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The Once and Future Goblin King - Complete	By : jinx1764 Category: G through L > Labyrinth Views: 3758 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Labyrinth, don't make any money, this is a work of fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Worth a Thousand Words

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David's face held that universal, timeless stare of bemused disbelief; the type of expression a person wears when they're holding back expletives because they're too stunned to speak. I watch his Adam's apple bob several times and the jaw muscles below his ear bunch and twist, the light casting shadows on his sharp features. His mixed emotions are palpable, even to one so disconnected as I. Why the awkward silence? Isn't it obvious?
"That's how you came to be trapped in that strange castle?" he asks, finally finding his voice.
"More or less." I had just finished the tale of my sordid dealings with Jareth and his trickery. I may have left out a few of the more ... ahem ... erotic details, but only just. My motive being two-fold: I wanted to warn my nephew of exactly what Jareth is capable of, and-I admit-I wanted to see him squirm, see how much the boy could stomach.
During the telling, he reacted much as I suspected; he was outraged, horrified, disgusted, and yet I sensed a quickening of his pulse during the most intimate portions. I saw how his pupils dilated, his skin flushed and how his knees trembled once he stood to pace in front of me. Oh yes, men are so easily manipulated. I hid my sly smile behind my gloved hand, tracking my nephew's circuits from my comfortable position reclining on his couch. Jareth, you will crumble before me this time.
"You were trapped, all this time," he mutters, "because of what he did?"
"Mm-hmm." I nod and adjust my position, my leather creaking. David rakes his shaky fingers through his tangled hair, stops to glare at me.
"But how is it possible? That was nearly two centuries ago!"
"Did you miss the part where I mentioned he's a powerful sorcerer?" His hand waves off my opinion.
"There must be some mistake."
"There isn't."
"It can't be the same man!"
"It is." I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and conjure a crystal with Jareth's likeness within. "This is your uncle, correct?" David's gasp would've been enough, but he answers in the affirmative, shoulders sinking. I almost feel bad destroying his last illusion.
"It's just not possible," he whispers, frowning, his brows deeply furrowing.
"And know how fantastical it sounds..." The look he gives silences me; I vanish the crystal and lean back against the couch. Fair enough, the man needs time to get his head around this new reality. I've been there; I get it. Several minutes pass before David speaks again, this time with a renewed vigor after he dashes to a cabinet, rummages and pulls out a clear, flat square. It looks sort of like a resin paperweight from where I'm sitting.
"If what you say is true, if Jareth has been around since you were eighteen, then apparently he's attached himself to our family for some reason, correct?"
"A fair assumption," I answer cautiously, uncertain of what David's implying. He walks back to sit next to me, and I see the resin square has what appears to be a simple operating button on one narrow side. What is this odd thing?
"Well," he grins, "I'm thinking he should be scattered throughout our generational family album, not just as Uncle Jareth, right? Surely there's something. The man couldn't exist this long without anyone figuring it out."
"Perhaps, but I do believe you're underestimating his shrewdness."
David presses a finger to the flat button which lights up and causes the block to activate. Images of people and places appear on the larger flat surface and I watch in awe as skims one finger to turn over the photos as if it were a physical flip book. The images zip by and I'm astounded. So many faces, my brain starts to overload with the stunning technology.
"Do you mind not drooling on my Pic-Square?" he says without looking up from his task. Apparently I'm a bit obvious in my admiration of his gadget. It makes me wonder what other bits of wondrous technology I've missed. I'm sure it's far more than I can ever list. The images continue to fly by; how can he focus on the smears of colors? I'm dizzy just looking at it, and concentrating makes me what to vomit my first bacon in several lifetimes ... hey, what a minute...
"He's not here, at least not before meeting my dad." He looks over to me. "So I don't kn... are you okay? Sarah?" I feel his hand grip my shoulder as I slump into him. My hand covers the album, blocking the back glow from the colors.
"It's ... glamoured," I manage to say between waves of nausea welling up to the back of my throat. So close, the influence of Jareth's magic pollutes my senses, twists through my body like a screwdriver. And I can't decide if I hate it or love it. It's always held a tang which drew me, and now, being able to taste and manipulate magic unlike before, it's a heady experience.
"It's what?"
"Don't ... move..." I pour my awareness into my hand lying on the dull-edged album. I know I can dissolve this glamour with little effort; it's the physical symptoms which are distracting. Jareth's residue cloys my brain, and part of me cries to dissolve within it, howls in glee when his magic touches me.
Resisting temptation, I push my magic down my arm-sparking heat along my nerves and muscles-and it exits my hand to transfer into the album held so steadily by David. A flash of light; the faint smell of ozone wafts in the air, and it's done. Instantly I feel at liberty, Jareth's magic no longer tainting the area, holding me prisoner with its enticement.
"Look again," I say, shoving myself off of David's shoulder. He's stunned once more, and I wonder if he'll ever stop looking at me like that. Can't he see past the light show and see me? But he complies and flips through the technological marvel. It doesn't take long.
"Damn ... you're right." David shifts the square of pictures so I may see, and there he is, over and over through the decades since my disappearance. Jareth standing next to a teenaged Toby, his arm draped protectively over my brother's shoulders; Jareth posed next to relatives unknown to me-David says they're Toby's children grown-up; Jareth playing with their children and their children's children; and finally Jareth as David knows him-his uncle. In each portrayal, Jareth's clothing and hairstyle change to reflect the current style, but his face remains the perfect mein of my memory-ageless in his vicious beauty.
