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It doesn’t seem possible that less than a day ago, Aladdin was facing down Jafar on this very balcony where he and Jasmine and the sultan...not the sultan now, he reminds himself, that’s Jasmine...are eating dinner.
The Genie, also not a genie anymore, but another change that’s proving difficult to adjust to, is standing nearby with Dalia. They’ve insisted on maintaining some of the traditions a little longer. Jasmine plans on many changes to the way the royal household relate to each other and their citizens, but for now, Dalia insists she wants something familiar as everything changes around her. Aladdin knows that as happy as she is with the Genie, when she leaves with him she will miss Jasmine. Those two have been inseparable for years. I’ve only known the Genie a few days and it’s hard to imagine him leaving.
He looks up at the two of them, and stops, because the world looks blurry and almost seems to be spinning. He blinks rapidly, and the feeling fades, although a vague dizziness is lingering, the kind of feeling when he’s standing on the ledge of a tall building.
It’s likely the glass of wine, still half full, in front of him. He’s not familiar with the palace wine, he’s not accustomed to drinking any aside from the times he’s accidentally stolen a merchant’s wineskin instead of his money pouch and thought it would be a pity to let it go to waste. This seems stronger than he’s had, he feels as flushed and dizzy as he did the first time he tasted any.
“Excuse me.” He catches the strange looks on Jasmine and her father’s faces as he stumbles up and away from the table. He just needs to lie down for a moment and let the dizziness pass before he makes a fool of himself in front of Jasmine and her father.
Abu leaps onto his shoulder, and the unexpected weight sends him reeling, leaning against one of the pillars for balance.
“What’s wrong?” Jasmine rests her hand on his shoulder, then gasps. “You’re feverish.”
“It’s only your wine. I need to lie down for a moment, I’ll be alright.” He starts to laugh, to reassure her, but the only thing that comes out of his mouth is a cough.
“This isn’t wine.” Jasmine watches him with wide eyes. “I’ll call for the healer.”
He wants to tell her not to worry, but the only thing coming out of his throat is a wet cough. The same one he’s felt rattling in his chest since Jafar threw him into the ocean. Something about it isn’t right. It’s not close to the first time he’s had a cough, but this one is bad. It feels like there’s still water he’s trying to cough out.
He stumbles into the room he occupied as Prince Ali. He thought they might make him leave it and sleep with the servants near the kitchen, or even send him out of the palace altogether, until his marriage to Jasmine is finalized. After all, he isn’t actually royalty, he doesn’t deserve such a splending place to call his own. But Jasmine wouldn’t hear of him leaving.
Abu swings restlessly from the silk draperies, chittering and shaking slightly. Aladdin knows seeing him this weak upsets his little friend. Abu always frets over him, whether it’s a broken bone, an illness, or simply a hungry week. He tries to reassure Abu that he’s alright, but only brings on another round of coughing, deep and wet and painful.
He’s still trying to gasp in a real, steady breath when the healer walks in, her satchel overflowing with fresh herbs and small bottles, a small copper pot dangling from her belt. Jasmine, her father, Dalia, and the Genie are right behind the woman, all of them looking quite worried. The healer sets down her tools on a table beside the bed and leans over him, her wizened fingers brushing at his sweaty, flushed face.
The healer rests her hand on his chest, then shakes her head. “This is a sickness I saw in the North when I was a child. I have never seen it this severe in Agrabah, in all my years here.”
“When Jafar...banished me, he sent me somewhere cold. Very cold. There was snow.” Aladdin shivers at the memory. “I don’t know how long I was there. I was so tired and so cold.” Out of the corner of his eye he can see Jasmine’s worried hand-wringing and the Genie’s guilty look. He thinks it’s his fault Jafar was able to hurt me. But he had no choice. He was bound to whoever controlled the lamp. Aladdin can understand how giving up that cosmic power felt like a fair exchange for being free of that control. I never had much on the streets, but I was never a slave, and I was always grateful. He was afraid enough of being captured and sold into a brutal, degraded, painful life. He can’t imagine what it would be like to be afraid of hurting the people you care about most.
“I’m afraid I know this disease far too well.” The healer sighs. “It is very dangerous. But Aladdin is young and strong, there is a good chance he will survive it. If we are careful.”
“What should we do?”
“He will breathe more easily if there is steam in the air.” The healer stands up. “I will prepare what I need. Keep him from lying down on his back, or the poison that is trapped in his lungs will choke him.”
Aladdin struggles to drag in a rasping breath. It feels like Abu is sitting on his chest...after the Genie had transformed him into an elephant. Jasmine has her arm around his back, propping him up so he has at least a chance of breathing properly. It doesn’t seem to be helping.
It feels like the time he fell off a wall and hurt his ribs. He couldn’t take a deep breath without it sending a searing pain through his whole chest. He thought he would suffocate before he had a chance to get to a safe place to hide and heal.
