Author's Note: Ugh. Life is just evil to me sometimes. I think it just goes in three year cycles or something because since the internship this summer I've had my mother land in the hospital several times again, Dad had another cancer scare, I got a second job and then had to work extra hours because several other servers quit so I was doing 74 hour weeks for a bit there, my senior recital decided that it was cursed, there were three deaths in the family and two arrests, and then it was time to graduate. So…yeah. Now that I'm free for at least nine months except for work, things should go better but since both of my parents are still really sick so I'll try for monthly updates but once again I can't promise anything. Hopefully this and the next two chapters will help with that, though…this is it, folks, what I've been promising for eight chapters now! The slashiness begins at last! This chapter we'll find out about Jareth's voyeuristic tendencies, learn what else Toby brought with him in terms of music, and take another trip into the labyrinth to meet an old friend from the movie. Enjoy!

Chapter Nine

You can make me breathe eternally…
-"Hollow"

On the whole, Toby thought that going mad was probably the best decision he had ever made.

He'd always known that he didn't fit in with the rest of the so-called real world. Trying to fit in and be a logical human being just had never been comfortable for him. Now he was in a world that made no logical sense and everything just seemed to fall into place perfectly. He saw no reason to question the fact that his stereo batteries were never going to run out, the existence of fairy tale monsters in the same city as himself, or the fact that the world around him was literally going backwards in terms of age. It made perfect sense to him until he thought about it, after all.

It had started with the wind.

Toby rarely slept beneath the thick blankets of his bed simply because without even the slightest breeze to chill the sweat on his skin, there was nothing to make him cold enough to need them. The air in the goblin city was so stale and still, especially at night. If a slight breeze ruffled his hair outside during the day, it was a rare occurrence and more likely than not was more related to the goblin king preparing to make an appearance than actual wind. It was one of the most obvious signs in Toby's mind that the world was dying.

Then one night, Toby awoke shivering with the wind whistling like a scream through the cracks in the castle walls.

It had been so long that at first he wasn't sure what he was feeling. Toby sat up, wrapping himself in the thick, velvety blankets as he did so, and stared out the window in disbelief. Shadows danced across the walls of his room as the flames in the lanterns flickered madly in the wind and the curtains around the bed billowed and whipped about, almost hitting him full in the face when they blew inward. At home this wouldn't have been that big of a wind storm, with windows to protect him and regular weather updates broadcasting the changes every night. Here, though, where the windows were just holes in the walls and the castle cracked and crumbling and no wind ever at all, it was amazing.

As he shivered in the chill and batted away at the curtains impatiently, Toby couldn't help but laugh in triumph.

The storm was short lived, but from then on there was always a small breeze around the goblin kingdom. It was the biggest change to happen yet. Not even Jareth could ignore it, and he didn't, if the slight line of annoyance between his brows was anything to judge by.

It was a trophy and Toby took it with him with pride.

Sound was beginning to carry more normally through the labyrinth as well. Before, in all that stillness, Toby could hear everything too loudly and too clearly. Now he both heard less and heard more. The sound of a rock falling from the walls of the maze no longer carried through the simple sounds of life in the air. And whispers of sound from far beyond where he could see from the castle were carried to him by the wind.

The sun felt warmer, too, less far away and weak. It meant that the nights were all the colder for it, but in the day time Toby could stretch out on the balconies of the castle and feel the rays actually warming his skin instead of simply lighting it.

He did it often, and didn't care if there was anyone around to see him lounging around shirtless or not. It felt too nice, too alive for him to care.

Even the castle itself seemed to be repairing slowly when he wasn't looking. There had been one afternoon where Toby had been so filled with rage and frustration and sorrow at the way that Jareth suddenly seemed unable to talk to him, like reviving his kingdom was a bad thing, that he had stalked off to the Escher room fully intending to just go home and see how the idiotic goblin king liked it when everything fell apart again. When he got there, though, the sight of the holes in the walls being completely gone stopped him in his tracks.

Toby couldn't seem to take his eyes off of the whole, all-surrounding walls of the room. He set down the boom box at his side without thinking and instead of stepping off into the abyss between the staircases he circled the room, running his fingers lightly over the stone walls as if searching for holes that he could not see. He wandered over the twisting, gravity defying stairs without even realizing it, probing the ground before him with his bare toes, waiting for the stairs to crumble away at the slightest touch.

Everything stayed whole. The room was still rank with disuse, but everything was whole again.

Toby sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the staircases into nothingness and studied his surrounding until it was too dark to se, never finding a single gap in the stones or worn away edge of a step. He had completely forgotten about going home.

