Time for a Genie!AU, because why not. I accidentally replaced this chapter with another chapter and didn't realise it until a week later, but it's fixed now (so yes, this is the correct first chapter). I can't remember what my original notes on it were, but that's probably a good thing since most people don't read them anyway.
Anyway, hope you enjoy! Reviews are always highly appreciated.
Of all the things to have come across in amongst her cottage's previous owner's belongings, Lucy thought that a dusty, old genie lamp sitting at the bottom of one box in a large pile in the attic was one of the more mysterious objects to have found – and that was saying something, since one of the walls in her bedroom had been covered in nothing but rainbow dream catchers of various sizes when she'd first moved in.
Lucy didn't think much of the lamp, though. Having moved into the old cottage and begun clearing out the former tenants' belongings a few weeks earlier, she'd already learnt that the old couple that had owned the peaceful little cottage had collected some pretty odd things in the time they'd lived there. An old genie lamp was nothing as far as Lucy was concerned, and after contemplating what to do with it for a few moments, she merely shrugged and placed it into the washing basket beside her to take downstairs with her later.
As odd as some of the stuff Lucy had found in that house was, some of it was actually pretty cool, and Lucy thought the lamp would look pretty nice sitting on top of the fireplace once it was all polished up. And besides, considering she'd spent all the money she had on buying the cottage, she couldn't very well spend any on prettying the place up – not yet, anyway. It was honestly a miracle she'd been able to afford the house at all, especially considering the amount of land that came with it, but with the previous owners having left it all to their grown-up son with a nice house in the city, Lucy figured the ridiculously low price had just been because he'd wanted it off his hands. And as much as Lucy would've preferred having an apartment in the city, she hadn't been able to afford to be picky.
The small cottage with the overgrown garden, half an hour from the nearest town had just had to do. And really, Lucy didn't mind it that much. She could deal with the mountains of dust, cobwebs, and hours' worth of cleaning up and gardening she'd need to do, especially since she was doing it on her own.
It wasn't until a few weeks later that Lucy was sitting down after a long day of pulling weeds in the sun and planning on polishing up the old lantern, along with a few other once-shiny things she'd found in the boxes in the attic. The T.V. that had been in the house when she'd first moved in had been older than Lucy herself (well, that's what she thought at least), but after managing to pick up a part-time job at the bookstore in town, she'd been able to save enough to pick up a T.V. that was actually in colour.
So after settling on a channel to watch and making herself comfortable on the reasonably decent sofa, Lucy was picking up the damp cloth from the tub of soapy water next to her and then reaching for the first of the objects she'd laid out on her coffee table to be washed. It was the glass goblets with the gold trim first, then the crystal dove sculpture she'd found wrapped in several layers of newspaper and thought deserved to sit in front of an open window so it could catch the afternoon sun. She'd even found some old war medals in a dusty glass display cabinet, and since Lucy still had the number of the son who'd sold his parents' old cottage, she figured she'd clean them up and return the medals to him. He'd already made it clear that everything in the house was now hers to do with as she pleased, but she could at least offer the guy the chance to have some of it.
The lamp was one of the last things Lucy actually got to, and by that point, she was embarrassingly out of breath. Who'd have guessed that rubbing things and trying to make them all clean and sparkly again could be so tiring? But hey, at least the gold candlesticks she'd come across were shining. Now she could sit them on her nightstand or something.
Lucy wiped her brow with the back of her hand before picking up the dusty, old lamp and the dirty rag from her table again. She dipped it into the bowl of soapy – albeit slightly murky now – water, and crossing her legs back under herself again after shifting earlier, Lucy got to making the bronze genie lamp with the ornate swirls decorating the handle and trim shine once again.
After just a few seconds of absent-mindedly rubbing the cloth in small circles to cut through all the dust and grime that had built up over the years of sitting in the attic, Lucy felt her palm supporting the lamp beginning to heat up. She didn't think much of it at first, instead just assuming it was somehow friction causing the whole lamp to heat up. But then it really began to burn, and steam was beginning to rise when she held the wet cloth to it, and Lucy had no choice but to drop the dusty oil lamp onto the coffee table.
"Damn, what the hell…" Lucy muttered to herself. Her palm was red and tender, and there was no way that was from friction. She didn't even get a chance to convince herself that she was somehow reacting to the detergent before the lamp lurched slightly on the coffee table, just enough to knock over to goblet sitting next to it.
Lucy yelped and watched as the lamp began to jump around on the coffee table again and again, knocking over more objects near it and making Lucy fearful and quickly coming to be convinced of the paranormal – the lamp was clearly cursed… or something.
And that was when the smoke started billowing out from the spout, the dark blue and the contrasting bright purple mixing together in the air, filling the room with a light mist… And then the lamp made an audible pop as it stopped levitating off the goddamn table – Lucy hadn't even noticed it was floating until that point – and then landed back amongst the clutter, and expelled one last puff of colourful smoke.
"Oh, thank fucking god I'm out of there."
