Lupus In Fabula

By TwinEnigma

Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth or the characters therein. This is done for fun, not profit, and to keep the stories from cluttering my brain.

Warnings: AU, dark, gratuitous German

Toby Williams is a strange child, of that much is certain. Too often his parents have entertained friends and guests alike who remark upon him with praise – really, he is such a handsome, clever child and so well-behaved, too. He is adorable, a thing both cherished and spoiled, not that he particularly seems to be aware of it. An air of naïve innocence continues to pervade his very presence.

Sarah has not seen him in some time now and to be honest, she almost dreads the encounter. Irrationally, she worries that he remembers something of the Labyrinth and her terrible bargain in spite of the knowledge that he was too young to remember a thing.

And so, she is hesitant, merely observing the too-quiet boy play with his toys, his blond hair brilliant in the sunlight.

"Toby, Sarah is here," her stepmother calls.

He turns his head and Sarah is taken aback when she sees his eyes – one blue, the other with a too-wide pupil drawn straight from her memories. The very air around him seems to shimmer with ominous and familiar eldritch power.

She can hear the goblins whispering: he is ours, now.

Sarah closes her eyes as he hugs her and repeats to herself that she is just imagining things.

When she opens them, the whispers have stopped and the power vanished, but his eyes remain stubbornly the same.

"It was a fight," her father explains later. "Schoolyard scuffle with a bully. Toby was very lucky, you know. He could have lost the eye."

He says this with the type of tone that just says these things happen, you know, as if it were the most mundane sort of occurrence in the universe. And in the evening, with the lights in the house a cheap 60-watt yellow, Toby loses whatever fey qualities she'd imagined completely and their father's words merely cement his normalcy.

And yet, she cannot help but try to hide the shudder when her little brother turns those mismatched pupils upon her.

She dreams that she rides on a horse through a dark forest, her brother in her arms. Something is pursuing them and she must not look back.

"Do you hear it?" he asks her, his eyes wide and frightened.

"It is the wind," she tells him and spurs the horse faster. She must not look back or all is lost.

"Hörst du denn den Donner nicht? Das ist der König auf den Kobolde! Er will mich zu seinem Kinde!"

"Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind; In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind," she says, the familiar German slipping from her lips with a fluidity she has never possessed in the waking world.

She feels cold little pinpricks stabbing through her wrist and yanks up on the reins, desperately trying to steady the horse. It whinnies and turns around once, stamping the ground. Its breaths come in great icy puffs. At last, she looks down.

Her brother stares up at her, her blood staining his lips and suddenly too-sharp teeth. His mismatched eyes are wild, inhuman. Suddenly, he moves, twisting like a serpent, and his clawed, bony hands scratch at her, around her, and everywhere.

Blindly, she lashes out, casting him away with a cry.

He lands on his hands and feet, scuttling out of her line of vision.

"Toby!" she shouts, turning the horse again.

It is him, the Goblin King, tall and eerily beautiful as he has always been, and he holds this monstrous perversion of her brother on his hip. They are nearly identical in appearance. The Goblin King laughs, tracing the blood off her brother's lips with a gloved finger, and stares at her, smiling cruelly.

Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind.

The phone wakes her.

"Hello?"

"Oh Sarah," the voice is her stepmother's. "Are you busy?"

"No," she says, sitting up. Her textbook, long forgotten, slides off the couch and hits the floor with a dull thud.

Grimms Märchen, the title says in white.

No wonder I dreamed that, she thinks acidly.

"The car broke down." Her stepmother's tone is sheepish and Sarah knows that she believes it to be her fault.

"I'm going to be stuck here for a while and I'm wondering if you could do me a favor and pick up Toby from school? I'll call ahead and let them know you're coming, Sarah," her stepmother adds. "Dinner's in the crock, so don't worry about it. And Toby's not to have sweets before dinner."

Sarah nods absently, shuffling on the slippers she'd kicked off in sleep, and agrees because these sorts of things no longer bother her. She is no more a little girl on the cusp of adulthood than she is the angry child who could not take responsibility for the actions of herself, let alone the care of another.

Instead, she sets to studying, the German rolling across her tongue in practiced measure as she continues where she'd left off earlier, and tries not to think of the parallels translating to English in the back of her mind. Her story has ended. Her fairy tale is done and there shall be no more, so it is pointless to compare.

