"Bits of dust and stone fell from a torrential sky.

But all he could do was try and catch the eye of the man who took them for

him.

"Mozenrath?"

"'Cause you're working

Building a mystery

Holding on and holding it in"

Mozenrath refused, in an almost business like manner, to meet his stare.

He didn't even look at him as the chaos died, but remained at close quarters.

"Mozen-?'

He was cut off as he was smothered in a big blue embrace that left him gasping.

"Little Buddy! You're safe!"

Aladdin laughed, and even to him it sounded diverted.

Then Aladdin noticed everyone was looking at Mozenrath, realizing the actions the sorcerer had taken as if perhaps the first time.

Mozenrath was stoic, a granite expression, and pointed out the gaping hold in his Citadel.

"Get out".

Without knowing why, Aladdin didn't find himself affected in the same way the others word by the utterance as they filed out.

He stopped, confused by the desperate flash in his gut, mirrored, it seemed, if only for a moment, in Mozenrath's eyes as he finally succeeding in making brief contact.

An innocent question, almost too innocent question Mozenrath saw glaring from Aladdin's face and he was all the more desperate to get them out.

Do you really want me to leave that badly, Mozenrath?

But Aladdin let himself be herded by his friends and lover to the grit heavy Carpet.

Aladdin managed one last look back, a singed and tattered imprint of Mozenrath, fading in the weighted rain, burnt into his mind.

"Yeah you're working

Building a mystery

And choosing so carefully"

Mozenrath watched them go, gauntlet sputtering in protest of the lost chance. He rubbed his hands together in a substitute for giving it sympathy.

Why the hell did he,

What did he just…?

Mozenrath's mind was working very fast, almost shaking with the feeling he had done something very stupid and very vulnerable, that was soon to come knocking at his door with it's repercussions. Perhaps it wasn't the oddest thing that he saved Aladdin. But is that even what he did? He snorted at the thought of following Aladdin's heroic antics.

He ran his hand over his face agitatedly, grimacing.

Why Dammit?

It shouldn't be his fault really, it wasn't him.

Sure, he saw the ceiling component come hurtling by gravity's grace at Aladdin.

But something besides him got him there instantly.

Allah, wasn't his whole point, his whole focus for their past encounters to get rid of him?

It would have been so infuriatingly easy to just stand there, let accident do what his stomach could not.

Doesn't every coward get his day?

Wasn't that his chance, his patchwork?

He wouldn't have had to lift a finger; fate would do it for him.

It wouldn't be murder, no, not this time.

But he botched an opportunity handed to him on a friggen silver platter!

With an angry, self-loathing cry, embarrassed and aggravated, he let loose a futile blast on the wreckage, caused by his own anger, that just proved to scatter the ruble in the empty, dusty streets.

Jasmine griped his shoulders, turning a vacant headed Aladdin around.

"Aladdin, what we're you thinking?"

He looked to her, confused, even more so as he found her eyes glossy, oddly attractive.

She was bubbling incoherently, Genie having the kindness to turn away from the pair, pretending not to see and chatting loudly with Iago, the scenery whipping below them.

He smoothed the hair away from her face, a half-gasp apology that broke her down.

He patted her back, as she sobbed away the confusion she was loosing something.

"Its ok Jasmine"

He looked toward something she wasn't seeing, buried in the material of his shirt.

"It will always be ok".

"You woke up screaming aloud

A prayer from your secret god"

Mozenrath sat up.

No, that wasn't the right way to say it.

That's not what happened.

A reflexive snap of machinery, a lever induced reaction found him suddenly vertical. Pop. He didn't even remember the trip.

In any case, sweat was pouring off him and unease was pouring in.

His eyes did a quick scan about his now cramped sleeping quarters, white walls.

Sleeping in a spare room that was, unlike the other, not yawning wide open with its dismembered structure.

Not a lot to check, he slumped back into the pillows, listening to the mile a minute pulse of his heartbeat, incestuous, ravenous and unconcerned with Mozenrath's well being. Xerxes nudged his wrist; started by the half screaming gasp he must have issued.

He buried his face in his hands, taking big, even breath's, waiting to recover his composure.

Ok, lets see. Memory number one; Living at "home". A twisted ridicule of the word, the Citadel didn't care who was living in it. It didn't matter, and so, with a shrug Mozenrath could almost see, it welcomed him to its corridors with a shadowy, half-hearted embrace. And he fell in.

