Chapter Four: The Star
Soundtrack for Chapter Four:
"Chilly Down"—David Bowie
"Ain't It Fun"—Paramore
Bee made it a point to sit across from Finn, and not next to him, on the ride back. Ostensibly it was because they were carrying quite a lot of Goblin Market cargo wrapped up in bundles and loops, and there wasn't room for them to sit together. Still, Bee looked daggers at Finn, who parried them all indifferently, which was maddening. Bee tried to find things other than Finn to occupy his mind with. It was going to be a longish ride.
Bee thought about the fairies. Catching them had been a tricky business. When the Goblin King arrived back at the dwarf's cottage, much earlier than Bee had expected, he had caught him idly sketching the dying flora. Jareth had drawn himself up to full height in front of the still empty cages, coat-tail blowing around his thighs, and given Bee a look of such supreme displeasure that Bee had had to fight the urge to cower. He understood then why Finn always approached Jareth so courteously. Bee had put his sketchbook away in a hurry and snapped to attention.
"What have you been doing?" Jareth had asked. He had tightened the gloves on his hands and kicked one of the empty cages. "Toby, where are the fairies I told you to gather?"
"Chill," Bee said. "They're in there." He had darted into the cottage with a dour Goblin King following dangerously behind.
Hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats, Bee thought to himself. Every horizontal surface of the cottage was covered with sleeping fairies, their gossamer wings folded around them, twitter-snoring softly in the dark and warm space. It made an impressive display.
"Huh," Jareth said, rubbing the side of his nose, obviously confused but pleased.
"I didn't want to stack them in the cages until later. I thought they might, you know, get squished."
"No, they like a little rough trade. You caught them all?" Jareth picked up one by the hair, but it slept on.
Toby smiled a grim smile. "I think so." He'd tried using the sprayer, but it was awkward, and every time he sprayed one, it struggled and bit before he could transfer it to the cage. He'd gotten about ten in one of the cages before the other fairies caught on and began dive-bombing him. He'd taken shelter inside, but then one of the fairies in the cage that had only caught an edge of the spray had woken up and started weeping like a lost child, and it made him feel… horrible. "I found some sugar and mashed up some stuff from the garden and mixed the spray with it. They ate it. Knocked them out. But, you know, I worried I might have poisoned them or something."
"No, they'll be fine. You did very well," Jareth had said. "Better than I'd imagined."
Bee looked at Finn, slouched down and half-dozing on the subway seat. He ought to be reliving those all too brief minutes in Finn's arms, not remembering weird challenges set by the Goblin King.
"Why are you staring at me?" Finn finally asked, without opening his eyes.
I woke up ready to punch you or fuck you but I was alone, that's why. "I'm looking at you because you're amazing," Bee said sarcastically.
"Do go on."
"You're so tall, and brown, and huge. You're the world's biggest walking asshole."
"Such naughty language." Finn hardly even blinked and settled more comfortably into his seat.
"You're one to talk about naughty language," Bee muttered. "Just you watch yourself, Finnvarrah-Vercingetorix. I'm in the Goblin King's favor."
Finn had yawned soft as a cat and nodded in agreement. "I like your new coat," he said. "Suits you."
Jareth had given him the coat. It was black leather, with zips on the pockets and cuffs, and painted with narrow bands of gold stripes on the sleeves. "A bee coat for the young Bee," Jareth had said. But that had come much later in the day, after all the errands.
Jareth had hauled Bee and the fairies along like luggage to several interesting places in the Labyrinth's interior, and had incomprehensible conversations with the various brownies and pixies and worms and gatekeepers and sylphs and dryads. Sometimes Bee felt he was very, very close to understanding the talk, but it never quite resolved into specific words. More like moods, commands, questions, given in tone of voice and the posture of Jareth's shoulders.
"I didn't know you could speak tree," Bee said, as they walked away from a grove where Jareth had had an interminable discussion with the biggest oak Bee had ever seen. The phonemes were made of swaying arms and flickering fingers, sighing susurrations, and even probably the subtle shadings of color of Jareth's long blond hair.
