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If anyone asked him what his proudest accomplishment in life was, John wouldn’t hesitate to say that it was parenting his son. Not only because he’s proud of the man his son has become, but also because John deserves a goddamned medal for making it through Stiles’s adolescence without strangling him.
If anyone asked him what the proudest moment in his life was, John might hesitate a second, because he’s got a lot of memories competing for the coveted spot. Even if it’s a tighter race, holding his grandson for the first time stands out. John has tried to articulate it, how it blindsided him by taking him back to holding Stiles for the first time, how he was unprepared for how full his heart could feel, but try as he might, John has never been able to find the words.
There aren’t words, really, for how much he loves being a grandfather.
And as a bonus, there’s nothing quite like watching Stiles get his just desserts when it’s his kid getting into trouble every five seconds.
That all being said, if anyone asked him if he thought being Graham’s Dziadziu was going to be like being Stiles’s dad? Well, John feels like he should have expected it. The kid is half Stiles, after all. And yet, here they are, standing on his porch, dealing with a situation John was sure he had put to bed when Stiles turned seven.
“Is there any particular reason my grandson is naked, Derek?” John asks mildly, leaning against the doorframe. Derek exhales noisily and scrubs a hand down his face.
“I took my clothes off!” Graham chirps helpfully.
“Yes, you did.” John agrees, trying not to grin at Derek’s increasingly pinched face.
“He had clothes when I put him in his carseat.” Derek says flatly, and with such exasperation that John can’t hold the smile back any longer.
“But my skin was too hot, Dad! An’ so I hadta take ‘em off, but I was gonna put ‘em back on when we got to Dziadziu’s but there was no time, ‘cos you drove like swoooosh! And then we were here.” Graham throws his arms out, wildly indicating that he was, in fact, here. On John’s porch. Naked.
“You’ve got his clothes?” John asks Derek. Derek exhales again and holds out a scrunched bundle of t-shirt and khaki.
“I have no idea what he did with his socks.”
“I hate socks.” Graham offers.
“Are they still in the car?” John directs the question to Derek, but Graham is quick to shake his head in answer. Derek pinches the bridge of his nose.
John is about to hustle his son-in-law and grandson into the door when a second car pulls into the drive, and Stiles bounds out of it seconds later.
“Hey, Daddy-o, husband-mine, and…” He stops short on the porch step, startling back before catching himself and snorting loudly. “Derek, darling, I think you may have forgotten something.”
“He had clothing when we left the house, Stiles.” Derek looks like he’d rather be doing anything other than explaining his son’s nudity again. Peering around Derek’s legs, Graham nods, confirming the story.
“Hey, well, who would I be to judge Graham’s free expression? Clothing is totally oppressive, Der. Totally. And who says we need it, anyway? Fighting the man, that’s what he’s doing. Smart kid.”
“Stiles, he’s four. He’s not doing anything.”
“Seriously? No faith, Derek. I hope this isn’t how you plan on parenting for the rest of Graham's life. What if Graham invented a more efficient mode of space transportation tomorrow, and wanted to bring it to NASA, but you were all ‘no, Graham, those are just legos, clean them up before dinner’. Astronauts would die, Derek, would that make you happy?”
Derek shoots John a look, a cross between Do-you-see-what-I-have-to-live-with and Please-help-me-shut-them-up. John would respond, but he’s too busy shaking with laughter against his doorframe.
“I’m going to get Graham dressed.” Derek huffs, moving to grab Graham’s hand and pull him inside. Before he can snag him, Graham lets out a shriek and darts across the porch.
“No!” He shouts, flinging his arms out as if to stop Derek’s approach.
“Hey, Crumbs, you’ve gotta get your clothes on before the neighbors call the cops,” Stiles says from the bottom of the porch steps. John lifts an eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t have to say anything because his grandkid’s got it covered.
“Dad is the cops, Daddy!” Graham counters, trying to climb up the wall of the house before Derek grabs him.
“And how awkward would that be, if Dad had to arrest himself?”
“Dad isn’t going to do anything except for get Graham in a t-shirt and sit down for Sunday dinner.” Derek grumbles, striding forward and catching Graham around the middle. Graham responds instantly by squealing like a stuck pig and trying to flop out of Derek’s arms.
“Oh, for the love of-“ Derek is still muttering under his breath as he pushes past John into the house, writhing toddler locked firmly under one arm.