Lucy jumped so high off the lounge she ended up tipping the whole thing backwards and falling to the floor.
For a second, Lucy thought she'd been hearing things when she heard the relieved masculine voice. But then the smoke cleared and the figure of a man became clear, and then Lucy was left gawking at the man now standing in the middle of her living room.
"Good lord, it was getting cramped in there," he groaned, stretching his long arms above his head and out to the sides, and flexing each foot before him, one at a time. "And Christ, couldn't anyone have dusted once in a while?! I was almost swimming in the dust!"
Lucy was absolutely stunned. Her hands were shaking as she slowly picked herself up from the ground, hands clutching the base of the lounge as she manoeuvred to hide behind it. "You…"
"Okay, well I wasn't swimming in dust," the man – or Lucy hoped, sort of – continued. "But there was enough dust in that goddamn attic that it was getting in my precious lamp!" Really, it wasn't a very nice experience. It was only after he'd finished stretching and waving the rest of the brightly coloured smoke away from him that he noticed the cowering girl behind the tipped-over sofa, and he couldn't help but raise his blue eyebrows before making a face at her. "What the hell are you doing down there?"
What the hell am I doing…? God, what the heck is going on here?! Lucy's mind was running a million miles an hour. Surely none of what she was seeing could be real, right? There was a man – albeit a strangely attractive man, with an odd cobalt mohawk, ridiculously bright red almond-shaped eyes and… Is that fucking eyeliner? With a dark tattoo of a person across the bridge of his nose – standing in her living room, and Lucy had no fucking clue how he was there at all! It was almost as if he'd come out of the lamp itself.
All the soap had to have started getting to her. That was it. She was high – well, sort of. So she tried pinching herself, letting her nails dig into the flesh of her forearm hard enough that there'd be an indentation at least for a few minutes, and— "Ow!" she cried out. Pinching herself hurt.
"Well, that was stupid."
And apparently pinching herself didn't work, because she still had a stranger standing in her living room and staring at her like she had a third eye. Quickly, Lucy scrambled up from the ground and backed into the console table just behind her, knocking over the picture frame that sat on the very end of it.
"And that was stupid as well," the man sighed, and with a roll of his eyes, a sigh, and a flick of his wrist, the broken picture frame was piecing itself together in just a few seconds and settling itself back on the table like nothing had ever happened. "Honestly," he continued, "Are you just going to stare at me like that all day? I may not need to sleep, but come on, I don't want to stand here just waiting for you to blink. You're creepin' me out, girlie."
Lucy was completely at a loss for words, and she could only look down to the perfect picture frame now next to her hand, and then back to the man in her living room with a look of absolute shock etched on her face. "You… But… It was…"
"…Yes?" he drawled. Did she have some kind of speech impediment or was she just plain stupid?
She really was so far past confused. And dear lord, that look of absolute boredom on his pretty face was beginning to drive her insane. How could he look so bored?! He'd just come out of a fucking lamp! So Lucy snapped – just completely, entirely, and utterly snapped. "Who the hell are you?!" she screeched, her voice painfully (at least to the other's ears) higher than before and her words coming out quickly. "How the hell did you even get in here?!"
Sighing, the man rolled his eyes again. "Oh, here we go…" he mumbled. It had been such a long time since he'd had a master like that. Just once he'd like to be summoned by someone who actually knew who and what he was. Lucy's questioning had yet to end though, so when she continued to scream and get all flustered (her face was as red as a lobster by then, and oh, was it a delightful sight), he couldn't just ignore the growing ache in his head. So many years of peace – albeit dusty peace – in his little lamp, just to be summoned by the screeching demon herself. So he did the only thing he could think off, which was silence her vocal chords with a flourish of his left hand. "Okay, baby, first of all, shut up. Please."
Oh, how Lucy wanted to yell at him, but no matter how much she opened her mouth and strained herself to make noise, none came out. So she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest after making a vague gesture for the oh so polite man to continue.
"Secondly," he continued, straightening up and puffing his chest out slightly with a triumphant smirk on his lips. "I, am Bickslow. The seventh son of Attis, heir to the Kingdom of Souls, commander of the—holy fuck, you should see your face right now. I'm totally kidding." He couldn't stop himself from bursting out into laughter halfway through; keeping a straight face and introducing himself seriously had never been his thing.
Lucy gestured to her throat with a pleading look in her gentle eyes then, and Bickslow almost instantly removed the silencer around her vocal chords, before he hesitated with his arm out in front of him and asked, "Do you promise not to screech again?"
She nodded, and then cleared her throat just to make sure that he'd really reversed it. "You… The lamp…" Bickslow crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at her while waiting for her to get her words out. "You came out of the… lamp…"
Bickslow shrugged. "Well, yeah. I'm a genie. We live in lamps."
"A… A genie?" Lucy shrieked. "Genies are just myths! Legends!"
