Beans found him first.
She padded quietly into the studio and paused at the doorway, eyes narrowing. Rey was lying on the floor like an overcooked spaghetti noodle — arms splayed, paintbrush still loosely clutched in his hand, face smudged with ultramarine blue.
Beans blinked once.Then screamed.
Well, she meowed. Loudly. But it was the kind of meow that carried intent — pure feline terror mixed with, how dare you ignore me for seven hours.
Then, in a blur of glitter and bad timing, the genie appeared.
"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA—DID HE FINALLY DIE?!"
He skidded across the wooden floor in LED socks, crashing into a stack of empty canvas frames and emerging with a lampshade on his head.
Beans meowed again. Sharply.
"Right. Right. CPR. Or... Genie-PR? Hold on."
The genie snapped his fingers. A full hospital cart materialized. It held:
A plunger
A stethoscope made of spaghetti
A kazoo
And a defibrillator made of two squeaky toys
Beans stared at it all like she was filing a complaint with the universe.
The genie leaned over Rey. "Rey. Reyyyy. My dude. Wakey wakey, existential cakey."
Nothing.
He held up a finger. "Okay. Time for the classics."
He pulled out a baguette.WHAP."WAKE UP, MICHELANGELO!"WHAP.
Still nothing.
"Time for extreme measures." He summoned a speaker. Cranked it.Backstreet Boys started blaring.
"I want it that wayyyyy—" he sang into the plunger like it was a mic.
Beans knocked the speaker over with her entire body. It cracked in half.
"…Okay. Tough crowd."
Then, softly, Rey stirred.
The genie dropped the baguette. Beans froze mid-pounce.
Rey's eyes fluttered. "Whuh…?"
"HE LIVES!" the genie bellowed. Confetti exploded from the ceiling. A random chicken ran across the room. Beans jumped straight into Rey's lap like she'd never left him.
Rey groaned. "What happened?"
"You painted like a man possessed, passed out dramatically, and scared your cat. Ten out of ten performance."
Rey looked around at the mess — five half-finished canvases, a glitter trail, the remains of a croissant he didn't remember owning.
"…Did you hit me with a baguette?"
"Not important."
Beans purred loudly, kneading Rey's chest like she was personally restarting his heart.
The genie crouched beside them, serious for once. "Maybe… slow down next time?"
Rey didn't answer. He just stared at the canvas closest to him.
The paint on it… shimmered.
But not in a glitter way.
In a something's moving underneath the surface kind of way.
The genie noticed it too.
"Okay," he said, voice quieter, "that's… new."
Beans hissed at it.
And Rey, still exhausted, still barely upright, whispered:
"…I didn't paint that part.