[fic] [h50] Can I Interest You In Hanukkah [G]
leupagus is a terrible influence.
Meg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSJCSR4MuhU&feature=player_embedded#!
Meg: also if you're making danno a cashew I think there should be a fic about how he makes latkes for Grace and Steve eats them all
Meg: possibly also a visual history demonstration of why the Macabees were awesome involving a stuffed elephant and Steve's gi joes
leupagus: ...
Meg: doooo eeeet
leupagus: Yeah meanwhile were are the fics YOU are writing for H50
leupagus: I have given, and given, and given
leupagus: AND WHAT HAVE YOU GIVEN IN RETURN
Meg: A COMM
Meg: i MEAN UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT ME TO LIE ABOUT HANUKKAH
leupagus: Dude I probably know less about it than you do
leupagus: I can never even remember how to spell it!
Mild amounts of Steve's depressing crush on his tiny partner, otherwise as pure as the driven etc. HAPPY HANUKKAH, DUDES AND LADIES.
"I thought you were Catholic," blurted out Steve, at least two hours behind the times. Danny had coolly invaded his house, allowed his daughter to spread out her tiny plastic toys all over the living room, and glared at Steve when he tried to take one of the chocolate coins fromb the bag with the potatoes, onions and eggs. For explanation he had said merely, "I always make Gracie latkes for Hanukkah, and my oven is sh - terrible."
"I am," said Danny, not ceasing to press liquid from the grated potatoes.
"But you - latkes - Hanukkah?"
"My mother is Jewish," explained Danny. "My father is Catholic."
"Oh," said Steve, and then, "Wait, doesn't that make you -"
"Say it, I dare you," said Danny. He was really close to the knives, so Steve shut up.
"I've never been really sure what Hanukkah was about,", said Steve eventually, as Danny dropped spoonfuls of potato and egg onto the skillet. A delicious fried smell began to rise up. Steve's mouth watered. It smelled like ambrosia. Danny's sleeves were rolled half-way up his arms to keep them clean, and Steve could see the way the muscles in his forearms moved and flexed as he worked. His tie was loosened but not removed, and the top button of his shirt was undone because of the heat from the stove. Steve swallowed hard and looked away.
"Monkey," said Danny, very deliberately, "Go into the study and get the cardboard box from the bottom shelf of the third bookcase, and then go ask Miss Mary if we can borrow her elephant she got at the zoo with us." He considered for a moment. "And one of your Polly Pockets, too."
Steve's eyebrow went up - and up - but he took a latke from the paper-covered draining board. One of his teammates in the SEALs had been Jewish, and made latkes every Hanukkah until he'd been shipped back home. Steve felt sort of guilty every time for glutting himself on them, but they were very good.
"Stop that," said Danny, whacking his hand.
"These are terrible for you," said Steve, nursing his wrist.
Danny ignored this. Grace came back with a stuffed elephant about the size of her torso - and when had Mary gotten that? When had Danny gone to the zoo with Mary and Grace, and not Steve? The thought made him uneasy. Danny was a great person. He didn't deserve to have Mary's crazy in his life. Not that he didn't love his sister and all, he added to himself hastily. She put it down and went back into the study, returned with a box, and Steve realized -
"Where did you find that?" he said.
"Mary found them in your hall closet," said Danny, flipping a latke. "And she said she didn't think you'd mind if Grace played with them nicely."
"They're vintage action figures," said Steve, between his teeth.
"They're your old GI Joes, princess," said Danny, slanting a glance at him and smiling in the way that meant he knew he was going to win. "Chin was sure interested to hear that -"
"Stop now," pleaded Steve. "Just - stop now."
"I didn't let her play with your football," said Danny soothingly. Just then his phone began shrilling the theme from Psycho, and Steve said,
"Dude, you're going to be in huge shit when Gracie finds out about that."
Danny flipped him off and picked up the phone. "YES, Delight of My Eyes." He flipped over the latke in the pan. "No. Yes. I don't care if God Himself is over at your house, you promised me her for Hanukkah. What? Seriously? Seriously now Step-Stan wants to be multi-cultural?" He dropped another round of latkes onto the skillet. "See, this is why nobody trusts your taste in men. Yes. Yes. But you divorced me, right? Ow, stop. Okay. What? Seriously, Rachel, if you want some latkes that bad - what? NO, that was not an invitation to - okay okay fine, Christ, I will send some home with Gracie. Look, I gotta go - okay, okay. Yes. Goodbye, Rachel."
"You two get along so well," said Steve, politely. "How did you stop arguing long enough to -"
Danny pointed the spatula at him. "I dare you to finish that sentence," he said.
Steve held up both hands in a peace-making gesture, and then, because he was dumb as Mary told him he is sometimes, started, "I mean, did you two -" and had to duck a dish towel thrown at his head.
Fortunately Gracie returned before her father could follow the dishtowel with the skillet, carrying a pink house-shaped carrying case, which she set beside the box of Steve's action figures and the elephant.
Danny set a plate of latkes in front of her, perfectly brown and accompanied by dabs of sour cream and applesauce. Steve had eaten about three fourths of the latkes as soon as they were cool enough to be picked up, and his mouth still watered looking at it.
"All right, baby," said Danny, wiping his hands off. "Let's explain to Steve why the Macabees were awesome."
The Macabees, as represented by a force of tiny plastic figures in pink and yellow, rushed under the elephant - manned by GI Joes - and cut open the elephant's stomach with an equally tiny pink spatula from Grace's Barbie collection. The elephant fell over with suitable sound effects, crushing the GI Joes and one of the Polly Pockets beneath it.
"Though you have died this day, my sons," declaimed Danny solemnly, "you have defeated our enemies, and Jerusalem is once more ours!"
The Daughters of Zion, as represented by Grace tearing around the room with Mary's tambourine, cheered.
Steve just stared for a minute, trying not to smile as Grace rushed into her father's legs and hugged him. "Let's do dreidel!" she said.
"Play with Steve until I finish the latkes," said Danny. "Unless Steve's scared you'll win all his gelt."
"I can spin a top with an eight year old girl," said Steve, offended.
"Oh, you have no idea," said Danny. "Tell you what, I'll play the winner."
Half an hour later, Steve sat sullenly eating a plate of latkes while Danny spun a driedel with his daughter. Grace had a pile of chocolate coins in front of her large enough to keep her sugar high until they put out Valentine's candy.
"You look so happy," said Mary, dropping a kiss on the top of his head and stealing the largest latke from his plate.
"I resent that," said Steve, but he let her dip the latke in his sour cream.
1. This doesn't look too terribly hard to make: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/potato-latkes-i/Detail.aspx
2. I am not a Cashew, this is just another terrible side effect of The Way I Was Raised. A Cashew, fyi, is a person who has one Catholic parent and one Jewish parent.
3. Yes, really, one of the Macabees went and charged under a war elephant, cutting open its stomach and killing the elephant, the Greeks on it, and himself in the process. That's just how they rolled. One of the lady Jews also went and hacked off some dude's head for the fun of it.
4. The actual miracle Hanukkah celebrates, of course, is the one pure container of oil left in the temple lasting eight days until more oil could be pressed, prepared and sanctified, instead of the one day it should have lasted.