The healer tosses a handful of leaves and flowers into a pot of water, and a strong-smelling steam fills the room. Aladdin already feels overheated, and the moisture drips down his face and into his hair. He’s so tired, but he can’t fall asleep. He’s too uncomfortable.
The world is a blurry, half-hazy chaos of voices and colors and heat. He’s so dizzy. He thinks Jasmine sits down next to him, that she’s running her hands over his hair, but he can’t be sure. The world is trapped somewhere between a dream and reality.
He can’t stop shivering. It’s as cold as it was when he was banished. He tugs the blankets around himself, wishing it would actually do something to help this awful cold feeling. He hates fevers. At least this time he isn’t relying on stealing to survive. When he got sick on the streets, if it was bad enough, he wasn’t able to eat. Which only made everything worse. Not that he can eat anything as it is. His stomach refuses to keep anything down aside from a thin broth.
The Genie leans over him, brushing his sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes. “Hey, kid. You’re gonna be alright, you hear me?” Aladdin nods weakly. He can’t get a word out between the raspiness in his throat from the coughing and the way his head feels heavy.
“You’re a tough kid. You’re gonna be just fine.” There’s something almost frantic in the Genie’s voice, like there was when he pulled Aladdin out of the ocean. His hand is shaking where it’s resting on Aladdin’s forehead. “It’s going to be alright.” The soothing touch is enough to finally send him over the edge of the dark chasm of sleeplessness that’s been tugging at him.
But it is a chasm, and he’s falling. Further and further, down down down. Into black water that fills his throat, fills his lungs, suffocates him. He coughs and chokes and thrashes, but the water is holding him down, it’s covering him, choking him.
He must have passed out. Because the next thing he knows is that he’s lying somewhere. Maybe on the street, there’s nothing but brightness overhead and he can hear voices. Did he fall? What happened?
And then there are hands on his chest and arms, pulling at his clothing. Voices that are louder, with sharper edges than before.
“Don’t touch me!” He pulls away from the hands fumbling with his shirt. Before he’d found the ruined palace he calls home, he’d slept on the streets, hiding the best he could from the guards. Unfortunately, fearing the guards so much had meant he hadn’t feared his fellow criminals enough. I was lucky. Lucky that the man who got closest to actually hurting him was so drunk he couldn’t follow when Aladdin scrambled out from under him, got to his feet, and ran.
He’s sick now, he can’t fight back, and his movements are confused and weak. He doesn’t know how they found him here. Only he knows how to extend the stairs, and there are so many weak points on the way up that someone should never be able to get past.
“Get away from me! Leave me alone!” He struggles, thrashes. Hands are holding him down now, even while the first set still struggle with his clothing. There isn’t just one person here, there must be at least three. There are two hands on each arm. Please, no, please. One is bad enough. But he’s so weak and sick, he can’t endure three of them.
“Hey. Al, it’s just us. Calm down, kid, we’re tryin’ to help ya!” He shivers and blinks because that voice is familiar. “You’re burnin’ up, you gotta let us do this.” The brown eyes staring down at him with a mixture of fear and concern are ones he knows. And when he looks down at the hands pushing his shirt away and replacing it with a cloth soaked in cool water, he recognizes the bracelet on the wrist. This is his family, they won’t hurt him.
He sinks into a dreamless slumber, waking only long enough to swallow a few sips of water and see that Jasmine’s hands pressing wet cloths to his head and neck have been replaced by Dalia’s. The world flickers like a candle flame that’s burned down into a puddle of wax.
The dreams come and go, some worse than others. Once he wakes screaming, certain his right hand has been cut off by the guards. He can’t feel it for what seems like far too long, before he realizes that in his thrashing he rolled over onto it and cut off the blood. It’s not the first time he’s done that, or the first time that fear has made an appearance in his nightmares, but the fever has made everything so much worse. He has to use his good hand to feel the fingers there, and even the pain of the blood returning to them is reassuring. Better than the phantom pain of a missing limb haunting him for the rest of his life.
He’s not sure how long it is before he wakes up and stays awake longer than a few minutes. When he does, it’s to the awareness that his clothing and blankets are soaked, and he actually feels cold, genuine cold, from the dampness all around him. He knows a break in a fever when he feels it. He's a little too familiar with the sensation.
"Hey kid." The Genie is practically hovering over him. "You back with us?"
He nods slowly, testing whether the dizziness is gone. He thinks most of it is.
Jasmine squeezes his hand tightly. He can tell it's hers because it's soft, aside from the calluses on her fingertips where she presses down the strings when she plays her oud .
"How do you feel?" She asks softly, it sounds like she's afraid to say a thing. He can't imagine how afraid she must be. She lost her mother, and now she's thought she might lose Aladdin too.