"I speak every language," Jareth said egotistically, and with another stomach-lurching hop, they were back in a room in the castle. Jareth set down one of the cages of fairies and opened it expediently by taking the entire front off. But Bee had eyes for something else, the one thing growing there. A gigantic peach tree bore golden-red fruit far out of season, mixed with flowering branches of tongue-pink. The released fairies drifted blurrily past him, sticking their wee heads into the throats of the flowers, or lounging on the curved fuzziness of the peaches. Slow petals and flecks of glitter showered down like snow.
The peaches glowed with warmth and light. The acid-sweet smell of them filled his nose and his head. Saliva filled his mouth. Breakfast had been long ago. Bee took a step forward. There was one fruit there, hanging low, big as a softball. He tested its weight under his hand. Soft, fuzzy, ripe.
"Toby?" Jareth asked, from very far away. There was a tension and a balance between that voice and the peach in his palm. "That fruit is not for you."
"But I want one," Bee whispered.
"You mustn't," Jareth's distant voice answered. There was no anger in his voice, only gentle warning.
Bee gripped the fruit. Just a small tug, and it would be free. It would be his. He wants me to. He says no but he means yes. He wants me to have it. I want one so I get to have one!
"Bee?" Jareth asked, but his tone seemed seductive.
No. Bee dropped his hand by sheer force of will. It was covered with a thin layer of dull yellow dust. He rubbed it off on his pants and turned to look at Jareth. The Goblin King's expression, as per usual, was mobile and readable. It was turning from anger and anticipation into guarded approval. Jareth exhaled slowly.
"Sorry," Bee said.
"It's all right now." Jareth's strange eyes held golden reflections of the fruit. "Bloom-down-cheeked peaches. Peaches with a velvet nap. Sweet to tongue and sound to eye." Bee blinked slowly. Those eyes were pools of syrup, dilations like flickers, like secret semaphores. He had the sense that Jareth was pleased to tempt him and pleased to see him resist temptation. "I understand the allure. But you wouldn't have liked it, once you'd eaten."
Why would you let me get so close to something I'm not supposed to have? Bee wondered, disappointed. Jareth flashed him a dangerous and conspiratorial smile. Oh. Was this some sort of test? Did I pass?
"Try this instead," Jareth said, pulling a crystal out of his coat-pocket. He tossed it to Bee; when he caught it, it was a candy bar. "Come on then," Jareth said kindly, extending his hand. Bee took it, and they left the normal way, through a door that as soon as they were through it he couldn't see any more. He devoured the chocolate, but wondered when dinner would happen. "Let's make ourselves pretty for Sarah and Finnvarrah."
Their stop came, the very last stop, and Bee and Finn helped each other in silence, adjusting their bundles and packages and items atop and around their backpacks. The weight was formidable, but Bee felt some pride, keeping up with Finn's longer strides. He could handle the load and the walk and the general process of keeping healthy and alive while living the way Finn did.
"We'll go to Jollymaker's first. Two birds, one stone. You'll like it," Finn said as they climbed the steps. He offered Bee a peacemaking hand, but Bee didn't take it. The city blew cold from the air and hot from doorways and grates, starch and sweets and exhaust. It smelled good to Bee. They went slowly and were generally ignored by everyone, which was one of the first tricks Finn had taught him. Eyes slid off them before quite making contact, and people parted to let them pass.
"Most people don't really see things if they're all around them," Finn had explained once—perhaps the very first lesson he'd taught Bee in the nature of glamour and camouflage. "Who looks for an individual grain of sand on the beach, or for one specific ant in the anthill? We're in a city full of abandoned people. Watch them and carry a profile like theirs. Be someone invisible. Then it's easy to be ignored." And then later, when Bee had haltingly learned these basics—though he failed sometimes, because he was curious about faces and because he got cruised, little red flags of desire and attention that broke his concentration—Finn had taught him to move in others' wakes. "Etheric body chemtrails," Finn had said dreamily, toked to the gills and watching his hand move. Bee, likewise tripping balls, had seen what Finn meant. If you stood or walked behind someone crackling with a particular type of feeling, whether that was anger or beauty or drunkenness or insanity or self-importance, you could slip into the lee of that energy and pass unnoticed. Finn was a patient teacher, making him practice and practice until he felt he was dissolving into the shadows and daydreams of every person they tailed, hopscotching with delirious ease, the emotional equivalent of hitching skateboard momentum off of moving cars.
