![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bookishwenchAuthor's note: No profit is made and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's note 2: This is set roughly in the same universe as "Worlds of Chaos." When I paired Jareth and Loki in one chapter, I loved their potential chemistry, so this is both a prequel and set after Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Once upon a time, there were a king and a prince, both handsome, both filled with delicious trickery. They lived for centuries, their kingdoms paying visits of state, giving and receiving marvelous gifts as tokens of each country’s friendship to the other, wonders that other, more primitive worlds would not even recognize as they were filled with magic and science in equal measure. The goal was to build a strong bond between the two realms, so that, if invasion or disaster should strike, one would come to the other’s aid, and indeed, such agreements were made and signed and celebrated. All the inhabitants of the lands were well pleased with their kings, and peace supposedly reigned.
Supposedly, for while dear Odin and I were seriously debating all the aspects of our accords, behaving entirely as good, wise kings should, the moment the endlessly boring speeches and meetings were adjourned, Prince Loki and I were away like a whirlwind, causing every sort of mayhem. In all my years, I had never met so wonderful a playfellow. His ideas were every bit as devious as my own, his sense of humor as finely pointed, and his daring and bravery, points the Asgardians seem to think lacking in him, were in truth delightfully remarkable. There was no dare he would not attempt, though he would bend rules like they were wet clay when he chose. The times we had were perfect. On a bet, he rode bareback on the great dragon who lives beneath the labyrinth, soaring over my castle, laughing, jets of fire singeing the goblins’ roofs as he clung to the red scales of its neck. For my part, I kept my word and gave him my crystals for a full month to use as his own, and in his generosity, he let me watch the trouble he caused with them, tricking fair maidens into following lights into the forest, conjuring dreams in the heads of lords and ladies that made them very slaves to baser instincts against conscience and reason, and yes, oddly, giving sweet dreams to children in his world because it made them and him laugh. He loved laughter.
But he also loved to lie. Then again, so do I, so I saw that as no great fault. It added to our adventures, the times when one or the other of us would casually betray his fellow, leading to all manner of adventures. We forgave one another, or in truth, there was nothing to forgive. It was our nature, and we reveled in it as in all our tricks.
Loki stayed to watch countless runnings of the labyrinth, and his sincere appreciation and enthusiasm for the way the maze would change itself was refreshing. I had grown almost accustomed to its tricks, for in truth, I have but little control over it. The stones and rivers, the tunnels and gardens have their own minds, their own intrigues, and as often as not, I have no knowledge of them, nor do I wish to know. But as knights in armor crashed into rusted heaps attacked by their own seeking of glory or clever millers’ sons realized their cleverness was not so great when confronted with puzzles that entwined their brains forever, he applauded with zest. Cruelty did run through his blood, but I have never known anyone who pleased me who did not have that streak. It echoes my own.
It was at one of the usual insipid state dinners on Asgard that I finally realized a simple and unavoidable fact, the only thing of any note to occur during the typically tedious proceedings, but that single thing was worth a great deal. He was doing his royal duty, mingling with the various guests in their finery, paying compliments that contained half-truths if one looked at them long enough, and in general doing a commendable job of not looking as though he was so bored that he was considering lighting his honored father’s cloak on fire. It was a single moment. His eyes were sifting through the people in the overcrowded room while he sipped from a goblet. He loathed the tendency towards drunkenness at official events in his realm, and I knew the cup held nothing but plain water. But something in me snapped into line as the light of the torches burned, tracing warmth over his skin, reflecting in his eyes and against the lines of the ridiculously perfect deep green doublet and hose he wore. While countless doxies in low-necked gowns waited upon his brother, they had missed the specimen of perfection who stood alone beside the banquet table, watching them all with silent cunning.
He was exquisite.
I knew then, as I should have known decades before, that I wanted him in my bed. Desire shot through me like an arrow, very nearly forcing me to sit as my knees buckled for a moment at the enormity of the rush of lust. The realization was something of a shock as I had already taken a good number of partners by then, and after the pleasure subsided, I had simply drifted on. They were mere bodies, but this one was somehow more than that. With a grin at my own perversity, I realized I liked him, and that was the difference. I enjoyed his company. And I had no wish to entrap him and let this all end in the usual way, with hysterical and entirely accurate declarations of my dishonesty and coldness of heart. I found I had the very odd sensation of wanting to be truthful.
I did nothing at first, but went home. I walked the labyrinth, pondering how I could have both things I wanted, both the jovial companion in merriment and the pleasure of bedding him without endangering one aspect or the other. As it happened the labyrinth seemed in a malleable mood, and I found myself in a stone enclosure branching off from one of the paths that usually led nowhere in particular. Growing up the walls were climbing flowers, pure white, that shed a particularly entrancing fragrance, and it took me a good hour to realize their spell. Once I knew, I realized the answer to my dilemma.
My invitation made its way to my noble friend, and it was accepted. I had promised a night of frivolity that might well eclipse all our other escapades, and when Loki arrived at the door of the labyrinth, his face shone with the possibilities that might come to fruition.
“Jareth,” he said, a smile lighting his features as he caught sight of me walking towards him, “always a pleasure.”
