Disclaimer Dean Ambrose is the property of the WWE and/or the actor / sports entertainer / superstar that portray him. This story is intended as tribute only and is not intended to infringe on any copyrights.

Original characters are the property of me, and the children of my own imagination. Any resemblance to any real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Blinded by the Lights

When he woke on that fateful Friday morning, Dean Ambrose had no idea that by the middle of the afternoon, he'd be at war. There was no sense of foreboding when he rose, showered and ate breakfast with his son and girlfriend. None even, when he saw said girlfriend, Cinnamon putting innocent looking, plastic storage boxes onto the front porch. Instead, he was just curious. "What's going on?"

"It's time to put up the Christmas lights," Cinnamon said casually, as if this was something everyone knew.

"You put up Christmas lights?" he asked.

She nodded. "Not a lot, just a few. I outline the door, and put some around the porch. It's not a fancy display, but it's nice and Neil likes it, we've-" Her cell phone rang, interrupting them. She looked at the caller then said, "Work," and answered it.

While Cinnamon talked to her employer, Dean started opening the storage boxes looking at the lights. His mother hadn't been much on Christmas, and Dean remembered their box of Christmas decorations was smaller and a total mess. Cinnamon's boxes of lights was the exact opposite. The first box he opened contained several reels that kept the lights from tangling up all neatly stacked and labeled things like, "Porch Left Top" and "Stairs, Right." Another box contained some plastic hooks with plastic bells on them and some neatly rolled up extension cords. Dean was starting to get a little bit excited about this. He'd never been in a place where people hung up Christmas lights outside for the world to see. It was one of those things he'd always imagined that "Normal" families did. He thought about how pretty the little ranch house would look when the front porch was decorated with lights and wondered if he could help.

When Cinnamon got off the phone, she was frowning. "Melissa has a family emergency and can't work. Dan is going to come in later, but he can't cover all of it. I have to go in and work, they need me."

Dean frowned. He was never one to tell someone they shouldn't work, he was a workaholic himself, but he also knew Cinnamon wanted to see the lights up as much as he did. "When do you have to go in?"

"I said I'd be there as soon as I could," she said. "Neil will be home soon, he's got a half day today. But we'll have to do these lights tomorrow."

"Doesn't WVW have an afternoon show and an evening show tomorrow?" he asked. WVW stood for West Virginia Wrestling, a small promotion that worked locally. Cinnamon was their resident paramedic and pretty much the den mother to all the wrestlers. The owner loved her because she was willing to work the shows as emergency medical help for nothing more than admission for her and Neil, and now Dean, too.

"Yeah," Cinnamon said, sighing. "I might not get to them until Sunday then."

"How about if I hang them up?" Dean suggested. "They all look well labeled and if I have any questions, I'll ask Neil when he's home."

He half expected her to look worried, but instead, she looked relieved, which told him this could not be that difficult then. "Really? That would be great!" She smiled, kissed him on the cheek and ran into the house to get ready.

When she came out to leave for work, backpack slung over her shoulder, Dean was organizing the rolls of lights, putting them in the areas they would be used. She smiled, obviously pleased at what he was doing. "I really appreciate this."

"It's nothing." He wrapped his arms around her, giving her a kiss that hinted of later fun for the both of them, when they could be alone. She returned it, confirming the promise too. "You have fun at work. Save lives and all that fun stuff."

She grinned. "I love doing my job, but every time I go to work, I hope it's a slow day, because that means people are healthy and not getting hurt." She readjusted her backpack. "There's a ladder in the shed, be careful, okay? I don't want to get a phone call that I have to come out her because you fell off the roof."

"I'll be fine," he assured her.

By the time Neil came home, Dean had the ladder out of the shed and was hanging the lights from the top of the porch. Neil walked up the walkway, a puzzled look on his face. "Hi, Dad, where's Mom?"

Dean finished clipping the last part of the string and turned. "Someone she works with had a family emergency so she's covering for her," he explained. "So, I said I'd do the Christmas lights for her. Do you think I got them right?"

Neil studied the lights, then went back down the stairs and down the walk way a bit so he could see the porch as a whole again. "Yeah, the top part looks great!" he called out, "Just have to do the bottom and the stairs."

Dean smiled, pleased he had gotten this right. He'd never hung lights, but he found in one of the storage bins, boxes of clips that made hanging the lights from the gutters easy. "Maybe you can help me with that?" he suggested.

"Sure," Neil said. "Just let me change into play clothes and drop off my book bag."

With Neil helping, the rest of the lights were done in less than an hour. Even though it was still daylight, Dean turned them on and the two of them went out into the yard to see the results. Dean was pleased. Icicle lights hung from the porch roof gutter, while blue lights came down the columns and multicolored lights decorated the hand rail and stairs. The silver bells were stuck in the ground and when you walked close, a sensor went off and they began playing (naturally) Silver Bells. The house took on a festive atmosphere and he grinned to Neil. "We do good work."

"Yeah," Neil agreed. "I don't see anything different from the way it looks when Mom and I do it.

"Hey, Neighbors!"

Dean turned to see a balding man who stood several inches shorter than him with a beer gut that made him almost look pregnant and sporting a bad comb over. "Hey," Dean responded.

"Hello Mr. Spencer," Neil said. Dean heard a lack of enthusiasm that bordered on surly in Neil's tone of voice and was a little surprised. Neil was well known in the neighborhood and most of the neighbors seemed to like both him and Cinnamon. After Neil had been rescued from the well, several neighbors had dropped by the house to see how Neil was doing and to wish him well. If this "Mr. Spencer" had been among them, Dean didn't remember him, but perhaps his wife, if he had one, had stopped by as a family representative.

