Chapter Text
Grim, the little monster that he is, had apparently never been told not to play with fire. Spurred on by Ace and Deuce, and unaware that the gas stove had been malfunctioning, he decided to send a friendly fire warning - and promptly blew the kitchen up.
Shockingly, Crowley agreed to use university funds to help with the repairs (mumbling something about strict residential zoning laws having minimum living standards), but that didn’t solve the core problem of how to handle food for the next 60 days. Lunch was covered in the cafeteria, but most students ate their breakfast and dinner at their dorms.
For the first few days, you and Grim lived off a mini fridge and snacks.
“I miss home cooked meals,” whined Grim at lunch.
“It wouldn’t have been too bad before the remodel, but I got spoiled from having a nice kitchen,” you agreed.
Ace and Deuce looked down at their plates guiltily.
“Grim!! Yuu!!!” A familiar voice shrieked a few tables away. You saw Kalim sprinting over from across the room, with Jamil a few steps behind, walking at a reasonable pace while looking at the spectacle with a tinge of disgust.
“I heard the news,” Kalim wailed. “Your beautiful kitchen!”
“Right after you put all that effort into the remodel, too,” you said sadly.
“What are you guys doing for food now?” Jamil asked.
Grim groaned. “My hench-human has only been feeding me fruits, yogurt, and different dips!”
“Don’t put this on me,” you shot back. “Whose fault was this in the end anyway?”
“You can’t just live like that,” Kalim shook his head. Only the heir to a fortune would think that was an unacceptable lifestyle. He grinned. “Oh, I know! You should just come over to Scarabia for meals, and eat with us! It won’t be so hard for Jamil to make food for two more people!”
“I don’t know—” you side eyed Jamil, who clearly muttered something under his breath about being volunteered for yet another task by the sweet but clueless Kalim.
“YES!!” Grim shrieked. “Real food! And Scarabia food is so good!”
“I would hate to be an inconvenience,” you said.
“It’s nothing,” Jamil murmured, although you doubted how honest he was being. “Like Kalim said, cooking for a few more people is no big deal.”
Dinner, as expected, was absolutely mouthwatering. Kalim declared you two guests of honor and insisted on throwing you a “sorry your kitchen blew up” party.
While you were embarrassed by the ostentatiousness display, you weren’t exactly in a position to complain. You felt like the spice completely cleared out your head, and Grim was sitting next to you, chomping loudly and making satisfied noises.
The delicious food only worsened the guilt from freeloading on Scarabia (mostly Jamil) though. Jamil refused to let you help with cooking, saying that he already had an alternating schedule with the Scarabian students and he didn’t have time to teach someone the ropes. He’s been a lot more blunt since his overblotting incident. While he kept his placid (if mildly annoyed) default expression in place, he no longer stopped himself from telling people off, especially the ones privy to his real personality.
But you wouldn’t need any instructions in order to clean the kitchen, right?
You decided to sneak out and at least do a few dishes while the dinner party was in full swing.
You shouldn’t have been surprised, but Jamil was already in the kitchen, cleaning some pots and pans.
“Why aren’t you at dinner?” you blurted out in surprise.
“I could say the same to you.”
“Well, you were the one that cooked dinner! Shouldn’t the other students be cleaning up?”
Jamil gestured at several pans. “Last week, Kalim scrubbed off half the seasoning from these century old cast irons. And now I have to reseason them all. Nobody’s going to touch them but me anymore. But the other student shift will clean up the rest of the dishes in half an hour or so,” he added.
You headed over to the sink to get started.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“I can’t just freeload off you. If you cook, I can clean in return. It’s only fair.”
“Very nice of you to offer, as expected from you,” Jamil said dryly. “But are you sure you want to be alone in a room with me, after everything?”
You froze.
It was a bit foolish for you to forget. It’s true that it was a…bit risky, to say the least. Jamil’s power was most dangerous in one on one situations, and as a human with no magic, there was very little you could do to stop him.
“The fact that you warned me already makes me feel less worried,” you concluded optimistically. “Although I hope you don’t take offense to me avoiding direct eye contact.”
“Smart choice. You shouldn’t trust anyone at this school, really, least of all me.”
“Besides, what in the world would you get out of hypnotizing me?”
“What indeed.”
You spent the next half an hour washing dishes next to him in silence.
Weeks went by, and your kitchen remained toasted. Crowley insisted that it was hard to find contractors with no notice, and you supposed that the school wasn’t about to shell out extra money to get them to speed up their schedules.
And so, your daily kitchen cleanup chores with Jamil continued. After a few days, you managed to convince him to let you help with the cast irons once you proved you were responsible enough, and got a free lesson on reseasoning out of it.
A few weeks later, you coaxed him into letting you help with the cooking prep along with the other Scarabia students — valuable cooking experience that would pay off once your kitchen was finally fixed. Jamil was kind enough to send you home with some spice samples (and a lot of his knowledge).
