2.27 Jiraya Recovered

“I thought you were going to make me guess on which way to go.”

“Not for anything. Please do come in.”

To his (very slight) credit, Loki is waiting for her at the door, just out of the harmful rays of the sunlight to let her in. She marches in like she owns the place.

There are a parts of the building that are cozy.

And more that are sparse.

The place is not warm, but it's not abysmal. Just... it's obvious that a bachelor has taken over recently. There is not a single curtain or decorative painting to be found. Aside from presumably some schoolwork and other reading materials, the place is painfully bare. At least the boy hasn't been here too long, she thinks.

Used to her mother's lab, a place like this is not scary at all to Jyoti. Somehow, she feels right at home.

Jiraya's room, presumably.

And there's an upstairs.

Jiraya gets up from reading his book when he sees she came up after him. “This is where you've been living?” She asks. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long.” Jiraya says. He thinks the place is haunted, actually.

Jiraya shares a story about all the ghosts he's seen here. He does his best to scare her, to see if she'll run away. She nods mildly at his story. Their parents are always talking about some crypto monster or alternate lifestate, and she used to go the graveyard to find herself, or whatever. This kid is a Sparrow for sure. “You'll fit right in.” She tells him.

Oh that's not at all creepy.

Jyo is too busy getting along with Jiraya to notice the creeping creature in the stairwell. That she had a kid with that one time. What a relief that her boy did not get that ashen complexion. Loki looks positively unalive at times.

She's too distracted by Jiraya's excitement to meet his mom and dad. He remembers that there was something he had promised to tell his sister, when he finally meets her one day, but what was it again? It's just amazing this day is already here.

“So I've left a message for a few people connected to Jiraya's case. You may not know this, but he is temporarily in my custody, just until his parentage can be proven. I'm the one who found him here. There is an ongoing investigation about the lab, and the PI's etc, including your cousin- have to obtain permission from a judge for him to be returned to you family permanently.”

Jyo gets a tiny little twitch in her eye. “Are you saying that you, or they- aren't sure who he is?”

He shakes his head at her minutely. “Not me, personally. I know as I have my ability to look ahead. But if your parents want to do a blood test it may help convince the court to move things along. Either way I can let him go with you to meet them today. But if anyone asks, say that I was there to supervise the visit.”

“to meet... the judge?” Jyo is not used to not being able to follow along on a conversation.

“No, your parents.”

“Huh. My dad will never tell anyone that.”

Loki chuckles. “That's right he wouldn't want to. Anyways I'll be along later on to see if I can help in any way. I don't want to discolor the reunion that they've been waiting on for so long.”

“You really... found my brother.” It finally starts to sink in further than surface level.

He nods grimly. “He needed to be found.”

Jyo watches him for a few moments and gets the distinction that this is a way for Loki to apologize for not knowing what his wife was up to. “I just can't believe that someone would... I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it all.”

She takes some deep breaths and collects herself, not used to having to be an adult so much as lately. She finally knows what to say to her brother. “I know it's sudden, but our parents, they've been waiting a very long time to meet you. Do you want to, Jiraya?”

He watches Jyo as she explains. All the reasons it'll be alright, all the ways in which he has been missed. The move here to this city was just for them all to see each other again. He's amazed she can keep her voice from shaking.

Her brother loves when someone knows his real name, it's soothing and exciting, and a bit scary. But he can't refuse to go with her ultimately, being the brave child that he is.

Loki... is going to be sad to see him go, a bit. It's been distracting, having a child around when he has machines to build and things to invent or sell, but it's so nice seeing things through his youthful eyes at times. Every moment it seemed that Jiraya was discovering something new and asking questions. It may be too quiet without him here. When he can move in with his parents again, he'll get to be with Casimir, and that will be good for both of them, in the long run.

Everyone having agreed, he watches Jyo and Jiraya leave.

It was what was right to do, right now. So he'll be satisfied with that.

Jiraya loves biking more than riding in a car. Probably because, cars take him to uncomfortable appointments where people want to talk about what he's been through, and that's never a great time, for him.

