The eyes on Jafar's snake staff suddenly glowed a bright red and gave off a quick flash. Mozenrath let out a startled gasp as he felt a sort of shock run through him. His knees buckled as he felt something inside him being burned away- like the most intense case of heartburn in history.

Jafar's expression turned serious at the look of pain on the boy's face.

"Mozenrath…?"

Mozenrath gave off a short whine in response, clutching his stomach and getting down on his knees.

Jafar knelt down, his eyes full of concern, taking the boy by the shoulders.

"What's wrong? Come on boy, speak!"

The coolness that Jafar's touch gave him was like a blessing, now feeling that there was an entire forest fire going on inside of him. Desperately, he hugged Jafar's body closer to his, trying in vain to make the pain go away.

Jafar's eyes went wide. This was certainly unexpected. What exactly had he done to him? Mozerath's arms were wrapped tightly around the genie's waist, his face buried into his chest. The boy felt very warm against him; burning up. A fever maybe. Maybe the spell had made him sick.

"Are you okay?" Jafar whispered.

Mozenrath's grip on him tightened. "Burning up… hurts…"

That was when Xerxes hovered into the room, caught a little off guard by the scene in front of him.

"Uh… Xerxes interrupting something?"

Jafar looked up at the eel impatiently. "Where do you keep the medicine in this place?!"

"Why? Mozenrath sick?"

"Yes, he's sick!" Jafar hissed, making the eel draw back a little. "I need you to bring me something that takes care of fevers."

Xerxes looked down at Mozenrath, a look of worry practically written across his poor little face. He hovered closer, sniffing his master to see if something had poisoned him.

Suddenly, the eel shot a strong glare at the genie.

"What did genie do to Mozenrath?!"

For that instant, it looked like Jafar was about to slap the little animal's mouth off. Then Mozenrath looked up lazily from Jafar's chest.

"Nothing Xerxes… nnngh… he didn't… just… get me something…"

Loyally obeying his master, he quickly flew off into another part of the citadel in a frantic search for medicine.

Jafar looked back down at the boy, a bit worried and rather annoyed by the sudden turn of events.

"What did you make me do?"

Mozenrath breathed hard against him. "I don't know… I don't know…" He snuggled closer to Jafar, wanting to be soothed by more of that magic touch. "Mmm…"

The minutes passed by. Jafar was beginning to contemplate shoving the boy off of him as the situation seemed to look more and more awkward. But the young sorcerer held a firm death grip on Jafar's cape, which seemed to tighten with every burst of burning pain inside of him, so there he remained.

After a while, Jafar looked down at the boy to see if he was alright. His face was still buried in the genie's chest and he hadn't spoken a word for at least fifteen minutes. (And where was that infernal eel?)

"Mozenrath?"

No response.

"Look at me, boy."

Still no response.

Jafar's brow furrowed. He pulled the boy's face away from him, only to find both eyes shut and his body limp. The pain had exhausted Mozenrath into unconciousness.

It was at that very moment where Xerxes finally came back.

"We're out of tums."

Jafar put a hand to his forehead, muttering a few swears to himself.

Darkness

Darkness everywhere.

The only thing existing in the void was the voice.

"Did you really think you could get rid of it, Mozenrath?"

"I just did, didn't I?"

"You made me angry, that's what you did."

"I got rid of you a long time ago. Leave me alone."

"You're the one who woke me up."

"You're not here. You're dead."

"You know that's not true."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"You almost killed me. You put me into oblivion for five years. Don't think I'm going to just let that go."

"I'm not afraid of you, Disdain."

"You should be."

Mozenrath's eyes opened slowly. He let out a low groan, feeling quite sore but at least the hellish burning feeling was gone.

He blinked a few times, bringing his eyes back into focus. He was in his room on his bed. His shoes, cape and hat had been removed. Jafar's black lamp sat on a nearby desk. Xerxes was curled up at the foot of the bed, lost in sleep.

Mozenrath sat up.

"Xerxes." He called to the creature.

"Hzzz…."

"XERXES."

Xerxes woke up with a start, then smiling with relief at seeing his master awake. "Mozenrath okay?"

Mozenrath nodded. "Yes, I'm okay." He looked around. "How did I get here?"

The eel hovered over to his master's side. "Genie got frustrated and brought you up to your room. I helped."

The boy looked over at the lamp. "He did?"

"Yeah. Genie said he was tired of sitting on the floor being hugged."

Mozenrath looked at the eel cockeyed. "What do you mean he was tired of-" Suddenly his eyes opened wide as the memory crawled its way to the surface. A bit of color came to his pale cheeks. "Oh…"

Xerxes nodded. "Mozenrath sick?"

"Er… no. Not anymore." Mozenrath massaged his temples wearily. He was still a bit dizzy from the episode.

Not to mention a strange dream which he couldn't remember a bit of.

The eel smiled. "Mozenrath likes Genie?"

A puzzled look suddenly crossed Mozenrath's features. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing."

The boy brushed his black curly locks out of his eyes. "You can leave now. I'm fine."

"Mozenrath don't need anything?"

Mozenrath shook his head. "No. Nothing."

The eel slithered over to a bedside table where a silver bottle was. "I found medicine in kitchen. Make you feel better."

Mozenrath sighed. "I don't want anything, Xerxes. I just need some alone time for a while."

"Mozenrath sure?"

He shot Xerxes an annoyed look. "Yes. I'm sure. Now LEAVE."

Xerxes nodded and flew away.

Mozenrath let himself fall lazily back against the sheets. Still sore. He let out another sigh, only this time it was a bit longer.

He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to recall the beautiful feeling he had received after being in such closeness with Jafar. The magic. It had seemed to be a lovely combination of both warm and cool. It really helped with taking a lot of the pain away.

Jafar. Mozenrath wondered why Jafar had stayed with him that whole time. The genie had come off as being a rather "look-out-for-number-one" type of character when they had first met in the previous day. But it seemed that he had taken a bit of a liking to the boy.

Perhaps it was the way the two of them had so much in common.

They had both been sorcerers at one point in time, went on a mad quest for power, got carried away and had gotten themselves into their own little curses. One had phenomenal power but was trapped forever as a slave inside a lamp. The other was completely free, but suffered greatly from the withdrawal of magic, of which had been previously eating away at him.

Mozenrath wondered if maybe he needed Jafar for more than a genie who granted wishes.