"So, how's the leg doing?" Mr. Spencer asked Neil. After Neil assured him that his leg was doing fine, and Mr. Spencer expressed pleasure in hearing that, he turned his attention to Dean. "We haven't met yet," he said, holding out his hand. "Pete Spencer."

Dean shook his hand, noticing his grip was a little on the limp side. "Dean Ambrose."

"He's my Dad," Neil explained.

If Pete recognized him, he gave no indication. "I was lead to believe you were out of the picture!" he said, as if this was jolly news to be shared.

"I came back," Dean said, thinking this guy was a little on the rude side.

"Well, that's nice!" Pete enthused and then abruptly changed the subject. "I see you're hanging your lights!"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, we just finished." Maybe this guy is just hear to admire our lights, he thought.

Pete smiled. "Oh, okay. It's nice!"

"Thank you." Maybe this guy isn't so bad after all.

"Yep, Cinnamon always puts on a very quaint and tasteful little display." Pete Spencer nodded and there was a look of smug satisfaction on his face.

Dean knew a backhanded compliment when he heard one and his head turned a little too quickly to look at Pete. "I think it's great," he said.

"Oh, it is," Pete said. "Good colors, good balance. It's great for a small time display."

A quick glance to Neil showed Dean his son was rolling his eyes. He looked back at Pete. "We like it," he said, knowing he sounded a little defensive.

"And you should!" Pete agreed. "Me, though, I go for the big time, the real deal. Well, wait until it's dark out, and you'll see."

Dean scowled, feeling his lip curling but fighting the urge to ask this guy what the "real deal" was and why he felt the need to piss on their display. "Yeah, we'll do that," he said, having no intention of looking at this guy's lights, instead wishing to cram them down Pete's throat instead. "Well, I'd love to chat, but Neil needs his lunch."

Neil nodded. "Yeah, I'm starving," he said, laying it on a bit thick.

"Well, I won't keep you," Pete said, taking a last look a their Christmas display. "I just wanted to say hi and tell you I admire your display. Not everyone needs to have lots of lights, sometimes these tiny displays have their own impact too. Not everyone can be as dedicated, as me!"

Dean wanted to hit Pete Spencer and he had a feeling if he did, Neil would cheer him on.

It wasn't until lunch was made (tuna fish sandwiches and reheated home made chicken noodle soup) that Dean brought up Pete Spencer. "What's his deal?" he asked.

"Mom says I shouldn't say bad things about people."

"Your mom isn't here and I'm your father, be honest."

Neil hesitated. "He's-he's a dick."

"Your mom doesn't like you using that word, does she?" Dean tried not to laugh, He shouldn't encourage Neil to use words Cinnamon didn't like, but it was funny to hear Neil afraid to use a word like "dick." When he was Neil's age, he had a much more off color vocabulary than Neil did.

"Nope. She says she's raising me better than that." Neil rolled his eyes, as he took a spoonful of soup and blew on it.

"It'll be our secret then," Dean said. "So, what makes Mr. Spencer a dick?"

"He just is. He makes mean remarks about some of the neighbors. Mom doesn't like him." Neil scowled.

Since Cinnamon normally liked most people, this surprised Dean. "What type of mean remarks does he make about the neighbors."

Neil fidgeted, putting the spoonful of soup he had been blowing on back in the bowl and stirring it. "I don't like to talk about it."

Dean frowned. "Neil, what does he say about the neighbors? I really want to know."

Neil bit his lip, still stirring his soup and refusing to look at Dean. "Not everyone in the neighborhood is white, Dad."

"Yeah, I've noticed." Dean started to suspect what was bothering his son. The street, the whole little development of streets where Neil and Cinnamon lived was about as racially diverse as you could get. There were African Americans, Latinos, Asians, and pretty much any other group of people you could think of. Cinnamon, with her extremely pale skin and copper hair was the minority in this area. As far as Dean had gathered, the people in the development all got along with each other. He didn't like hearing there was someone living in the street who didn't feel the same way. Dean was just grateful his son had been raised well enough to know that there was something terribly wrong with Pete Spencer's attitudes. "Are you telling me that Mr. Spencer has said bad things to or about people in the neighborhood who happen not to be white?"

Neil nodded, his face flushing. "When the Karume family moved into the Patterson's old house a few years ago, he said to Mom that it was a shame that a nice white family moved out and one of 'those' families moved in." He stirred his soup faster. "Mrs. Karume is from Molokaʻi, that's one of the Hawaiian islands. Mr. Karume is from Kenya. They are really nice people! Their kid, he's older than me, and he mows Mr. Spencer's lawn, does whatever Mr. Spencer needs to have done around the house. Yet, Mr. Spencer says mean things about him behind his back, just because he isn't white. I-I don't like it. He told Mom once that he had to keep an eye on Ka'eo, because 'those people will steal anything that isn't nailed down.' Mom was furious and told him she didn't appreciate his attitude. She's not friendly with him anymore. She's..." He paused thinking of the word his mother had used to describe her relationship with him, "civil. She's civil to him, but she doesn't like him."

"Good," Dean said. A great deal of Neil's school and neighborhood friends happened to not be white and Dean really believed this neighborhood was above such petty attitudes. It was disappointing to find out that there was a snake in the grass.

"It just bothers me that you can dislike someone for something that they had nothing to do with!" Neil blurted out, speaking as if this was something he had thought about before but had never tried to articulate. "If someone is a jerk, they're a jerk. It's okay to not like jerks. But skin color? That's something that just happens, you don't get to pick! It's like hair color. I didn't ask to have red hair, I was born this way. It wouldn't be very fair if people didn't like me because I have red hair, so why can Mr. Spencer think it's okay to think he's better than other people for something stupid like the color of his skin? It's just stupid and wrong!"

"Yeah, it is," Dean said. "And I'm glad you know that. I'm glad your mother's made sure you know that."

"He'd probably say mean things about Uncle Roman," Neil said, still looking upset.