And yet, each time she reads that first En war einmal, she shivers.

"So you are Toby's sister," the teacher says. "I did not expect someone so..."

Old, Sarah finishes mentally and decides to change the subject.

"How is he, you know, in school? Dad mentioned something about some bullying?"

The teacher's smile slips slightly and she hesitates before she replies. "It won't happen again."

Sarah feels the faintest trace of a shiver slip down her spine at the words.

The teacher continues: "Toby's very smart. Such a lovely little boy! And such a vivid imagination!"

Sarah nods politely as the teacher guides her towards the classroom.

Toby is in a sunny corner, his hair and skin practically glowing in the light as he plays with the blocks before him.

"He's not very social, I'm afraid," the teacher adds. "Some of the other students have been... unsettled by him."

She rubs her arm and Sarah can just barely see the red half-moon imprints of childish teeth on her flesh.

They bite, fairies and goblins all, with little teeth like knives.

Sarah can feel her finger throbbing in remembered pain.

They bitebitebite until you're teeth and bones.

"Toby, your ride is here," the teacher calls gently, as though beckoning a tiger. She makes no move to approach further.

Toby turns to them, his hair a golden halo around his face and his mismatched eyes paralyze Sarah in their freezing, eldritch depths. She is suddenly horribly aware of the sound of movement in the otherwise silent classroom of terrified children, of the way the shadows skitter and scatter this way and that, and of the terrible long-put-aside chatter of goblins. Her little brother smiles and it is at once beautiful but disturbing in its perfection.

"I think I'll call him Jareth."

The teeth in that cruel smile are too white and perfect. Out of the corner of her eyes, they are pointed and the creature holding her brother is impossible to mistake for human.

He belongs to us, the goblins hiss.

Reality itself threatens to collapse from under her as her brother comes ever closer. His hand, pale and capped with tiny claws, reaches for her, but she cannot move from his mismatched gaze. She is paralyzed.

The touch is like a jolt of lightning. She can suddenly move again and draws in a deep breath, unaware that she'd been holding it.

"Sarah, are you okay?" Toby asks, his eyebrows knotted in concern. His hand is warm where it grips her arm and there is nothing abnormal about it at all.

Just my imagination, she thinks, thoroughly relieved. "Of course, I just spaced out there a moment, that's all. Let's get home and get some dinner, okay? I'm hungry."

"Me too," Toby says, eager to move.

He smiles broadly, too-white, little teeth gleaming.

They are always hungry.

Sarah cannot place the aroma radiating from the crockpot on the counter, but it is warm and comforting nonetheless. She turns it off, opens it and inhales the fragrance of the thick, meaty stew inside with pleasure. Then, she turns to the task of ladling out two generous servings, one for herself and one for her brother, waiting eagerly.

Toby digs into his bowl with aplomb as soon as it's in front of him. He kicks his legs under the table, back and forth.

"So, tell me about this fight," Sarah says. She eats sedately. There is no rush.

Toby shrugs. "He punched me in the eye."

"I'll bet that hurt," she says dryly.

Toby hums noncommittally, his spoon scraping against the bottom of the bowl. "More," he says, holding it out.

"More, what?"

"More, please," Toby sighs and grins happily as soon as the refilled bowl is placed in front of him.

"Did you hit him back?" Sarah asks.

Toby shrugs again. "I made him sorry."

"Must have been some punch," she comments and pushes the vegetables in her stew around with her spoon. "Your teacher seemed a little worried."

Again, Toby's spoon scrapes the bottom of his bowl. "More, please."

"You can't seriously still be hungry."

There is silence a moment.

"She doesn't like me," Toby says, glaring down at the empty bowl. "My teacher - she and the others. I make them scared."

Sarah is about to say that's silly and then her little brother looks up at her, fixing her with those eerie mismatched eyes.

Those who raise the ire of the Fair Folk find only suffering, swift and cruel.

A shiver shoots down her spine.

"More, please," Toby insists, tapping his spoon on the bowl. He licks his lips and she can see his teeth unnaturally gleaming.

"He's a growing boy," her stepmother says, sighing. "I honestly don't know where it all goes. I suppose he's got a high metabolism, like my father."

