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Steve’s usually a decent sleeper - at least he’s become one in his later years, now that the world’s calmed down a bit. The nights aren’t always great, though. He still has nightmares now and again, waking up with a scream caught in his throat and a prickling of sweat breaking across his brow. Darcy’s also notorious for kicking in her sleep. She claims that it’s because Steve has a bad tendency to steal the covers, but the claim is suspect. They’re also sleeping in the guest room of Darcy’s parents’ place, on an overly squishy bed that he feels like he’s going to fall straight through.
And then there’s the other reason that Steve finds himself getting up in the middle of the night. He twists in the bed to see Joey’s bright blue eyes peeking over the edge of the mattress, one hand gripping at the blankets and the other one wrapped around a stuffed dog that’s definitely seen better days. Steve looks over at the portable cot they’d setup for him, complete with bumper guards to keep the kid inside, but Joey’s turned out to be a wily and flexible two-and-a-half year old who learned very quickly how to scale the walls of his crib and make a run for it.
“Can’t sleep, buddy?” Steve asks, voice raspy and low in the silent room.
Joey shakes his head, hugging the stuffed dog even closer. He’s a lot more awake than his father is, Steve thinks. He’s experienced sleepless nights many a time, but parenthood is a type of sleep deprivation unlike anything else. “Come on,” Steve sighs, twisting in the bed until he’s able to wrap Joey in his arms and haul him onto the mattress next to him. Joey just giggles and bounces a bit, one pointed elbow making its way right into Steve’s abdomen.
“Hey,” Steve chides him, fighting back the wince from the jab. “Sleep.”
“No,” Joey replies, shaking his head again.
Steve tries to get Joey in a bear hug, cradle him against his chest so that all of the movement and giggles don’t wake Darcy. But apparently, Joey’s inherited the stubbornness from both of them, and he just won’t stay still. At all. Instead, he mumbles something that Steve can’t quite understand and rubs his hands over the stiff bristles of his dad’s beard, the stuffed dog falling to the wayside against his mother’s hip.
Yeah, they’re not going to be sleeping anytime soon.
Steve rolls to his feet, swooping Joey along with him and making the kid giggle. He shushes him hastily, and hustles him out of the room before he can wake Darcy up. They head down the stairs, Steve hoping that maybe some walking and bouncing around would get Joey to calm down and go back to sleep. At the very least, it would get them away from the bedrooms.
He stops in the living room, the large picture window that looks down the hill with the city of Providence peeking through the nighttime and the trees with gleaming yellow lights. “That’s a sight, isn’t it?” Steve whispers against Joey’s head, just as the toddler reaches out for the window, leaving a smear of grubby fingerprints behind on the glass. It’s one of those moments where he has to take a breath and marvel at what exactly his life has become lately, decades away from when and where it had first started and any number of twists and turns to lead him to this very moment, quiet and solemn.
It’s hard to deny the brightness in this quiet moment, however, with the city humming along down at the base of the hill, and his toddler son in his arms, reaching out for the silver menorah perched on the windowsill about to tip it onto the floor -
“Hey, Joey, no,” Steve says as he leans forward awkwardly to catch the candle that’s tipped over before it hits the floor, shatters, and wakes up everyone in the house.
“It’s not an untouchable object,” a voice says behind them. Steve turns to see Darcy’s stepfather Michael walking into the room, a tall and broad salt and pepper haired man wearing pajama pants and a sweater and holding a mostly empty tumbler of something alcoholic in his hand. “Let him explore if he wants to.”
“Are you sure? Sometimes he doesn’t know his own strength.” And Steve definitely isn’t going to think about the implications of that, no siree, not right now.
Michael just moves over next to the two of them and tugs the menorah closer to Joey’s grasping hands. “You’re never too young to start learning about your heritage.”
For once, Joey’s fingers are surprisingly delicate, leaving tiny smudges behind on the silver filigree as he traces the curlicues and mounds of the polished surface. His tongue pokes out of his mouth in concentration as he grabs at one of the two candles that are in the menorah, fingernails leaving small gouges in the wax. “Can’t sleep either?” Steve murmurs to Michael, never taking his eyes off of Joey’s explorations.