"I'd love to see him say them to his face," Dean said. "Your Uncle Roman would take him down."

"I'd love to see that," Neil said, his frown lifting and a smile beginning to play on his lips.

"Okay, so Pete Spencer is a racist asshole," Dean said. "But what's his deal with the Christmas lights?"

Neil ate a spoonful of soup. "He thinks he's the Christmas Light Master or some such crap." He took another spoonful and blew on that one as well. "He's listed on this 'Festival of Holiday Lights' website, or maybe it's 'Holiday Light Festival,' whatever."

"And what is that?" Dean asked, removing the top of his sandwich and putting potato chips on top of the tuna fish.

"Hey! You like chips on tuna fish too?" Neil asked, watching his father with a delighted expression.

"Only way to properly eat tuna fish," Dean said as he put the top piece of bread back and took a bite. "Crunchy, fishy, and bready. But anyway, what's the Festival of Holiday lights?"

"It's a listing of all the houses that have big light displays," Neil explained and began doctoring his own sandwich with potato chips. "These people come out and they look at your display and if they like it and think it's big enough, they list your address on the web site. People can download a map or something and drive around and see the display. A few people in the neighborhood tried before to get on it, but they didn't have enough lights or something. But Mr. Spencer got on and now he thinks he's the King of Christmas Lights. And if anyone puts up any lights on this streets or any of the other streets in this area, he checks it out to make sure they aren't outshining him."

"Really?" Dean's eyes lit up. "So, he was making sure we weren't putting up extra lights this year? To compete with him?"

"I don't think he considered what Mom does to be anything to worry about," Neil said. "I just think he came down to make sure you knew that he was King and to make himself feel better than us for having more Christmas lights."

"Well, maybe we should fix that," Dean said, a gleam coming to his eyes and an almost scary grin spreading across his mouth.

"How?"

"Finish your lunch and we'll go get some more lights."

"You don't have a car," Neil pointed out.

"I'll borrow Mr. Wilson's truck." The Wilsons were the next door neighbors and Neil's surrogate grandparents. Mr. Wilson was retired, but he still had his truck from when he was in construction. Usually it sat in the driveway, only used if they needed to haul something large to or from the house. He had lent it to Dean a few times while he was staying here, because Dean always returned it with a full tank of gas, and a run through the car wash.

Less than two hours later, they were back from the Home Depot with several bags of lights, clips, some extra extension cords, some indoor/outdoor garland and, what Dean considered the pièce de résistance, two reindeer, a tree, a sleigh, and a Santa Clause, made of a white wire and sparkling lights. They were festive, but they reminded Dean more of skeletons than actual deer and Santa. And that was kind of cool. Like there had been some plague that had wiped out most of the population and the few people left were doing what they can to make things festive. Yeah, okay, that was a little creepy, but Dean liked the idea.

Dean started to work hanging the icicle lights, strands of lights strung together that hung down like icicles off the roof. Neil's walking cast limited his ability to help, but he did what he could, weaving garland around the lights on the porch and putting light nets on the lower bushes. When Dean finished with the roof, he hung strings of LED lights around each windows in the front.

The last thing they did was put up the reindeer, the sleigh and the tree. When they were done, Dean turned on the lights to test them, then the two of them went and stood on the street to look.

The front of the house was a festival of twinkling Christmas lights. Even though it was too light to get the full effect, you could still see that the house was going to look like a house made of lights when it got dark enough. And the deer, sleigh, and tree in the front were nice touches. Neil had done a wonderful job wrapping garland around light strands on the porch hand rails and the stairs. "What do you think?" Dean asked Neil.

Neil nodded. "It's a lot more lights than usual."

"Do you think we've given Mr. Spencer a run for his money?"

Neil hesitated. "Well, he has a bunch of lights." He looked up the street, then back at his father. "He spends a few days getting all of his up. It-it's just an awful lot of lights."

Dean heard the words Neil said and more so heard the words Neil didn't say. They had a lot of lights, but they were not at Pete Spencer's level. "Let's go up and take a look," he suggested. Sure, it would be hard to tell how many lights with the sun still up, but they could still get an idea of how many strands of lights there were.

The Spencer's house was a two story, colonial style house. When the neighborhood had been built, the developers offered three different house styles, the ranch, like Cinnamon's, a cape cod style and a colonial style. The colonial was the biggest and thus the most expensive of the houses. It also had the brick facade and a chimney, which meant it had a fireplace. This was probably the grand daddy luxury home of the neighborhood.

And it looked like every blessed inch was covered in lights. Lights not only lined the roof and the windows, but lights were spiraled around the drain pipes. Lights were running across the siding, along with light art of Santa and various other Christmas things, wire designs with tiny lights that would twinkle and sparkle once it got dark. And the lights spread past the house too. There were rows of light up candy canes and gingerbread men lighting up the walkways and the driveway. There was a life sized nativity scene off to the side, made of a hard plastic that Dean would later learn were called "blow molds." And it wasn't just Mary Joseph and Baby Jesus, there were three wise men, a couple of shepherds, two cows, six sheep and two camels, also life sized. On the other side of the lawn was another huge blow mold set, this of Santa and his reindeer. Another Santa was posed up on the chimney, as if getting ready to creep down. And the lights were everywhere. The Spencer's yard was the same size as the rest of the neighborhood, about a sixth of an acre, so by Dean's estimate, with the back yard and the house, the front yard was probably about a fourteenth of an acre, but every inch of it was crammed with lights and decorations. Most of the trees in the yard were almost a shiny green from all the strands of lights that were wrapped around them.

Dean knew their display, while nice, would never measure up to this. It would be like comparing a mini cupcake to a wedding cake.

