A/N: I've been profusely reading Naruto fanfiction lately. Now I want to puke over any sap or fluff, so I've decided to keep writing this fic rabidly.

Disclaimer: I don't own Aladdin. Haillie owns part of the fic, OK? (Not the insane genie, the other Haillie. Thank you for the reviews, by the way, everybody!)

Chapter 23

Toxic

(Jafar)

Oh, Allah.

I don't know what mad sense in mother nature caused me to take Haillie on as my own genie. Hadn't I learned that Jala alone was enough to handle? But noooooooo, I had to take her up as soon as Jasmine's time was up. What kind of softened idiot had I become?

I sat, staring defiantly at the pink jinn silently. Too silently…the room pressed upon my eardrums as Haillie stared right back, and Jala ignored us both. Silence, and more silence.

"Well, this sucks," said Haillie.

I sighed, got up, and went over to my desk. There was a large stack of papers, ready for my quill to get to work. It didn't mean that the idea of signing papers for hours on end was particularly entertaining to me at the moment, but anything was better than sitting around with two genies, both of which now expected me to make wishes. Five wishes, in total.

I was just about to sit down, when I slipped on a banana peal and fell forward, cursing as my rib cage caught on the table edge. Automatically, I tipped forward from the impact. Jala reached out to catch me, and then we ended up kissing.

It was an odd sensation, to say the least, with your rib cage wrapped around a table edge and kissing your jinn. I don't really know how to explain it, since I don't believe it's ever happened before.

And then I realized what I was doing, and pushed away, and spat a few times into the wastebasket. Iago was making kissing sounds. I shut his cage door in his face. "Hey! What's the big idea?" he squawked angrily. I wiped my saliva on the back of my sleeve, (something I had meant to leave behind in grade school), and glared at my parrot. "Don't get your feathers ruffled."

I promptly sat down at the table properly and acted as if nothing unusual had happened, though I felt the blood rushing from my neck and tingling my face. Haillie sat silent, with her mouth open wide enough that it probably would have touched the floor, and her eyeballs were looking back and forth in between me and Jala, as if trying to decide who's reaction to watch first.

Me, well, I avoided looking at Jala and spent the day signing papers. The scratching and scratching of my quill was all you could hear for the next half day. Jala stayed there on the table, annoyingly, the entire time, though Haillie left in a huff, sniffing under her breath, something about "Men."

At last, I was finished with the last paper. Slowly, I looked up. Jala's cheeks were an odd shade of brown, which I guessed was the effect with red on green. She was staring, wide-eyed at me with those large, kohl-outlined eyes. I propped myself up and waited for her to say something.

"Well? Are you going to gape all day?" I finally asked irritably when she failed to utter a single word.

Jala shook her head and looked down. "Sorry. I didn't mean to…er…kiss you," she finally whispered. I snorted and stood up, getting ready to go out of the door. "I guess I was right then, wasn't I?" I said, pausing at the front of the open door. Jala looked up. "About how you couldn't resist me?" I closed the door before the lamp she threw at me could hit.

…………………….

My feet had a mind of their own. They took me down several corridors, even though my mind wasn't really into it. An odd feeling was swimming somewhere in my mind, though I tried my best to stamp it out. I clouded my judgment and made it absolutely impossible to think. I couldn't figure it out, for the world of me, what it was.

At last, I found myself in front of Aladdin and Jasmine's door, (they had moved in together). Tentatively, I knocked. Sorrah answered, looking sweaty and slightly hassled.

She had a duster in her hand.

"Ah, Jafar," she muttered and stood aside for me to go in.

Jasmine looked up from her book, where she was reading it on the bed. Aladdin had his arm slung loosely around her waist, and was reading over her shoulder. The two of them looked like that they had never been alone in their lives, sitting molded together like that. It gave me an odd pang somewhere in between my stomach and my heart.

"Oh, I assume you're here about Haillie," said Jasmine immediately. I shook my head, taking a moment to realize what she was talking about, and then nodded abruptly. "Ah, yes. Haillie."

The conversation didn't actually get much further than that. Aladdin hurriedly left, mumbling something about "tea", Sorrah missed very many dusty spots and abuprtly moved to the next adjoined room. It was just me and Jasmine. "Sit, please," she motioned, picking up her book again. I did. My knees seemed to give out.

"Jafar, please, take me seriously on this," she said suddenly after a long stretch of uncomfortable silence. I sat forward to listen, and did that trick of pricking my ears. The princess laughed. "Well, anyways. Haillie's been with me a long time. It's so strange, not having her here. But, I need to ask you a favor."

I looked warily at her.

"You already have Jala, with two wishes left, and Haillie, with three fresh ones. You don't even know what to do with them, so I beg of you. Those two are good jinn. I think that you should wish them free. Even if you did decide to agree with me, it would still leave you three wishes. I don't care what you use them for, just promise me that it won't be for an evil purpose again."

I cringed. She had hit my weak spot.

Jasmine smiled softly at me. "I know, that's a lot to digest, but please, consider it." I sat back, regaining my calm manner, and said smoothly, "I will consider it."

"But there's something else, isn't there? That's bothering you?" she asked softly, so that Aladdin couldn't hear. I swallowed, and shook my head slowly. "Jafar. Men are all open books. I can tell. If you won't tell me, at least talk to Aladdin about it." I shook my head more violently. The street rat? Never.

The princess sighed, and picked up her book again. "Men are all the same: stubborn."

A/N: Hope you liked! It was written in a hurry, so…