sixthiterationlogs | If you really, really wannakah/Have a happy, happy, happy, happy Hanukkah [OPEN]

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If you really, really wannakah/Have a happy, happy, happy, happy Hanukkah [OPEN]

WHO: Samantha Moon
WHERE: Various parts of the Inn
WHEN: December 2-10
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: Standard language warnings for Sam; nudity and sexy in thread with Danny

Sam had many talents, but tracking the lunar calendar wasn't necessarily one on her resume. Nevertheless, it was December and she decided that meant Hanukkah was on the way. Her second one in the fucking clown rodeo. Something like her fifth or sixth since dying. Which was just depressing as all hell. As if she needed something else depressing to weigh on her mind.

Last year, she'd cobbled together a menorah out of bolts and spare wires and broken bottle necks. It looked steampunk as hell, but when she managed to pull together enough candles to light the thing up, she had to admit, it was kind of cheery. It was about as out-of-place as they all were, trapped in this Skinner Box of doom, so in that sense, it was perfectly at home. So she lit it every night in the common area of the Inn, on the window ledge.

Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai
E-lo-he-nu Me-lech ha-olam
Something, something
Something
Soooomething
Something, something
Le-had-lik ner
Shel Cha-nu-kah.

Okay, so she didn't remember all the words. It was the thought that counted, right? Sure. Why not.

When she wasn't lighting the candles, she sometimes slipped into the kitchen. The year before, Erik had taught her a recipe for latkes. She remembered most of the basics and tried her hand at it a few times. Not that she could fucking eat any of them, but after the first couple of failed batches, they started to smell pretty amazing. And she left them out on a plate for anyone who came by.

And feeling particularly in the holiday spirit, she set herself up at her favorite table in the corner, with her box of colored pencils. She'd saved scraps of paper where she could, stealing napkins, starched fabric, and what remained of the book Jude had put together for her. On one of the napkins, she wrote "Free Portraits." Back home, she'd done some unofficial work as a police sketch artist. They didn't have photographs of the people they'd left behind. But she could do pretty good approximations. She'd hung up one of her sketches of Avery as an example.

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Danny had come to the inn to see Sam and was pleasantly surprised to find her making use of the inn's kitchen. He honestly hadn't known that she knew how to cook, she didn't exactly need to eat, but she was constantly surprising him. He stood leaning against the door frame watching her before clearing his throat to make his presence known.

"What are you making?"

He was wearing his monk robes as usual though his chest was covered today. There was a warm look in his eyes though his smile was lightly subdued. He was happy to see her like this and would be perfectly content to continue watching her make... whatever it was she was making.

It smelled good and his stomach growled.

"You don't have to stop." He added quick when she looked up and found him watching her.

There was a relatively new sensation Sam had started to experience. Partly in her chest, partly in her stomach. There seemed to be a certain correlation to when she felt it and when she saw Danny. Not enough data to draw any firm hypotheses, but she was pretty sure it was that rare and elusive thing that they called 'joy.'

She would have to run further tests.

"These are latkes," she said, scraping the last one out of the frying pan and dumping it on a plate. "It's a traditional treat you make on Hanukkah. Guess I was just feeling a little sentimental. You can have some if you like. Normally, they're served with applesauce, but we don't really have any."

She dumped the frying pan into the sink, satisfied by the hiss and roll of steam. When the rest of the world was completely upside down, at least she could rely on the laws of thermodynamics.

And whatever feeling it was that Danny was inspiring.

Danny peeked at the fried potato pancake and smiled. "Applesauce? Are you supposed to eat that with potatoes?" He was thinking of those cups he used to get in his lunch that he'd then drink like a liquid. That probably wasn't what she was talking about.

"It smells good."

A beat.

"What are latkes?"

Sam laughed a little. She remembered a lot of her childhood friends being disgusted by the applesauce thing. At least, until they tried it. And realized that it was fucking delicious. "It's just potato, onion, and egg," she said. "A little salt. I'd add pepper if we had any. It's fried crispy. My dad used to make them. This is an improvised recipe I got from a guy who used to live here, though." She put on her best Valley Girl accent. "Locally sourced. All organic."

She grabbed one of the chipped, mismatched plates from the cupboard and slid two latkes onto it. Hopefully, Danny didn't have a thing for the domestic goddess routine, because this was about as domestic as Sam got. She walked over, sitting it down on the counter in front of him.

"Give it a try. I won't be offended if you think it's gross and spit it out." She'd done just as much with plenty of traditional foods. It was all very dense. "It's fried. We eat fried foods on Hanukkah to celebrate the miracle and stuff."

Danny's stomach growled loudly in response to Sam's description. "Sounds good and like it'd go well with apples." He paused thoughtfully and shook his head. "We could make peach sauce but I think the peaches in the stores are for winter." They had been canned though Danny had been toying with the idea of using the recipe that the monks used to make plum wine with peaches. He knew how it was done but he'd have to take all the peaches left at the inn since the trees were more or less in hibernation.