"They'll see you, but they won't see you," Finn had finally said with pride. "And if they remember you, it'll only be a fragment of a dream gone by the time they take a morning piss. Now you're ready."
"Ready for what?"
"Ready to go on the hunt." And that was how it had begun, but those first lessons still remained useful.
Hopping from one street to another, they came to one of the little shops in the city that was narrow and deep. "Jollymaker's Toys," the legend read in faded striped letters over the door. "New and Old." Diagon Alley, Bee thought, as they went into the peppermint fume. He looked around and touched nothing, no matter how it beguiled.
The proprietor, who Finn addressed as Mr. Jollymaker himself, looked like a Jewish version of Santa Claus, and had the Yiddish accent to match. He regarded Finn warmly over his half-moon spectacles, and they were soon engaged in a comfortable conversation which devolved naturally into haggling over some of the items the two of them had brought back from the Market. After Finn unloaded him, Bee moved freely around the shop, letting his eyes taste all the marvels. There were tin toys and automatons and wax dolls and wind-up robots that shot sparks from their mouths. There were model planes and clockwork birds and kites shaped like dragons and phoenixes. There were jacks and chalk and tiny decks of cards, and tall glass cylinders full of dice and yo-yos and shimmering sparkling bouncing balls of all sizes.
"My workshop," Jareth had said, opening the door for Bee. Somewhere between the atrium and this room God only knew where in the twisting passages of the castle, they'd picked up a goblin tail. Jareth smiled indulgently. "Oh, come on, then," he said, and the goblins scrambled in like a pack of ugly puppies.
Jareth tossed his coat over the shoulders of a dressmaker's dummy already wearing two coats while the goblins conspired mischief and havoc. A few of them dragged a chair to a clear patch of space and dusted off the seat, offering it to the king. The Goblin King had Finn's trick of making every chair into a throne and every throne into a chaise lounge.
Bee had looked around, impressed. It was a sight to behold. There were wardrobes belching out a bigger variety of cloth and clothing than Bee had ever seen outside the garment district, and an old fashioned foot-treadle sewing machine. There was a workbench with clamps and chisels and tools and oils and resins, and a nearly-finished high cradle shaped like an eggshell. And there were musical instruments and sheets of mundane-looking paper scrawled with musical notations. And more.
"When do you sleep?" Bee asked. A triad of goblins had gathered up scissors and a basin of water and an apple-crate and began to cut the Goblin King's long, smooth and enviable hair into a species of disaster. Another goblin knelt down at the king's feet and proceeded to polish his boots to black mirrors.
"Oh, I fit it in here and there," Jareth drawled, closing his eyes under the goblin's noisy ministrations. "It's very satisfying to make things, Toby. Sarah's busy making something. I feel the need to keep up, though my work pales in comparison."
Bee pushed his hair back behind his ears. It was long enough to always be in the way and short enough to refuse a ponytail. Jareth's hair was a type of wealth he seemed determined to squander, though the goblins seemed to be enjoying themselves.
"Would you like a haircut?" Jareth asked. "There's another chair around here somewhere." The goblin wielded the scissors like he was intending to trepan Jareth's skull. Toby winced with every pass, but Jareth looked blissed.
"I… I'd prefer it goblins didn't cut my hair." He looked dubiously at Jareth's coiffeur, which was beginning to look distinctly cockatiel-with-forelocks.
"Your loss," Jareth said. The barbarous trio hopped down and tilted a hand mirror up for Jareth to inspect himself with. He ran a hand over the pillaged wasteland and seemed genuinely pleased with the effect. "Very nice," he said. "Well done."
"Well done for a one-handed stroke victim," Bee said under his breath, and the goblins laughed uproariously. So did Jareth. He stood up and whipped the drape from his neck. When he picked up the scissors and gestured for Bee to take his seat, Bee hesitated.