"Honey, I can guarantee you that I am not a myth. And frankly, I'm almost insulted. I mean, I'm standing right in front of you, and you think I'm a myth?" He shook his head before he muttered, "Gods, what are they teaching kids in school this century…"
Lucy was still only sure she was hallucinating. Genies weren't real. They were pure fiction – and she would know, considering she was a fiction author (or, she liked to think she was at least, although she'd yet to finish the book she was trying to get published). Still, genies were hands down, one-hundred percent, total fucking myths.
She was sure of it.
So just how the fuck did the guy with the blue hair come out of the fucking lamp? And who the hell was he really?
Curiously, Lucy stepped forward, walking around the toppled sofa to stand in front of the tall… human-thing. Bickslow only watched her with an eyebrow raised, waiting to see what his new master was up to. Close enough (yet still far enough away that she could run and hide and pretend it was all a bad dream), Lucy cautiously lifted a hand to gently prod at what she thought was Bickslow's shoulder. Except her hand never met anything solid, and instead went right through the air as if Bickslow wasn't there at all.
Bickslow could only sigh as Lucy frantically swiped her hand through the air, through his arm, across his chest, and through his abdomen. She walked around him and tested it from all angles to achieve the exact same thing.
"Are you done yet?" he asked.
Lucy stepped back quickly and cowered against a wall. "But… How?!" Her voice was high from her fear. "I can see you! But I can't…"
"Can't touch me?" Oh, how Bickslow wished she could. Most of his masters were old and decrepit. Lucy, however… Well, she wasn't anything close to that. "Yeah. Humans can't touch us."
"You say that as if you're not human."
"I'm not."
"Well, you… You look like one."
Bickslow gave half a shrug. "Our outward appearance depends on our masters," he explained, unfolding his arms to look down at himself finally. He had to admit, his current appearance was far nicer than his previous one, at least from what he could tell. His last master had had some kind of weird fetish for old dudes in ancient robes, so he'd spent the better part of three decades with a white beard down to his elbows, a wrinkly, round stomach, and a dusty white robe that was really just a glorified towel. So right then, Bickslow was definitely enjoying the presence of pants. It was drafty without them. "Depends on what they'll find most appealing, I suppose."
Lucy felt an unwelcome heat develop on her cheeks. Pfft, he wasn't appealing. Not even a little bit. Still, even if Bickslow was who he said he was (which Lucy very much doubted), she certainly hadn't expected a genie to ever look like that. Although if what he said was true, well… It kind of made sense. Kind of.
"I thought genies were supposed to be blue… And wear lots of jewellery and—"
"Like this, yeah?"
Lucy coughed as the burst of blue and purple smoke faded and cleared the room. Gone was the human-like man before, and instead in its place a floating spirit with a non-proportionately sized torso, legs that tapered off into a tail of light blue mist, shining cuffs on his wrists, and the saddest excuse for a ponytail on top of his round face. It was definitely the kind of genie that Lucy had pictured, but now that she'd seen it, she kind of preferred the other one. "Yeah… Like that…" she mumbled.
The genie shrugged and admired his new form again. "Well, this is a myth." He knew why Lucy thought that he should look that way, though. It wasn't new by any means. "Jinn have no set forms. We're different for every person who sees us. Humans needed something to believe in and tell stories about though, so they made this shit up," he said. Even he had to admit that it made sense. It was just a little frustrating sometimes.
"I see…"
Bickslow returned to his previous form with a sigh, crossing his then leather-clad arms over his chest again. "Anyway, can I get on with telling you my rules now?" he asked with exasperation.
Lucy blinked. "Rules? What rules?"
He rolled his eyes at her and did his best not to just retreat into his dusty old lamp. His new master was a fucking moron. "The rules for your wishes."
"No. No, absolutely not." She shook her head quickly as she pushed away from the wall just to pick up the bronze lamp and set it on top of her fireplace. It needed a bit more polishing, but it was still a nice centrepiece. "There will be no telling of rules because none of this is real," she insisted.
Because, really, it couldn't be. She had to be dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or… something.
"Oh, come on. This again? I thought we were past this!" Bickslow complained.
Lucy shook her head again as she struggled to heave the sofa up and set it upright. "Nope, can't hear you, because you're not real. This is all in my head."
Bickslow watched as his new master tidied up the dish clothes and the other items she'd been polishing. Sometimes, he hated being a genie. Sometimes, he hated humans, too. They could be such frustrating little creatures, set in their ways and so scared of believing in things that their world had decided didn't exist. It made his job hard, when really, it shouldn't be. He was there to serve, not try and convince some twenty-something woman that no, he wasn't a myth, and yes, he really he did exist.
Although, Bickslow seemed to realise that he wasn't going to get anywhere with that right then. It wasn't like he was in a rush or anything, but he was still impatient. He'd been cooped up in that damn lamp for far too long and he wanted to have some fun, damn it.
So, giving up, Bickslow only retreated to his lamp on the fireplace with a trail of blue and purple smoke behind him. Lucy tried not to notice it, and instead, finished tidying up just to head to bed.
She only hoped that come morning, the apparent genie would be gone and the lamp would just be an antique she'd found in her attic.