Sarah fidgets uncomfortably, her fingers curled around the mug in her hand, and decides to change the subject. "Has he talked to you about school at all?"

"Not really, but it's hardly a surprise. One of his classmates disappeared – they think he was abducted, the poor thing!"

Take this child away from me.

"Really? How terrible! When was that?"

Her stepmother pauses, frowning as she tried to remember. "Oh, a while ago. Maybe around the time Toby got in that fight. It was so strange though. The FBI was everywhere and they had everyone out searching... Couldn't find a thing. It was like he'd just disappeared off the face of the earth! I'm actually surprised you didn't hear about it on the news, Sarah."

I hate you.

Sarah's hand clenches the mug.

I banish you.

She can see those young mismatched eyes narrowing in anger.

I wish the goblins would take you away, right now!

She can see a second, older pair of eyes narrow in malicious glee.

"Sarah, are you all right? You've gone white as a ghost!"

"I'm fine, really. It's nothing. I'm just tired."

The textbook stares at her accusingly, but Sarah cannot concentrate. She sighs and flips through the pages. She didn't think coming home for a while would be like this, that it would stir up these memories. And yet, here she sits, wondering if she is going insane or if it's all just a horrible meshing of coincidence, memory, stress and nightmares.

Surely, Toby would never wish anyone away. He'd need to have contact with the goblins to start with and, as far as she knows, he'd never once even mentioned imaginary goblins to anyone in their family, not even before she'd left for college.

Sarah sighs, leaning back. It is possible that she could just be imagining it. She's been stressed out with exams, she's been having nightmares of the Labyrinth lately and then to come home to the middle of it all... Well, it's a small wonder she'd be seeing things where they were not.

But there is something unsettling about him and it isn't just her imagination – his teacher and classmates seem aware that something is very off about Toby. That poor teacher and those poor kids had been terrified.

What could they have possibly seen that could scare them so much?

Something in the book catches her eye and she stops, flipping back a few pages until she sees the title again and translates it.

A woman had her child stolen by elves and in its place...

Sarah pales.

Sarah finds Toby's teacher at the memorial for the missing boy. It is piled high with flowers and candles, cards and toys. It's a shrine to a memory already fading to most, but not to all. There is a strange, haunted quality to the teacher's face.

"He was the bully who picked on Toby, wasn't he?" Sarah asks.

The poor woman nearly jumps out of her skin. "Miss Williams?"

"Am I right?"

The teacher hesitates, eyes wide in fright, and slowly bows her head. "Yes. How did you know?"

"I had a feeling," Sarah sighs, jamming her hands into her coat pockets. "Tell me, has my brother seemed different to you lately?"

The teacher's hand drifts to the arm where she'd seen the bite mark.

"Was he the one who bit your arm?"

The teacher pales.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to say anything about it," Sarah says. She pauses, narrowing her eyes at the shrine, and adds, "You're not crazy, you know. I think something's wrong with Toby, too."

Fairies bite.

"What happened?" Sarah asks, leaning forward. She traces the outline of the face in the picture: he is chubby with baby-fat and eyes unaware of that the danger under the bed is real.

There is silence a moment.

"I don't know. It was too fast. One minute, he was there on the playground and the next he was gone. I had to tell Jimmy to stop pulling Mary's pigtails and when I turned back, he wasn't there. We looked everywhere, even the woods, and if I had just been playing closer attention... If I hadn't turned my back for a second... It's my fault. It's my fault."

Tears steam down the teacher's face.

I wish the goblins would take you away right now!

She can see the mismatched eyes narrow cruelly and the child vanishes, swallowed by the hungry shadows while the horrified other children watch and the teacher is unable to understand what she sees.

The bogeyman is real.

The eggshells and yeast are easy to come by, but the beer is not. Sarah must wait until her parents leave before sneaking one of the bottles away from her father's cooler in the cellar. She has never once tasted it, but she supposes she will have to claim she has, if ever her father asks about the missing bottle. She will get in trouble, but it'll be worth it if this works.

You have no power over me.

Toby sits at the kitchen table, eagerly digging into his second helping of ice cream, and she can see him watching her out of the corner of her eye.

Sarah hums as she cracks the eggs, spilling the yolks into the skillet, and sets aside the shells. She opens the fridge and pulls out the stolen beer.