The next morning he had switched the Poe CD out for something less dramatic, a mix CD that ranged from mystical with "Tubular Bells III" to creepy with "Bitemarks and Bloodstains" to even mellow jazz standards like "Cry Me A River" that tugged at Toby's emotions until he had to skip past them. He didn't bother blasting the stereo any more, either, unless it matched his mood. There were other sounds now. He didn't have to fill that horrible, terrible, frightening silence on his own any more.

And through it all, Jareth brooded and avoided him as if he were furious with Toby for everything that he had done. For not being Sarah.

Toby let him. Told himself that he didn't need the goblin king's approval. His time was over. Toby's was begun. But he still skipped over Julie London sobbing over her once-broken heart, and he found himself venturing out into the labyrinth more and more in the hopes of finding something to distract him from his misery.

Everywhere he looked, Toby found evidence that his intuition had been right. His kingdom, his prize, was there for him to take every waking moment. And all he wanted was for Jareth to look at him the way he did when he talked about Sarah, and that was the one prize the goblin king could deny him.

The alley echoed with the sound of Toby's footsteps and the sound was more reassuring than any one else he knew could have guessed. Even Anna had thought he was a little bit crazy for being so afraid of silence. Then again, Toby had never bothered to explain why to her. He wasn't sure if he could explain it to himself without sounding like a lunatic.

Of course, now that he was acknowledging the fact that he was quite well and truly on the path to Crazy Town, complete with the day pass to Childhood Phobias Land, Toby could explain it perfectly well. The place that he was meant to be was never silent except when it was dying and if it died, where would he go?

So the sound of his own footsteps comforted him. If he could still hear them, then there was still something there for him to walk through with those echoes all around him. If there were echoes, and something to cause those echoes, there was something alive in this place. Toby still wasn't sure if he was the only thing left in the goblin city as of yet, but at least he was there. Besides, there were definitely others in the labyrinth itself. Every so often he could even see them from the castle towers. He wasn't a fan of getting lost in that stupid, illogical, and completely unfair maze again just to find some company, however, so he searched the hitherto empty city instead.

There were fewer and fewer obstructions in his path every time he made his way out of the city. Toby wondered if that was a sign that someone was there removing all of the debris or if the city was healing itself the same way that the castle was, silently and secretly when no one was watching. Whatever the reason, his trips out to the labyrinth grew shorter every time, leaving him even longer to explore every day before he stumbled his twisting and confused way back to the castle.

Toby stepped outside the gates of the goblin city and stared at the towering walls just past the mounds of junk and debris before him. Strangely enough, none of those piles seemed to be changing at all. The maze was repopulating itself with every second that passed and the castle and city, while still nearly silent, were returning to their former glories, but this mound of trash outside the gate never seemed to grow any smaller. Toby almost wondered why. There had to be a reason, an obvious one just under his nose, but…

Before he could really begin to think about it, Toby's foot came down on a plastic cup that cracked like a gunshot when it broke. Toby managed not to jump in surprise at the sudden sound, though his heart raced, but a moment later it didn't matter when a face appeared right in front of him from a pile of rubbish and screamed at the top of its lungs.

"Hey now! What do you think you're doing, hmmm?"

Toby yelped and almost fell over backwards when he jumped away from the wrinkled face. It frowned at him and the mound of rubbish moved and shifted until he realized that the small pile of junk he had been passing was actually alive. The junk woman moved closer to him, her garbage-covered body twisting awkwardly as she did so, and began to lecture him at the top of her lungs. "What do you mean coming here and disturbing an old woman in her home, eh? Got something to say do you? Well, go on then, say it and be done with it!"

Toby shook his head vehemently and held out his hands in apology, or possibly to fend the old woman off. "It was a mistake. I didn't know. I don't have-"

"Hold on a minute there," the junk woman interrupted suddenly as she moved in close to study Toby from mere breaths away. She moved with surprising agility when she wanted to. Toby fought back the urge to jump back again and tried to breathe through his mouth so that he didn't have to smell her. Bloodshot eyes peered up at him suspiciously and when her lips pursed in thought, he had to fight back the urge to tell her she looked like the victim of the world's worst lemonade stand.

After a moment, the junk woman edged back and the wrinkles in her face shifted into what Toby thought might be a softer expression than before. "I know you," she told him proudly. "Mmm, yes, I do."

Toby blinked once. "You do?"

