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“Stove, stove, stove, shit, move out of my way, the stove’s still on, fuck.”
“What’s going on with her?” Jonny asked as Raphaella blew past him to turn off the stove.
“Tonight’s the first night of Hanukkah,” Brian said, twisting metal parts together in the corner in the shape of a menorah.
“So? Are any of us actually religious?”
“Ivy is, apparently!” Raphaella answered, half-hysterically. “Which none of us knew until yesterday! I have less than eight hours left to plan a celebration and get presents for her, just because she assumed no one else would care—this is your fault, by the way,” she hissed at Jonny, pointing an accusing finger at his chest, “for making all of us allergic to feelings—”
“What the fuck—”
“—and now none of us share anything personal! Even basic information like religion!”
“Well, her conversion was pretty recent,” Tim commented as he passed through the kitchen.
Raphaella paused in the middle of plating a batch of latkes and stared at him. “You knew about this?”
“Yeah? I mean, I’m Jewish, so she talked about it a bit with me. Fuck, I haven’t had these in so long.” He reached for a latke.
Raphaella stabbed his hand with a knife, and he muttered a pained curse before moving away to sulk.
“I have never seen you celebrate Hanukkah. Much less any Jewish holiday,” Jonny said, bewildered.
Tim turned defensive. “Okay, one, it’s a minor holiday, let’s address that first, two, it’s a just a bit depressing to celebrate a holiday alone, three, just because I don’t actively celebrate anything doesn’t mean I’m not Jewish, and four, I don’t actually know when the holidays are anymore because it’s been a solid thousand years since I’ve seen a calendar of any kind.”
“We would have celebrated with you if we’d have known!” Raphaella exclaimed. “Again, we should talk about ourselves with each other more!”
“Oh, no thank you.”
“Ugh, sounds horrible.”
“What purpose does that even serve?”
“Fine, fine, whatever, just help me pull this celebration together for tonight!”
“Sour cream is absolutely better than applesauce, fuck you, I’ve had these before, therefore I am correct.”
“Aren’t you…lactose intolerant?” Jonny said. “You’re wrong, either way.”
“Fuck you, so are you.” Tim glared at him.
“Which is why I prefer applesauce,” he said.
“Tim, no one agrees with you, give up.”
“Are we bullying Tim?” Ashes asked as they entered the room with Marius.
“Applesauce or sour cream?” the room chorused, staring at them expectantly.
“…what.”
“Try one of these with sour cream, then with applesauce, then tell us which one is better,” Tim said, shoving the plate of latkes toward them.
“Uh, alright. They’re not poisoned, are they?”
“Of course not, just try them.”
A rare moment of silence as they watched the two eat, then—
“Oh, applesauce.”
“Yeah, definitely applesauce.”
“Fuck!”
Jonny cackled madly as Tim flipped the table and Raphaella tried to save the plate from falling to the floor.
“Fuck, I need candles!”
“No fucking way she forgot candles.” Ashes stared at her in disbelief as she threw open drawers and cabinets frantically. “It’s the Festival of Lights.”
Tim threw a bewildered glance in their direction as he briefly stopped raiding their stash of gold. “Since when are you knowledgeable about Jewish holidays?”
“Since that time I had a crush on you and did a fuck ton of research on Judaism to impress you only to realize you didn’t give a shit. And Raph, I’ve got plenty of candles, they’re behind the door marked ‘Arson’ down the hall.”
“I always wondered what was behind that door,” remarked Jonny, leering at Ashes. “What resulted of this crush?”
“I think the whole polycule got together like, a month later, so it didn’t really matter,” Ashes said.
“All that research and you didn’t think to help Raph plan anything?” Tim asked, amused.
“Hey, I found out about all this when you force-fed us latkes half an hour ago, I’m sure she’s got it handled. I can see you, by the way,” they said, as Tim attempted to walk past subtly with an armful of gold. “You can just ask.”
“You’d say no!” Raphaella said as she reentered the room with a large basket of candles.
“We only need two for tonight,” Brian said hesitantly, not wanting to set her off again.
She waved off his comment. “Might as well just get them all together.”
“Wait, who’s going to light them?” Tim asked.
“Ivy can, I know she’s been learning Hebrew and she’ll want to do this. She’s probably memorized the Torah at this point,” Ashes said.
“Did everyone else know about my girlfriend’s conversion before me?” Raphaella wailed.
Tim placated her, “It was just the two of us, calm down. She was going to tell you before the others, and she did, didn’t she?”
“Yeah,” she said sulkily.
“C’mon, let’s go talk to her and tell her about the celebration tonight so she’s not going in blind.”
“Oh, uh…”
Ashes sighed. “Raph, you were going to tell her beforehand, right?”
“I was going to surprise her…”
Jonny rolled his eyes. “She might like surprises, but I feel like this one might be just a bit overwhelming for her, no?”
“Okay, okay, c’mon, Tim, let’s go.”
“Hey, Ivy!” Tim yelled into the library.
“Shut the fuck up!” Ivy’s voice came from a distant corner.
“Raph wants to tell you something!”
“Oh.” She emerged from a bookshelf. “What’s going on?”
“Hi.” Raphaella smiled as Ivy walked over and kissed her cheek. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine. Did you need something?”
Raphaella shifted nervously and shot a glance at Tim, who was oh-so-helpfully wandering the bookshelves and avoiding eye contact.
“We’re…having a celebration tonight, it’s for Hanukkah, I wanted to do it because you told me you were Jewish literally yesterday and when I looked up a calendar to find Jewish holidays I found out the next one is like, today, and I’ve spent a lot of time planning this over the past day so please come I think I’ll actually cry if you say no—”
“Wait, wait, slow down. You’re doing a Hanukkah celebration?”
