken tub, below the large panorama window. Steaming water cascaded down into the huge tub from a six foot waterfall, complete with beautiful and bright flowers she had never seen before. Heading straight to the ornate gold box, that graced the pristine countertop Sarah flipped the lid, and riffled through the neatly organised muslin bags. Each bag bore tags in a language, that Sarah didn't understand, but she didn't need to, the one she was looking for, was according to Jareth the only one with a black label.
Pulling the bag from the box, Sarah weighed it in her hands, it was about fist sized, and rather heavy. It appeared to be filled with dried herbs and what felt like small stones. Sniffing it, Sarah shrugged, it didn't smell like kitchen herbs, but that didn't mean that it would actually do anything beneficial. Moving to the half sunken tub, Sarah sat on the steps leading up to the seat surrounding it, and pulled the small golden lever up, cutting of the constant circulation, before dropping the bag into the still water. Dark green tendrils drifted instantly from the bag as it sank slowly to the bottom of the deep tub, to settle in a rapidly spreading blackish green cloud giving off a faintly spicy scent.
Rising Sarah shook her head with another muttered curse, as she returned once more to Jareth's side. Noting that he now had a thin sheet of sweat covering his face.
" Okay your "tea" is brewing now what? "
" Armour...I need help...Removing it."
" Right, lift you arm and let me at the buckles" : Kneeling beside him Sarah, began undoing the cleverly hidden buckles that held the cuirass together, noting how similar their armours were: "So why can't you just vanish it like I did?"
" What use would an armour be that could be vanished, precious? My armour is spelled so that it can be called to me, but that is because it is bonded to my magic...": Letting out a soft hiss of pain, Jareth leaned as far forward as his burns would allow, letting Sarah ease the cuirass from his back.
" Dammit Jareth, You have bleed through every single dressing! Oh you Emo glam rock self harming idiot!"
Flinching at her harsh words, he sighed, and leaned back making it easier for her to rip through the soaked black silk of his simple high necked shirt.: " I'm sorry if I caused you any inconvenience my lady, if you please you might just call the Healers and let them assist me. I trust that Bolton have shown you your chambers, if not I can inform you that..."
Pressing her index finger gently against his lips, Sarah gave him a gentle smile while inwardly cursing herself. His eyes though closed clearly showed his pain, both physical and mental, and she hated that she had caused it with thoughtless words.
" Jareth I... oh dammit! ": There was only one sure way of leaching that pain from his eyes. Grabbing his face with both hands, Sarah quickly knelt on the couch beside him. And as he hesitantly meet her gaze, her eyes filled with a wordless apology as she leaned in pressing a soft kiss to his forehead, letting her lips linger for just a moment before laying another on a faint scar above his left eye, and then another on the bridge of his nose. That one rewarded her with a soft chuckle before he slipped shaking hands around her waist, holding her gently as she pulled back and gazed into his face: "If you think that I will allow anyone but me to see you naked, then you must have some sort of head trauma. I not mad at you, I...I just hate seeing you like this. It hurts me to see you think that you don't matter, you matter to me, to your realm, to Hoggle. To your parents, well some of them, but still... so please Jareth we need you to heal, and become the king we all need once more, but for that you have to start taking care of yourself, you have to..."
Her eyes went wide as Jareth leaned in and silenced her tirade with his lips. At first it was a gentle kiss, his lips merely pressed lightly against hers, but as she moaned softly, he flicked his tongue against her lips, coaxing her into a sweet game of wrestling for dominance, that lasted until their burning lungs forced them apart. Resting his forehead against hers while he waited for the stars to stop bursting before his eyes, Jareth whispered:" I promise to rest for a few days... but only ...If you stay here with me..."
" Of course I'll stay with you, you moron..."
. . . . .
The heat of the water had brought tears to his eyes at first, the pain leaving him shivering and gasping, but that had only lasted a few agonising moments before the herbs had thoroughly soaked into his raw skin numbing him. Now he rested against her naked body, his head on her shoulder, boneless and warm.
Goddess he had missed this, the easy closeness, the comfort of touching warm skin, without the fear of rejection, but most of all he had craved the feeling of being touched without pain. She had washed his hair with his favourite shampoo, her hands gentle as she had worked the liquid into a thick slick lather massaging his scalp, in soothing slow circles. Then she had helped him wash, her hands careful as she had scrubbed his skin clean until he fairly glowed.
Now he simply rested against her feeling safe, clean and warm, her fingers slowly carting through his hair.
" So you said that this wasn't your first burns? "
He had to work at gathering his thoughts, and push the drowsy blanket of the warmth away to answer: " Yes I did, cold wrought iron is obviously, one of the most used weapons against my kind, but then any kind of iron will harm us to some degree."
Her voice fairly bubbled with amusement as she pursued the subject: " So how did the mighty goblin king get burned? Was it an angry parent or perhaps a spurned lover?"
Snorting in derision Jareth said: " No it was nothing of the sort, last time I suffered a burn, of consequence that is, was during a skirmish in Hoa Binh, there was an adventurous Vietcong scout who decided that it would be a good idea, to detonate one of those a cursed shrapnel laced mines the Vietcong were so fond of as my group passed by. I was fast enough to knock the three closest to the explosion off their feet, but..."
" But you took the metal in the back.."
Nodding Jareth sighed as he continued: " What else could I do, they were my group, my boys, and it was a small sacrifice, even though I had to appear dead to them. I mean how would I even begin to explain my true nature, so Shiver brought me home. Alderthorn pieced me back together, and we all lived to see another day..."