He remembered the first months, Allah it was so quiet. He'd yell just to see if he could. He soon found out that, besides the nightmares that plagued him since coming back, that his life would get a lot more…complicated.

He recalled when he first felt it. Even now, it was hard to describe.

"Xerxes, leggo" he had mumbled in his sleep when it had happened: A ripping, almost chewing feeling on his hand. The feeling continued and scaled till he shot up in bed, clutching his burning appendage to his chest. He stared wide-eyed at his gauntleted hand, his vision blurred by dark and tears of pain. He wrenched at it, verging on desperate as the gnawing sensation continued and spiked with vengeance. With a sickening pop, the glove was released and a screaming silence followed in its wake.

His flesh was deteriorating, the shreds wafting and glistening.

"You feed off our fears

And hold back your tears"

A sharp intake of breath and he found a scream was still stuck in his throat.

No. No. Don't panic, that's what fools do, Analyze Mozenrath, Analyze.

He ripped a strip of cloth from his sheets and wrapped it quickly around his hand, binding it to the wrist. Almost inanely, his hand twitched and clenched, Mozenrath trying out what muscles still remained as he made his way hurriedly to the lab. Hunched over with his arm still coiled protectively around his stomach, he fumbled for a candle, the slight breath of an awake Xerxes wafting about his neck and face as the eel fussed about him. He slammed the wax stub into a holder and sat down, then cursed as he remembered the matches, though his magic will do. He pointed a shaking finger at the wick and…

Nothing.

His brow furrowed and he tried yet again, summoning what energy it took for such a simple task.

Nothing.

"Give us a tantrum

And a know-it-all grin

Just when we need one

When the evenings thin

He fell back in his chair and for a moment it looked like he was paralyzed in disbelief, which was when his body convulsed as he threw all his energy into his outstretched hands.

He slammed his good hand down on the table with a roaring declaration;

"What's Wrong?!?!"

"Master broke?" an innocently curious Xerxes asked from behind him.

Suddenly the now squealing Xerxes was sent on a one-way trip into the wall as Mozenrath's fury at himself broke whatever barrier kept it at bay.

"No I am not broke! I don't know what's wrong Dammit!" he yelled, coming a hair's breath from stamping his foot.

Xerxes just looked up, stricken and emotionally injured.

It seemed as though another storm was building in Mozenrath's quaking form as his expression contorted into wild indignance at the world about him.

He could feel it in him dammit!

His magic was there, still pulsing, still throbbing, the dull, delicious ache Mozenrath had come to know, right under the skin that betrayed him.

A dull splat sound drew his attention to the floor, where a pretty little rainfall of red was dripping from his mutilated hand.

A pal, discolored scratch scar also caught his eye.

A cynical, cold for the world smirk spread over his face, scorning only him and scaring only Xerxes.

"Of course."

He turned brusquely, surprisingly calm considering the situation, and snatched the discarded gauntlet from the bed he came upon. He shoved it on his hand upon his damp skin, unconcerned as a bolt of pain resulted.

And just like he thought, there it was.

So warm.

A vase across the room burst into shatters and fragments as a blue-black ball of magic hit it.

"So Mother dearest had it all figured out, didn't she?" Mozenrath asked dead air, voice scrabbling for purchase, cringing with a self-contempt sneer.

"She knew, She knew I'd never be able to control my magic. I was a danger to her. I was a danger to her name, her pride. "

"How charitable" he said looking at the gifted gauntlet she gave.

Oh it will let him control his powers, but not without it's price. For the next year and nights, it would continue to feed of his flesh, and somehow it turned into a twisted mockery of repentance, somewhere along the line, somewhere in his stewing and brewing.

But something knew there was another reason he didn't cast away the malcontent wear away, just remove it. It's just a gauntlet. It's just magic.

What good did it ever do him?

Why did he need his magic, did he ever try living without it?

No.

And that's why it had to be avoided, at all costs.

"Oh you're a beautiful

A beautiful fucked up man"

Mozenrath groaned, rubbing his eyes in slow, deep circles as he got up from his relatively warm bed and shrugged a cloak on mechanically.

There was no more sleep for him tonight.

A kicking early, early morning wind whipped his cloak about him.

He stood outside of his Citadel, using the glow of his magic to light his rebuilding work on his bedroom wall from the outside.

A traitorous, wistful thought slipped into his head.

Wonder what Aladdin's doing?

Mozenrath retaliated with a sneering retort:

Probably tucked in his girlfriend's bred like the extorting brat he is.

"You're setting up your

Razor- wire shrine