Screaming, in retrospect, was a perfectly justified reaction.

After all, the blue glass bottle she'd uncorked had started shaking, trembling so hard in her hands that she'd dropped it. It had thunked so hard on the ground she was sure it would break, but instead it rolled two feet before hitting the wall with a thud, green fumes spewing from its mouth.

And of course, after coughing and waving her arms around to dispel the fumes, when she'd seen a strange man sitting cross-legged on the floor in her previously empty attic, chin propped on his fist and staring at her with a scowl on his face… well, screaming was the very least she could have done.

"Calm down," he advised her, voice cool like he wasn't the intruder in her home or anything. "So what the fuck do you want?"

Petra looked around frantically for a weapon of some sort, something to defend herself with, anything at all, but all she saw were the piles of clothing she'd unearthed from her mother's many boxes and… the bottle. She grabbed it by the neck and held it like a baseball bat, all too aware of how small it was, how little damage it would probably do.

"Really now." The man's expression didn't change, but there was a hint of something like amusement coloring his tone. "You're going to try to attack me with my own prison. Go ahead, try. I'd gladly watch you succeed, but let me tell you, that shit's unbreakable. You could run it over with a car and the tires would probably burst."

"Where the hell did you come from?" Petra demanded, her grip tightening on the bottle. It was oddly warm in her grasp, like warm currents were swirling around in it, but she couldn't risk taking her eyes off the stranger.

"I've been in that thing for don't-know-don't-give-a-fuck-how-long but even I know you mortals have heard of these things. Aladdin? That name ring a bell?"

Aladdin, the story of the boy who found the genie in the lamp—of course she'd heard of it, and she supposed the fumes and the man's sudden appearance would make sense that way, but—"That's ridiculous," she said, but she lowered her arms an inch because the man was still sitting on the ground like he wasn't planning on getting up anytime soon. "Genies don't exist."

He snorted. "Right. And I suppose you'd believe me if I told you humans don't exist?"

"But…" Petra had never thought much about the supernatural before; sure, she'd read books and watched movies and listened to ghost stories, but she'd never thought any of them had any inkling of truth. She'd never imagined any of them outside the realm of fiction. "You can't be a genie. You're wearing…"

"Were you expecting a turban or something?" He shook his head like he was disappointed by her naiveté. "It's the twenty-first century. If I can do shit like make people rich or famous or find them true love"—he said the words true love the way most people would say toe fungus—"then I can change my outfit in accordance with the times."

Well, he did look very normal, apart from the fact that he'd just suddenly appeared out of nowhere in her attic; if it weren't for that fact, she probably wouldn't glance twice at him if she passed him on the street. (Well, maybe she would. Because his hair looked very soft and well-kept. And his features were even and his face kind of sort of maybe very handsome. And that button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows did accentuate very well a physique that was nothing to scoff at—but that wasn't the point here.)

Still. She'd lived twenty-two years of her life not believing in things like fairies and zombies and oh right, genies, and her brain wasn't ready to start now. "I don't know how you got in here," she said, waving the bottle threateningly at him, "but you'd better leave now before I call the police. I don't know what trick you pulled with this but—"

"For fuck's sake," he groaned, standing in one fluid motion. She gulped and backed away, but he didn't move towards her, and—that was funny, he was about as tall as she was.

"I technically can't do anything until you wish for it, so I guess you could try instead. To break that." He gestured at the bottle. "Throw it at me. As hard as you can."

"And leave myself with nothing to defend myself with? No way."

He nodded approvingly. "You're not a complete idiot. That's good."

"What would be good is if you got out of here. Right now."

"Believe me," he said, crossing his arms, "I would love to, but I'm stuck with the bottle. And since you opened it, I'm stuck with you. Until you make three wishes. Then I'll fuck off and you'll never see me again. So go on. Make a wish. Wish for something stupid if you want, like a steak, a bottle of beer, and a cigarette. Then we can get this shit over with."