He rolled his eyes at her advertisement and finally stepped fully into the kitchen. "You do that too well." He teased as he grabbed the plate that she'd set for him. It looked good and he was always hungry.

"I probably won't. I'm used to eating rice for most meals and this probably isn't so bland." He used his fingers to pick up one of the latkes and tried a bit. It was good and it made Danny smile. "I like it." He also liked the idea of a holiday with all fried foods. "Do you make these every year?"

Planting her hands on the counter, Sam hoisted herself up, sitting neatly beside him, crossing one leg over the other. He didn't spit it out, so she called that a win. Honestly, her 'win column' with Danny was getting impressive. She wasn't used to doing so well with people. Even with the extenuating circumstances of their relationship.

Well. The bottom would probably drop out someday.

But she was good with that not being today.

"More my dad's thing," she said. "Erik did the latkes last year. I used to be all about frying homemade doughnuts. My parents had the world's biggest kitchen, back in Lake Forest. Stainless steel everything with granite countertops. I used a turkey fryer to do it. The fact that I never burned down the house is a fucking miracle in itself." She shrugged. "I don't know. Guess it's cold out. So I wanted it to feel more holiday-ish."

Danny watched her lift herself on the counter with a little bit of a wandering eye. He couldn't help it. Sam was nice to look at and he didn't see a reason to shy away from it anymore.

"Careful, you're making me want donughts." He flashed her a grin and then finished devouring the potato pancakes on his plate.

Danny can eat a lot.

"And this was a good idea. I'm glad you did it." A beat. "What holiday is it?"

She stared at him, unabashed incredulity for a moment. It wasn't that Sam wasn't aware of her minority status. But she rarely found herself in a position of being the one to explain it all.

Then again, Karen had called her a fucking 'child of Israel' more times than she cared to remember.

"It's Hanukkah, Monkey Boy," she said, shaking her head at him a little. "Also known as the 'Festival of Lights' aka 'Commemorating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt.'" Which was a bit of a mouthful. "Or, in more recent times, the excuse to compete with Christmas."

"I spent fifteen years living in a monastery. They didn't really have Christmas or any other holidays." It'd been a strict place; training in the morning, sparring, then more training in the afternoon. They didn't stop for holidays. "I remember Christmas."

His smile widened and he looked like a little kid again.

"My dad would insist that we all have Christmas together. Us and the Meachums. We'd have to wait until everyone was there before we could open presents and a few years he came home early from the office to make ornaments with us." They could buy anything which made the little things he made as a kid even more special.

"Sorry. I haven't really thought about it for awhile."

Sam's Christmas memories were nowhere near as rosy. But that was a hazard of foster living, more than anything else. For once, she couldn't even blame herself for that one. And she fucking blamed herself for everything.

"Well," she drawled, nudging his knee with the tips of her toes. "I hear that Christmas is the twenty-fifth this year. Maybe we could make some ornaments of our own."

She wondered if that was a step too far, just as soon as the words were out of her mouth. It was schmoopy. Date-ish.

They hadn't really decided they were dating.

...had they?

Danny licked his fingers as he met Sam's gaze. There was a lot that he didn't think about but that didn't mean his head was completely devoid of thought. Sam often entered his mind but not knowing, being reminded of that awkward teen, made him uncertain about asking her.

He had no idea what they were, only that he enjoying spending time with her.

"Yeah. We can do that." He paused thoughtfully. "Does that mean we need to find a tree to put the ornaments on?"

It was do-able though the tree would likely remain outside.

He was such a sweet boy. Which was so unlike anyone Sam had ever known. Not that she hadn't known good people or noble people. But those weren't quite the same as sweet. She could well imagine him wearing a flower crown. Grace would have liked him. And he would have been at home among the aggressively cheerful acolytes under her wing. But while they made Sam feel uneasy, Danny just...

He was just a sweet boy.

"That could be fun," she said. "I mean, I'm not sure there would be a lot to put under that tree, but you know, Christmas doesn't come from a store and whatever else the Grinch realized. We could...make it work."

"Yeah." He at least knew the Grinch reference. "It'd be fun. I haven't had Christmas in so long."

Danny quickly gestured to the food she'd made. "And we can celebrate Hanukkah too." He was fairly sure that the two holidays were far enough apart for them to celebrate them both. "If you're up for it, that is." He was a little awkward but excited. Danny hadn't thought that he'd have someone he'd want to celebrate holidays with.

It was a strange feeling.

"I like that," she said. A holiday seemed...in order, really. It wasn't like they had triumphs to celebrate, locked up in their occasionally-gilded cage. But what they'd brought into that cage with them...well, the Overlords couldn't fucking take that from them. Maybe celebrating the holidays was just a subtle way of giving them the middle finger.

Yeah. Sam was into that.

"Although," she said, "if we're going to throw Hanukkah into it, we're going to do this old school. The way I did as a kid."

With that, she slid off of the counter top and grabbed his wrist, giving a tug as she backed up toward the kitchen door. "C'mon."

Danny held up his palms in surrender. "I'm at your disposal but that means we can to do Christmas the way I remember it." Which definitely meant a tree, going to bed early and rushing down stairs the next morning. They didn't need to have gifts to be excited about it.