“I’ve always been a night owl,” Michael says with a shrug. “Besides, there are too many things to do in a day and never enough time to do them in.” His sips at his drink, ice clinking almost merrily in the glass. “You?”
Steve glances down at Joey, who’s picked up one of the candles and is twisting it around in his hands, staring at it with an intent that concerns him, especially if it’s going to end up in his mouth as a chew toy. “I was asleep, but this one wasn’t.”
“The joys of parenthood.” Michael laughs quietly, also following Joey’s movements. “I remember those days, as far off as they are now.”
(To the best of Steve’s knowledge, Michael had a few mostly grown children of his own when he’d married Darcy’s mom during her teenage years, but as they’d spent more time with his ex-wife than his new family, Darcy wasn’t exactly close to her step-siblings. Which explained a lot as to why she was the only one of the children who’d shown up for a Thanksgiving celebration that led right into Hanukkah at the Providence house, but she tries not to bring up that elephant in the room if she has a choice.)
Before he can respond Joey makes a small grunting noise, and Steve looks down to find that the end of the candle has indeed made its way into his mouth. He chews carefully on the wax, like he’s trying to make sense of the flavor on his tongue. “I don’t think so.” Steve tugs the candle out of his mouth, running a thumb over the little teeth marks in the wax before Joey reaches for it once more. “If that ends up in your mouth again, it’s going back in the menorah,” Steve warns him, still not relinquishing the candle to wandering toddler hands.
“Do you know the story of Hanukkah?” Michael asks, and Steve’s not sure if he’s talking to him or Joey. “You looked a little lost during the prayers earlier.”
“I’ve, uh, I’ve heard the basics,” Steve eventually says, bouncing Joey in his arms a couple of times. “One day’s worth of oil keeping the menorah lit for eight instead, I think.”
Michael shakes his head with a rueful sigh and a grin. “That is beyond basic, and if Darcy’s the one who told you that story I’m going to need to have words with her,” he murmurs. “The part of the story that always resonated with me, personally, was what had led up to the miracle of the oil. There was a war - there’s always a war - because the Greeks had believed that their way was the only way and that all of the Jewish people needed to follow their ideology instead of their ancient traditions.”
Steve focuses on snuggling Joey close, holding up the candle so he can explore the slick surface with hands and not teeth. “I’m guessing that suggestion didn’t go over well?”
“About as well as a lead zeppelin.” Michael snorts, taking a sip from his glass. “But, the Greeks outnumbered us by a large margin, so fighting back wasn’t that easy. Enter the Maccabees. A comparatively small group of fighters, but with more determination in one singular pinky toe than the entire Greek army. And sure enough, even in the face of absolutely overwhelming and unbelievable odds, the Maccabees triumphed, resoundly telling the Greeks to get the fuck out of their lands.” He glances down at Joey, still preoccupied with his candle. “Don’t repeat that word. Has he started the parrot stage yet?”
“Unfortunately,” Steve murmurs with a small grin. “Don’t worry though, it’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, which can be blamed on both me and Darcy.”
“Darcy has never, ever been one for being quiet,” Michael agrees.
“Not a bad quality to have.”
“Especially with a mind as sharp as hers.” Another drink, the remnants of the ice cubes rattling around in the glass with a tiny tinkle. “So, anyway, the Maccabees triumphed, but the land had been ravaged by the war, the temples filled with foreign idols. The temples were cleaned out, a new menorah created to replace the idols, and that’s where the oil comes in. One day’s worth of blessed oil kept the menorah lit even in the darkness for eight full days until the new one arrived. And that’s why, for me at least,” Michael finishes up with a toast, “the most important part of the story of Hanukkah is that we fought back against people who told us our way of life was wrong, and stayed firm in our beliefs and our faith.” He puts the glass down and reaches out for Joey, and Steve’s all too happy to give his arms a rest so Joey can have some quality time with his grandfather. “Never forget that, Joey,” Michael says. “If you believe something is true and good for the world, you fight for your beliefs. People have spent millennia trying to tell us our way of life was wrong, and we will always stand up strong in the face of that.”
“Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right,” Steve finds himself murmuring, smoothing Joey’s tousled locks into some semblance of order, “even if the whole world is telling you to move. It is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye and say, no. You move.”
“Basically, yeah.” Michael’s eyes flick up towards him, mouth pursed and eyes half lidded like he’s about to ask a question. But the question fades out of his eyes, and instead he says, “that’s a pretty fair assessment.”
The candle topples out of Joey’s hand, and it hits the floor with a loud clatter, sharp and ringing in the nighttime silence. Steve reaches down to get it, muttering more towards the hardwood than at Michael, “It’s something a friend of mine always used to say.”
“You have hidden depths to you, Steven, don’t you.” And sure enough, if that look isn’t more exacting and pointed than before. He wants to squirm in place, or run as far away as possible, but he can’t quite decide. Then Joey shifts in Michael’s arms, yawning as he burrows his head against his sweater for a moment, then he shakes his head, giggling at he pulls at a loose thread on Michael’s collar. It’s enough to center Steve back in the here and now, and he’s more than grateful for it.
“Someday I’ll tell you the story.” He yawns, widely, jaw cracking. “When I’m not about to fall back asleep,” Steve deflects, because he’s not sure he’ll ever be ready to tell that story at the drop of a hat. Not anymore. “What do you think, Joey, you ready for bed?”
“No,” he says, adding in a firm headshake to really make his point.
“Please?” Steve all but begs. He shouldn’t be begging his two year old son, of all things, but sometimes parenting strips away all of the last dregs of his dignity. “You’re going to be grumpy tomorrow if you don’t.”
Michael laughs a bit and hoists Joey up higher in his arms. “Steve, go up to bed. Joey and I will sit here for a while and talk about important things. Grandpa to grandson. And I’ll make sure he gets back to sleep; it’s not my first trip around this block.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. We’ve got lots to talk about, don’t we?” Joey echoes his grandpa’s nod, and settles back, getting comfortable in his arms.
“If you’re sure,” Steve says, running his hand back through his hair. “Thank you, Michael.”
“It is my absolute pleasure. Sleep well, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
With another nod, Steve shuffles back upstairs, slipping into the dark guest room where Darcy’s still sound asleep. He pauses there, closing the door with a soft click behind him and dropping back against it with a gusty sigh. There’s an odd twitchiness running under his skin, like he wants to jump out of it for a few moments. Michael can’t have known how his words would wrap themselves around Steve’s brain, a slightly changed refrain of the same song he’s been singing his entire life.
Maybe it’s harder to leave that life behind than he’d hoped, if it’s still so easy to read his feelings on his face like that.
But, propped just to the left on top of an old dresser, is a stack of tiny, folded, multi-colored sweaters that smell of the organic laundry detergent that Darcy is determined to use because it’s better for the environment and Joey, she insisted. The scent alone is enough to snap Steve back into his body, exhaling and running his hands back over his head. He’s here and now, with a family to take care of and a holiday to celebrate.
The lights in the darkness, he thinks, as his eyes find Darcy in the bed, twisted towards his empty side of the mattress with one leg sticking out from beneath the blankets. She doesn’t wake up fully when he crawls back under the covers, but she snuffles and leans towards him even more, her head burrowing against his chest just like her son does. Steve runs a hand down her hair, just as she murmurs, “Joey?” in a low, cloudy voice.
“He’s fine. He’s with Michael,” Steve whispers back.
“Mmm, kay.” After that, it only takes seconds for Darcy to be fully asleep once more, breaths deep and even with just a hint of a snore in her nose. Steve wraps his arm around her waist, tugging her just close enough that he can feel her exhalations against his neck and follows her down into sleep, the worries of a few minutes before fading away into the night.