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“No,” hissed Salas, shooting Jareth a look of venom. “I do not understand. I do not understand this kingdom, or you, or…or the stupid well! Or why you did not want me or my gift days ago on your bed, but now I sit on your lap!” He wriggled a bit, as though this might prove some type of point, but growled when he seemed to notice that Jareth’s bulge was soft and not at all interested in a confused and frustrated boy. At the moment.
Salas muttered something to himself, but the Susconian was too soft and slurred for Jareth to catch. Damn language.
“Enough of that,” Jareth snapped, jostling him a bit. Any more squirming and Jareth feared arousal would truly stir with the friction, and now was not the time.
He released Salas, gesturing to the freedom of the room. “If you do not want to sit, then you may leave.”
Salas crossed his arms but didn’t move, staring at the rest of the room disdainfully.
And Jareth almost smiled. The vacancy within the boy’s eyes had somewhat lessened, replaced with an open hostility that Jareth found, somewhat confusingly, adorable. Nevertheless, it was good to see some color back in the boy’s face, along with emotion, even if that emotion was distaste.
Salas muttered again, something along the lines of ‘room is ugly,’ and Jareth had to press his lips together to hold back a chuckle.
Still, the issue they had faced just moments earlier could not be swept under the rug. If Jareth had not been able to determine that Salas was able to commit such an act the first time, he wasn’t sure he would be able to determine if the boy was able to commit the same act a second time.
He wanted to lay down a command, draw up a promise from the boy that he would never attempt to harm himself again.
Yet even as he opened his mouth to do so, an odd ironic voice in him was there to remind him: he had no right. After all Salas, as a prisoner, had been through, and though Jareth was the King, he had no right to command the boy so, have him make that promise, and have him mean it.
He realized it then, though. He wanted that right.
And he was going to work for it.
The tormenting, confusing angry stir sparked up against his new desire towards the boy. It reminded him, once more, who and what the boy was, and what thefaeboy had done. That side of him still needed to be won over, as years of rebuilding his kingdom, living with this curse, and the resentment that came with his father’s death—all had built that anger.
That side of him spoke now, his grip returning to Salas and tightening until Salas jumped in pain at the squashing of his lower abdomen. “If you want to be free along with your countrymen, I need to know why. Why you cursed this kingdom. Why did you allow Emperor Eldron to do so?”
Salas looked back up to Jareth, his trepidation obviously rekindling. Despite the bit of guilt Jareth felt that came with that look, he still needed an answer from the boy.
“Because,” Salas said softly, as though he were relaying something obvious. “He wished me to.”
“And you grant any wish that is wished upon you, no matter how devastating, or how ugly, that wish may be?”
Salas dropped his eyes downward, his head bowing and his hair once more hiding the lines of his face. It took a moment before he answered, the fire cracking across from them rhythmically, as though keeping time to the boy’s delay. Finally, when he spoke, the words were once more too soft for Jareth to catch the blurry language.
“Speak up,” Jareth commanded, shifting to raise the boy a bit.
“I said I did not understand,” Salas repeated, eyes still cast down.
Jareth frowned. “What do you mean, you did not understand?”
Salas fidgeted almost violently, as though frustrated. “I did not understand the wish.”
“You did not understand the wish,” Jareth repeated, watching Salas’ hands clench hatefully into fists. “How can you grant a wish if you do not understand it? What was there to not understand about cursing an entire nation of people?!” Jareth hadn’t even realized that his anger had risen until he was yelling.
Salas was shaking, his eyes dancing around the room as though to bolt, Jareth’s arms perhaps the only thing keeping him in place.
“I did not understand!” Salas yelled back, a mouse chewing at the claws of a lion. “I did not understand the wish. Magic does what it does, and I do not control it. I did not understand the wish, but the magic did.”
Jareth was about to question further, but the sparkles in the boy’s eyes placed a halt to his line of questioning.
That, as well as the truth behind the boy’s explanation. Despite the obvious unlikeliness of it, there still seemed to be some accuracy there based on the boy’s actions thus far: his lack of understanding to certain social cues, as well as his blatant incomprehension to certain social dynamics that made Jareth question the boy’s understanding of the world around him.
And judging by the flush of the boy’s face, the tightening of fists, Salas was aware of the fact, too, and was embarrassed by it.
Jareth decided to drop the subject.
They sat like that for a while longer.