Standing outside was Pete Spencer himself. High up in a tree was a boy who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen, stringing lights. "I want an even placement!" Pete was yelling up to him. "No clumping. Wrap the lights around every single branch, when you're done, I want it to look like a fairy tree of lights!"

"Yes, Mr. Spencer," the boy called down.

Dean was tempted to just slip away, but just as he and Neil were turning to do so, Pete Spencer noticed them and came walking over. "Come to see how the big boys do it?" he asked, his voice a little too hearty.

Considering Dean towered over this guy by a good five, maybe even six inches, he found the "Big boys" remark to be both insulting and stupid. Still, he didn't think it would be smart for him to point it out, so he just shrugged. "Yeah, we just thought we'd have a look."

"I've been working on this for weeks," Pete bragged. "Planning, hanging, doing everything. This year's show will be the best ever!" He patted Neil on the head, making Neil flinch. "I'll bet you can't wait to see it!"

"No sir, I sure can't," Neil said.

Dean knew just by Neil's tone of voice there was sarcasm dripping off every single word, but apparently, Dean had gotten pretty good at reading Neil, because Pete's expression didn't change. "Show?" Dean asked.

Pete nodded. "Got my lights synced up to music and on timers. Every hour on the hour from five at night until midnight, the lights blink in time with the music. It's wonderful. I've got a laptop all set up, got this special software. It was a pain to program, but it's wonderful software once you figure out how to get it to work. You wait, tonight's show will be spectacular! The best ever!"

While he prattled, the kid who was up in the tree came down and walked over. "Mr. Spencer, I have to get going." He grinned to Neil, nodding and showing they knew each other. Neil nodded and grinned right back.

"Oh. Well..." Pete looked at the tree. "I was hoping you'd get a little more done today. You shouldn't have taken that lunch break. You'll have to come back tomorrow."

"I can't," the kids said, shaking his head. Long, shiny black hair waved around his face. Most of it was wrapped in a ponytail but some had escaped, most likely due to being snarled up in tree branches. "Mom and Dad need me to help with their Christmas stuff."

"Oh, all right," Pete said, looking upset. "I guess I'll have to finish those last two trees myself." He frowned. "Well, tonight won't be that bad, we've got enough up, but this isn't very fair to me. You should have warned me when you started that you wouldn't be able to finish."

The kid was standing near Dean and muttered something. Dean couldn't be sure, but part of him would have sworn the kid had muttered, "Kiss my ass." But Pete didn't seem to hear it. Dean grinned to the kid, Neil seemed to like him, and that was enough for Dean.

The kid started down the street, going in the direction of their place. Dean waved to Pete, mumbling some form of good by, but Pete was more interested at staring morosely at the two trees whose only crime was not having a billion lights each on them.

"Hey!" Dean called after the kid. He looked quickly at Neil. "What's his name?"

"Ka'eo," Neil said.

"Hey, Ka'eo!" Dean called again, hoping he had the pronunciation correct. Well, if he butchered it, the kid still knew it was his name because he stopped and paused to let Dean and Neil catch up. When they did, Dean put out his hand. "Dean Ambrose."

Ka'eo grinned and shook his hand. "I know who you are," he said. "Most everyone on the street knows Neil's father and Cinnamon's uhm, friend is the big time wrestler, Dean Ambrose."

"Really?" Dean didn't know why this surprised him so much.

"Well, yeah, why wouldn't I notice?" Ka'eo asked. "I noticed before that Neil looked like Dean Ambrose. Considering Cinnamon loves wrestling, and comes from the state where you got your start, it wasn't that hard to figure it out once we saw you coming and going."

"Are you a fan?" Dean asked.

Ka'eo nodded. "Yeah, and trust me, it took everything I had not to go running over and act all fanish when I saw you talking to Mr. Spencer."

"Why didn't you?" Dean was curious. Most people had no problem at all acting fanish around him, yet if Ka'eo was correct, most of the street knew exactly who he was, and they had never so much as asked for an autograph.

"'Cause you have your reasons for being here," Ka'eo said, shrugging. "We figure if you wanted the world to know about it, you or Neil here would be telling people. You haven't, so we figure you want to keep your being here on the down-low. Let me tell you though, Thanksgiving was rough, seeing who was over. Yeah, the neighbors have been talking about it, but we've all pretty much come to the conclusion that it's your business why you're here and why make trouble for you? My folks made it pretty clear if me or my friends pestered you, we'd be in serious trouble."

Dean didn't know who Ka'eo's parents were, but he liked them all ready. He smiled and nodded, then remembered the reason why he had stopped Ka'eo in the first place. "You helped Pete Spencer with his lights?"

A sour expression crossed the kid's face. "Yeah, I do. I've been doing it for years. The first couple years it was okay, now it's just getting ridiculous. He's getting more and more demanding, I'm working all day, several days, and he still only pays me twenty five bucks a day. When it started, for one day, a few hours, it was fine. But now I'm working from sun up to sun down on weekends for that same twenty five bucks a day. And now I'm wrapping entire huge trees in lights, climbing up on that roof, which is pretty steep, I'm up and down ladders all the time. It's like Mr. Spencer doesn't do anything, thing, he just orders me around."

"Why don't you quit?" Dean asked.

Ka'eo shrugged. "I'm fifteen. Next year I'll hopefully have a real part time job after school and I'll be able to say no thank you." He looked over at Neil, "Be careful, Neil, he'll probably ask you to help, if you're still living here."

"He's gonna pay me more than twenty five bucks a day," Neil said. "I won't do it for that little."

"Good man!" Ka'eo put up his hand, and Neil gave him a high five. "Hold out for five hundred. But why do I keep doing it? Because it is some Christmas money and if I don't, he'll gripe to my parents that I'm irresponsible. If you haven't figured it out, he's kind of a jerk."