"I don't believe you," Petra said, but with less conviction this time. She'd read stories about genies before, had always thought three wishes sounded awfully nice, but she had never thought the chance was even possible. If she could actually—

"Well, you probably won't listen to me, but that's how it is," the man said bluntly. "I'll follow you around and you can scream and call the police all you like but I'll be back. Until you make three wishes and then I'll be gone. You don't have to believe me. Just make a wish."

She stared hard at him; he looked perfectly serious. His eyes were a pale blue-gray sort of color, clear and calm, not a hint of amusement or madness in them. He looked very normal, civilized even, not at all like the genies she'd read about in books with their intangible, floating bodies that began to dissipate into smoke around the waist. No, this guy definitely had legs, which looked quite nice in the jeans he was wearing, muscular and strong and—she was going to stop that train of thought right there.

Could he be for real? Maybe he was actually insane, maybe she was being foolish, but the smoke from the bottle had seemed legit. And there really had been nowhere he could have hid in the attic; the boxes were all too small for him or packed too tightly together. And she never left the doors in the house unlocked, and—

"I'm not saying I believe you," she finally said carefully, "but if I do make a wish I'll have to think about it."

"Of course," he said, like he hadn't expected anything else. " I'll be right here."

And then he sat down on the floor again.

"What are you doing?"

He gazed up at her through half-lidded eyes. "I'll be right here," he repeated. "I'm a genie, djinn, whatever you want to call it." The words were sour in his mouth. "I exist to serve people. Technically you're my master, but I'm not going to call you that and if you try to make me I'll shove that bottle up your ass."

Well, he certainly was touchy. "You can't just stay here," she said, choosing to ignore his last comment. "Can't you… find a hotel or something?"

"The closer I am to you the better," he said, and Petra wanted to laugh because in another context, words like that might be considered romantic, but he spoke them as if he were reciting textbook instructions from How To Take Care of Your Cranky Genie. "I don't need much food and shit anyway. I can live here and you can bring me a sandwich or whatever once a day until you've made all three of your wishes."

"You can't just stay here," Petra said again, this time slightly aghast. "You can't stay locked up in an attic all day."

"I've been stuck in a bottle for fuck-knows-how-long," he pointed out. "This attic is big compared to that."

Right, another thing she couldn't wrap her mind around. "It's not possible," she said, holding up the bottle. The glass was cool now, and it looked like any other perfectly ordinary souvenir bottle. "A person can't fit in this."

"I'm not a person," he reminded her. "I'm a fucking spirit servant, at your service. You want to make a damn wish now?"

She sighed. "You might as well come downstairs then—but walk slowly, stay away from me, and if you try anything funny I'll bash you over the head with this so hard your ancestors will be seeing stars."

"Yeah, if I had any," he said dryly, but he stood again. She kept a close eye on him, watching his hands and feet in case they made any sudden movements as he inched his way towards the attic door and the staircase beyond. She followed him down, staying five steps behind, and fingered the neck of the bottle as he reached the hallway below, leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets.

"I have some leftover Chinese food in the fridge," she said slowly, gauging his reaction. She might have imagined it, but she thought something like a trace of wistfulness flashed over his face, and then was gone, his usual bored expression replacing it.

"I have no idea what I'm going to do with you," she told him as she pointed him down the hall and followed at a measured place. "I still don't believe you, just to let you know. But you don't have to worry about me making you call me your master or anything—I'm Petra. And I'd say it's nice to meet you, but I'm still iffy about this whole thing so I'm holding off on the pleasantries for now."

"Petra," he said. Her name sounded good in his mouth, his voice warm around the two syllables, and she had to fight back a ridiculous fluttery feeling in her chest. "You can call me whatever the hell you want but my name is Levi."

"Levi," she repeated, and then because it just seemed to be an ingrained reaction to learning someone's name: "It's nice to meet you."

"I thought you were holding off on the fucking pleasantries," was his only response as he quickened his footsteps so that she had to hurry to catch up with him, and she sighed. Maybe her first wish should be for him to learn to speak without swearing. If it worked, she'd believe him about the genie thing without a doubt.

A/N: I may continue this if anyone's interested.