Chapter Text
After being sworn to absolute secrecy on the subject of Kaiqrata, Rupert was released from the infirmary. He had also been reinstated as watcher, which he hadn’t expected. He would have to prove he hadn’t forgotten any of his training, but besides that the rest of the council was acting like the past three years of his life hadn’t happened. After spending eighteen years around watchers, he couldn’t believe they were willing to forgive him after he rebelled, left the council, become a hedonistic wizard in a group of hedonistic wizards who summoned a demon for the high… He wouldn’t have forgiven himself.
‘You were a very naughty watcher, weren’t you?’ Kaiqrata teased, snooping on his thoughts as he sat on the train home. Home meaning the house he had inherited from his parents, not his filthy London flat.
‘Shut up, I made mistakes, I know it. I don’t need snark from a djinn.’ Rupert snapped at the being in his head.
‘Ooh, touchy touchy,’
‘I screwed up and one of my friends died. I know you’re an almighty’ Rupert put as much sarcasm as he could into the word, ‘djinn who has spent the last few centuries in a jar, but surely you’ve had at least one friend once.’
‘No actually, djinn are very solitary creatures. We live purely for our own amusement and usually when two different djinn run into each other their ideas of amusement clash and then whole civilizations are wiped out,’ Kaiqrata answered. ‘Never understood why you mortals bothered with the whole friends and family thing.’
‘Are you sure that the other djinn didn’t just tell you that so they’d never have to put up with you?’ Rupert asked.
‘How DARE you?!’ the outraged response made Rupert wince. He wasn’t sure how something could be too loud when it didn’t actually make any sound, but the djinn managed it.
‘Keep it down you overgrown sprite,’ he muttered.
‘Call me that again and I will find a way to kill you,’ the djinn promised.
‘You can’t do anything but yell in there, so don’t make threats,’ Rupert answered. ‘Anyway, can I call you Kai? Your name is so long.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Kai answered before blocking himself off from Rupert to sulk. Giles sighed. His new life was going to require a lot of adjusting.
What surprised him though, was that Kai wasn’t the most difficult thing to adjust to. He was a cynical irritable bastard who liked to contribute or complain at random, but Giles could deal with him. It was frustrating and startling at times but manageable. The thing that was driving him to desperation was the inability to use his magic. He had never realized just how much he relied on it.
The first thing he needed to do was clean up the house so he could live in it again. He had let it go to seed somewhat since he inherited it He had expected it to be a simple task, but without magic he worked so slowly. He reached for it to finish the simplest tasks, and it wasn’t there. It was like missing a step on the stairs every five seconds. It didn’t help that every time it happened Kaiqrata laughed at him. That continued until Rupert dropped a box of books on his foot.
‘ARGH! What is that?!’ the djinn roared in his head as Giles swore and hopped up and down irritably.
“What is what?” he asked, aloud, too frustrated to bother with silent communication.
‘That horrible sensation in your foot,’ Kaiqrata grumbled. ‘I hate it, stop it.’
“That’s called pain, it’s what happens when you hurt yourself. You can feel it?” RUpert asked.
‘Yes, I feel it, I inhabit this body too,’ the djinn whined. ‘Everything is more distant than if I was in my own body but I am not insensate. Djinn don’t get hurt. I don’t like this.’
‘Well then can you stop giving me headaches?’ Rupert asked.
‘Oh is that what those are? I thought your tiny brain was just like that,’
‘Will you stop being an antagonistic bastard for five minutes?’ Giles demanded. ‘We are stuck with each other, all right? So we can either get along or make each other’s lives hell. What’s it going to be?’
‘This life is already hell! I’m trapped in your body, with no control, in England where sunshine is rarer than unicorns, and to make everything worse, you’re a watcher,’
'What is it going to be, djinn?' Giles growled.
'Okay fine,' Kai snapped. 'We can attempt to get along.'
'Good, on my side that means you stop mocking me at every opportunity, call me Rupert instead of 'idiot human' and don't yell so much, is that acceptable?'
'Only if you turn up the heat, try to find sun every now and then, and do your best to avoid being despicably dull.'
'Sounds like a deal,' Rupert said. 'Now I need a cup of tea,'
Kaiqrata didn't say anything to that but when Rupert wrapped his hands around a cup of strong black tea with two spoonfuls of sugar he felt a happy sort of hum from his companion. He didn’t ask about it until a few days later when he took his tea into the garden and sat in the sun. Kaiqurata practically purred with pleasure whenever Rupert sat out in the sun and it was something Rupert actually enjoyed.
‘Could you drop a few mint leaves into the tea?’ Kai asked, surprising him.
‘I suppose,’ Rupert agreed, plucking a few leaves off a nearby mint plant and dropping them into his mug. ‘You like tea, huh?’
‘I’m a civilized being aren’t I?’ Kai asked.
‘Where are you from originally?’ Rupert asked him curiously.
‘Jordan,’ Kai answered. ‘Where we have proper weather, instead of your English nonsense.’
‘That's why you're always whining about the cold is it?' Rupert asked.
'Yes,' the djinn agreed. 'I never willingly spend time in places like this.'
'Will you tell me about your past?' If he was going to share his life with the djinn, Giles wanted to know him. He was surprised when Kai agreed and started telling him stories about his life before being trapped in an urn for several centuries. They were interesting stories, some of them were horrifying, some of them were funny, all of them were astounding, but Rupert didn't doubt the veracity of amy of them.