"Tired. But...not so sick." His chest hurts from coughing, but his breath is no longer bubbling in his lungs. It doesn't feel like he's trying to pull in air while he's underwater. "I'll be alright. Don't you worry about me." He squeezes her hand back, and she smiles, but her eyes are teary.
He’s vaguely aware that his hair is stiff with sweat, and his skin is crusted in it. He runs a hand over his face and grimaces at the sticky feeling. It's worse than normal, it always is when he's sick.
"I'll fetch hot water from the kitchens," Dalia says. The Genie nods and follows her out.
Aladdin glances at Jasmine with a small frown. "What are they…"
"Drawing you a bath." Jasmine says with a small smile. "You need it." Her smile slips away as she runs a hand through his grimy hair. "Please don't ever scare me like that again."
"I'll do my best." He tries to smirk but he's pretty sure it comes off weak and pitiful instead of playful.
"I hope so. That's your sultan's command, need I remind you. And your soon to be wife's request."
"How could I argue with that?"
Jasmine gives his hand another soft squeeze and then leaves the room as Dalia and the Genie return with pails full of steaming water. Once they've emptied them into the basin in the bathing room, Dalia leaves, with a last gentle smile, and he can see the deep relief in her eyes. He wants to tell her he's sorry for scaring her, for scaring all of them, but she's already gone.
"Okay, kid, let's get you cleaned up. This is starting to remind me of when I met you," the Genie chuckles. Not like it was my fault I was crawling around a grimy cave all night, or that the lava in there made it so hot I could barely breathe. He's well aware of what a sweaty, filthy mess he must have been.
The Genie lifts him and carries him into the cooler, tiled room, then helps him lean on his shoulder while he removes the last of his sweat-stained clothing. He gently lowers Aladdin into the softly steaming water, then reaches for a soft cloth and a dish of soap.
The water feels strange. Aladdin’s never had a hot bath before. When the genie transformed him into Prince Ali, the dirt and sweat from the streets simply vanished magically. And then...he hasn’t been too fond of large amounts of water since Jafar pushed him into the ocean. Even after their final battle, he simply wiped away the dirt and grime with a cloth dipped in a basin. And before that, he was lucky to be able to wash in a fountain or for one of the rare rainstorms to rise off the ocean and wash not just him but the whole city, at least for a little while.
At first, the water lapping against his chest is only a reminder of the ocean, the terrible, frightening feeling of drowning. He struggles a bit, and the Genie sets down the things he was holding, reaching for Aladdin’s shoulders and holding him tightly. “Here now, don’t you go breathing in more water and making us do this all over again,” he says, and the gently scolding tone is failing to hide the genuine fear and concern. “Healer wanted to stick you in here when you were still feverish, with some cold water from the well, but when I told her you were already dreamin’ of drowning, she agreed that was a bad idea.” Aladdin nods. If they’d done that, I would have panicked. As it is, he’s trembling, drawing in short, ragged breaths.
“Here. I may not have magic left, but…" The Genie stops, dipping his hand into the bowl of soap and scooping out a large handful. He lowers it into the water, then swirls his hand around and around, splashing it like a child playing in a fountain. The room fills with a sweet smell of flowers and honey, and the water begins to froth. The surface is covered in large pearl-like balls that vanish with a soft pop when the Genie's hands brush against them.
"But this...this is magic!"
"No, it's only soap." The Genie smiles, then lifts a handful of the bubbles and blows on them. A swirl of them, glimmering with a rainbow shine like opals, floats into the air.
Abu reaches up a tiny hand to bat at the swirl of shimmering bubbles, and chitters disappointedly when they vanish into empty air the second he touches them. He reaches for the heaps of them floating on the surface of the water, but the biggest ones are in the middle, and he loses his balance and falls into the water with a plop and a fountain of bubbles. He starts to scramble out again, but Aladdin catches him by the scruff of his neck.
"Oh no you don't. If I have to have a bath, so do you." It's only then that he realizes that the Genie's playfulness and Abu's antics have made him forget his fear of the water. It's not going to hurt me. There's no one here who wants to drown me.
He scrubs his fingers through Abu's matted fur while the Genie does the same for his hair, then sets the soggy monkey safely on the side of the tub while he scrubs the soft cloth over his own skin, then hands it over to the Genie to reach the places on his back his hands can't manage.
"Thank you," Aladdin says softly as the Genie finishes pouring cooler, clear water over his head and wraps him in a soft, dry towel.
"Of course, kid. It's my job, isn't it?" The Genie has stayed as his servant, but in name only. Aladdin knows that's not what he means. It's his job because he's the closest thing Aladdin has to a parent. And this is what parents do. They take care of you when you can't do it yourself. They help you stop being afraid because you know they're going to protect you. It's not a feeling the self-reliant street boy is familiar with, but he thinks it's one he could get used to.