"He hid his true self with magic, so each generation of our family would know him as someone different," I say. "Brilliant, frightening..."
"It was always him?" David sounds incredulous, even as the evidence fills his vision, and he blinks repeatedly as if to wash it away. I know the feeling; my first decade in the castle I likely looked as gaping as he does now.
"Always."
"But ... why?" Pained eyes so similar to Jareth's in color, but in no way else, bore into mine; I'm speechless. I really have to answer for him. Oh, I have speculations and wild guesses. I've spent most of my existence obsessing over Jareth, but to truly know his mind, his motives? I sigh and shrug.
"Power," David's brows arch, "is my best guess."
"Power? From us? How?"
"That, well, I'm not so sure about." Again, I suppose I could tell him my guesses, but I really don't have any idea how. From all I know of magic, he should be powerless; hell, he should be mortal and dead. But obviously that's not true. Somehow he figured out a way to subvert natural laws, I think; I don't know. God, it's makes my head hurt.
The silence between us thickens, and I realize David flipped through the album until he found a particular image, his fingers caressing the happy faces emanating from the plastic-a woman and a young girl with platinum blond hair. I lean close, feel his so very human warmth radiating into my leathery armor.
"Who are they?" He doesn't answer right away; he sucks his lips in, bites the lower one and exhales in a rush.
Keeping his eyes on the ladies and his finger next to their faces, he says, "My family."
"Oh." And what can I say because even I understand there's more he's not telling me. After waiting longer than I thought my patience could last, he speaks again.
"They died about five years ago..." I can hear his despair and it tugs at me, makes me feel strangely.
I ask the expected question, "how?" It makes me feel as close to a human being as I've felt in lifetimes.
He gulps and I can tell he's reliving memories. "Auto-flight accident."
"Auto-flight?" I still don't know what an auto-flight is, but I'm starting to catch a clue.
"It lost power, fell off the guidance grid and crash landed over 500 feet into a lake." His hands clenched until his knuckles blanched; his jaw muscles spasmed again and I hear his teeth grind. "They said it was a billion to one accident; they said the odds of all the safety features failing at once were astronomical. By the time they recovered their bodies..."
"I understand." I cover his hand on the image with mine, hoping he'd spare me those details. For once I don't want to be morbid; strange that I don't wish to know. Fingers twitching and spreading, David accepts my gloved fingers in between his and squeezes. It feels ... good.
"My princess, Becca, she was only five, and Elina was my heart."
"I ... I'm sorry." Tongue tangled, I awkwardly try to comfort him then think how odd that is when I wanted to harm him a short time ago, when I thought him Jareth. How quickly things change when family is involved. When family is involved ... family ... I have to know.
"David," I clear my throat causing him to jump slightly, "what about the rest of my ... um ... our family?" Including the mysterious Uncle Jareth, I add to myself. Now a sob escapes and he shifts his back towards me.
"David?"
"It's too awful."
I lay my hand on his shoulder, and feel more of his comforting warmth seep through his silky shirt into my leather. The urge to strip off my gloves and run my hands over him zaps me, settles in my groin. Oh God ... what is it about him that makes me want to connect so badly? It can't just be his maleness or family blood, can it? Has being without so long damaged me so badly?
"Tell me."
"Sarah," he says my name in a gasping whisper without turning around. "There was a fire last year; during our family holiday dinner ... everyone died ... everyone except me and my uncle. We were stuck at a business meeting which ran late."
"A fire?" That seemed crazy. Two hundred years and such tragedies still happened? Hadn't fire prevention made such things obsolete? And a business meeting? Curious to ask what sort of business Jareth and he ran together, nevertheless it got relegated for later questions.
"I know." He glanced over his shoulder and the tear tracks were fresh on his cheeks. "Seems improbable, doesn't it?"
"That's one word for it."
"Official word was a malfunction in the fire system and a short in the wiring, but the fiber optic coated wiring is supposed to be impervious to shorts. Everyone I hired to investigate never found another explanation."
"But you always suspected something else, didn't you?"
He turned fully to face me. "I could never settle with losing so many loved ones in so short a time. My uncle and I are the last of my family; I suppose that's the main reason why I accepted you so easily."
"I ... had wondered about that." I couldn't meet his gaze. "After the way I treated you at first."
"Family is important, and things between my uncle and I haven't been the same since their deaths."
"What do mean?"
"At first I thought he was grieving like me, but now," he stared, wide-eyed and bit his lip again, "with you reappearing like this, I think he's sequestered himself for a reason."
I frown, trying to comprehend all the information he's sharing. I feel like there's more between the lines, but I'm not sure of what the lines are. He sets the album on the coffee table and grabs my hands, earnest.
"Sarah, my uncle, assuming he truly is, stopped participating in the family business after their deaths and locked himself away at his ranch property. I haven't seen him since the funerals nearly a year ago."
"So you don't know what he's been up to," I state with a grin, pieces falling into place. David smiles a little, incongruous to the watery sheen in his eyes.
"Exactly, and I think it's time we pay dear old Uncle Jareth a surprise visit, don't you?"
"I'd love nothing better." I growl happily and clash his hands tight as my heart leaps joyfully. At last, it sings, at last my revenge!
- 6
- 7
- 8
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The Once and Future Goblin King - Complete