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It was bandage-cloth. Still attached to a leg somewhere within the water.
Jareth ran to the tub and, seeing Salas beneath the surface of the water, moved without a single thread of thought. He reached into the water, his torso drenching in bath water, and yanked the boy out of the basin and up into his arms.
He didn’t understand. What had the boy been doing? Why had he held himself beneath the water? How long had he been submerged, cut off from air?
Immediately, Salas broke into a fit of coughs, and the relief that swept through Jareth hearing the boy’s breathing nearly had him doubling over, yet the weight of the body he held kept him in place. The coughs were thick, weighed down by water, and Jareth held the boy away from him as Salas’ head twisted in search of air, sputtering and gagging up whatever liquid he’d swallowed.
Frantic and on the verge of panic, Jareth wrapped the boy in the towel that he had, at some point, dropped to the floor. Then he carried the boy into the bedroom, moving closer to the window for fresh air.
Several long and tense moments passed as Jareth waited for Salas’ coughing fit to calm itself. Only when the fae’s breathing had evened out, did anger take root inside of him, at the very thought that the boy had nearlydone. The worry inside of him could not place thought to it. But the rage in him could voice it. Calmly, he asked, “Did you just try to kill yourself?”
Salas finally glanced at him, his eyes searching. He seemed to take in Jareth’s anger carefully and answered, almost as a question, “No?” It was then that Jareth realized that he had not answered based on the truth, but based on what he had guessed Jareth had wanted to hear, his actions again morphing to the wants of others.
Jareth had to close his eyes to remain composed. When he opened them again, he could not keep the crack of anger from his voice. “Let’s try again. Did. You. Try. To. Kill. Yourself?”
Salas was shaking in his arms, biting his lip as he desperately avoided eye contact.
“Answer me!”
The boy burst into tears, and in a wave of new energy, struggled weakly in Jareth’s grip. Soft fists pattered at his chest, the too-thin body stretching and twisting away. The fight seemed to be half towards Jareth, half towards the towel. “I-I don’t want…” Salas stuttered, his voice dry from his fit. “I don’t want to bemeanymore! I don’t want…” He took a moment to shake with his sobs, sniffling and weakening. “I would rather be anyone else but me. Please, I don’t want to be me.”
The boy openly cried, going limp against Jareth.
Jareth’s anger vanished in an instant, his heart suddenly aching.
He took the boy over to a chair by the fire and sat him down in his lap. His hand moved on instinct to push away the wet red rivers of hair that had crowded the delicate face.
“Hush,” Jareth murmured, his arm tightening around the malnourished waist. “Nothing will happen to you now. You’re free, like the other birds—your companions.” Even as he said it, he knew it had been true from the moment he’d brought the boy to his chambers, though he’d yet to voice it into reality.
Salas looked away, his sobs quieting to hiccups as he stared into the flames without reacting to Jareth’s words of comfort. Perhaps not believing them.
Then, very softly, so softly that Jareth would have missed the words if their proximity had been an inch further apart, the boy spoke. “The birds are…happy?”
“They are…adjusting,” Jareth said honestly. “It was never our intention to kill them. Them, nor the palace staff. Many stayed in Suscon, but some will join the Diagorian palace staff, as will the birds. They will serve Diagor.”
Finally, Salas looked to Jareth with a frown. “Serve?” he wondered doubtfully, torment in his eyes. “You…You did not want me to serve! Y-You—”
“Shh,” Jareth hushed, seeing Salas’ threatening to spark into new tears. “I do not mean serve in bed. They’ll be involved with manual labor. Cooking, tailoring, livestock keeping, to name a few. The Diagorians are working to train them and to discover areas that each excel at.”
Salas’ frown deepened, as though he did not understand the new information, though did not seem to have more questions regarding the birds’ treatment.
They sat like that a few moments more. Jareth debated pulling the table with the food tray forward, unnerved by the bones he could feel through the towel.
“You will…” Salas began hoarsely, new tears sliding down his cheeks seemingly despite himself. “You will not kill me?”
“No, you will not be killed,” Jareth said sternly, his beast tightening his hold.
“No more wells?”
“No more wells.” He paused, regret and shame swelling in him as he thought of how to phrase his next sentence. “And for this,” he ran his fingers gently over the boy’s bandage. “I am sorry. It should not have happened. I know you’ve yet to trust me, but I will not hurt you, Salas.” He spoke the boy’s name for the first time, and it felt sweet and soft on his tongue.
Salas stared at him blankly, confirming Jareth’s guess. Salas did not, in fact, believe him. Instead, he wiped his eyes and looked away. “No more wells,” the boy whispered, almost to reassure himself.
“And no more…” Jareth’s voice tightened, becoming sterner. He was reminded of Newt once running away to the Everfrost Forest, and the hours that followed of the unknown that still took his breath away as the search party had been unable to make progress until five hours into their search, where they had found her at the bottom of a bear trap. “Of what you did, either, Salas. You are never to hurt yourself. Do you understand?”
Salas bit his lip, fidgeting with the frayed ends of his towel.
“Do you understand?” Jareth growled, capturing up both of the boy’s slender wrists into one of his own so that he would have the boy’s focus.
