A/N: Second chapter of the Grandpa saga. This doesn't necessarily follow a timeline, it's more of a snapshot that I'm trying to keep semi-canonical (therefore, I probably won't be doing any fics for grandparents who have yet to be named, like Grace's grandfathers) until and unless they are named. I'm also debating on how to do potential Leo and Ruben chapters with regards to Bendrian's pregnancy, since we'll have to wait for the end of season three for the birth. (Hopefully we get a sex confirmation early on.) Anyway, please enjoy! (P.S. The image on the ceiling in this chapter is totally true! And I've got the pictures to prove it!)

Grandpa

Who's Gonna Catch Ya

John Juergens rolled onto his back, staring at the white paint on the ceiling of his father's former bedroom. He jabbed his fingers into his ears and began to wriggle them around when his grandfather walked in, carrying a bowl of golden soup.

"Itchy ears again?" Sanjay Shakur asked, sympathetic to his grandson's condition.

John helplessly nodded as he watched his grandpa put the bowl down on the nightstand and tear off a square of Charmin from the half used roll beside the lamp. "It itchies at the back of my float too," he complained, scrunching up his face.

"Well trying to scratch it with your tongue won't work," Shakur laughed, knowing immediately what the boy was doing. He passed the square of toilet paper to John, who wiped the yellowed ear wax from his fingertips onto the tissue and then proceeded to blow his nose in it, before passing it back to his grandfather. Shakur frowned a bit, but ultimately grabbed another – larger – wad of toilet paper, wrapped the germ covered ball in it, and tossed it into the waste bin.

John sat up, revealing his Mutant Ninja Turtle pajamas, and propped himself up against the headboard of the bed and waited for Shakur to set up the fold up tray, so he could eat his soup without spilling. "Did you know there's a troll on the ceiling?"

"Really?" Shakur questioned, arching his brows as he placed the bowl in front of his grandson.

"A huh. See!" John shot his arm out, pointing at the ceiling. "She's right there! See? See? She's got this ginormous head on this ity bity neck," he explained, miming with his hands. "And big frizzy hair like Hermione's and this big witchy hook nose and slanted eyes and razor sharp teeth! Do you see 'er, Grampa? Do you?"

Shakur angled his head and squinted up at the ceiling, then shook his head. "Maybe I'm sitting at a bad angle?"

"Hmm…" John tilted his head back. "Maybe you have to lay down with me to see? Wanna do that?"

Shakur chuckled and motioned to the bowl. "Maybe after you're done eating."

"'Kay." The little brunette swirled his spoon around the golden liquid a few times, before pulling it up and revealing cube shaped chunks of pink chicken tucked between slimy noodles. He pummeled the spoonful into his mouth with a few stray noodle ends hanging out and slurped them up, spattering bits of noodle broth around his chin and cheeks, then he shoved the spoon back into the bowl and repeated the ritual.

"Is it good? Not too cold, not too hot?"

John bobbed his head. "It's fine."

"Just fine?"

"Gramma always brings me crackers with my soup," he explained.

"You finished those off yesterday."

"'Sokay," the little boy assured happily. After a few more bites, he slowed down his pace and glanced at Shakur with a look of curiosity in his eyes. "Grampa Shakur?"

"Hm?"

"Can I axed you somefing?"

Shakur reclined into the chair at John's bedside and crossed one leg over the other while nodding. "Anything."

"Grampa George and Gramma Anne look like Mommy, but you and Gramma Margie don' look like Daddy. How come?"

Shakur leaned forward and patted John's leg. "That's because Grandpa George and Grandma Anne are your mama's biological parents."

"What's biolego-col?"

"Biological. And that means your mommy came from Grandma Anne's tummy, just like you came from your mommy's. But your Daddy didn't come from Grandma Margie's tummy."

"Then how you get Daddy?"

Shakur patted the tip of John's sore, cherry red nose. "We were a foster mommy and daddy, which means we took in little boys and girls who needed homes and didn't have them and then when we found your daddy, we liked him so much that we wanted to adopt him."

"Why didn't daddy have a home?"

"Because…Grandma Nora wasn't ready to be a mommy at that time. She was very sad and sick back then."

"Sick like me?" John asked, wide eyed. "Did she gots itchy ears and a sore float too?"

Shakur laughed. "Not quite," he winked.

John picked up the bowl and tilted it to his lips, swallowing the last bit of soup, then proudly held it out to his grandfather. "Done!"

"You want me to get you a cough drop on the way downstairs too?"

John wrinkled his nose. "Nah, they make my tongue all funny feelin'."

"Numb?"

"Yeah, a huh." He laid back down as Shakur took away the bowl and tray, then buried the back of his head back into his pillow and stared up at the ceiling again to examine the troll until he heard his grandfather return. "Come look at my troll now?" John scooted aside to make room.

Shakur rounded the bed and laid down beside John and looked up to the ceiling again, then slowly shook his head. "I can't see it."

"Her!" John exclaimed, suddenly jumping up and padding wobbly along the bed, before jumping up and down and pointing as closely as he could. "Look real close, Grampa! See 'er now? How about now?"

Shakur twisted his head as far to the right as he could, then blinked in surprise. "So it seems you do have a little troll up there!"

"Imma name 'er Helga!" John pronounced, before flopping back down onto the mattress with a bouncy thump. "After that troll in the troll book you read me!" He suddenly gasped. "Grampa! Read me that troll book again!"

"It's nearly a half hour past your bedtime!"

"Please?" John begged, pressing his hands together in a pleading motion. He stuck out his bottom lip as fat as he could. "Pretty pleeeeeeease, Grampa Shakur? Please! Please! Please!" He began batting his eyelashes to imitate a tactic he had seen his mother use with his Grandpa George. Realizing he was wearing on Shakur's defenses, he decided to climb onto his grandfather's chest and put his face in Shakur. "Pleeeeeeeeeeease?"

Shakur began to chuckle, soft and gurgly at first, which gradually transformed into a jolly old Saint Nick-esq guttural laugh, before he grabbed John around the waist and pulled the boy up enough for him to sit up and situate himself against the headboard of the bed, before he pulled John onto his lap. "Alright," he sighed. "But only one story! If your grandmother walks through that door and finds me keeping you up, she'll have my head!"

"How can she have your head?"

Shakur opened the drawer containing the book John had been asking for and flipped through to the back of the book to find a story about the story about a headless troll. "Well-"

"No! Not this one, read about Helga! Read about Helga!"

"You mean the Huldra?"

"That's what I said!"

Shakur smirked, "The Helga it is…"

As Shakur began to read, John tugged his pillow up under his head and curled up into the crook of his grandpa's arm, with the top of his head touching the bottom of Shakur's chin just barely enough that he could feel the vibration of the words as he read, so as to lull him off into a sweet slumber.