"Well?" Jareth said, clicking the scissors open and shut.
Hair grows back, Bee reminded himself. And Finn said if the fae ever offer any gifts, it's important not to give a direct 'no.' He sighed and sat down. "Just please don't give me the usual, if that's what you've got. I don't want to look ridiculous."
Jareth lifted the curly weight of Bee's hair and let it go again, and began to snip. "Do you feel ridiculous?"
"All the time." Bee said. "Cool as sandals with socks. Useful as tits on a spider. Ridiculous." He sighed again.
"Well then. A haircut can hardly make matters worse." Jareth cut hair more slowly than the goblins did, which was more reassuring than his logic. He pushed Bee's head one way and then another, and Bee found himself relaxing. Strange to talk to someone who wasn't Finn, or his parents, but… he liked Jareth, and he had the feeling Jareth liked him, too, on his own merits.
"Why do you feel ridiculous?" Jareth asked him, cutting away.
"I guess… I don't feel like myself. Like who I want to be. Sarah's always been exactly who she wants. But it's like her and Dad and Mom have this image of who I'm supposed to be, and I feel weird when I try to be myself. Like it's not allowed."
"Does Finn allow you?" Jareth asked gently.
"Sometimes he does. Sometimes he doesn't."
"Oh?"
"He treats me like a baby. All… indulgent one minute and condescending the next."
"How would you prefer he treated you?"
"Like a boyfriend. I want him. I want him." He was surprised by the fierceness of his own greed. Jareth paused in his snipping and held Bee's skull in his hands for a moment.
"Should I give him to you? I can, you know."
Bee tried to turn his head, but Jareth held him by the temples, the scissors cool against his skin. "Come now, young Toby. You think I can't? Finnvarrah is mine. I made him. And I can dispose of him in any way I choose. Even give him to you, if you so wish."
Bee concentrated on his breathing. Holy shit. He's not even kidding. He'd give me Finn. He could. Finn does whatever he says. And if he told him to be mine… I'd have him. Own him. The idea was arousing.
"And he'd obey me the way he does you," Bee murmured. "Why are you offering him to me like this?"
Jareth cut a few more locks of his hair before answering. "Do you remember the first time we met?"
"I do. I shouldn't. I was too little. But I remember you. I think we had… conversations. But that's impossible. I'm probably just remembering what Sarah told me. I was just a baby."
"I speak fluent baby," Jareth said in a tone that was definitely not a put-on. "And I remember our talks very well. You were such a nice little chap that I wanted to keep you. I would have turned you into a goblin. The Goblin Prince."
Bee turned to look at Jareth and discovered that Jareth had held the mirror up in front of his face, so that Bee was looking at his own face instead. There was an expression in his own face that Bee didn't recognize. It was the covetously superior look that bothered him so much when Jareth turned it on Finn. His hair was a cap of blond fuzz that came to a sting-point over his forehead. His eyes were a blue so pale they seemed white. He looked spoiled and regal and cruel. He looked sharp and dangerous and desirable. The goblins clustered around him, paying him homage, and he was more beautiful by contrast with their ugliness.
"But kittens turn into cats and babes into boys, and you would have wanted more than me. Perhaps there's a story where Sarah lost our game and you grew up with me, and perhaps one day inevitably your eyes fell on Finnvarrah and you fell in love. Perhaps I would have been jealous of having your attentions divided. Perhaps I would have destroyed you both rather than receive less than my due." His voice was smoky and dark. "Or perhaps certain people belong with each other and only a fool would separate them. I would have tried to make you into my son, Toby. Tell me, whose son are you?"
Bee looked in the mirror. He saw strands of brown in his blondness.
"My father is Robert Williams."
Jareth lowered the mirror like harlequin taking off his mask, so that just his eyes showed.
"And what does Robert Williams' son say to my offer?"
Bee gulped. "Thank you for the haircut," he said, shaken, "But I'll work things out with Finn myself, if it's all the same to you."