"Yeah," Dean said. "He was snotty as hell when he checked out our display. Called it quaint, made it seem like we put up one of those light candles in the window and called it quits."

"That's what he probably hoped you'd do," Ka'eo said. "He claims to appreciate the displays the other houses do, but there is no way he wants anyone to have anything close to what he has."

They were standing outside of Cinnamon's house now, and Dean nodded his head towards it. "We increased our lights this year."

Ka'eo looked carefully before speaking, "It's a lot bigger than Cinnamon usually has, but..." his voice trailed off.

"-But it's not going to make him sweat, is it?"

Ka'eo shook his head. "No. It may make Mr. Spencer frown, but just a bit."

Dean decided it was time to lay his cards on the table. "I want to make him do more than frown."

"Oh?" Ka'eo looked at him, one brow raised.

"I want to make him cry like a bitch," Dean said, his voice firm.

Ka'eo's eyes widened and then he smiled. "And let me guess, you need help?"

Dean nodded. "I want it done tonight, too. I'll buy anything we need, but I want it done before Cinnamon gets home."

Ka'eo nodded. "I know a few other kids that think Mr. Spencer has been the Christmas Light King for too long. I can call them..." his voice trailed off.

"I'm willing to pay a hundred dollars each. Up to ten kids. For about four or five hours worth of work."

Every time Dean thought Ka'eo's eyes could not get wider, he was proven wrong. "Okay! Let me make some calls."

"Any of them have pick up trucks or large vehicles? Because we need something to haul stuff home in." Dean felt the corners of his mouth turning up into a grin.

"It's West Virginia," Ka'eo pointed out, "Of course I have friend with pickup trucks."

"Good. Call your friends, have them meet us at the Home Depot." Dean rubbed his hands together briskly. "In fact, why don't you come with us? You can call while we're heading to the store."

"Sure, I just have to tell my folks." Ka'eo looked at the driveway, "Er, Mr. Ambrose, you don't have a car."

"Call me Dean," Dean suggested. Since the kid had referred to her as Cinnamon, rather than Ms. Nolan, Dean figured at some point, Cinnamon had told him it was all right for him to use her first name. If she felt this kid could call her by her first name, Dean felt it was okay for him to extend the same courtesy. "And I can borrow the Wilson's truck, they've been lending it to me."

"Why don't I see if my Dad will lend you his?" Ka'eo suggested. "I mean, you have a license, right?"

"Sure," Dean said. "That sounds great. Tell him I'll make sure the tank is full when I return it."

An hour later, they were pulling up to the Home Depot. As they walked up to the door, they saw a couple of kids around Ka'eo age standing around. When Ka'eo saw them, he waved.

While introductions were made, more kids showed up. Counting Ka'eo, Dean saw there were eight kids. "Is everyone meeting us here?"

Ka'eo shook his head. "More kids will meet us at the house. The kids who live in the neighborhood can just walk over to Cinnamon's. They'll be waiting when we get home.

"How many are there?"

"Four... maybe six."

Dean frowned. "I said I could pay ten kids."

"Who says you have to pay them?" Ka'eo asked, a lopsided grin on his face. "Most of the kids in the neighborhood are more than happy to help you for free. But, I figure the more kids the better. If you want, just give me the grand and we'll all split it evenly. Except for Chuck. Chuck I promised would get a hundred."

"Who's Chuck?" Dean asked.

"The kid who used to do Mr. Spencer's computer work for the light show," Ka'eo said. "Chuck and Mr. Spencer had a falling out over the software Chuck was using. Chuck used a free program he found on the net and loved it. Mr. Spencer bought this very fancy software and insisted Chuck use it. Chuck refused because he said it was crap. So, Mr. Spencer hired someone else to do the lights, some idiot programer or something. This guy is charging Mr. Spencer over a grand. Chuck used to do it for him for two hundred. I told him you would like at least one song and light show and he thinks he can do it."

"If he can get a musical light show going, I'll give him two hundred dollars," Dean said firmly. "And I'll still give you the grand to split with the other kids." He looked at the group, who's names he pretty much had already forgotten. "C'mon, let's go."

When they entered the store, an associate who had helped Dean and Neil earlier saw them and came over. "Hi, is everything okay?" he asked.

Dean looked at the name tag to remember his name. "Hey there, Alex. Remember when we came in here earlier and bought a crap-load of Christmas decorations?"

"Yes, of course," Alex said eagerly. He wasn't likely to forget that earlier sale.

"Well, now we need a shit-ton more," Dean said.

Alex's eyes lit up. Dean was pretty sure these associates didn't get commission, but he could imagine that there were certain perks given to stores where sales were high. "Let me help you with that," he said.

They grabbed flatbeds, since the regular carts weren't big enough. Alex pushed another one, so there were ten flatbeds. The headed right over to the outdoor decoration department and Dean set to work, grabbing almost every string of lights they had on display and stacking them on the carts.

After lights, he went to look at the wire and light outdoor displays, like the sleigh and the reindeer he had bought earlier. "I think I want a herd of zombie lighted reindeer," he said, looking at Alex. "I see six out here, do you have any in the back?"

"I'll go check," Alex said, heading off.

"Check and see if you have more of the wire trees too," Dean called after him. "I only see four out here."

Besides the wire decorations, he started piling other decorations onto the flatbeds. Mr. Spencer had blow molds that lit up, but Dean wasn't very keen on those. He liked the displays that were made out of different, smaller lights. Fortunately, the store had plenty of those, too.

As he was loading up a Santa Clause and some angels made of different colored lights, Alex returned. "We have six in the back," he told him. "And six trees, too.

"Great, I'll take them all."

"You're really serious about this, aren't you?" Alex said, studying Dean.

