Hey all! This is just a little idea that popped into my head the other night, haven't been able to get rid of it so I thought I'd post it and see what happens. If I don't get enough of the right response I'll drop it, so PLEASE R&R!. M for language and slashy themes, just a little so far, but it could get worse. You've been warned. Bon appetit.
Disclaimer: We all know damn good and well that I don't own anything related to the Labyrinth. Valerian, however, is mine! All mine!(evil laughter)
Two young men sat in a dorm room somewhere; one fidgiting anxiously with a small basketball, the other working intently on a song on his computer.
"Dude, Val, you need a break. That song isn't going anywhere, come out with me tonight, get laid, you'll feel better." Dale was practically on his knees begging his roommate to come out with him. Dale only had Val's best interest at heart, but he was getting annoying.
"I don't feel like it tonight, let me be, Dale," Val was getting irritated. He knew his friend had the best of intentions but he really had to finish his song or it was going to drive him crazy.
"Valerian… don't leave me hangin' like this man!" All right, now he was just being whiney. Dale knew Val hated his real name. It reminded him of his parents, which were memories he wished he didn't have.
His mother disappeared when he was little, and it drove his father to insanity. He was delusional, and always told Val the same story about a goblin king and some other magical world. The story was always the same. On his second birthday Val's father got so upset with him that in a drunken rage he wished for goblins to come take him away. And so they did and the Goblin King came and put forth the option for one or the other of his parents to run his Labyrinth and get Val back. His mother had gone and exactly thirteen hours later Val showed back up on their doorstep, hungry but otherwise without a scratch. His mother never came back, and his father, wracked with guilt, had receded into a psychotic state. Not violent, just… secluded.
The police never found his mother, and suspected that his father had killed her. But his ravings of magical worlds and goblin kings had earned him an insanity plea so they threw him into an asylum and left him there to rot. Val visited him faithfully, knowingin his heart that he couldn't have done thethings the police accused himof.It broke his heart every time. All his father could do was mumble about how he should have run the Labyrinth instead, how it was all his fault that his mother was gone, how he never should have let her go. Val wasn't even sure his father recognized him anymore.
His grandma was the only blessing in his life and had seen to it that he had everything he ever needed. His grandmother raised him and got him into music at a young age to cope with his frustration and resentment. He was now a music major, in fact. Music had become his life, listening to it and writing it. It was a way to channel his bitterness into something productive. He played all types of instruments; violin, piano, guitar (electric and acoustic), drums, bass, you name it and, for the most part, he played it. It was his outlet, his freedom. The only time he felt any peace was when he played. Dale suddenly brought his attention back to the present.
"Man, come on. Your know I hate going to The Oasis alone!" Once again Val declined and Dale was forced to go to their favorite bar all alone.
Moments later Val found himself thinking of eyes. Not just any eyes. These eyes haunted him, day and night, for as long as he could remember. He had never seen anyone with eyes like this. One was a limpid greenish blue like the color of tropical seawater. The other was just the opposite; black with a ring of the deepest brown around the outside. It was like looking through a glass of rum and coke. He had tried to paint them many times, but he couldn't ever get the colors right. They were so wildly beautiful that Val felt them burning into him even in his dreams. They gave him tingles when he thought of them; they conveyed such cruelty, but at the same time they were full of this inviting warmth that he had never seen before.
A sound in the hallway brought Val's thoughts crashing back to his surroundings. He brushed back his black hair and groaned as he realized he was truly stuck. There was one spot in the middle of his song where the riff he loved the most just didn't fit, and he couldn't fix it without totally starting over.
'Damn, maybe Dale was right, maybe I do need to go out.' He walked to the bathroom to brush his hair. He stared at himself in the mirror for a moment. He was tall, six-foot or so. His black hair came to his jaw, it would be longer if it weren't so wavy, he thought. It framed his oval face nicely, though, so he had decided not to cut it like his grandma suggested. His eyes, ghostly light gray and framed in long, thick eyelashes, were full of pent up sorrows and repressed feelings, feelings he couldn't express except for in his music. He splashed water over his face and threw his coat on. 'I can still catch up with Dale, he's the slowest person I know,' he snickered as he locked their dorm room door and trotted out to the street.
Jareth had watched for nineteen years as the second child to escape his grasp grew into a very keen and attractive young man. Toby had been the first to escape him, due only to Sarah's cunning and Jareth's feelings for her. But that was all over now, a silly and short lived passion to lighten the mundane centuries of his rule. He had told himself Toby would be the only. But Valerian… he had been different. His mother sacrificed herself for him, took his place as a goblin in Jareth's court so that her son could return unharmed to his father. Even Jareth couldn't deny such goodness, such nobility. Such pure hearted intentions deserved reward, but even though he had returned the child Aboveground Jareth still considered Valerian his. He couldn't just let the boy go, not after he had lost Toby. What would the Council think?
He had convinced them that Valerian was an experiment. An amusement, if you will. He had branded the child's subconscious with his eyes, letting them haunt his every waking (and non waking) moment. It was interesting to see how is experiences as a child affected him as a man.
The bitter truth was Jareth was lonely, and Valerian was a very interesting human. The Fae gave little thought to gender, and Valerian was so beautiful. He wrote beautiful music as well, Jareth could sit and listen for hours. And so he waited until the boy was restless enough with his life to come and be reclaimed to his rightful place at Jareth's side.