"Wise choice, Bee," Jareth said, smiling slightly, putting the mirror down. The feeling in the room lightened almost immediately.
"Speaking of those long-ago conversations," Jareth said, "You made a few grand proclamations in bodily effluvia. I think I had to change my clothes six or seven times, and we had at least one very serious discussion about toilet training." Jareth put down the scissors. "But mostly you were pleasant and obliging, and fearless. It pleases me that you haven't changed that much." He dusted the last few strands of hair off Toby's ears and went to the wardrobe and pulled out the black leather jacket, the one with the gold stripes on the biceps. "Since you won't accept Finnvarrah, this will have to do instead." He discarded Toby's torn coat like it was trash, and helped him put the new one on. It fitted exactly, as if it had been made just for him.
"It was meant to be your Christmas present, but you need it now. What do you think? Is it cool?"
"Wow," Bee said, inspecting himself in the wardrobe mirror. "It's really cool." There were leather gloves in the side-pockets to match, and his head lifted out of the rolled collar like the pistil of a lily.
"You are most definitely your father's son, but I like to think I've had an influence," Jareth said. "Oh! This is also for you." He tucked an ornate key into Bee's unzipped breast pocket. "Use it tonight along with your considerable natural charm."
"What is it?"
"The key to Finnvarrah's room." Jareth laughed salaciously. "Well?" he said, interrupting himself. The goblins joined in with bawdy laughter. And Bee had laughed too.
"For you, nice boy." A flossy-haired elfin girl in a candycane petticoat offered him a wooden yo-yo. Bee startled, his thoughts interrupted. Before he knew what he was doing, his hand had closed on it.
"I'm not here to buy," Bee said regretfully.
"Trade me a kiss for it," she suggested.
Bee thought about kissing her cheek, but it was a nice yo-yo. Her lips tasted of licorice, but he kept it brief. She blushed and simpered, and Bee smiled at her.
Finn cleared his throat. He and the proprietor were both looking at them, Jollymaker mildly and Finn less mildly. "Bee, let's be on our way. Thank you, Elder, for your suggestions. I'll follow up and get back to you."
"And the other matter?" the old man asked.
"I promise to put it near the top of my to-do list," Finn said. "Just remember the Goblin King and Red Branch affectionately when it's done."
And it was back out into the city.
"The way you handle these situations, Bee, gods be good." Finn shook his head in disgust.
"What situation?" Bee was winding the yo-yo as they waited for the bus.
"Kissing his daughter right in front of him. Like she's something on offer. Lucky I got the information I needed before you pulled that stunt."
"Well she asked!" Bee retorted. "You make such a big deal out of these people, and the Labyrinth too. But they're Babytown Frolics. I can handle myself." He tossed his hair and was halfway through giving a superior smile when Finn grabbed his arm and then his jaw and squeezed his smile to death.
"Bee." Finn said, "You're so wrong it's painful."
"Jealous much?" Bee said around Finn's fingers.
Finn let him go. "A bit," he admitted.
Bee made a great and resentful show of rubbing his face. "All right then. Stop being the world's biggest asshole. Those people weren't like the werewolf or the shuck," He glared at Finn. "Those things were dangerous. All the Free People seem… nice. The Labyrinth and the goblins are like that too. Nice, harmless. I can totally deal."
"Harmless," Finn said, temper flaring again. He had the urge to grab Bee and shove him against the alleyway and fuck some sense into him. Which is probably what he wants. He wants my attention. And if he can't get it with sex, he'll try getting it through sheer contrariness. He settled for running his hands through his hair and making it all stand on end. "Bee, the Labyrinth may seem harmless to you, but that's only because the Goblin King bends over backward for you. The Free People won't unless there's something in it for them. I wish you'd listen to me." He reached out and took Bee's hand. Bee flinched away, but then took it. The bus arrived; they grabbed the seats in the back, sprawling out side by side.
"I listen to you. I do everything you ask me to do. I get things done. And you know what to expect from me. You, on the other hand…" Bee shook his head in disgust and zipped his collar up higher. He had new black leather gloves to match his coat, with tiny gold stripes around the knuckles. "You push and pull and run around me. You get me off and then talk to me over breakfast like nothing happened. You've gotta stop doing that. I'm not a goddamned… mascot."