“Indeed,” I replied.
Perhaps it is with some embarrassment now that I admit I had spent the better part of four hours choosing raiment, bathing in scented waters, arranging my hair, choosing precisely the right jewels, but then, I wanted to be pleasing. And I was. I knew with a glance I could have seduced the coldest maiden, the most ludicrously prudish man. He noticed, of course.
“You look stunning,” he said, that smile still playing across his face in the starlight of the Underground. “One of your weapons for tonight’s games? If so, there is surely no defense against it.”
I said nothing, only smiled, for if you would believe it, I did not trust my voice at that moment. For the first time in a round century, I was nervous. Instead, I merely bowed my gratitude for the compliment and caused the door of the maze to open.
We threaded the paths together for some time, chatting lightly, he trying to guess our mission and I dismissing each attempt, until at length we stood beside the door I had found.
“This,” I said, gesturing towards the closed door, “is possibly the most dangerous of all the places the labyrinth has ever produced.”
He looked at it with alert curiosity.
“Then it won’t be a beast,” he said at once.
“Right,” I replied, “and it shall be equally dangerous for me as for you.”
“Then what is it?”
I opened the door to reveal the enclosure, open to the sky above, the white flowers in full blossom, and the thinnest perfume reached forth, nothing like at its full strength.
“Only flowers,” I said, grinning at him.
“Flowers that do what, precisely?” Loki said, not fooled for a moment. “Strangle passersby? Make people run mad? Spray acid on their victims and dissolve them into ether?”
“They have the most unusual quality of not allowing anyone who breathes in their perfume to lie,” Jareth said.
Loki blinked. A ghost of concern flitted over his face, and perhaps there was a mirror of it on my own. This was indeed a perilous place for the pair of us.
“They make whoever is in their grasp speak the truth?” he said.
“Not quite. They cannot lie, which is not the same thing,” I said. “They are not, however, compelled to respond. No secrets can be forced from someone. But whatever words are chosen to be spoken, they must be true.”
“Useless for warfare, then,” Loki said, regarding the flowers suspiciously, “but, otherwise, it holds promise.”
“Will you enter with me?” I asked.
He turned his head so quickly his long black hair whipped against his cheek.
“Why should I trust you?” he said. “You could easily be lying about the properties of the flower. Perhaps all I need do is walk into this place and you would know every defense of Asgard, every secret of the royal throne.”
“Except, if you were to ask the same of me, I would be compelled to respond in kind if that were the case,” I said.
“Unless you have an antidote or immunity,” he said.
“That would be remarkable as I found this place only yesterday,” I said.
“But not impossible,” he pointed out.
“No,” I said. “Not impossible. But I haven’t. Come, come, Loki, will you not try this dare as all our others? Surely the truth cannot be so terrifying.”
He gave me a look that said it certainly could be, but he also nodded his head the slightest bit, and together we entered through the door, shutting it behind us.
The scent of the flowers was sweet, pure, as one should expect, I suppose, from a plant that repels lies. He examined one of the buds carefully, gently, looking into its petals and tracing the vines that held it to the stones. I watched, struck again by the sight of him lost in thought, calculating, with the light of the crystal moon overhead painting his hair and face until he was almost unbearably beautiful.
“Well,” he said, turning to me, “what truths shall we say, as we cannot say otherwise?”
“You are certain now?” I asked.
“I have just attempted saying two and two are five, that my name is Thor, and that the sun is out,” Loki said. “Not a word fell from my lips. While the flowers might have other characteristics, blocking lies is undoubtedly at least one of their attributes.”
I nodded, then took a breath, the unaccustomed sense of nervousness striking again as I had no safe harbor in deceit, at least not here.
“I am not in love with you,” I said slowly.
Loki looked more confused than surprised.
“I am not in love with you either,” he said, as though this should be obvious. “What next? Should I also declare I am not in love with Hoggle?”
I attempted laughing at how poorly this was going, but the flowers stifled the sound as in truth I had no honest desire to laugh at all.
“I am, however, quite fond of you,” I said. “I like you. You are amusing, intelligent, creative, and, perhaps most importantly, I am never bored in your presence, even when I certainly should be, because I am forever pondering what is happening in the wonderful playground of your mind.”
Loki smiled, a genuine smile.
“I enjoy your company as well,” he said. “I consider you a friend, Jareth. I can count all those I consider friends on one hand and have fingers left over.”
“We are perfectly clear that we are both telling the truth, that we value one another for what the other is, and we agree neither of us is in the throes of mawkish sentimentality?” I said.
“Perfectly,” he repeated. “For once, neither of us could be lying about any of this, and for what it is worth, I am roundly pleased to find you enjoy me as much as I enjoy you.”
“And I should like to enjoy you in other ways as well,” I said, allowing the words to come forth.
Loki paused, looking around at the flowers as he processed this before saying, “You desire me?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“In your bed,” he added.
“There, and anywhere else we may choose,” I said, biting my lip as images flashed before my mind’s eye. “I realize now I have wanted you for some time, and though, as I said, I am not in love with you, I would greatly enjoy coupling with you.”