“Yeah?”
Ivy squinted at her. “You could have waited at least until a major holiday.”
She threw up her hands helplessly. “I didn’t want to wait so long. It’s a big deal to some people.”
“Well, I do appreciate the thought. Of course I’ll come,” Ivy said with a mild laugh.
“Thank fuck,” Tim sighed. “We’ve put in too much work to not do this.”
“ Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah . Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, she-asah nisim laavoteinu v’imoteinu bayamim hahaeim baz’man hazeh . Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu v'kiy'manu v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh .”
Ivy took hold of the shammash and lit the first candle. “It’s quite a nice menorah. Where did you get one on such short notice?”
“Brian made it, actually.”
“You’re welcome!”
Ivy hummed appreciatively, admiring the metalwork. “Impressive. Can we eat now?” she asked, glancing at Tim.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yeah, that’s fine, go ahead.”
Jonny stared at him in disbelief. “You’re crying!”
“Shut the fuck up! I physically cannot cry because someone got rid of my fucking eyes— ”
“Not my fault! You’d totally be crying if you could right now!”
“It’s been millennia since I’ve heard that, of course I’m going to get emotional! Anyway,” he huffed, taking a deep breath to keep his composure. “What were we talking about?”
“Food?”
“Oh, yeah, sounds great, let’s eat. Wait, is it kosher?”
“Of course it is, what do you take me for, how much research do you think I’ve done in the past day—”
“Haven’t you literally eaten human flesh,” Ashes deadpanned. “I don’t know, I’ve just gotten the sense that you don’t really keep kosher.”
“I’m in a weird mindset, alright, I’m having feelings I haven’t felt in thousands of years, and I feel like my mum’s going to start yelling at me from her grave if I so much as look at pork right now.”
They shrugged. “Fair enough.”
“Wait, Raph, since when do you cook?” Marius asked, eyeing the dishes with suspicion.
“I don’t.”
“I do,” Brian sighed. “There’s no hidden science experiment in the food, I promise. Let’s eat.”
“He’s cheating. He’s totally fucking cheating.”
The crew stared in disbelief as Jonny spun gimel the third time in a row and swiftly collected what was in the pot.
“He cheats in everything. Of course he’d find a way to cheat at dreidel.”
“It’s a fucking wooden top. What is he doing.”
“Sucks to suck,” he taunted, sticking his tongue out like a child.
“It’s a game of chance!” Ashes shouted.
“You’re just mad you’re already out,” Marius said, before spinning shin. “Guess I am, too.”
“You know, it’s a good thing we’re using real money for gelt. The chocolate would’ve all been eaten by now,” Ivy commented.
Tim nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. I just figured it was because we didn’t want to find chocolate coins.”
The rest of the crew was silent for a moment, before Marius burst out, “We could have been playing for chocolate ?”
“Yeah?”
“That would have raised the stakes so much higher!”
“Higher than solid gold coins ?”
“Yeah! You can’t eat gold!”
“Speak for yourselves,” Brian said, before biting into a coin with a harsh clink .
“I’d say that was a successful first night,” Ivy said as she and Raphaella walked back to the library.
“Really? You enjoyed it?” Raphaella smiled.
“Of course I did. You put a lot of thought into everything. I appreciate it.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you did.” She wrapped her arm around Ivy and squeezed her shoulder.
“You don’t need to go all out for the rest of the days, though.”
“Thank fuck,” Raphaella sighed in relief. “I’m exhausted.”
Ivy laughed. “Maybe we’ll get used to it in the future. Make some new traditions for us all.”
“Maybe. Let’s go to bed for now. Chag urim sameach, my love.”
Ivy sighed, kissing her cheek. “Your pronunciation is horrible. Chag urim sameach.”
Late that night, in the privacy of his own room, Tim pulled the Star of David necklace he kept under his shirt out. He rubbed his thumb across the dull metal, noting that he needed to polish it soon.
His mind crept back to earlier that night, right after Ivy lit the candles. He’d been so caught up in memories from back home, he’d forgotten the Ma’oz Tzur. Sure, not everyone did it, but his family had, and it seemed like something the crew might appreciate.
He softly whistled the first few bars of the tune, slowly recalling the words.
“What’s that?”
Tim nearly jumped out of his skin as Jonny entered his room silently and suddenly. “Fucking hell, Jonny, what was that for?”
“Felt like it. What was that song?”
He suddenly felt strangely awkward, despite being caught doing something they all did on a regular basis. “Just…a song from childhood.”
Jonny hummed. “What’s it about?”
Tim gave him a flat look. “Cut the crap, stop acting like you’re trying to be sympathetic. It’s creepy.”
“But Tim, I’m trying to pry whilst maintaining an air of respect. Do you want me to disrespect you?”
“Stop it.”
Jonny laughed. “No, but seriously, what is it?”
“The Ma’oz Tzur. We used to sing it after we lit the candles.”
“Was it uncommon?”
“Not really, it just might not have been something either of them studied.”
“Hm. It means a lot to you?”
Tim hesitated, looking down at the star in his hand. “Yeah. Kind of.”
“Why don’t you teach it to us tomorrow night, then?”
He looked up at Jonny, surprised, as the man tried his hardest to school his features into something neutral. Tim grinned. “Is this your way of getting us to talk about our feelings?”
Jonny looked as if he’d eaten…well, something worse than human flesh. Like a really unsanitary alien’s flesh. “No! This has nothing to do with feelings!”
“Alright, sure. Thank you, though,” he added, with a hint of sincerity.
“Fuck off.”
“Love you too!” he called after Jonny’s retreating form. “Chag sameach!”
”Chag urim sameach, bastard!”