“Free expression, Stiles?” John asks when Derek is out of earshot. Well, out of human earshot. John still sometimes forgets that his star deputy and son-in-law is a werewolf. Stiles has the nerve to grin at him.
“I stand by what I said, Dad. Crumbs is totally a genius, and I don’t want to be responsible for stifling his potential.”
“Uh-huh. So, what’re you going to do if Graham decides to pull something like this at the mall, next?” John asks conversationally. He can’t help the edge on his grandson’s name, though. He still remembers the first time Stiles called him Crumbs, and, like a lot of things that eventually became the bane of John’s existence, it was Scott’s fault.
“Like the crackers?” Scott had asked with a wrinkled nose when Stiles had announced Graham’s name to the hospital waiting room, Derek beaming down at the bundle of blankets beside him.
“Crackers?” Stiles had scoffed. “He’s not crackers yet, he has to grow before he’s crackers. He’s crumbs right now! Tiny, itsy bitsy, delicious little crumbs!”
John had given Stiles the benefit of the doubt in that moment, because the man had just coached their surrogate through eleven hours of labor, and John remembered being loopy and delirious with feelings and exhaustion when Claudia gave birth, too.
That was pretty much the last time John gave Stiles the benefit of the doubt, because Graham had been Crumbs to Stiles ever since.
Stiles waves John’s concerns aside with a dramatic hand gesture, pulling him back from memory lane. And if that isn't a sign of old age, John doesn’t know what is. He's still startled every so often by the realization that his son is almost thirty, that his grandson is four.
“Crumbs knows he can’t strip in public, come on. It’s not like he’d –” Stiles is cut off by a war-cry as a blur of toddler skids past John and collides into Stiles’s legs.
He’s still naked.
“Dad said I’m punished!” Graham wails into Stiles’s knees.
“What did you do?” Stiles tries to disentangle himself from Graham as Graham doubles his efforts to climb up Stiles’s legs, and John finds himself thinking that this must be what it looks like when octopi collide into one another.
“Nuffin! He’s being mean, Daddy!” Graham makes it to Stiles’s chest, latching onto him like a koala and shoving his face into the crook of Stiles’s neck.
“I’m sure if Dad punished you, he had a good reason.”
“Nuh-uh!” Graham shrieks. Uh-oh, John knows what’s coming next. His grandson is as predictable as his son was, and John counts down from three as Graham shifts from limpet to rabid squirrel, jerking his limbs out to… Actually, John isn’t sure what Graham is going for with this. Stiles shoots John a pleading look, and though John is sorely tempted to raise an eyebrow and call it a lesson in karma, he probably should get the naked toddler into the house sooner rather than later.
“Hey, Graham?” He calls to the little boy, who immediately turns to face him, arms akimbo and legs wrapped around Stiles’s waist. “I need some help on the barbecue, think you’re up for being my assistant chef?”
Graham’s face lights up, and John internally pats himself on the back. He’s still got it.
“Yes, yes!” Graham calls, wriggling to be let down from Stiles’s arms and running to hug John. John scoops him up without hesitation, ignoring the twinge in his back that reminds him that he’s not as spry as he used to be. He’d gladly endure fifty times this pain if it means he can hug his grandson tight. He turns to go into the house, but stops partway.
“Only, hold on.” John says, giving Graham an appraising look. Graham squirms, impatient. “Assistant chefs have to wear clothing, because barbecuing is dangerous work.”
“Really?” Graham breathes, awed. “Real dangerous?”
Hook, line, and sinker.
“Mmhmm,” John nods. “Now, I know clothes are no fun, but do you think you could put some on so that we could fire up the burgers?”
Graham scrunches his face up, evidently contemplating the trade-off of t-shirts against the prospect of being allowed near the barbecue. After a moment of hesitation, he nods solemnly, and points John forward to where a disgruntled Derek is sitting with a t-shirt in his hand. John flashes him a grin that is probably more self-satisfied than it ought to be.
Stiles follows him into the house, collapsing on the couch next to Derek and watching John efficiently dress Graham. Graham is being surprisingly cooperative, obediently holding his arms up to put his t-shirt on, and shimmying into his underpants and khakis without complaint.
“He’s like the Graham-whisperer,” Stiles says reverently, poking Derek in the side and pointing at John. John rolls his eyes and holds his arms out for Graham to clamber into. He does, smacking John in the nose as he loses his balance in the process.
