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He felt a clap on his shoulder as Tarick’s firm hand came down on it. “Well, I know you are the King, Jareth, but surprisingly enough, it is not always about you. Go. Make sureSalasis clean and fed. Get him something warm to wear, for goodness sake. Clean his wounds. Comb his hair. Read him a bed-time story. Snuggle up—”
“Enough,” Jareth growled, shrugging him off.
Tarick chuckled, stepping towards the door. “I’m going to go check on the birds—well, the new citizens of Diagor. I haven’t seen them since before the full moon, and am not sure how they fare. Hopefully not too frightened of us muts. Go and find your long-haired beauty. I’d like to hear everything later.”
Jareth grit his teeth to hold back a retort, and then he was alone. Tiredness swept through him, as it often did after a night of the full moon, yet more so now with all he had been dealing with as of recently.
Finally, he looked over to the washroom. Warily, he grabbed a torch and went to it.
After securing the torch to the wall, Jareth looked around, noting that the fae boy, Salas, was not where Jareth had expected him to be: pulling at the newly installed window-bars in a new attempt to escape, or perhaps crouched in a corner by the washroom entrance, prepared with a glass soap bottle to attack.
Instead, Jareth spotted the pale figure curled up in the far corner of the room, behind one of the washroom’s many columns, sitting deathly still. He was curled to cover his eyes and his hands were placed over his ears. He did not glance up upon the intrusion.
First things first. Jareth filled the tub in the center of the room with warm water, watching the boy as his head shot up and finally noticed his new company.
When the basin tub was more than half full of the steaming spring water, Jareth stopped cranking the water pump.
The boy only watched, his eyes bleak and hooded.
Frowning, Jareth went towards the little one and crouched low once there, wanting to minimize his much greater size. He noticed that the boy did not look up upon his approach, nor did eyes follow him when he lowered himself, as one does when unsure of an intruder’s intentions. There was no wariness in the boy, nor trepidation, as Jareth had witnessed just moments ago. It was a sharp contrast to what he had, again, been expecting.
Perhaps the boy was in pain? He’d been on his leg enough for that to be the case. “Are you well?”
Salas did not respond. The bright, hopeful spark in his eyes was gone as he stared alarmingly blankly ahead. The hesitant smile had vanished. There was something off about it, something unsettling.
The only reaction was the lowering of the boy’s head, bowing forward as though it had become too heavy.
“Come,” Jareth said softly, trying to sound gentle, though his frown was deepening. “I’ve drawn you a bath. You’ll bathe, and then rest.”
When Salas did not move or speak, Jareth felt the first trickle of worry at the boy’s odd behavior. He tried to draw up memories of how he had comforted Newt as a child to aid his approach now, but his daughter had never been like this. While before, the fae boy had been brave and spirited, slippery and evasive, now there was an emptiness in those eyes that was signaling something severe.
Swallowing, Jareth made to scoop the boy up, moving perhaps a bit too quickly with his growing apprehension.
Perhaps Salas was cold. The bath would warm him.
The slender body felt good in his arms, the scent nearly blinding, yet he suppressed his urge to hold him there and lowered the boy into the basin, minding the injured leg, until Salas was rested at the bottom with his left limb hanging over the side of the tub.
There was a quick, internal debate about what to do next. He could call for a manservant to come and help Salas with bathing, but he shot the idea down the moment it arised. With the boy’s odd behavior, his beast wanted to be close to Salas, to monitor him and discover the root of the issue. And so he would.
He removed the skirt from the lithe, submerged body. Then, scooping up the soapy contents from the various on-hand wash bottles, he began to scrub Salas down with a bath sponge, his motions gentle but thorough. After cleaning the boy’s upper and lower body, ignoring the bits in between, he hesitated, finally sighing and offering up the sponge.
“Clean between your legs, boy,” he ordered, motioning to Salas’ genitals.
Salas made no move to take the sponge. He did not even look at it, as though he had not registered the demand nor the gesture.
Jareth watched him for a bit, then reached into the water and performed the task himself, cleaning perfunctory. Afterwards, very carefully, as though approaching a doe that might bolt, he grasped Salas’ skull, tilted it back so he could run water through his hair, and cleaned the bright red tendrils with soap until the water running through came clean.
And still the boy did not react.
Rising, Jareth gave the boy another look before leaving to fetch a towel and clothes that would fit Salas.
He went out into the hall and made the request to a handmaid, who said she would have a difficult time fetching apparel that would fit Salas’ smaller frame this evening, though she would hunt down children's garments for him if the need was great. Jareth considered the forewarning, as while he waited for clothes, he could check in with the guards closest to his chambers and make rapport, but in the end decided clothes could wait until morning. With a bow, she passed him a towel.
Jareth thanked her and returned to his rooms.
Once he was back in the washroom, he paused, confused, and glanced around. Salas was no longer in the basin tub, nor in the washroom. Perhaps he’d slipped into the bedchambers without being noticed?
But then Jareth noticed a thin strip of white cloth hanging over the edge of the basin, and his stomach dropped.
