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Chapter 20
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Jareth awoke to strong hands grappling him to the ground and forcing a blindfold over his eyes. With his strength diminished, the unknown assailants easily overpowered him while he growled and cursed. His kicking and flailing gained him nothing as they restrained him, his new wrist and ankle bindings cutting deep as they tightened and secured them.
"Sarah!" he shouted, heard only his voice echo back over the sounds of their scuffing. "
Sarah!" Jareth squirmed on the sharp rocks, moving toward the direction he last remembered seeing her. But unseen hands halted him, then shoved a bristly gag in his mouth.
The knot was too snug at the base of his skull; it made the coarse fabric tear at his already damaged lips, but he didn't care. He cared about finding Sarah, then destroying those who laid hands upon them. He felt his bloodlust, always so close to bursting through his civilized veneer since meeting up with Sarah again, stir and leer gleefully. The rhythm of his heart pounded in his ears; it blurred out all other sounds until his father came to him.
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Calm yourself, Jareth. You let it take you over now, you'll be nothing but a caged animal." Da! Jareth took in slow, measured breaths throughhis nostrils, doing his best to block out the fetid odor and dirty taste of the gag.
Calm, calm… His eyes drifted shut beneath the black of the blindfold; his limbs fell lax in their restraints onto the rocky ground. He held his last one.
You're useless to her and yourself as a … berserker. He disliked even thinking Sam's term for his behavior, apt though it was. But as his body relaxed, Jareth did feel the bloodlust recede, pulling back to that dark cave hidden behind his breastbone. There it lurked, a pocket of infestation waiting for his weakness, his thinning, for its opportunity to rule.
Releasing his held breath, Jareth now sensed his true environment: sounds of men speaking in low tones, their voices and words unrecognizable, heavy breathing close to him and the faint aroma of Sarah's astringent soap he hadn't realized he'd come to appreciate until that very second.
She's close! His heart flipped, a spear of joy shooting through his chest, until he accepted she might not be alive. What if they'd already…
Oh Danu, please don't take her. Not yet. "
Not yet?" his father asked, neither accusing nor denying.
I merely meant … "
Yes?" I… What had he meant to ask Danu to spare Sarah? From death? Suffering? Until when? In the cold, abrasive confines of the cave, restrained and captured, Jareth contemplated what his internal, emotional outburst really meant, and the only answer was the simplest.
He cared about her. He actually, truly cared about what happened to her, wanted to know more about her, be close to her and not in a protective-big-brotherish way.
His muffled groaned reverberated inside his head. For a moment, he couldn't decide what was worse, being abducted—again (what were the odds? Mythical, surely)—by villains unknown, or realizing he was in love with Sarah Williams while she was in danger too. He groaned a second time, rolling towards the strongest area of her scent.
Definitely the latter. I can always kill kidnappers. Hands gripped the bindings encircling his wrists and ankles, yanking upwards. Rocks scraped the side of his face as he was lifted and carried from where he hoped Sarah lie. Tension pulled at his gut the farther they walked; he felt sure it would snap and destroy him. Wriggling and twisting, he tried to free himself, but something hard struck him in the temple, bringing flashes of colored lights to his closed eyes and a wave of dizziness.
"Stop fighting," a man said, snagging Jareth's scalp roughly and jerking his head back at a painful angle. Jareth growled at him, baring the few teeth not covered by the gag, his nostrils flaring. Jareth felt the man move closer, then he spoke low and threatening into his ear, his breath a hiss on his skin.
"You want to live, eh?" A pause, a shift in the way the other men held him aloft. "You want her to live?" Jareth jerked, involuntarily, bit back another growl. "Mm … thought so. You behave, eh," the man released his hair and patted his head, rewarding a favored pet, "maybe I let you both live."
The man's laughter followed Jareth as the others carried him from the cave, the night's cold cutting through his still sweat-dampened clothing.
Still wet? It can't be very late if my clothes aren't dry. How long did we sleep? As the men walked him downhill, he tried to remember what happened after he helped heal Sarah. They tossed him into some type of wagon. He landed hard with an 'oof', the wood groaning and clawing at his weight. Immediately, they went to work securing his wrists and ankles its sides, and Jareth knew escape would be difficult if not impossible for the present. He was blind and nearly immobilized, as well as weakened from his trek and loss of magic.
"Sit tight," one said as his wrists were pulled flush against vertical wood. The rough surface scraped. Hearing their footsteps crunch away, he laid his head back onto the flat panels and tried to recall the last few hours, but only Sarah and the feel of her came to him.
How she felt in his arms, so warm, so strong, so worth protecting. How her hands—blistered and red—felt fevered and delicate in his. He couldn't quite remember why he wanted to do that, where the urge sprang from, other than once he saw the outrage of her hands it had carved a hole in him. It could not be borne.
He reacted purely from emotion. Before he considered the why of his actions, he'd reached out and wrapped his hands around hers and the bliss…
The bliss! He could fly forever without wings! So much harmony; he never knew such a thing existed.
Da never told me about this… And then cold, crashing, alone, fatigue.
The brusqueness of the change, he supposed at the time, made he want to reconnect with her through touch. Even the merest brush of his fingertips along her freshly healed skin sent an overload of sensation throughout his body. Anymore and he'd feared his reaction, feared frightening Sarah with his intensity. But she must have known, must have seen how he quivered before her.
Now, lying in the back of their abductors' wagon, after his enlightenment in the cave, Jareth mentally kicked his witlessness—how of him stupid not to have seen or sensed the answer. It was so much more than simple caring. They were bound together somehow by their inherent natures—she, the nexus and he, the keeper of the bridge. Yet it was so much more than magic.