Also it would be nice if he could see above the dashboard.

A random Wiggles sighting! Jyo doesn't get into the whole 'it's our cousin's imaginary best friend who became real with science' thing.

Meghan, predictably, perhaps, is playing with something sciency.

Jyo waves at her as they walk into the house.

She gives him an explanation of what the common rooms are, and then tries to get to know him better. “I'll go first, my favorite food (which I never get to eat because my dad will only make cheeseburgers) is Tri-tip tofu steak. What do you think is your favorite so far?”

“I don't think I have a favorite yet, but I saw an ad for cheese steak on the tv and I think I'd love to try it.”

Some gossip...

Some local gesture their parents used to spam everyone with. It comes from the town where the northern lights are. Also it's the reason that Loki looks as goofy as he does.

Some other-

“Who's your friend?” Their mom asks as she comes upstairs.

“You're my mom.” He says eagerly without preamble. You've named seventeen different celestial bodies the same name, found some incredibly rare metals that fell to earth, discovered how to infuse and change beetles with a living plasma charge, and you were once a plantsim like Nervous. A lady in the basement, said my real name is Jiraya, but she wasn't allowed to call me that. But you can call me that, right?”

...and she freezes but manages a shaky, “Jyo-what-is-this?”

Unexpectedly, Meghan has a moment of panic where she doesn't know what to do. From nothing nothing nothing for years to now suddenly there is a child in the house who knows her, she freaks out.

Then she runs to the side to hyperventilate a bit and remember how to breathe.

This makes any of Jiraya's remaining fears about meeting his family evaporate. She seems more scared to meet him.

Jyo just laughs at her.

And Meghan gets up to give him a hug. She can't talk for a while. She eventually finds her voice. “I just thought I'd never get to see you again, my Jiraya.” He squeezes her even harder when she uses his name. Even better is the way her voice softens when she says it.

Dustin wanders upstairs to see what's got everyone fussing, and stops short.

“Loki found him. I think he can stay.” Jyoti says reverently.

Dustin has to explain that he just cried like a baby because he's happy.

“Your picture will be right here because you're the actual cutest.”

Dustin assures the boy that a blood test will be no problem. He can stay as long as he likes, and they will go get blood drawn as soon as the hospital opens in the morning, and bring the results to 'as many d*mn courtrooms as they have to'.

That's what the boy wanted to hear.

“That's not... I mean, he's my age, so he's not my uncle.”

Casimir isn't sure how he's supposed to take this all. He knew they've been looking for Jiraya, of course. But it wasn't a real thing until now. This boy is only about two years older than he is, and it's weird, he'd always pictured someone a bit younger than uncle Jet.

“You can bring your bike over, we'll go get whatever things you want to keep in the morning...”

“You are still my special guy.”

Grandma is no nonsense, so her assurances work for the time being. Casimir hasn't lost his place and his family still loves him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome home, Jiraya~!

So-o, about my roles, I must now be called some sort of names, probably. This is not intentional cheating, but Jiraya will be in the house after this. He's about a day (or six sim months) from being a teenager, but my reasoning is that I wanted to let the story be driven by what occurs in game, as much as possible. As it's been a while and Malcolm, Jiraya, and Emir, are all living in town I've been sending Jyo out driving or whatever once every so often to see if they encounter each other 'naturally', which would have dictated the next part of the plot. If she never encounters Malcolm, he 'stays dead' according to the main story. For the kids I figured they would get to know each other in school, but that never really happened, and although Dustin did encounter Emir as a lost toddler once during a show (didn't make it into the blog), the timing of this encounter made sense to write about (Jyo having dreamed about seeing a certain vampire in the rear view mirror so long ago was too similar to how Jiraya appeared to pass up). Seeing as having one more kid for one life state (teen), is only a draw on finances and makes the challenge harder, I went with it. Dustin and Meghan each are at the last days or so of their lives, so it's overtime here on out, and I couldn't ignore Jiraya showing up. I like there to be an element of randomness to how the story goes, and I try to plot around that stuff.

Thanks for reading!