"What are you doing? Daddy says we can't touch that," Toby says, still watching her.

"It's a secret recipe," she replies, sticking out her tongue at him.

"I'm telling," Toby whines as she opens the bottle.

Pouring it out into the eggshells is the hardest part. The shells are fragile and small and she must carefully rest them so the beer inside does not spill. Adding the yeast is far easier – a sprinkling, just enough to start fermenting, and it is done.

Ik bün so olt as Böhmer Gold, doch dat seih ik taum irsten Mal, dat man Bier brugt in Eierschal.

When she turns around, Toby is no longer there. Only his empty bowl, the spoon still wobbling where it was dropped inside, remains at the table.

Sarah gasps, her hands covering her mouth.

Suddenly, there is a loud thud above her head – from her parent's bedroom, she realizes.

Of course, she thinks. It is only to be expected.

She runs up the stairs two at time and hurries down the hallway.

Toby is there in front of the nightstand, his back to her. His blond hair gleams in the dimming sunlight, a halo around his head.

"Toby?"

Something clicks in the room, like tiny nails on tile.

He turns slowly, an eerie smile on his lips. His eyes shine unnaturally bright.

Sarah pales and takes a step back.

"Really, Sarah. Trying to be rid of me again?"

She can see his teeth now, too-white and sharp.

"I don't understand," she murmurs. "I did it right."

"Poor Sarah," he says mockingly, "That only works on infants."

Somewhere, deep down, buried under that cold shiver of fear, she knew what to do and the adrenaline pumping hard and fast in her veins brought her words crashing to the surface in perfect clarity. "What have you done with my brother?"

His eyes widen, voice rising in an innocent falsetto, "Sarah, don't you know me? I'm your brother!"

The giggling and rustling movement of goblins surrounds them, twisting and surging through the lengthening shadows. He is ours.

"Goblin King, Jareth," the name is like acid on her tongue and she spits it out, "I call for you."

You have no power over me. I won.

She can feel his presence immediately, dark and thick with mischief. He stands behind the changeling child, cloak fluttering ominously, and he smiles, sharp, pointed teeth too-white and mismatched eyes gleaming with eldritch power.

"What is the meaning of this?" Sarah demands archly. "I won! I beat you."

Jareth's smile does not falter. "Did you now?"

"Of course! You have no power over me," she says.

"Have you met my son, Sarah?" Jareth asks. His hand lingers on the boy's head. "He is precious, is he not?"

"He is not yours," she growls.

"I beg to differ. From his cradle, he has been kith and kin to goblin. Fed our bones and suckled on our blood, he belongs to you no longer."

The words of her dream burn in her mind, the translation digging into her flesh like accusing needles: Don't you hear the thunder? That's the King of the Goblins! He wants me to become his child!

Sarah pales with realization. "You cheated."

"No," Jareth counters and with a malicious glee, pulls something from the depths of his cloak.

It is a peach, a single bite taken from it.

Sarah stares at the fruit in horror. How could she have forgotten? All those stories, all those myths...

Eat of our world and you must stay.

"You failed," he says, delightedly. "And I'm afraid that the time has come for this delusion of yours to end. I have indulged your whimsy long enough, my dear."

The skin on her hands starts to flake away, revealing the brown, earth tones of goblin flesh below. All around her, the walls crack and crumble, dissolving and reforming into stone and masonry. The roof opens like a maw to a twilight sky and she can see them as they are now, surrounded by goblins great and small. The king and the changeling only barely resemble human, eldritch and horrible in their beauty.

"No, no, this isn't real, you have no power over me!" she cries out, shaking her head. "This isn't fair, you bastard! I won!"

"Alas, my dear, a tithe was owed and so it was paid in kind." Jareth then leans forward, gripping her by the chin. His mismatched eyes, bright and terribly blue, bore through her, and then he presses his lips to her own, sharp teeth drawing blood.

"Now, come along."

Sarah screams.

AN: There are a few ways to read this - maybe it's magic, maybe she's crazy.

Everything Toby does can be handwaved away by mundane explanations.

The gratuitous German references several things, namely and predominantly Der Erlkönig (including adapted lines from Rammstein's Dalai Llama version of the story), and Changeling stories, in particular the method of brewing beer in eggshells to force the changeling to reveal itself.

There is an epilogue.