Despite having joined the cooking crew, you kept up cleanup duty. And every day, when you got into the kitchen, he checked: “Are you sure you want to be in this room alone with me?”
It was kind of overkill, to be honest. You got the message. Trust nobody. Stay wary and all that.
It’s not like you didn’t see what he was trying to say. You weren’t that stupid, his power was incredibly dangerous, and having people around provided a bit of a safeguard. You could have waited til later in the evening when the full cleaning shift arrived, or simply skipped out on helping.
Still…what exactly would he get out of it anyway? You were magicless and a nobody. You didn’t have secrets like Azul, or access to a fortune like Kalim. And after the overblotting incident, it really seemed like he learned his lesson.
You avoided eye contact and figured that was good enough. And besides…you kind of liked his company.
Eventually, Jamil let his guard down a bit around you. Despite the fact that his cover wasn’t completely blown after the overblotting incident, the facade cracked a few times during your moments alone with him. Mostly they were when Kalim’s name came up — one session he spent the entire time venting about how Kalim volunteered him to coordinate a party with less than 12 hours notice. You didn’t envy his job. Kalim was sweet, but a nightmare as a boss.
The other thing you learned about him was that Jamil was a bit of a control freak.
You always knew he was overprotective of course, it was obvious with the way he hovered around Kalim. Still, that could be excused by his job as his attendant, of course he was expected to baby the wealthy heir. But it seemed like Jamil’s motto was if you needed something to be done right, you had to do it yourself.
You saw it in the way he led the cook crew — put the spices in this order, time the baking to the exact second, etc, etc. He hovered over the students and corrected even the slightest of mistakes. You finally understood why he was hesitant to let you join at first. He had a schedule and a routine, and he did not like when people deviated from it. He must have really been desperate to execute his Kalim ousting when he let Grim help with cooking during the holiday break.
To his credit, the end results when he led a task were always better than anyone else’s. It would have been a bit annoying, if you hadn’t been so drawn to him. Instead, you found it quite endearing.
The other memorable display of bossiness was a particularly humiliating moment when you had spilled a bowl of water all over you while you had been doing the dishes. Scarabia was incredibly hot though, so you figured you could change right before you headed back to Ramshackle. You weren’t a frail anime girl who got a cold from 30 minutes of being in damp clothing.
10 minutes in, Jamil came up to you with a men’s shirt and a towel.
“Prefect, stop cleaning and go change.”
“It’s fine, it’s super hot, I’ll just change before I head out,” you insisted.
“Go change and dry off right now. I mean it.”
“Come on, Jamil, don’t treat me like a kid. It’s fine.”
You turned around (not quite making eye contact, as usual), and realized that his normally calm look was gone and he looked furious. “Prefect. This is the last time I’ll say it. Go, or you’ll never eat another meal at Scarabia again.”
“Fine!” You grabbed his offerings and stomped off.
“Asshole,” you muttered under your breath as you headed over to change. It’s only when you got to the mirror when you realize exactly why he was being so insistent. Your pale shirt and flimsy bralet meant that you more or less looked naked in your wet clothes. Your hard nipples were fully visible through the see-through cloth.
Oh god, you were going to kill yourself.
You slunk back to the kitchen, in no risk of making accidental eye contact. He was right. You would have never gone back to Scarabia if anyone else had seen you in that getup. You’d never live it down.
“I know I seem like a control freak,” he started, and you winced. Does he read minds too? “But in my defense, I’m usually right.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. I’ll listen to you next time.”
“You better.”
“The kitchen should be fixed next week,” you said, breaking the news.
After a long 3 and a half months, Crowley finally got it all handled. Though you suspected there was some dragging on his part, there wasn’t much you could do about it. All’s well that ends well.
“I’m looking forward to applying all the cooking techniques I’ve learned from you over the last few months. Although dinner for two will be pretty lonely after getting used to all the fanfare here at Scarabia.” You forced a smile. You hated to admit it, but just thinking about it made you feel a little lonely. Sure, you’d see him around school, but you had gotten used to regular uninterrupted time with the gorgeous sophomore.
“Well, don’t be a stranger,” Jamil said lightly.
You turned around, getting back to the chores in front of you, trying not to sound too disappointed. “Trust me, I don’t think you could keep me away for too long. The food alone would lure me back, kitchen or otherwise.”
“Hey, prefect?”
You turned around to see him staring at you intently. For the first time in months, you accidentally looked directly into his eyes. You knew you should look away but for two seconds, you stayed entranced by the depths of his charcoal eyes.
Just a few seconds couldn’t hurt, right? He was just so…beautiful.
Jamil grinned, and your stomach dropped at the deja vu. The last time you saw that wide, deranged smile…
“The one you behold is your master. When I ask you a question, you will answer. When I give you a command, you will assent. Snake whisper.”