A/N: It's not April yet, but y'all don't mind, right? See you later!
Chapter 21: Brothers and Blood
7 years ago…
Aladdin was living the life he'd always wanted. There was no school, no chores, no nagging or whispers, and no looking over his shoulder. He was truly and completely free.
He should have been thrilled.
He was miserable.
His mother was dead.
There was no getting around it. He'd been to her funeral and everything. Despite what the townspeople had said before, they now assured Aladdin his mother was going to be an angel up in heaven. She was too good for anything else, having worked so hard in life. They said she was an example for them all.
But Aladdin didn't want to follow her example. He just wanted his mom back. Why had she gone to work? Why couldn't she have stayed home? That's what normal people did. If being good got you killed, what was the point?
When Aladdin dared to ask some of these questions, he got glares and whispers from the same people who used to agree with him about his mom. They all called him ungrateful and overwrought, saying stuff like:
The poor boy, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Or:
He has no idea how hard his mother worked for him.
Or worst of all:
He has a lot to live up to.
It wasn't fair!
Aladdin hated all the talk about his mom's perfect goodie-two-shoeness. He hated that people kept saying he wasn't good enough to be his own mom's son and how they talked about her and him like they knew everything about them.
They didn't!
They didn't know anything!
But it turned out Aladdin didn't know much either. Until recently, he hadn't known half of all the goodie-goodie things his mom had done for others or that everybody else had been jealous of her. He'd thought people talked bad about his mom because she was bad somehow.
Not the other way around.
It really wasn't fair that everybody's whispers, condolences, and praise of his mother was just like one last big annoying lecture from her without her doing any of the other mom stuff like cooking him food, giving him an allowance, or tucking him in. It was the worst part of her without any of the good, but even that was over now.
It was weeks past the funeral. The money had run out and Aladdin's caregiver had thrown him out a few days ago.
Aladdin was outside for everybody to see and nobody was talking about him or his mother. Nobody had talked to Aladdin all day. Nobody had even looked at him. The boy was another fatherless, motherless orphan, another nobody with nowhere to go, and people had better more interesting things to care about.
It was another hot hot day in Agrabah and Aladdin felt the heat more than usual. His mouth was dry. His skin was itchy. His stomach hurt and he was just tired. Aladdin was so tired of everything and everybody.
And so, the newly made street rat did exactly what he dreamed of doing all those years when he was watched over, cared for, and cared about. He ignored the few responsibilities he had left and went to bed in the middle of the afternoon.
It didn't take long for him to fall asleep on some dusty hard alley floor where anyone could take advantage of him.
Hungry, dirty, thirsty, and truly defenseless, Aladdin would have died there like loads of street rats before him if he hadn't been woken up by a frightened shout from a silly oversized boy who mistook a housecat for a panther.
Today, Aladdin heard that exact same shout when Omar fell down the mosque dome. It punched through Aladdin's memories of Kassim and Syreeta, the years of regret, and his current rage.
Suddenly, life was simple again.
Aladdin's blood brother was in trouble, so Aladdin did what he did best:
Aladdin ran.
He ran and then slid down the dome after Omar. The street rat hit the flat ledge, got on his knees, and leaned forward just in time to grab the large boy's hands before Omar fell past the point of no return, but it wasn't enough.
Omar was twice as big as Aladdin and felt three times as heavy. Aladdin screamed from the effort of trying to lift up one of his oldest friends. He dug his fingers into Omar's arms and pulled as best he could, but it still wasn't enough.
From behind him, Aladdin could hear Babkak screaming too. Aladdin's second oldest brother was coming, but Omar was starting to slip despite Aladdin's attempts to hold on. Each second felt like an eternity.
Then Babkak arrived just in time to see Omar fall from Aladdin's grip.
"No!" they all cried.
Aladdin and Babkak couldn't look away as Omar plummeted down. "OMAR!" they shouted at him as if that would help, but the word could not save their brother nor could his slow reflexes.
The large boy tried to reach for the clotheslines that lay between him and the hard ground, but he didn't manage to snag a single one.
Omar smashed into the alley floor with a sickening thud. The sound of his landing silenced the street rats. Aladdin's gut twisted as blood wept out of Omar's motionless body.
"No," Aladdin breathed. Dread and an all too familiar guilt filled him.
First his father, then his mother, Kassim and now Omar.
Aladdin didn't want to believe it.
He had just wanted them to leave him alone.
He had just wanted freedom.
He hadn't…
This wasn't…
"You killed him," Babkak said from above Aladdin.
"No…" Aladdin said, trying to believe himself.
He had tried to save Omar, hadn't he?
He always tried.
Always.
But it was never enough.
Aladdin looked up at Babkak and hatred stared back at him.
The street rat didn't get to utter another word before Babkak's foot slammed into his head.
The world phased in and out of existence which is why Aladdin didn't notice at first that he was falling just like Omar.
Babkak had kicked his ear.
It was bleeding.
Aladdin's sense of balance was off.
He groped for the clotheslines like Omar had…but they slipped away like ghostly mirages.
After years of running away, Aladdin had finally faced his problems head-on, fought for what he wanted, tried his best, and did the noble thing in the end, but it wasn't enough.
He wasn't enough.
Aladdin was a fatherless, motherless, brotherless, useless, orphaned, weak, cowardly street rat and now he was going to die.
His last thought before he met the abrupt end of his fall was:
Why?
Why wasn't he ever enough?