"Deadly serious," Dean said, "We've got a neighbor on our street that thinks he's the king of Christmas displays. He made fun of our display, called it a tasteful little display. Now, I don't know about you, Alex, but no one cares about tasteful little Christmas displays. When it comes to Christmas displays, big, bright and dare I say, tacky is best. As far as I'm concerned, he declared war and I will conquer him."

Alex nodded. "Let me show you something,"

"What?"

"We have to go out to the garden shop, it's too big to fit in the main store."

"Lead the way, Alex."

They walked out to the garden area. Alex raised his finger and Dean looked in the direction of where he was pointing. He found himself grinning wildly. This was great. This was perfect. "I'll take it," he said.

"It isn't cheap," Alex warned him.

"I don't care, I'll take it."

By the time they returned home, the sun was in that gluey twilight state and Dean knew it would be dark soon. He knew this would make working difficult, but they had a solution, the home depot offered rentals of all sorts of equipment, so Dean had rented some high powered spotlights.

There were also a lot of teenagers standing in the yard. He looked over at Ka'eo. "How many kids did you call?"

"Not this many," Ka'eo said, looking startled himself.

"These look like all the older kids in the neighborhood," Neil commented.

"Yeah," Ka'eo agreed.

It turned out that the kids Ka'eo had called had also called other kids in the neighborhood. And not one kid who was able had refused. They didn't care about money, they did care about helping with the house that would blow Pete Spencer's out of the water.

"Okay," Dean said, once everyone was gathered. "We don't have much time. I don't know what time Cinnamon is due home, she was called out on an emergency, but I want this as done as possible by the time she gets home, so we've got to put some speed on it."

"Do you have a plan?" a girl asked.

Dean shook his head. "I just want lots of lights. I want to make Pete Spencer's house look weak."

"I think the wire deer and stuff, the white ones, should be in the center of the yard," Another girl suggested.

"Yeah!" agreed, still a third. "Make that the focal point."

Dean nodded. "I'm willing to let you guys do what you think is best. Just that area at the side of the house? Don't touch that. I have the perfect thing for that. C'mon, let's get to work."

Even though they were all flying by the seat of their pants, the kids started swarming the house. A few had brought ladders with them, and they set them up. Strands of lights were passed along and up. Some kids even brought buckets attached to ropes so they could lower the bucket when it came time for more lights.

Dean watched in amazement as the yard was slowly transformed. The girl who had asked about the plan took over the center of the lawn. She and her friends took strands of blue, twinkling lights and started arranging them on the yard as if to form a small lake of lights with a stream that ran off to the side of the house, looking as if there was a stream running from the back of the house to the front, into a pool. They arranged the deer around the pond and put the sleigh near it, making it look like perhaps the Santa of lights and wires had paused to let his reindeer take a drink at the pond. Among the blue twinkling lights of the stream, they put a select number of white light strands, which gave the pond and stream of lights a feeling of rushing steadily, the white lights acting as little white caps, until it emptied into the pond where it stilled. Dean was amazed. "You really know what you're doing!"

The girl who had asked about plans, he thought her name might be Jasmine, shrugged. "I like this kind of stuff, it's neat to take these things and try to make it more. Most people would just plop the deer and the sleigh down, make it look like Santa had landed and that's it. I like the idea that we're telling a story here. Santa is taking a break and letting the deer have a drink. It's not the usual thing you see."

"Well, it works," Dean said.

Meanwhile, Chuck, the one that Dean was going to give two hundred dollars to, was sitting on the porch steps with a lap top and bins of electronic things that Dean could not identify. Chuck had brought his younger brother with him and he was giving the younger brother orders, which he scurried to follow.

"Mr. Ambrose?" Chuck asked him. "How many songs do you want to run the lights with?"

Dean shrugged. "I have no idea. Not too many, because I don't want to piss off the neighbors. Well, no, that's not true, I want to piss off one neighbor, but I don't want to piss off all of them."

"Don't worry, I'm going to set this up on a low frequency transmitter," Chuck said. "It'll broadcast over FM. If people want to see the light show, they can turn on their radio. I'll also put up speakers if you do want the neighborhood to hear, but you can turn them on and off."

"You can do all this?" Dean asked, amazed.

Chuck shrugged. "Yeah. I was going to do all of this for Mr. Spencer. I did do it for him last year, but now he thinks he's too good for me. Bought some shitty software and hired some shitty guy to do him up. Screw him, I can just transfer it over here."

"Not bitter, are you, Chuck?" Dean said, grinning.

"Maybe just a little," Chuck admitted, grinning in return. "I don't want to do too many songs. It's all cool and stuff, but the more songs we do, the harder it gets. Besides, I think just having one 3-5 minute song that goes off every hour is the best. It gives pizazz to it, without overdoing it. The rest of the time, just have the lights going. But, we can switch up the song every hour."

"What music do you suggest?"

"I've got a rocking version of Carol of the Bells," Chuck suggested. "A lot of people think it's cliche because everyone uses it, but the reason why everyone uses it is because it's works so perfectly for light shows. Some folks even refuse to use Christmas music at all."

Dean frowned. "That's stupid," he said. "It's Christmas, what do people think we should play? Easter songs? Pop rock? Nah, you play Christmas carols."

"That's my feelings," Chuck said.

"Okay, so do the Carol of the Bells thing... and a couple more. You can pick them."

"Okay." Chuck bent back over his laptop indicating the conversation was over.

As the kids worked, weaving tinsel around light strands, hanging lights, and arranging the lighted displays, Dean dragged the final biggest box out of the back of Ka'eo's father's pickup truck and dragged it around to the left side of the house. There was a nice clear patch of land there that could still be seen from the street. Carefully, he opened the box. The light from the spotlights wasn't as strong over here, with the house blocking some of it, but he could see well enough.