It was love.
And what does this mean for us? Jareth gulped and slumped into his prison. What indeed?
"Jareth?" a hissing whisper asked from the side of the wagon where his hands were secured. Jareth mumbled around his gag, and tried to sit up.
"... Het?"
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Chet had wandered in the dark for maybe a couple of hours. He wasn't exactly sure, but his internal clock was decent and it felt like it. His excuse about looking for water was exactly that—an excuse. After spending the last few days watching the group implode (as if any other result was likely) he couldn't stand to witness it for another minute and needed a break.
As usual, Sam was the big leader bossing everyone around, only Fixer wasn't in top condition to argue with him. Normally, Chet didn't get along with Fixer, but he didn't always get along with Sam either, so it worked to his advantage to have them balance each other out. But things were different with her ever since he salvaged Jareth. And wouldn't just love to reverse that decision, leave the spoiled brat to freeze in the No-Where.
Within a day of Jareth being at the compound, she'd gone from spittin' mad to smilin' to flirtin', definitely not the action of a woman in hate. What the hell did the two of them have in their history? Why the obvious hate/hate/attraction? Even he could feel it, so he knew Sam did.
Sam—
He'd been guessing it was simple jealousy directed at Jareth. There was a lot to be jealous about, if you forgot that Fixer said she hated Jareth which Chet wasn't so sure about. So what did that mean for Sam? Why the sudden snit fit? Chet couldn't say two words to Sam without them arguing (which was unusual even if they didn't always agree) and Chet was damn sick of it. In fact, he decided he was sick of the whole situation. That's what brought he back around to the cave a bit later, after he'd kick rocks and cussed out a few scraggly old trees.
He was going to tell Sam and Fixer he was done, out. They could go on without him if they wanted, but he was heading back to the compound. He wasn't a coward, far from it. He just didn't like how things were going with him being odd man out on this doomed party. Not that he wished ill on her kid brother, but hell, he hadn't even known the kid existed until a few days ago. That irked the most. The three of them knew something they weren't telling him.
And he really didn't like the whacked out vibes between Fixer and Jareth; it made him real nervous. What the fuck happened to her hands? What did Jareth do? Or not do, as he claimed. He clutched his shotgun closer to his chest as he crept his way back through the dark, ravaged, leftover forest. There had better be some answers when he got back, or he was definitely gone. His fingers twisted on the shotgun's stock and he hutched his shoulders.
I'll leave, don't you doubt it. I'll let ya fend for yourselves. Though he suspected, as he threatened them in his mind, none would miss him. He was just a tag-along, unwelcome and unnecessary. Until he crested the hill and saw a dozen or saw shadows sneaking into the cave, their murky outlines blending with the night so well he could barely count them from fifty feet away. Maybe he was a bit necessary.
"Fuck … Vultures," he muttered and crouched behind a small boulder. Faint lights flickered within the cave, and he heard scuffling, voices and Jareth distinctly shouting, "Sarah". A few minutes later, after waiting with one hand digging into the boulder's irregular surface and the other hugging his shotgun, he watched a few of the intruders carry someone out and secure him into an old fashioned wagon, which he hadn't noticed until then.
Once they left, returning to the cave, Chet took the opportunity to hurry downhill. One quick peek over the wagon's edge revealed and bound and gagged…
"Jareth?"
The blond man, startled, jerked to a partial sitting position made awkward by his wrists and ankles bound to the edges of the wagon. "…Het?" he mumbled around his gag, blindly pivoting toward him.
"Where's Sam and Fixer?" Chet reached over the wagon's edge, and worked the gag loose.
Jareth eagerly spit the rag out, shaking his head until he wore it as a ragged ascot. "Still inside, I presume. You haven't seen them?"
"No," Chet pushed the blindfold up and off of Jareth's head, "just got back."
"Untie me." Jareth strained at his restraints, grimacing.
"Workin' on it …" Chet hissed at him, already struggling with the rope's knots in the dark.
"Watch out!" Still tied to the wagon, Jareth thrashed violently when a shadow loomed behind Chet; the wagon rocked and creaked. Chet spun in place, throwing up his arms a half-second too late to ward off the blow. With a gasping gurgle, he crumpled to the ground, disappearing from Jareth's view.
"Chet!" Jareth pulled himself up, his bound hands supporting his weight, splinters from the desiccated wood lacerating his palms. The shadow stood over the fallen Chet, the edge of a large blade Jareth knew as a machete caught the faint glint of moonlight as the cloud cover broke. The moonlight should've been silvery-white, but it was tinged spoiled butter. Its insubstantial tendrils made the blood on the machete look dripping orange-black.
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Even in the dark, Jareth knew by Chet's immobility, it was too late. "No …" The machete wielding shadow shifted his weight, standing tall and pointed the blade at Jareth—a challenge or threat? His bloodlust reignited, searing his vocal cords to a deep bass.
"Do your worse, Vulture."
The shadow laughed, a cavernous sound that enraged Jareth's bloodlust further, causing him to spasm at his limits, twisting, flopping and snarling. The Vulture laughed louder before replacing the gag and blindfold, so casually, despite Jareth's best efforts to evade them. He continued laughing as he walked away, leaving Jareth to settle back in the darkness.
Lying there, alone, knowing Chet's life bled into the soil and worrying about Sarah and even Sam, Jareth's childhood fears of abandonment crept under the door of his control. His bloodlust pushed back with a growl. He gave it full reign, releasing it, knowing he needed it to protect himself. His senses heightened and narrowed, burning away the memories of the Hunters chasing him and Jenea. Only survival mattered—his and Sarah's—and he would do whatever required to assure it.