Yep, definitely Stiles’s kid.
“Whazzat?” Graham asks, head cocked.
“Nothing, Crumbs. You go help Dziadziu with the burgers, Dad and I are going to sit here and reminisce about our lives when we were young and mid-afternoon nudity meant something very different.”
“Stiles!” Derek barks, looking pointedly at Graham.
“I didn’t say better, I said different. Jeez, calm down, Sourwolf.”
“It wasn’t your choice of adjective that I was taking objection to, Stiles,” Derek grumbles.
“Hey, I’m not the naked one here! It’s totally not my fault that we’re talking about nakedness! And it’s also not my fault I’m thinking about you naked, I’m only human. I mean, come on, if I had my way, you’d be naked all the time.”
“We are sitting in front of your father and son,” Derek hisses. “Will you please shut up?”
John snorts. Unfortunately, over the decade that Stiles has been with Derek, John has been privy to far too much information about their… personal affairs. Stiles never was the best at filtering his thoughts.
“If Dad can be naked, why can’t I be?” Graham pipes up.
“I can’t be naked, Graham. Nobody can be naked. I’d like to keep it that way for the rest of the evening, please.” Derek says, tone bordering on a whine.
“What about mornin’? Can I be naked in the mornin’?” Graham twists around to look up at John. “Sometimes Dad and Daddy are naked when I go wake ‘em up in the mornin’. Isn’t that silly, Dziadziu? They forgetted their pj’s! Silly Daddies. You gotta wear pj’s at bedtime!”
John snorts again. Apparently, lack of filter is a genetic thing. Stiles is laughing so hard that John is concerned for his ability to breathe.
“Come on, kiddo, let’s go fire up the grill before your Dad has an aneurysm.” John chuckles, tugging Graham after him to the kitchen. Graham starts chattering about his dinosaur toys, explaining that one of them broke but the others are taking care of her.
“’Cos Uncle Scott says dinos gotta stick together, like wolfs. Which do you like better, Dziadziu, dinos or wolfs? I like dinos but Dad likes wolfs the best.” Graham pauses his story to accept the tray of hamburger patties that John holds out to him with great gravitas.
“I’m not gonna drop it, okay Dziadziu?” Graham announces, apparently having forgotten the question he just posed to John. “I’m a big kid, so I’m not gonna drop it.”
“I believe you, kiddo,” John says, ruffling Graham’s dark hair as he moves past him to grab the tray of corn.
“’Kay, good.” Graham nods, tiny brow furrowed, and moves with great determination towards the backyard. His tongue is poked out in concentration, and he doesn’t say another word to John until the tray is resting beside the grill.
It’s probably the longest John has ever heard him stay quiet.
“Can I do the fire?” Graham asks, peering up at John as he starts the barbecue up.
“How about you let me take care of that, kiddo, and then you can help me flip the burgers?”
“’Kay. Dad caught a bad guy yesterday,” Graham states, as though the non-sequitor is totally logical. Which, it may very well be. John stopped wondering how kids got from A to Z when Stiles was Graham’s age.
“Did he now?”
“Mmhmm. He putted him in jail, ‘cos that’s where bad guys go. If I were a bad guy I would go to jail too, but I would escape away from jail ‘cos I don’t think it would be very fun to stay there.”
“Well, jail isn’t supposed to be very fun.” John points out.
“Did you help Dad catch the bad guy? How’d you catch him? Daddy says that Dad should do more standing on bad guys, but I don’t get it. That sounds like a silly way to catch bad guys.”
“You sure your Daddy didn’t say understanding of bad guys? Standing on bad guys does sound a bit silly.”
Graham giggles. “Daddy is silly,” he points out.
John smiles back.
“That he is, kiddo. That he is.”
And really? John wouldn’t have it any other way.
*
“Dad? Dad? Derek and I just got back from the doctor’s. Our surrogate is pregnant. You’re going to be a grandpa.”
“Are you… Stiles, that’s…”
“Dad, are you crying?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Stiles, I’m not-”
“You are, you’re crying! Oh my God, Dad, don’t be such a cheeseball!”
“I can’t help it, Stiles. A grandpa? You’re having a kid! I just…”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I’m crying too.”
“Well aren’t we a pair, then?”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to be a trio, soon.”