As he set up what was in the box, he noticed people were starting to gather in front of the house. He saw the Wilson's first, but soon they were joined by other people too. Some of them called out to the kids helping, saying things to indicated these folks might be the parents to some of his helpers, but some were just coming and looking. When Dean had set up what he could, needing only to plug it in, he got up and walked over. There was quite a gathering, watching the house be transformed into a Kingdom of Christmas lights.

"Hi," he called out, walking over. "Everything all right?"

"Yes," A woman with warm brown skin and long black hair said. "I'm Ka'eo's mother, Lokalia." She pointed to a man who was over by the tree Ka'eo was in. "That is Kani, Ka'eo's father. We came down here to see what's going on." A general murmur of agreement went through the crowd of neighbors.

"War," Dean said, "That's what's going on, war."

"Against Pete Spencer?" Lokalia asked.

"Yup," Dean said, hoping he didn't sound like some idiot who had overreacted to something. "He, uh, made fun of the light display Cinnamon puts on."

"Let me guess," another neighbor said, "He called it quaint."

"And tasteful," Dean said. A low murmur went through the group. "I know it's Christmas and we're all supposed to, like, be into the spirit of love and forgiveness, but Pete Spencer is a jerk and I want to give him a taste of his own medicine. I promise we wont be too obnoxious. The music won't be loud and we'll only do one song a night. The kid who's doing the music says he can make it so people can hear it in their cars. I'll only do the music until eight or nine at night. And if it really bothers you-"

"It's okay," Lokalia interrupted him. "We all would like to see Pete Spencer put in his place. We don't care if you hire a heavy metal band to perform a concert every night, we just want to see him go down."

Dean looked at the activity around house, and then to his neighbors. "I think that won't be a problem."

By the time Cinnamon punched out, she had put in over eleven hours and she was exhausted. How come it seemed that "the most wonderful time of the year" was also the most risky? Still, no one had been so damaged that they wouldn't recover, so as far as she was concerned, it was a good day.

While normally she worked the third shift, because she had been in so early, someone else would be taking her shift, which was fine with her. She had to work at WVW tomorrow, and it would be nice to get a full night's sleep before she went there. Not to mention that it would be nice to go to bed with Dean, even if all they did was sleep.

As she drove home, she wondered if Dean had gotten all the Christmas lights up. She was surprised at how enthusiastic he seemed about the little light display she put up every year. She knew Dean's childhood had left a lot to be desired, (and that was putting it mildly) and he'd never had a house where lights were put up. But he seemed to take to the idea and she loved that he offered to get the lights up while she worked. Of course, there was also a chance that Neil came home and the two of them got sidetracked doing something else. Sometimes Cinnamon wondered if Neil had gotten a dad in Dean or an adult sized playmate, as the two of them could spend hours together playing video games, or shooting each other with Nerf guns.

I guess I just need to be prepared for anything, she thought to herself.

As she was heading down the main road that her street was off of, she could see the brilliant glow of Christmas lights and shook her head. Pete Spencer again, the show off. She didn't like Pete very much. His wife, Annie seemed like a good enough woman, but Pete made her skin crawl. She didn't like that he was racist and she didn't like that he had the habit of assuming that all white people agreed with him. She certainly didn't, and had told him so when he made some disparaging remarks about the Karume family and their son Ka'eo especially. She liked the family and Ka'eo had even baby sat for Neil a couple of times. For the sake of the neighborhood, she was civil to Pete, if she was outside when he drove by, he waved, but that was about all the contact they had. It was about all the contact she wanted.

But, it was Pete's season and she knew it. He'd have his lights blazing, his music blaring. And it made her sad because it should be awesome. The light display he did was extravagant and beautiful and the neighborhood should gather around and appreciate it, but Pete didn't look at it as a gift for the whole neighborhood to enjoy, he looked at it as a way to show his neighbors how superior he was to them.

If I had the time and the money, I'd put on a better display, she thought to herself. And I'd encourage the neighbors to enjoy it, and I'd show Pete Spencer a thing or two. The thought barely came into her head when she wanted to chastise herself for sounding so Grinch-like, even if it was just in her thoughts. This was supposed to be the season for love, family, and togetherness and here she was thinking about how she wanted to take Pete Spencer down. Yeah, that was a good way to think this time of year.

As she turned onto her street, she blinked, realizing the lights looked a lot closer than Pete's place. She slowed the car way down and stared, realizing that no, she was seeing two yards lit up. Pete's house, further down the street and one closer to the end of the street where she lived. Did someone do it? she thought, unable to keep an edge of delight from coming into her thoughts. Did someone finally decide to try to be some real competition?

As she drove closer, she realized the light spectacle wasn't a neighbor, it was coming from her house! She almost drove past it, it was so different. But at the last minute, she caught herself and pulled into the driveway, feeling almost as if she was in a dream.

The little ranch house no longer looked to be made of wood, concrete, vinyl siding, and glass. It looked instead as if it were made entirely of lights. Not just a lot of lights, but thousands of lights, no, make that hundreds of thousands of lights, around the windows, dripping from the gutters, wrapped so tightly around the drain pipes and the porch rails that you couldn't see anything but lights, and they twinkled. Not blinked, but twinkled in a distinct pattern that almost gave the illusion of water flowing.

All the shingles on the roof were outlined with tiny white lights, something she had never seen before, but it gave the house a cottage feeling. Tiny red lights outlined the bricks on the chimney. The front door was a web of tiny, twinkling lights too.

And it wasn't just the house, the lights spilled out to the lawn where a stream of blue lights traveled from the back of the house to the front, leading into a pond where a herd of tiny wire and light reindeer were "drinking" from it, a sleigh parked nearby, complete with a wire Santa. Other light decorations were standing on the yard too. And if that wasn't enough, the whole yard seemed to be a net of tiny white lights, giving the illusion of lit up snow, twinkling over the lawn. Every single tree was decorated in lights, running up the trunk, draped around the branches, twinkling and sparkling in the night.