Staring at him with shock in her eyes, Sarah tried to imagine Jareth as a soldier, and most of all a soldier in Vietnam, living and fighting in the fetid jungle hell her father had described so vividly when he had been drunk and sad. And failing miserably.
" You were in the army?"
Peeking up at her with wry amusement Jareth asked: " Yes is that so hard to believe? As a King I have to be able to fight to defend my people, or answer a challenge... Sometimes though not very often there is the demand to settle a matter with a trial by combat... And so I will have to keep my skills honed and as sharp as my blades..."
The thought of Jareth in the field, marching through mud, camping in a tiny cold camp and taking orders just didn't make sense to her, he was a king, why would he risk his life in wars that didn't even have any impact on his realm. it just seemed so strange, she had to ask: " But why, risk your life in wars that has nothing to do with you? I mean if you had died then what would have happened to the labyrinth? "
Letting his eyes fall close, with a soft groan, Jareth calmly answered: " It would have died with me, once the time to rebind arrived, but the sad truth is that, if the human world is destroyed, then we will die regardless."
" Wait! What, run that one by me one more time, If we pitiful mortals manage to ruin our world then your worlds will die as well?"
"Yes.. It is your world that, to put it crudely, fuels the other realms. You humans are so filled with life, and magic. And that all returns to the great weave once you cross through the veil to the realm of death. That magic and life is what keeps every realm alive. So when you wage wars we have no choice but to keep an eye on things, lest you burn that rock of yours. And then there is the sad fact that I spend more time in your mortal realm collecting children, than I do here during any large scale conflict, if I could not reorder time then I would never be able to bring them all through."
Running her fingers through his water heavy hair, Sarah had to blink back tears as she had a flash of the desperation that would cause a parent to give their child to the Goblin King rather than seen them become casualties in war: " That makes a sad kind of sense.. How many children have come here because of war? "
" Close to two million, during the ages... So you see I'm rather motivated when it comes to stopping an armed conflict..."
" Wow, that's a lot, so do they all become goblins? or how does that work ?"
Smiling slightly at her earnest curiosity, Jareth moaned softly with pleasure as her fingers resumed their slow movement through his hair: No it depends greatly on the strength and predisposition of the child. Some become unique monsters like Ludo, some becomes gnomes. And some have so much magic in their souls that they become Fey , elves or pixies. And then once in a while there are those that are so broken body or soul that Gaia reclaims them, and lets them be reborn free of pain, and memories, giving them the chance of a good life... most of the children from Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the concentration camps were reclaimed by Gaia, as were the children I collected during the great plagues..."
Ghosts of the horrors he had seen darkened his eyes, and set his face in grim lines, as he continued: " I collected some seven hundred thousand children during WW2, and barely ten thousand found homes outside of Gaia's embrace. That is why we are forced to meddle in human affairs, to fight in battles that are not ours, though strictly speaking WW2 was caused by a shifting Hobgoblin, trying to take control of the mortal realm."
" A Hobgoblin? Are you telling me that Hitler was a Goblin? "
" Yes I am, obviously that is why his corpse was never recovered. When he was killed he turned to ash, and gravel. Though he did not go without a fight I can tell you " : Smiling ruefully, Jareth rubbed at a pale scar running down his chest from his right shoulder now almost hidden by the newer reddish scars.
" Really ...you killed him? "
Nodding gravely, Jareth said: " Most certainly as Goblin king it is part of my responsibility to punish wayward fey, and goblin, and more often than not that means death to the offending part."
Slipping her slender arms around his thin chest, Sarah laid a soft kiss on his shoulder: " That sounds like you have your days cut out for you. Which is why we need you to heal ..and rest... Come on time for bed, oh but food first."
Getting a naked and water slicked goblin king out of the huge five person tub, proved to be much harder than Sarah had anticipated. And it quickly ended up with them both sitting on the hard warm steps nursing a few new bruises.
Letting out an amused but breathless laugh, Jareth leaned his head against Sarah's wet and now quickly bruising shoulder: " Right that was not as graceful as one could have hoped, but at least we are out of the bath. Could you hand me that towel please?"
Reaching out with a trembling hand Jareth pointed to the neatly folded stack of plush looking blue and black towels, resting on a silvery marble dresser.
" Sure"
Resting his trembling hand in his lap, Jareth felt his lips turn up into his usual smirk, as he watched the sway of her naked glistening body, while she glided across the floor, completely comfortable in her own skin. Yes he wanted her in every way, that a man could want a woman. But right now she was giving him something much more profound and far more needed.
Shaking out the large towel as she returned, she draped it across his shoulders, gentle dabbing the water from his skin with soft circular movements, before kneeling in front of him.
What she gave him, as she gentle dabbed more of the green tinted water from his wounds, was a solid sense of belonging, and the easy companionship born of a long relationship. Cradling her chin, Jareth tilted her face up, allowing him to meet her eyes as he whispered: "Thank you Sarah... for saving my life, and mind. You have no idea what you mean to me... you..."
Her eyes glowed like twin emeralds shot through with golden lightning, as she covered his hands with her own, cutting of his softly spoken words: " You are welcome, it was the very least I could do considering that I was what caused it to happen. It is only right that I fix it."
Wrapping the towel tightly around him, she pressed a quick kiss on his cheek, before she quickly dried herself off, fully aware that his eyes never left her.