Jeff's despair and Mike's growing desperation were interrupted with a thunder crack and a pillar of smoke. Jeff yelped, and Mike's paternal instincts briefly overrode his Djinn instincts as he moved to stand between whatever this was and his son.
[No!] Mike thought to himself, [It's taken too long, someone's come to destroy Jeff and me or both!]
That certainly seemed to be a reasonable explanation, since an elder Djinn stepped out of the pillar of smoke. For a brief moment, Mike, at least, saw the being as they truly were - ancient power formed of the smokeless fires of life itself, 'mortal' in the sense that they would die someday but with a lifespan measured in millennia, as close to a pure marriage of Form and Will as could exist in this level of Creation...
...and then, the Djinn was a little old man, in a slightly well-worn suit of dark tweed, white hair tied back in a pony-tail and an amiable smile nearly hidden by the bushy white beard. The old man waved his hand as if to dismiss the smoke.
"Phew! I know it's tradition to Make An Entrance at these things, but I always worry I've overdone it on the pyrotechnics."
The elder Djinn chuckled with benevolence, but Mike still stood warily between him and Jeff.
"Who..." Mike started.
"Ah! Yes, my name is - ah, well, you can CALL me Yohannon. I'm your...welcome wagon? Orientation leader? However you want to look at it, I'm the Djinn who's responsible for welcoming you to our ranks and helping you and Jeff settle happily into your new lives."
Mike and Jeff began talking at once.
"But I don't want a new life!"
"He won't listen to me, you can't destroy him, I'll figure something out!"
Yohannon held up his hands in a pacifying gesture.
"Whoooooa! Settle down, the both of you! Strictly speaking I'm early, but I saw you were having some trouble with a misunderstanding."
Mike and Jeff exchanged a dubious glance.
"What misunderstanding?" asked Mike.
Yohannon looked indulgently incredulous.
"Oh, come now. Djinn have been around as long as humans and we live for thousands of years. Why, my own parents, may they rest in peace, were part of the very first generation of Djinn. And you think, in aaaaall that time, we've never had kids with humans before? Good grief, there's been thousands! Hundreds of thousands! We know how to handle this by now, trust me. Nobody is losing their kid and nobody is losing their dad! Everybody take a nice, deep, cleansing breath."
Jeff and Mike seemed to relax a little, but Mike was still on edge. His every piece of information so far had come from instinct, after all, and instinct is rarely allayed so easily.
Yohannon stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder.
"You're nervous. You know our most ancient laws instinctively, but things have changed a lot in the last three thousand years; unfortunately, our ally wasn't able to help us modify the Old Laws before he died - humans spend so little time in this incarnation, you know. So, let's get started. May I sit?"
Mike shrugged.
"Uh, sure. Um, ally?"
"I think in English you call him Solomon."
Jeff looked confused.
"I...thought he imprisoned genies in bottles?"
"Aheh. Yes and then again no, lad. And for the record, 'genie' is diminutive, gauche. Your father's blood are now *Djinn* - say it with gravitas and respect, so as not to diminish him or yourself. Now, Jeff, please sit a moment as well."
Jeff sat down in a chair opposite Yohannon, and Mike looked around suddenly.
"When did we move to the living room?"
"Ah, well, what can I say, I like a more relaxed setting like this."
"But I didn't even notice you do it!"
"Pshaw. A parlor trick. You'll work out how to do it in no time."
Yohannon winked at Jeff, who was still distressed, but warming to the situation.
"Now, firstly, Jeff, I'm pleased to say that most of what your father said is...deceptive. That is, he misunderstood, slightly. For instance - you wished to have your father back, and he made a statement about having provided your genetic code. But you didn't ask him to be your *sire,* you asked him to be your *father.* Parenthood is a relationship, not a trick of genetics."
Mike nodded, slowly - it made sense to him, on a bone-deep level.
"But," Mike asked, "I couldn't grant the wish. I knew it was already true."
"Exactly, Mike, exactly! Because you're *still* Jeff's dad, and always will be. Djinn are phenomenally powerful but we're not the biggest cosmological fish in the sea - and bigger fish by far have given us certain rules. We can't tamper with the timestream too much - there's some wiggle room, though, teaching it to you is one of my jobs. We can't raise the dead or cause people to get pregnant - but we can heal someone nearly dead, even if they're classed as clinically dead to human medicine, and we can dramatically increase someone's fertility. But the one thing we absolutely, under no circumstances, CANNOT do, the one thing that is physically and magically impossible for us, is to interfere with love. We cannot cause love, and we cannot remove love. Romantic love, comradely love, familial love - those are all much more powerful than any Djinn has ever been or will ever be."
Yohannon looked wistful a moment, and muttered to himself.
"...Fortunately..."
Jeff looked up at Mike, and Mike looked down at Jeff, and pulled him into a hug.
"Dad, I'm sorry, I don't mean-"
"Shh, it's ok. We'll...work something out."
"We certainly will!" resumed Yohannon. "That's the main reason I'm here. Now, first things first, we'll set up a trust fund so that Jeff's not bothered by capitalism when he's living his human life-"
Jeff pulled out of his father's embrace and turned to Yohannon.
"Wait, WHEN I'm living my human life?"
"Ah, yes, that brings us to the next bit."
Yohannon folded his hands and looked at Jeff solemnly.
"Jeff, your father doesn't have to turn you into something other than a human, because you're already not human, not since your father became a Djinn."