DISCLAIMER: Weather Warden belongs to Rachel Caine.

~ Brother's Keeper ~

"You stink."

This pronouncement just about summed up Venna's irritation over Ashan's refusal to take care of the needs of his human body. He really did stink, and quite badly, which is why she decided that the first step in correcting his negligence would be to give him a bath.

She dragged him to the bathroom and filled the bathtub with warm water and gathered up bath supplies, narrating her actions aloud as she went so that Ashan would know how to do this on his own in the future. Not that he was actually paying attention to what she was saying…

After Venna's clumsy attempts at washing his hair resulted in shampoo getting in his eyes for the third time, Ashan snapped, "I'll do it myself!"

Venna was pleased that he was cooperating, although she honestly hadn't meant to get soap in his eyes. She had never washed a human before. She hadn't realized that it would be so difficult.

After bath time, she got him dried off and dressed in pajamas. ("Humans wear pajamas to bed! It's almost bedtime, so just put them on and stop whining! I don't care if you don't like kittens! That's just the pattern they have and I'm not changing it!") Actually, she took a shortcut and just used her powers to get the clothes on him, because Ashan couldn't seem to grasp the concept of how to manually put on one's pants.

Then she made him sit while she combed his hair. He acted like he was irritated by the whole process, but discovered that having his hair combed produced a pleasurable sensation.

"Now it's dinner time. I brought you human food!" She smiled at him as though she expected him to be pleased by this. He wasn't. Her smile swiftly morphed into a scowl and she snarled, "Do you want to die, idiot? You have to eat or your human body will consume its own tissues for energy!"

That sounded highly unpleasant. Ashan certainly didn't want to die from his human body digesting itself.

"I thought you were going to find out how to get me turned back into a Djinn," he said, sounding crankier than usual - which, for him, was quite a feat since "cranky" seemed to be his default mood. "Why is it taking so long that this pathetic human body could possibly die before you get me changed back?"

Unfazed by his attitude, Venna replied calmly, "I'm working on it. It's going to take some time, though, so you need to learn to do these things for yourself. I will have to leave you here on your own, perhaps for an extended period of time." She looked up at him with wide, sparkly eyes. "Please try not to die while I'm gone."

After that, he ate dinner without complaining. Somehow Venna had managed to pick only foods that he actually liked. It was hard to be irritated about being forced to eat when everything he was eating was delicious...

After dinner, there was more body cleaning - this time it was scrubbing his teeth with a little brush. He would have complained about the obscenely large amount of maintenance human bodies required, if his mouth hadn't been full of mint-flavored foam at the moment.

Then came the humiliating process of using the toilet.

And when THAT was over with, Venna declared that it was time for bed. She tucked Ashan in and asked him if he wanted her to read him a story.

He didn't want to hear a story, really, but Venna was looking at him with sparkly eyes again. Her expression told him he was supposed to be excited about this. And there was a hint of I'll kick your ass if you say no in her gaze, so he agreed.

The book she read was Alice in Wonderland - which somehow seemed oddly appropriate, considering the situation.

~end~

A/N: This was more difficult to write than I thought it would be, and turned out less funny than I had originally planned. (The line "No! Bad Ashan! Poops go in the toilet!" unfortunately had to be cut.)

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