There wasn't just lights on her lawn though. It also looked like half, no maybe more than half of the neighborhood was in her yard too. She opened the door to the car and stepped out, almost tripping, she was so overwhelmed. Fortunately, Dean and Neil had hurried over. Dean caught her. "Welcome home, Cinnshine."

"Wha?" Cinnamon asked, knowing she must sound like an idiot, but unable to stop herself.

"Do you like it, Mom?" Neil asked, grinning. "We decorated the house and now we're having a party!"

"How?" Cinnamon stammered. She really had to get a grip on herself, but she just couldn't.

"I got the kids to help me," Dean said. "Well, it started with Ka'eo, but he was able to get a lot of kids to come help. Then, their parents and the other neighbors started coming over to see what was going on... one thing lead to another, and it kind of became a party."

Mrs. Wilson came over with a mug of hot chocolate. "Here you go," she said, placing the mug in Cinnamon's hands. "We have a table up on the porch with Christmas cookies and other goodies."

"Thank you," Cinnamon said, accepting the mug gratefully.

"So," Dean said. "What do you think?

"It's... it's amazing!" Cinnamon said. "Absolutely amazing!"

"Think it blows Spencer out of the water?"

"Oh yes," Cinnamon said, nodding.

Other neighbors started coming over and saying hello. Cinnamon responded, but if she was asked later, she never would have been able to tell you what she had said, she was too overwhelmed at the explosion of lights and colors.

"C'mon," Dean said, taking her hand, "I have to show you something!" He lead her to the side of the house, where a huge pile of cloth of some sort was laying on the ground.

"Did someone parachute into the yard?" Cinnamon asked, and realized she would not at all have been surprised if Dean had said, Yes, Santa Clause landed. He's up on the porch eating Christmas cookies.

"Nope," Dean said, shaking his head. "Watch." He walked over to the pile of nylon cloth. and flicked a switch of some kind. A whirring noise was heard and slowly, ever so slowly, the pile of cloth began to transform.

Other people might have grown impatient with the time it took for the decoration to inflate, but Cinnamon was actually grateful. It gave her the time to think, to absorb what was happening. Her yard and house was now transformed into a house worthy of that silly Festival of Holiday Lights, or the Holiday Light Festival, whatever it was called. And that Dean had done this, in less than half a day. Yes, he had plenty of help, but obviously, he had organized the whole thing, he had made it happen.

As if he could read her mind, he slipped his arm around her, kissed her head and whispered into her ear, "Never under estimate the power of a pissed off lunatic."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Pete Spencer said our display was quaint, and tasteful," Dean said. "And to quote Bugs Bunny, 'you know this means war.'"

Cinnamon laughed, then looked back at the inflating display, realizing it was growing taller every second and still had a ways to go. It was a gigantic snowman that towered over the house, complete with "Stick" arms, and a "Carrot" nose. "That has to be the biggest Christmas decoration I've ever seen!" she said, amazed.

"Yeah," Dean said, a happy grin spread across his face. "The clerk at Home Depot said they only got two of them in. One was on display. We bought this one. Pete Spencer doesn't have one of these, let me tell you!"

Cinnamon was about to comment, when one of the kids, Chuck, she was pretty sure his name was, came running over. "Are you ready?" He asked Dean.

"Sure!" He looked at Cinnamon. "You're just in time for the light show!"

"Light show?" Cinnamon stared at him, "Isn't this whole yard a light show?"

"Yeah, but Chuck has set it up to sync to music."

"Oh, this I have to see."

Everyone moved away from Cinnamon's lawn and over to the lawn of the house across the street. Someone had set up a portable radio. Chuck had tuned it into the right frequency. "Okay, is everyone ready?"

"Yes!"

Chuck held the portable lap top in one arm, and with one hand, pressed some buttons. Every light on the house went out and the yard was plunged in blackness.

At first Cinnamon thought something had gone wrong, but then the music started, Carol of the Bells, slowly, softly, and just as slowly, just as softly, the lights began twinkling, seeming to glide across the roof, and as the song grew louder, more and more lights started twinkling on and off in time to the song, until it almost looked like the lights themselves were dancing, and the dancing was making the music play. Cinnamon had seen such displays on You Tube before, and even seen them other years on Pete Spencer's yard, but there was something so overpoweringly different about this one. Maybe it was because it was her house, but it wasn't just that she was hearing the music, and seeing the lights, it was as if she was feeling it, as if it wasn't outside of her, but inside too. Dean was standing next to her, and she slipped her arm around him, not only because she wanted to be close, but she was afraid if she didn't have someone to hold on to, that she'd fall. His arm tightened around her and even though he didn't take his eyes off the lights, he kissed the top of her head and his other arm went around Neil who was standing on the other side.

She knew the other neighbors were there to, but for these magical four minutes, while the song played, the world was nothing but the three of them, the lights and the music. And she gasped, because she knew that this moment in time was as close to perfect as she would ever know.

The End.

Author's Notes: Please forgive the liberties I took here. I know that a light and sound display of the magnitude that I described in this story would take a lot longer than one night to arrange. But, this is fiction, so I took some liberties.

Special Thanks To:

Nancy: I would assume Cinnamon did take a picture of Neil and Dean, And probably has it on her phone.

Just A Reader: Thank you. I've done a fair share of reading to kids and some kids will question everything. I don't know if Dean was quite ready for Story time with Neil, but I think by the end of it, he was getting the hang of it.

To everyone else who reviewed the first Chapter, Neil and the Giant Tomato Plant? Thank you every so much. I really thought I'd have more stories to go into this by now, and I'm sorry it took me so long to get a second one.

To everyone reading? Happy Holidays, no matter what you celebrate. And a safe and Happy New Year. May 2015 be the best year of your life.