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John is stepping out of the grocery store when Stiles full on tackles him to the ground, hollering out, “Look out, Dad!”
Dropping from the force of his son’s body slamming into him, John ends up being thrown into the grass beside the parking lot instead of the hard concrete he was standing on-which his back will thank him for later-and is dimly aware of snarls and growling going on over his head.
"What the hell is going on?” John demands, trying to push his son behind him despite Stiles stubbornly shielding him with his own body.
"Yeah, remember when I told you about that thing that I thought was a dwarf that decided to take up residence in the preserve?" Stiles’ eyes are focused on the fight that sounds like it’s starting to die down, a heavy sigh slipping past his lips when it finally goes quiet. "Turns out it wasn’t a dwarf, it was a troll. They are just as nasty as Hollywood and myths make them out to be."
"Are you alright, sir?" Derek Hale asks him, his shirt gaping from what look like a handful of slashes across his front. He stretches out his hand to help Stiles and John to their feet, John’s crumpled shopping in his other hand and a sheepish expression on his face, "Sorry about your stuff, I was a little preoccupied…"
"It’s alright, as long as the-" His sentence is cut off when Derek hands the bags over, a jingle that only signified busted glass sounding when they shift together, making him sigh and deadpan, "Never mind, then."
Derek ducks his head and mutters, “Sorry.”
His son looks up from his completely unsubtle ogling of the boy’s chest and says, “Don’t be sorry, man; I’d prefer whatever’s in there busted up instead of my dad’s head, so no foul here.”
"Even if it was a present for you?" Derek asks, a small smile on his face as he looks up again, his gaze twitching between Stiles and John like he isn’t sure which one he should talk to.
Stiles hums thoughtfully. “That depends on whether or not we can get a refund for damaged goods since we’re technically not out of the parking lot just yet.”
John snorts at his son’s snark and interrupts with, “It was just Christmas lights, Stiles, and the store is closed now, anyway. I’ll just get some when I get off of shift tomorrow.”
Stiles makes a grunt of acceptance and helps load the troll up in the back of his Jeep before they all head out.
John is stepping out of the exact same store when he gets tackled again, but this time Derek Hale is the one ramming into him and twisting his body so that his landing is a softer one than it would originally be.
It also, thankfully, saves his lights this time.
This time it’s the pissed off troll that crushes them as he bellows at Derek before running him over, Derek’s hand pushing at John’s chest to keep him from being trampled as well as he goes flying into the surrounding trees.
The rest of the kids show up a little while after that and the troll is dealt with rather anticlimactically, Stiles teasing Derek about being thrown around like a rag doll before they got there.
Watching the pair bicker, John decides to change his stores and just go first thing in the morning before he starts his shift at the police station.
It doesn’t help, as a matter of fact, John thinks he just made it worse; he now has to shield a human not in the know after getting tackled himself-thanks to Scott this time-and make sure she doesn’t see anything that will either give her nightmares or send her on a one-way trip to Echien House.
It works, only because the kids manage to take the fight outside to the woods and John manages to convince the woman that it was a neighboring town’s gang looking to stir up trouble.
The bad news is that the entire display of Christmas lights is nothing but fine powder under his feet by the time everything is all said and done.
John just gives up after that, throwing his hands up in the air and accepting what the universe is trying to tell him, oblivious to the looks the kids are giving each other behind his back.
It’s been a long day and John is in a zombified state of tiredness by the time he makes it home.
Which could be why it takes him a double take to realize what’s different with his house.
There are lights on it.
Granted, a third of them are blue, a third are green, and the last third are a blinking mass of red, green, and blue.
There are also a small pack of children frozen in the act of attaching them to his house, no doubt waiting for him to notice them there.
"Hi, Dad." Stiles grins down from the roof, Scott and Derek on either side of him as they attach a string of green lights along the edging. "What do you think of our surprise?"
"What’s going on?"
"Well, we felt kind of bad that our disputes with the trolls were ruining your attempts to get Christmas things," Kira is the one that answers this time, wrapping a single strand of white lights around one of the trees in their yard under Lydia’s supervision, making a full on brawl sound like a mere difference of opinion on what someone’s favorite team was. “So we decided to make up for it by getting the lights ourselves.”
"Sorry about all the mismatched colors, Sheriff," That Dunbar kid says, his friend helping him with decorating the window. "There wasn’t much left after… well, after everything."
"No, it’s alright, kids." John smiles, watching as his son directs Scott and Derek on the proper way to string lights, Kira lighting hers with a touch of her hand with Lydia grinning beside her while Liam and Mason step back to admire their handiwork.
"This is perfect."