"Where are we going?"

He followed behind her, his hand shifting so that he could take her hand instead of being dragged by his wrist.

She led him along, walking backwards. After all, she knew the Inn better than her own skin, at this point. If she were blind, she would have happily been able to navigate it the rest of her life.

So she led him up the stairs without so much as glancing back.

"Hanukkah is a holiday commemorating a rebellion. The Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire. When I was a kid, I was really into reenacting the whole thing. What can I say? Rebel from the start."

She led him into the bathroom. Mercifully empty. And she hopped right into the bathtub, squatting down so that she could peer over the ledge, like she was looking over the wall of a fortification.

Danny's mouth stretched into his trademark boyish grin as Sam not only dragged him by the arm but walked backwards in the process. She was really cute when she was excited. Her eyes sparkled and she looked like she wanted to skip down the halls.

"You're going to fall." He remarked, very amused as they made their way upstairs. Danny almost fell on the way… he was having issues not staring at Sam.

He chuckled, his voice low and affectionate as she pulled him into the bathroom.

This was not what he was expecting.

"Okay. So what's that have to do with a bathtub? Unless this happened around water?" He had a feeling that they were about to reenact the scene she was describing. He didn't know it but he'd follow her lead.

"No, Monkey Boy. This is our fort. We're going to be the Maccabees."

Oh, yes. She was painfully aware of the fact that she was making a first class horse's ass out of herself. But when did she ever get to have fun any more, really? Danny had already seen her at her most vulnerable. She could afford to be a little goofy too.

Anyway, it was exhausting being angry all the time.

She reached over the edge of the tub, offering him a hand. "Get behind the fortification walls before Antiochus's men see you!'

Oh no. She was so fucking cute and Danny had no idea what to do besides go along with her.

He jumped a bit and hoisted himself over the edge of the bathtub and crouched behind Sam. It was an extremely tight fit. His knees ended up on Sam's left side while his arm and torso stretched around her. He was trying to lower himself and peer similarly over the edge of the tub but there wasn't really enough room for that and he ended up with his cheek bumping the side of the ceramic.

"I think they can still see me." He teased, his light green eyes glimmering with laughter. "Shift your hips back so I can properly hide!"

There was a rushed, playful note to his voice as he shifted Sam over a bit.

This was obviously a very serious pretend war.

Oh, this was very, very serious. Although she had to admit, she was a little surprised by the unexpected come-on. For someone who'd lived most of his life with monks, he learned quickly.

She obliged him with a little wiggle of her hips.

"It's all right if they see you. You can be Judah. He was kind of the Big Damn Hero of the whole thing." And Danny, she was pretty sure, liked the idea of being a Big Damn Hero. "Pretty much single-handedly defeated the enemy army with his mighty hammer. Rawr."

Danny laughed as he pushed himself up and into a proper seated position. His palm ran over his face and through the thick curly blonde hair as she peered out towards the open area of the bathroom. He really didn't ever look at a bathroom from this view. It was different and surprisingly strange for a room that he's fairly familiar with.

"I like that idea." He was absolutely the Big Damn Hero type.

"What do I have to do? If I'm going to charge the lines, I'm going to trip getting out of the bathtub." The Great Immortal Ironfist, defeated by a tub.

Sam winced. "You know, they were never to clear on that part in Hebrew school. I guess they didn't want to traumatize us with the gory details about how Judah beat an army with a hammer." Of course, given where she was in her life now, it was far too easy to fill in those blanks.

She'd seen worse slaughter than with a hammer.

"Maybe we should just got for peaceful negotiation," she said. Didn't matter if it deviated from the story.

Damn thing wasn't in the Torah anyway.

She stood up, stepping over the ledge of the tub carefully. "I'll be Antiochus." She turned around, the synthetic curls of her wig whipping around her face. "And you can talk me into surrendering."

Danny chucked as he rose to his feet. He wasn't very good at peaceful negotiation but for Sam he was going to try his best. "Okay."

He stood in front of her and bowed his head in the polite way that he would to his masters.

"Antiochus." Danny couldn't help but smile at Sam. "You're out matched in every way. Surrender or I will be forced to tickle you."

Yes, he was absolutely going to tickle Sam if she didn't surrender.

Did he actually just say that?

Maybe it was Sam's previous experience with negotiation, which usually ended in death and destruction, but she stared at him, utterly lost and confused, for maybe thirty seconds. Thirty seconds, before her face split and she burst into laughter.

It wasn't a single giggle.

It wasn't a snort.

It was a full-bodied laugh.

The kind that left her doubling over, holding onto the ledge of the tub to keep herself from toppling. "I don't have to surrender. You just fucking killed me!"

"Hey!"

Danny held his arms out to either side as if she had just wounded him. "I haven't done anything yet." But he was smiling, watching her as she curled over in laughter.

She had a pretty laugh.

Though he had no idea what was so funny about what he had said. Was he playing along wrong? It'd been a very long time since he's ever done anything remotely like this.

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