"Yeeees, yeees," she drawled in an almost singsong voice. "Known you since you were a baby, yes I have. Haven't seen you in years. You've grown, yes, oh my you've grown…"

"You knew me when I was a baby," Toby said flatly.

"Better looking than your sister was, yes you are," the junk woman crooned, and that was when Toby went from curiosity and mild boredom to barely contained rage.

"You know Sarah." He reached out to catch the old creature's arm and yanked her back from her wanderings around him roughly, startling her into silence. "You met her before."

"How rude to me she was," she sighed in disappointment. "Never seen such rudeness before. Mind your manners well, young man, you don't want to end up like your sister do you now?"

Toby clenched his jaw, resisted the urge to scream, and instead turned around and kicked a broken piece of stone into a wall.

The little hunchback woman didn't say a word. She clucked her tongue in distress but didn't seem at all surprised at his reaction. Instead, she put a gnarled hand on his elbow (Toby thought she might be too small to reach his shoulder) and waited in silence. At last Toby's shoulders sagged in defeat and he asked without looking at her, "What happened when you met her the first time?"

"The only time," she corrected without seeming to think about it. She tugged at his elbow with surprising strength and Toby had to stumble along in her wake, startled that she could drag him along so quickly. "I'll show you. That's what you want, isn't it? Yes, to see for yourself. You're of a kind, you are, you and that goblin king both. You'll want to see things with your own eyes."

The junk woman prattled on without thinking in the same vein while Toby suppressed a wince at the comparison between himself and Jareth and tried not to give himself tetanus from falling on a snarl of rusted metal. Any of them. There were thousands; more than he could believe had come to be there naturally, even in a city that had been decayed by thousands of years when he came back there.

Toby wondered if metal could breed. It wouldn't have been the weirdest thing he'd learned here if it turned out that it was possible, after all.

His companion suddenly stopped in front of a large hill of debris and pulled at a handful that revealed itself to be a door of some kind. Toby shouldn't have been surprised after everything that happened and he wasn't. It was when he stepped inside and found himself in Sarah's old bedroom, complete with snow globes and music boxes and fantasy figurines long since moved into basement storage and even Lancelot sitting on the bed that the shock hit.

It wasn't possible. Rather, it was possible, but Toby still couldn't believe it even so. He took one step through the doorway and had to stop. He couldn't bring himself to go any further. His heart raced, his breath came up short, and the whole world spun for a moment in a way that he associated with his worst nightmares and too much vodka on an empty stomach and, he realized with a suddenly painful shock, with Sarah. He waited for the moment to pass. It didn't.

He took another reluctant, dreaming step, and the door swung closed behind him, sealing him inside.

Toby whirled in a panic and started to reach for the doorknob when he stopped himself. After weeks of something not quite shy of insanity, he felt like reality was starting to intrude whether he wanted it to or not. And he didn't want it to. Toby had never wanted to go back into his own worst nightmares more than he did at that moment. His feet continued to carry him further into the room, his steps hesitant and disbelieving, until he reached the safe haven of his older sister's bed and collapsed onto it as all of the strength ran out of him at once.

Without having to think about it, Toby reached out and pulled Lancelot in close to him. The bear was cold, as if he had been sitting there alone for a very, very long time.

When he was younger, Toby had liked to pretend that the stuffed toy could travel with him everywhere as long as he held it, around the world and even into his dreams at night. Some part of him must have felt the same way as he got older because he'd always had to force himself to leave Lancelot back at his parents' house whenever he left. It was why he had been there waiting when Toby came back from his former fiancé's and…and then…what?

Was any of that real? Toby wondered. He wasn't sure any more. But even so, his eyes burned and he turned onto his side, suddenly wanting just to fall asleep and never wake up.

This time, he'd take Lancelot with him. His stuffed toy knight didn't deserve to be left behind like that, like a piece of junk in a pile of decaying civilization. He'd come with this time.

The door to the room creaked open and Toby sat up with a scowl, expecting to see Sarah frowning in the hallway at having her place invaded. Instead, the hunchbacked junk woman bustled inside. "Not a piece of junk, then?"

Toby blinked and put a hand to his lips. He hadn't even realized that he'd spoken aloud.

His companion shuffled across the carpet and pushed the teddy bear closer to Toby's chest. "Your sister," she began in a creaking voice thick with disapproval, "thought it was all junk. All of this, and…"

She gestured towards the world barely visible beyond the door. "This, too."

Toby squeezed Lancelot tightly, both thrilled at the fact that it hadn't been a dream and terrified as well. The old woman regarded him with one good eye and her face was too creased for him to tell whether she was smiling or frowning at him. "You think it's important, don't you."

