Drabble while I work on the kinks of this AU and stuff.
The substance is sticky, inky and black.
It looks like tree sap in the way it drips down the side of the basin. It's grainy and dark and actually sort of looks like the left overs from when you ground up the brown beans and poured hot water over them for that drink that was different from tea. Only it wasn't as fragrant. If anything it had no odor. And according to Judal when he wasn't lost to the fever, it had no flavor.
It had only recently began to come from more places than just his mouth. Honestly Sinbad was all too happy to let Judal think he was hallucinating the black liquid dripping from his eyes and nose. Honestly, he wish he was. But it stained and ruined more cloths and sets of sheets and blankets than he could keep count of, but would never ever complain about. It was a blessing alone that the substance seemed to come from a different place entirely, not forming in his stomach which allowed the magi to keep down food and drink perfectly.
This was still just the beginning and that bothered both of them equally.
It was painful.
It was taxing on his body.
It left him weak and unable to move for days at a time when these spells would happen. Personally, Sinbad would argue that it too more out of him than it did out of Judal to go through this.
He had been expecting something bad, yes of course, but nothing like this when the magi's rukh started to cleanse and purge the despair and the ugly black things inhabiting it. It was almost like the cleansing of the rukh was being personified in the black gunk that Judal had suddenly coughed up one day.
That's how it had started.
The boy had been eating away at a candied crab apple, one crunch through the candied shell was followed by a fit of coughing and at first it seemed like he had just inhaled a bit of the broken shell. At least until he threw the half eaten treat to the floor and covered his mouth and just coughed and coughed and coughed. His hands came away splattered and speckled with saliva and black bits.
But it wasn't until one night when he woke up, sitting up ram rod straight so fast that it startled Sinbad from his reading at the desk he had moved into the room (mostly to keep and eye on the magi while he suffered fevers). He had just about asked what was wrong when Judal lurched, and that same black that had painted his hands a few days before painted the sheets all the same. It seemed like it didn't want to stop, leaving the poor boy heaving and gasping before the spill came to a stop.
Sinbad was out of his chair the second Judal looked up, wide eyed and scared, the black ink like substance dribbling from the corners of his mouth and tears just at the corners of his eyes. He wasn't sure what scared him more: the black liquid or Judal's tears.
It seemed to come and go after that, but the fevers were rather constant. Judal refused help of any kind from anyone but Sinbad, and after trying to allow Yamuraiha into the room about four times and having the idiot child send weak shards of ice at her three of the four and the fourth time he threw a chair which splintered into a million pieces the moment it hit the closing door, he gave up on that.
Judal seemed to know even wen Ja'far was around, and not even the assassin could get into the room without having something thrown at him and even once Judal had chased him from the room, wand high in the air even though he had no energy at that point to cast any spells but he was feverish and vicious and the moment he stumbled back into the room he was on the floor.
The best the could do was bring things just outside; hot tea, the best and most fresh vegetables (even if Judal protested Sinbad still made him eat them) and fruits Sindria had to offer, clean sheets and cloths and a fresh change of clothes for both of them.
Months passed and everything just seemed to worsen. For the longest time Judal spent more time in a feverish fit, having his hands and ankles tied to the bed to keep him from hurting himself more often than not. The black just kept coming on and off and there was so much of it. It came like tears, streaming from his eyes when he had exhausted himself after a fit of thrashing or yelling. A few times it had oozed thick and gelatinous from his ears but that was it.
The energy in the room felt different, the dark heavy hitting feeling that followed Judal everywhere seemed to lift bit by bit.
Sinbad allowed himself very few moments to hope that maybe it was finally over, whenever the magi would calm and fall into a fitless sleep for once. Or when Judal would be conscious and willing to talk. He would always ask the king to brush his hair and help him bathe, and of course, for peaches.
But night after night the painful sobs and stomach churning noises made him only realize it was far from over.