“And you have arranged all this to the purpose of what? Seducing me?” he said, looking rather confused. “Why not simply do so? I am certain you have enough practice.”
“Because I do not want to use trickery this time,” I said, closing the distance between us. My hand went to his cheek, and with joy I saw him turn slightly into it, his eyes closing, the perfect black of his lashes resting against his skin. “I do not want to impose a sense that you must comply or our friendship will end. I do not want lies from you as to what you do or do not feel. What I want is to offer, in all honesty, for you to share my bed, for us to pleasure one another without any indebtedness, without empty promises, and without the prospect of damaging what has become a very important relationship to me. I want you, yes, but I want you to have the freedom to say no without thinking you need to lie, and the freedom to say yes without lies as well.”
Loki blinked at me, looking honestly moved.
“You believe we can continue in our friendship if we do what you are proposing?” Loki asked.
“I do,” I said. “Do you?”
“I do not know,” Loki said, and while my hand reached for his, he turned and took a few steps away, remaining silent.
“You have chosen others for yourself before now, yes?” I said, for the first time uncertain. We had never actually discussed conquests in detail, and, of course, the few times the subject came up, I am sure there were lies on both sides.
“I am no virgin,” he said, then hesitated.
I must have given him a truly confused look, but he said nothing further.
“You have never been with another man?” I asked.
Loki remained silent again before finally admitting, “I have, but at the time, I was a woman.”
I admit that my jaw may have dropped at that revelation, but he could have simply not answered. He had chosen to entrust me with this bit of information.
“You can change between man and woman?” I said, and perhaps I sounded thunderstruck as I hadn’t the least suspicion of this ability.
Loki’s face wavered a moment as though a mist passed between us, and when it resolved, the features were still recognizable as Loki’s but in a feminine cast, and a glance at the body, still in doublet and hose, revealed similar changes. As a man, he was beautiful, and as a woman, she was no less attractive.
“I have had the ability as long as I can recall,” she said in a voice that was deep for a woman, but undeniably female. “My family… no, my father regards it as shameful and has ordered me to tell no one. My mother accepts that this is part of who I am. My brother, well, I am not certain he’s noticed.”
“In what form do you feel most yourself?”
The mist obscured the woman’s features and revealed the man once more.
“For now, this,” he said. “It changes. Knowing this, do you still want me?”
“Yes,” and the immediacy of the answer seemed to surprise him. “How could I not? But as a woman, you have taken a man. As a man?”
“Women, yes,” he said, “but no men.”
“Why?”
He looked at the ground for several seconds, then slowly raised his eyes to mine.
“Because I wanted you and no other. I have wanted you for what feels like eons, Jareth. I do not love you, no, but I enjoy your company, and I have longed for you, ached for you, imagined you in my bed. Do with me what you will, for it is what I will, too.”
The truth of the words was absolute, and in a moment, I had him in my arms. We kissed for the first time in that perfumed air, knowing neither of us had lied, and I transported us to my bedchamber, not bothering to bring our clothing with us, leaving it on the courtyard floor in two tidy piles.
We did not emerge from that room for five days. I shall draw a curtain of some small modesty over our endeavors, but every pleasure either of us could devise was enjoyed. Food and drink were brought to us, baths were drawn, sleep claimed us when we willed, and through it all, we remained entranced with one another. I watched as he slept, his hair like spilled black ink across the white of my pillows, and his eyes opened to me, green and verdant as the most secret parts of the labyrinth, the ones only I had ever trod. Hands, lips, bodies joined and joined again, man, woman, fast, slow, sweet, wild. At long last we merely lay next to one another, sated, gazing into each other’s eyes in silence as words were no longer necessary.
I suppose that was when it happened.
He left, of course. We were not in love, there was not any happily ever after to this tale, but that was understood before anything began. There were to be no hurts, no confusions, simply pleasure long sought and long given at last. We remained fast friends, comrades in mischief, our meetings punctuated by laughter and merriment, and sometimes other pleasures, but no more than that. That had been our understanding.
It was after that first time, after he returned to his home, I went once more to the flowered enclosure, ostensibly to collect our things. I had given him beautiful clothes to wear on his journey, had dressed him in them myself, lavishing his skin with touches and kisses and caresses as I did, and the whole process took much longer than it should have as dressing and undressing mixed. I told myself I would save his original garments for when he would return, but I was already returning to my old habits, lying to myself. There was no need to go myself. I could have sent my goblins. Instead, I went, closing the door behind me and letting the perfumed air sweep through my lungs. I opened my mouth to say once more what my thoughts had once been, what I had sworn before was true, that I did not love him.
No words would come from my mouth. The perfume choked me, leaving me terrified. I could not lie, but that did not mean that I had to speak the truth. I let the other sentence coil in my mouth, my tongue as free as air, ready to speak it, but I did not. I was too much a coward for that. The words stayed unspoken, but they echoed in my mind, in what I assume is my heart.
Now, he is gone, forever beyond my touch or the sound of my voice, and I will never speak those words to him as I tried to do so many times but failed out of basest fear.
But I will speak them to you.
I love him.