It wasn't a question that needed to be answered but Toby nodded anyway.

He didn't remember going back to the goblin king's castle. He only vaguely remembered making his way to the throne room and sitting down on the step before the crumbling throne, Lancelot still clutched tightly in one hand. Everything still seemed a little bit unreal and fuzzy to him. If he reached out too far, he might rip through the fabric of reality and come out on the other side. If he wasn't careful. He would have to be very careful.

Toby spared half a moment to marvel at how effective whatever spell had been on that room had been, and then Jareth entered and stopped at the sight of him and his attention had to focus elsewhere.

The goblin king inclined his head curiously towards Lancelot. "What is that?"

Toby carefully set the stuffed bear down on the throne and stood, brushing off the last of the cobwebs in his mind as he did so. "An old friend."

"One could say," Jareth mused with a faint smile, "that I am an old friend of yours as well."

"Lancelot's older," Toby answered simply. "And you aren't my friend."

Now Jareth's expression turned to one of mock pain. "You wound me, Toby."

"Doubt it. Hey, if I prick you, will you bleed?"

"I can't say," the goblin king admitted. "I value my skin too much to damage it."

"There you have it," Toby replied insolently, spreading his hands serenely.

To his surprise, the goblin king nodded and said nothing more. He flowed across the room to where Toby stood and studied Lancelot closely with an unreadable expression. Toby watched him just as closely. A part of him suggested that he should be quite a bit more anxious than he was, but for once Toby was content just to watch.

"You've been wounded before," Jareth said suddenly as he turned back to the young man beside him. "Very seriously, I might add."

Toby raised an eyebrow, obviously unimpressed. "Psych major, remember? I don't go in much for deep wounds of the soul and all that. Everything can be fixed through chemistry and giving up on your deep abiding desire to sleep with your mother." He stopped as a thought struck him. "I guess that doesn't apply to you, huh? Cripes, I should be having a field day analyzing you instead of-"

"Toby," Jareth ordered, "stop talking."

His mouth snapped shut and Toby stopped.

"I meant real wounds," the goblin king continued, reaching out with one long finger to trace a line along Toby's ribs and down his side. "The kind that leave scars."

Toby managed not to shiver underneath the touch. It was harder than he liked to admit. "I think you must have missed the bit about me jumping out of windows to get here."

Jareth made a sound that might have been a small, amused laugh, and he pressed his finger against Toby's side more firmly. "Was that how you got this, then?"

"Scars take a lot longer than a week to form," Toby began, and then the words froze in his throat. He had to swallow several times before he could speak again. "How did you know about that scar?"

Without moving, the goblin king shifted his gaze to meet Toby's eyes. It had been a long time since Toby had let himself actually look into those strangely colored eyes. They were too disconcerting for him to stay in control of his emotions and he didn't like risking laying himself bare before the goblin king's gaze.

It hit him like a semi-truck driven by a sumo wrestler on a full crate of energy pills. Toby stepped back. "You," he snapped in a voice harsher than he realized even as he said it. "You were the creepy owl that kept me up all night."

Jareth didn't say anything, but then again he didn't really have to. Toby had never been without his clothes outside of his own bedroom and the balcony just outside the window. Jareth had never been there, at least not looking like himself. It was a place completely secluded from the eyes of the rest of world except for the birds circling overhead and that thrice-damned, lying, conniving…

"You spied on me," Toby accused, and now Jareth did laugh.

"Honestly, Toby, you act as if you are surprised."

The young man just frowned. "Why?"

The laughter cut off abruptly and Jareth's eyes drifted back down towards where his finger still rested against the fabric of Toby's shirt. With a growl of frustration, Toby grabbed his wrist and yanked so that the goblin king tripped forward one step until they were face-to-face. "Tell me," he snapped as his grip on Jareth's wrist tightened until his knuckles ached. "Tell me why!"

Jareth's voice was flat and emotionless. "I was looking for some of your sister in you."

Toby's fingernails dug into the flesh beneath his fingers and he made himself fling the goblin king's hand away from himself. He stepped back and crossed his arms to hide the sudden fit of shivering that took him over. "Did you find her, then?"

"No," Jareth answered in low, stern voice. "There is none of her in you."

Before Toby could turn away, Jareth's hands closed on his shoulders tightly enough to reawaken the bruises from ages before. "There is none of Sarah in you," he repeated, and a small frown line appeared between his brows. Toby forgot how to breathe. "So why is it, Toby, that I let you stay here even so?"