Finn's heart—and my groin, he's beautiful as Baldur and lickable as candy—thudded. He wondered if Bee even knew how delicious and sexy he looked in his black-and-gold jacket, his hair trimmed off his face, eyes blue as lasers, burning through the landscape, cutting through everything, cutting down every damned bit of his resolve. He looked like someone who was going to live forever, someone who could dance over the Leviathan's braces and kick in its teeth.
Something more had happened between Bee and the Goblin King than just a series of errands and a change in style. Finn didn't flatter himself that the change had come from leaning over the promise he'd made to Sarah. Bee's proposition and what followed the other night had been a symptom and not a cause. Something that had shaken this larval creature out of the honeycomb and into the next stage of life. Something subtle, something strange. He was ripe and ready to gather rosebuds and strew cherries and dare to eat peaches. And here I am, thumb figuratively up my butt while this jim dandy wants nothing more than to gather my literal rosebud. I'm being an idiot.
"How long are you going to be mad about me for last night?" Finn asked.
"Forever," Bee said, but he smiled a little bit.
"Really?" Finn asked, tangling his leg with his, pressing his thigh against his. "Forever and ever and ever?"
"Yes," Bee said primly, raising his chin a notch.
"What if I'm really very sorry?" Finn breathed dangerously in his ear. "What if I'm ready to perform an act of contrition?"
"Our stop is next," Bee replied. "You won't have time to get on your knees."
"How'd you know our stop is next?" Finn asked with surprise.
"Because you're flirting with me. You always have some escape route ready." Bee turned his laservision on Finn. Finn realized, with delight and fear, that Bee had made him blush. "I've got your number now, Finnvarrah-Vercingetorix. You should be careful."
I don't know what happened, but somehow he's right. He's gone from being a glorified pet to a junior partner. Finn grinned at him. The boy returned it with the icy condescending smile of an assassin princess. And he thinks the Labyrinth is nice, when it can do things like this to mortal men. When it can do things like you to me, Bee. Gods be good. You're so much more than I ever hoped for.
Next… Chapter Five: "The Devil"
Thanks to my beta, Frances Osgood!
The phrases "bloom-down-cheek'd peaches," "peaches with a velvet nap," and "sweet to taste and sound to eye" are all from Rossetti's "Goblin Market," which you can bet Jareth has read and gotten a good laugh over. "Sweet to Tongue and Sound to Eye" is also the title of a Labyfic by futurejelly, which put these particular verses in my mind.
Those of you disappointed by lack of Sarah-Jareth smooches and sweaty snugglebunnies should check out TheRealEatsShootsAndLeaves "Color Magic Color" to get your fix on. Panda just finished "Short Stacks" as well, and if you haven't been eating them pancakes then there's something missing from your life.
When I'm not writing this fat 20-30 chapter epic, I'm reading LaraWinner's "Fragile" and blown away by how good it is. Laraaaaa! Updaaaaaaaaate! Pleeeeeeez!
Panda: Your reviews are the best reviews ever. Please keep tossing me those cheesypoofs.
Zayide: To be fair, Sarah and Jareth were on their honeymoon and not particularly interested in anything but themselves. They were warned. They ignored the warning.
Askeebe: Bee is growing up right before our eyes. The Goblin King doesn't name him as family lightly.
Jetredgirl: Not much steam, but Finn's certainly basting in his own juices this chapter. *rimshot*
Jalen: He keeps calling her that because every time he does, she squawks. And that's funny enough to be worth the bruises.
Fanny: It's a French bedroom farce! Thank goodness at least Jareth is on Toby's side.
radar wing: I think Jareth's portrayed that way a bit in the film. Certainly he seems to resent it when he provokes responses he doesn't want. That final monologue… whew.
Galileo: Squee! I made Finn and this version of Toby! Original characters tend not to fare so well in Labyfic, but Finn seems to be thriving. I'm glad you like him.